W. Va. mill town suffers slow death

[deadparrot]

WEIRTON, W.Va. - Mary Tice drove along Main Street, barely seeing the worn storefronts, the seedy strip clubs, the flashy video poker bars promising better luck. Her mind was on Larry.

"I screwed up," her husband had mumbled on the phone. She'd asked what he meant, but he wouldn't say.

"I'll tell you when you get home," he promised.

She tried calling back, but Larry didn't answer.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060722/ap_on_re_us/man_of_steel

[Stargazer99]

1. How much you want to bet half this nation doesn't give a damn

As long as it doesn't gore their ox, the average American will turn on the idiot box and get involved in the mind-dumbing programs corporate America feeds them.

[Minnesota Libra]

2. That is truly sad and could have been prevented with...........

.....companies that saw into the future and helped employees make the transition.

[MountainLaurel]

3. Oh dear heavens.

Replace mills with mines, and Larry could have been my father, my uncles, my former classmates.

[bleedingheart]

4. this is the story of Weirton, Pittsburgh, Flint......and no one listens

the younger generations have been trained to believe that it was the unions who killed the mills...but it was corporate greed and mismanagement....

Men like Larry should not be forgotten....

This story made me cry...

When I read about how he wouldn't go to the infirmary ...I think of my dad's back...all black and blue from where he got hit with a beam...he wouldn't call of because he needed to work.

[Sequoia]

5. How sad. He would've been in my graduating class.

I feel useless too.

[Skittles]

6. an incredibly poignant story

*sniff*