Sky of Stone by Homer Hickam

 

Read this in January, the second of his memoirs about life in Coalwood, a West Virginia coal mining town.  This time the Rocket Boy, Sonny is home from college, VPI, on summer break, reluctantly.  Back in Coalwood with his father, Homer, and he is not happy.  Sonny wanted to go to Myrtle Beach, NC to be with his Mom, Elsie,  but she insisted he go home to spend the summer with his dad because someone needed to be there.  There was an accident at the mine where Homer is superintendent and there is an investigation and not looking good for Homer.  Sonny ends up going to work in the mine and joining the union, which is at odds with Homer and management.  Management looks for a scape goat, and  it appears Homer may take the fall. Sonny asserts his independence and becomes a summer working miner under the supervision of Johnny and working alongside Bobby another college boy home for the summer. Pg 133, "I quickly discovered that what Johnny considered work was going as hard and fast as possible and then a little harder and faster on top of that."  Sonny moves into Floretta's boarding house in town and there meets and develops a crush on Rita, a junior engineer,  the "older" woman assigned to the mining company but who being a woman is not to be allowed inside the mine. 

The book, takes place over the summer of 1961 and is suspenseful as Sonny resolves many issues about and between he and his father and learns more about the secrets of the town.  Including the Epilogue there are 409 pages in this paperback, published in 2001 it had been on my shelf for awhile.  I'd  previously read the first book, "October Sky"  about the Rocket Boys of Coalwood. It would not be necessary to read these books in sequence, but since I had I felt it gave me good background. 

Pages  2-3 with the paragraph hilited.  By the Epilogue Sonny has grown  significantly in both physical and mental awareness, changed in body and mind and learned a lot over this summer.   C

Page 398, "Every summer for the remainder of my college career, I returned to Coalwood to work in the mine.  I became sort of an honorary junior engineer.  My father put me through his boot camp and Jake Mosley taught me much about mining.  A young engineer by the name of Tom Musick especially took me under his wing.  I learned more practical engineering under their tutelage than a thousand  classrooms could ever hope to provide.  I graduated from  VPI now known as Virginia Tech with a degree in industrial engineering."
  .    With the war in Vietnam, he joined the USArmy and  following Combat Engineering Officer Candidate School joined the 4th Infantry Division in the Vietnamese Highlands.  He was at the battle of Dak To,  where the Army infantrymen scaled the mountain against the North Vietnamese.  He later went to near the Cambodian border and fought in battle with his boots on the wrong feet and was rescued by an F-100 Super Sabre jet.  It  had flown into Thailand from Myrtle Beach AFB and he felt his Mom had sent it.  He returned home to the US and  learned not to wear his Army uniform in public, being spat on.  He writes he forgave thoem but it was not easy..  I enjoyed this book and rate it 4 ****