Good Times Are All Gone Now: Life, Death, and Rebirth in an Idaho Mining Town by Julie W. Weston

A book that sticks in your bonesby PeggyLWA

Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings

November 18, 2009: This is one of those books which will always stay with me. Ms. Weston offers up a sort of archeological and sociological excavation of her hometown, and I found it fascinating. In driving around this country, I've passed through many small towns where I've wondered about the people who live there, wondered why they stayed. This story evoked memories and images of my own barely surviving hometown, also once a booming company town (but not mining), where I also grew up in the '40s and '50s. This book gently peels away the present facade and explores and explains the components beneath that created Kellogg, Idaho--not quite as wholesome as the name "Kellogg" would imply. It's a history of the intertwined good and bad, blessings and curses, that co-exist with everything, everyone and everywhere, but most blatantly, perhaps, in a mining town. Ms. Weston writes in such a way that attaches the readers to her side and takes us along on her journey as witnesses. I appreciated sharing parts of her childhood, exploring the town through her eyes, learning of another life in another prosperous small town in the that era, and then coming back with her and watching it all fall down. Some parts of it I'd rather have avoided, such as the trip into the mine, deep inside the mountain. I am also claustrophobic and cannot imagine the courage it took for her to do this. I loved this book and highly recommend it to anyone who has ever lived in a small town, driven through and wondered about one, or never lived in a small town or a company town, and to whoever appreciates the cost some extraordinary men paid to give us all a better life. The writing is clear and concise, with vivid descriptions of the town, its people, and, of course, the mine operations and its ramifications. An outstanding book, Ms. Weston!

A Unique Childhoodby EunieKS

Reader Rating:
See Detailed Ratings

October 07, 2009: The author writes about her childhood in a mining town in northern Idaho where she never really noticed the brown haze that hung over the town, the product of the smelters sending out steam, sulfuric acid, and lead particles into the air, or the barren hillsides and piles of slag. Nor did she really give much thought to the row of brothels she passed on her way to and from school or the ladies who worked there. Although she knew they visited her doctor dad periodically for a clean bill of health so they could continue working. Typically of kids in those days, she played outdoors most of the time and in all kinds of weather. She and her friends playing "Indian tribe" found in the garbage cans of the hospital, where her dad worked, interesting things for barter or trade: bottles, gauze, rubber tubes, and even syringes (with out needles), but they didn't touch the jars of what appeared to hold human organs and fetus looking things. Maple trees grew in the town, turned colors and shed their leaves, normal sounding, but, she says, only robins sang in Kellogg, the only type bird that could survive regular doses of lead poisoning.

In her research for the book, Julie Whitesel Weston interviewed many who have lived there for years and who remembered how it was back then. She explores her family dynamics, especially her relationship with her Jekyll and Hyde father who was loved by his patients, but whose family bore the brunt of his drunken rages. She also tells the story of mining and even went down into a mine to understand a little more of the kind of life the miners led. It was for her a frightening experience and she does not envy those men and the few women who went to work everyday into the bowels of the earth, knowing it could be their last, and especially so in the early days of mining.

In later years Kellogg tried to become the model of a Bavarian village, but wasn't very successful. They now cater to skiing and are casting about for other ideas, determined to have their town once again a thriving (and cleaner) community.

Eunice Boeve, author of Ride a Shadowed Trail