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Old Eugene was a coal miner all of his life .
He had started to work in the coal mines of Wales when he was only eleven
years old.
He liked to tell stories of his experiences in the mines,
some of which were quite hard to believe.
One story was about a big Russian coal miner and an accident which took place
when the Grant Town mine was just getting its start.
Eugene said they called this man Big John because he was such a huge man .
Big John loved to work and he loved to talk while he worked.
Eugene worked with Big John all day. John planted the dynamite to blow the coal out,
and Eugene prepared the plunger used to ignite it.
One day,
Big John was planting the dynamite in a vein of coal and Eugene was around
the corner, fixing the plunger.
All of a sudden
he heard an explosion and a terrible scream.
He ran around the corner to find a Big John
lying on the ground,
with his head blown completely off.
A stick of dynamite had accidentally been ignited.
It was a terrible shock to Old Eugene,
for he and Big John had become close friends while they worked together.
It seemed as if he could still hear John talking while they were going down in
the cage,
and while they worked,
even though he was gone.
One foggy morning,
about a month after the accident,
Eugene was going down in the cage by himself.
All of a sudden
he felt as if he were not alone.
He slowly turned around.
There, before his eyes,
stood Big John,
holding his head on his arm.
The head smiled and spoke to Eugene just as it used to do when it was on
Big John's shoulders.
Eugene shut his eyes and kept them shut until the cage hit bottom.
When he opened them,
Big John was gone.
He claimed that this happened again and again on the same date every month.
For the rest of his days,
Eugene got a funny look in his eyes when he told the story .
He would swear that he actually
saw...Big John.
s CLOSED CAPTIONING BY MATT WILSON PRODUCTIONS ©2011