Scott Beveridge, a fellow reporter and author of the "Travel with a Beveridge" blog recommended this article on coal mining published in this month's GQ magazine.

Not only is it one of the most honest looks at the lives of those who earn their paychecks underground, but it is written by a local author, Jeanne Marie Laskas of Scenery Hill. I interviewed Laskas, an author of several books and a columinst for the Washington Post Sunday Magazine, a few years ago and she's one of the better writers I have ever come across. Another journalist who I recommended the article to, puts it best. She said that Laskas captures all the wonderful personality quirks of people some might call salt-of-the-earth but, at the same time, shows their remarkable intelligence and compassion and personality.

My grandfather worked at a Greene County coal mine his entire life and my grandma's brother died in an underground explosion at that same Greene County mine more than 50 years ago.

I know my grandma, whose farm sits atop a seam of coal, will want to read this.