from The Kingdom of Coal by Dan Rottenberg

In Pennsylvania's Monongahela Valley, commercial coal mining began in 1759. Between 1768 and 1784 the family of William Penn acquired all of western Pennsylvania's bituminous coal fields from the chiefs of the Six Nations at a total cost of $10,000, or less than a cent an acre--a transaction that ranks alongside Peter Minuit's purchase of Manhattan Island from the Algonkin Indians for trinkets worth $24 in 1626 as one of the great bargains of history.

I woke up in the middle of the night. The wind was blowing hard, as it has been for days now; and my head was full of unwritten words. But I am beginning to see how I might approach this writing project, and one of those angles deals with the fluid yet enduring confusions of class. To wit: now that you've just read that quotation about William Penn's purchase of the coal fields, what do you say to the fact that my first serious boyfriend was 11th in direct descent from William Penn and used to keep a copy of the deed to Pennsylvania taped to his dorm room wall?

I feel that this project is too large for me, yet that's exactly how I felt about the Paradise Lost project. Is it any wonder that I'm waking up in the middle of night?