Black lung rates are now the highest they have been in 50 years among veteran coal miners. My father also contacted brown lung from his years of shoveling sand into the blast furnaces in a Pittsburgh steel mill. I just recently learned that brown lung was much worse than black lung as the particles are much smaller and get into the lungs much easier. It brought home the realty of my father’s brown lung and his suffering. Fortunately detection today is so much better than 50 years ago but black rock and brown sandstone still take an awful toll on our workers.