Here is a song written from your memories, capturing the history of the Iron River Range, the heavy labor of the Hiawatha Mine, and your father's incredible 50-year legacy.

Leave the Porch Light On (The Ballad of JAC)

(Verse 1) Down a straight-drop shaft in the solid stone Fifteen years old, working to the bone One of twelve kids in the Iron River cold Where the Finns ran the bars and the red dirt rolled Italian blood in a town built on grit Chasing the veins where the dynamite split No wooden braces like the coal mines know Just a mile of hard rock in the dark below

(Chorus) So leave the porch light on when the shift is through He spent fifty years where the sky wasn't blue Walking ten miles a day by a battery spark And he never did care to sit alone in the dark Yeah, a Father’s Day toast to the sweat and the stone To the finest supervisor that the North has ever known

(Verse 2) The Hiawatha ran twenty-four hours a day Loading up the ore cars, shipping it away Down to Gary, Indiana, where the steel mills steam Or east to Pittsburgh for the American dream Over at the boarding house, the kitchen was hot Feeding all the miners from a giant copper pot Grandparents tending to the hogs and the goats While the church organ echoed with the Sunday notes

(Chorus) So leave the porch light on when the shift is through He spent fifty years where the sky wasn't blue Walking ten miles a day by a battery spark And he never did care to sit alone in the dark Yeah, a Father’s Day toast to the sweat and the stone To the finest supervisor that the North has ever known

(Bridge) By sixty-seven, the world started to slide Twenty-one mines closed their gates on the side At the neighborhood stop, two worlds would collide The Greyhound brought the night shift, weary and tired Dirty and sad from the open-pit floor While the school bus took the kids to a different door But JAC held the wheel, he drove 'em to school And he stood by the union, living by the rule

(Verse 3) He needed a few more years for the premium line Fifty years straight at the very same mine He hit the finish line with the know-how and pride Before the tunnels collapsed and the country dried Now the high school is gone, and the shafts are all still But his name's alive on the Iron River hill

(Chorus) So leave the porch light on when the shift is through He spent fifty years where the sky wasn't blue Walking ten miles a day by a battery spark And he never did care to sit alone in the dark Yeah, a Father’s Day toast to the sweat and the stone To the finest supervisor that the North has ever known

(Outro) John Anthony Cederna, initials J-A-C You built this whole town for my family and me Happy Father's Day, Dad. We'll leave the light on.

THE · TALK · OF · THE · TOWN