Athens: Glimpses of Home: Joe Schloss

Former coal miner steadies himself on solid ground

Athens: Glimpses of home

By Jenaye Antonuccio, Athens NEWS Contributor

(photo by Sherry DiBari)
April 17, 2008

When given a choice, most people would not work in utter darkness.

For Joe Schloss, however, it’s what he would choose even today. For 27 years, Schloss spent his daylight hours 400 feet underground in Southern Ohio Coal’s Meigs Division mines #31 and #2, working as a surveying supervisor.

“I would still be down there,” he said. “It’s real boring without it. It was good for my health, kept me in good shape.”

He said he misses the thrill and activity.

“There was always something that gave you an adrenaline rush. It’s similar to war,” he said. “You share a lot with people.”

But the mines are closed, and his doctor has required him to have core decompression surgery on both hips.

Schloss, 58, has been on long-term disability for a year and a half. While the left hip slowly heals, he is impatient to start his game again. He’s hoping for one summer of fun before the next surgery.

Most early mornings, you could have found him alone on the Athens Community Center courts, playing “Blade Ball.” A game of his invention, it utilizes skillful rollerblading in one-man basketball.

“I take the brakes off of the rollerblades, and just swirl to stop,” said Schloss.

His silver Jeep would have been parked nearby, with the license plates identifying him as a veteran. Most often, the Jeep would have been topless, open to the morning sun.

“When I get in the jeep, it’s not cold. It’s refreshing,” he said.

Schloss grew up in Athens. Living on Hudson Avenue in his youth, he mowed lawns to make money. The area was full of families. He had agreements to mow 40 yards.

“The students were all in dorms. You just didn’t see them,” Schloss said. “There was no Mill Street or Palmer Street problem.”

His junior year, he moved to a farm in Guysville in the eastern part of the county.

With no football team at Federal Hocking, he missed the game he loved most. Instead, his senior year, he helped coach the reserve team.

“When you live in the country, you have to drive a half hour to get a gallon of milk,” said Schloss. “You could never keep the car clean. You always need new vehicles because they are always falling apart.”

After a two-year Navy commitment during Vietnam, and a brief stint of employment in Columbus, Schloss moved back to Athens.

When he first interviewed for the mines, he didn’t want to go underground.

“I said, ‘Forget it,’” he recalled. “But I was with a group of guys that got along really well.”

Being in the dark all day, he had to identify his co-workers by the sound of their voice.

“You have to shine the light from your cap-lamp on their chest. If you shine it in their face, it makes people mad. They get temporary blindness.”

Sometimes, they were made to wait for downed equipment or elevators. Schloss made up games to pass the time.

“We’d take our hardhats off and play tag by the light from our luminary stickers; we couldn’t barely see them,” he laughed. “If we heard a rock or something stirring, we’d just jump.”

He witnessed mining methods change from conventional dynamite, to room-and-pillar extraction, to long-wall mining with a machine utilizing tungsten carbide drill bits that could remove an entire seam, leaving the earth to fall in behind it. He endured the constant din of machinery.

He noticed when familiar working conditions suddenly required warning signs and occasional chest x-rays. He saw accidents, and worried when others got lost.

“Never let a new guy underground alone,” said Schloss. “One didn’t read the map right. They found him the next morning. He’d been there 24 hours.”

He points to a spot on the map that would be the underworld to us, but to him, it is familiar and almost like home.

“I remember hanging up a sign that said, ‘Entering Gallia County’ right here, just to let the guys know.”

Today, he has to think about whether he is more comfortable in the dark.

“I say you can see better without the lights on,” declared Schloss.

When he meets with his former co-workers, he can see their familiar faces have changed with time. He gets through the winter cautiously, avoiding colds due to chronic bronchitis and asthma.

Reminiscing about the time he was offered a job in Utah with better conditions, he says of the state, “It was like visiting the moon. There wasn’t anything but tumbleweed.”

“I don’t regret staying,” Schloss said. “I love Athens.”

He takes advantage of the opportunities for entertainment the university offers.

“I like the excitement the kids bring to town,” Schloss said of students. “I don’t like their jaywalking.”

He enjoys the busy school year, and the lazy quiet of summer. He laments the lack of jobs in the area.

“We need a big manufacturing company to come in here,” declared Schloss. “We need to get some kind of plan, other work than just OU.”

With the weather turning, it’s likely he’ll be back on the basketball court. Like he used to do in the mines, he’ll be happier when he can invent games.

“If you make a game out of it, it keeps you from worrying,” he said.

For now, he throws balls to his dogs, who avoid the recently transplanted cactus in the yard he pridefully takes care of, above ground, in the town he loves.