Coal Cracker Blues
by James Stevens
Category: Fiction

The Coal Region of Northeastern Pennsylvania was a magic place for teenagers in the 1950s. The close-knit, ethnic communities of coal miners and their families enjoyed a safe environment where doors were left unlocked and a major crime was disturbing the peace. Teenagers lived in a restricted but safe world with a social life of high school sports and dancing to rock and roll. But time has been hard on The Region, as native son Steve Zajac learns when he returns to deal with his elderly mothers problems. The nostalgic memories he has long treasured fade rapidly as he is drawn into the dangerous realities of a community overwhelmed by crime, where old mine workings are now drug factories, and former childhood friends are now deadly enemies. Regretfully, he realizes the world he knew in his youth is gone forever, never to return.