Strange as this Weather Has Been

While most of town is falling apart due to lack of jobs and the resulting mass exodus, a man named Hobart is doing well because he owns a motel where “miners the companies imported from out-of-state to work the mountaintop mines” stay (51). Jimmy Make and others call this motel a “Scab Resort” because they’re resentful of those workers—men who aren’t part of a union and who come from out of town to steal jobs from the locals.

Although Jimmy Make doesn’t like the motel, he drops Bant off to see if she can find any work with Hobart because they need the money. Hobart is a creepy old man that makes Bant feel uncomfortable by staring at her, but he offers her a painting job. To celebrate, Jimmy takes Bant to the Dairy Queen to get an ice cream cone. However, Bant knows that this is a ploy; Jimmy wants to spy on Lace who works there. Once inside, Jimmy begins talking to a friend. Bant listens to Lace and Loretta, who are discussing something about government agencies. When Bant spies a picture of a mountaintop removal mine laying on the counter, she feels ashamed to look at the picture, “like looking at pictures of naked people.