In a world beset by change, Appalachia has cornered the market on constancy, practically since the formation of its copious coal seams 300 million years ago during the Carboniferous Age. And ever since they began digging up the bituminous rock in the 19th century, mountains, mining and mourning have been as interconnected as the tight-knit West Virginia communities now repeating a familiar local ritual.
The collective response to Monday's explosion at the Upper Big Branch mine that left 25 confirmed dead and four others trapped inside was as predictable as the spring runoff along the adjacent Big Coal River. From the meals prepared by the wives of the Route 3 Spousal Group to the "Pray for Our Miners" messages that went up on church road signs throughout the state, West Virginians are in the throes of a tradition they learn almost from the moment they leave the womb.
An identity forged by successive mining tragedies - from the 1907 mother of all disasters that took 362 lives at the Monongah Mine to the 2006 calamity at the Sago Mine that claimed 12 - grows stronger with each misfortune.
And each time, West Virginians grow even more wedded to a way of life that has long been caricaturized as atavistic, if not backward, by outsiders.
"One grows up in these coal communities hearing about your forebears and the disasters they suffered through. It becomes part of who you are," remarked Paul Rakes, a former third-generation miner who now teaches mining history at the West Virginia University Institute of Technology.
"There will be those who, because of this disaster, will be determined their children get an education and not have to do that job. But most of the folks who work in mining will just go right back underground."
For most, it is a choice, not a life sentence. An occupation considered by most non-practitioners to be about the most physically hazardous, gruelling and depressing a so-called modern economy can provide still has a romantic pull in Appalachia.
"There is this very old idea of 'miner's freedom,' " noted Prof. Rakes, who spent 20 years as a miner before going into academia in 1992.
"Even though you're underground, you're working in nature and no one is looking over your shoulder. If I was 30 years old and could work in a mine or in a plant assembling parts, I would take the mine any day. It's a great job."
Notwithstanding that, many West Virginians would jump at a job - any job - that does not involve mining. When Toyota opened an engine plant in West Virginia 12 years ago, about 30,000 applied for the initial 300 jobs.
But economic diversity has never really taken hold in West Virginia, which still mines more coal than any state but Wyoming. If the critics are to be believed, Big Coal likes it that way. Companies like Consol Energy and Massey Energy (owner of the Upper Big Branch mine) loom large in the state's political power structure.
Democrats have dominated West Virginia politics since the New Deal, when Franklin Roosevelt showered Appalachia with make-work projects. But the Democratic brand has taken a hit with Barack Obama's rise and his vow to push climate-change legislation in Congress. With a population of 1.8 million that is 96 per cent white, John McCain took West Virginia by 13 percentage points in 2008.
"Almost as soon as the new administration took office, it immediately began to attack the coal industry, changing rules and procedures that had been in place for years and stalling the issuance of hundreds of mining permits, threatening the very future of our people and our state," West Virginia Coal Association president Bill Raney recently stated.
The latest sign that many in the Obama administration share the goals of the "radical anti-coal extremists," as Mr. Raney has labelled them, is last week's move by the Environmental Protection Agency to curb mountain-top mining. The method, which involves lopping off hilltops to get directly at the coal and dumping the debris in the river valleys below, accounts for about 40 per cent of West Virginia's coal production.
The coal association pegs the average annual West Virginian mining wage at $62,700 in 2009. And though non-union mines such as Upper Big Branch pay workers less than that, coal employment is lucrative enough "to put a big truck in the driveway" of many miners, Prof. Rakes quipped.
Still, the state's dependence on coal has also left it at the bottom of the heap in terms of median household income (49th out of 50 states) and college degrees (50th). And it's not drawing newcomers: The state's population was higher in 1950 than it is now.
But next to constancy, coal remains West Virginia's biggest commodity. It will take more than another mining tragedy to make a state whose very character was etched with the black rock renounce its birthright.
"Only a small percentage of the state's coal reserves have been extracted," the industry association noted in a recent document. "West Virginia is in no danger of running out of coal."