"Get your..."

I started college at Virginia Tech, and after the first semester of General Engineering courses, I was talked into declaring a Mining Engineering major by a friend of mine on the cycling team.  Through that department, I received an offer to work in a coal mine for Consol Energy in Buchanan County, Virginia.  The pay was better than what I could have gotten for a summer job back at home, and it was a good way to learn first hand about my new major, so I went for it.

Buchanan County is in eastern Virginia, and has borders with both Kentucky and West Virginia.  Right in the middle of the Blue Ridge mountains, it is a very beautiful area, but it is a relatively isolated place.  Once you get to know people in that part of the country, they are some of the kindest people you'll meet, but they are very guarded, and it takes a while to get to know them.

After I got my stuff moved in, I was kind of depressed.  I was in a part of the country I hadn't been in before.  I was rooming with 3 guys I didn't know.  I was apprehensive about working 1700 feet underground.  So, I did what I normally did at the time:  go for a bike ride.

After figuring out a route that looked like it would work, I committed it to memory, and took off (this was 2002, so well before GPS was readily available).  

I got over the main climb, had been chased by a dog from who knows where.  I made it down a gravel descent, which I found sketchy, because I wasn't a very great bike handler at the time.  As I started getting back toward town, I was coming down a fun, not too steep, not very technical descent, and was feeling better about life.

As I was coming around a curve, I saw two dogs come shooting out of a driveway on the left side of the road.  They had the angle on me, so I wasn't going to beat them, so I stopped.  After I stopped, one of the dogs bit my left leg.  Then after I stopped, the dogs just kind of looked at me, confused because there had been something interesting to chase.

In the driveway in front of the house, a guy was getting groceries out of his car, and had seen everything that had happened.  I wasn't expecting anything, and I was waiting for the dogs to go back into their yard before I would take off again.

Apparently this guy wasn't interested in helping, or having me in front of his house.  I'll never forget what he yelled at me.

"You get your FUCKING ass down the road before I give you something to fucking worry about!"

I didn't ride my bike for 2 weeks after that.