The sixties bring back a time of my youth. A lot of stuff was happening, like the Viet Nam war and love, peace, and rock 'n' roll. I grew up in South Philadelphia and the biggest memory that comes back to me was seeing a lot of groups coming up. Every Sunday, they had different acts. Santana showed up a few times, the Stones actually showed up one time. We'd go to a place called the Electric Factory, and we saw the Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Mama Cass. The music today cannot compare to the music that was.
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"Easton is a very quiet and historic city to me, because there's all sorts of old buildings. This monument here in Centre Square is unique in how it's built and what it represents, you know, the soldiers of yesterday who fought for this country to gain us freedom. It reminds me, when I see it, I think about what this country is going through now and the police things that they're doing in other countries to make those people safe so we can be safe here in the United States. I commend our soldiers for it, what they go through, you know. Some have not come back." Help us welcome "The Farmer and the Chickpea," new to our Saturday Farmer's Market. Jillian tells us what their philosophy is: "We are 'The Farmer and the Chickpea' and we're a farmer's market company. We use as local and as real food as possible. Nothing has more than five ingredients in it. We work with local farmers in New Jersey; for example, this kale just came off of the farm yesterday. This spinach was literally super sandy when they delivered it yesterday after picking it. We'll base our recipes on what is available that week. You can come to our store in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey. You can eat there or you can get take-out. But we are farmer's market based, so we always sell things prepared, ready to go." "About three years ago in May, I lived up in Reading and worked in the mall. There was a huge hail storm that decided to hit. You just heard the thunder kinda come and then all of a sudden the shattered windows, and I walked out of the mall. The top was shredded to pieces and the windshield was shattered and I lost two mirrors. But it runs good and I didn't want to recycle it, so I decided to take a creative spin on it. My dad and I cut a bunch of circles out of black tape and stuck 'em on the car. I get people who stop and try to take pictures all the time." Crystal (third from left, center row) tell why the group is wearing their orange shirts: "My husband, Bill Moser, passed away this past October from bladder cancer. He was diagnosed two years ago. He went through surgeries, bit they didn't keep it from spreading. He fought for one year and lost his battle. We're out here today to support and help raise money for bladder cancer, so this is family and friends that have all donated and come out to walk with me for the walk today." If you'd like to donate, go to bladdercanceradvocacynetwork.org. Her: "We met when we were very small children. Our parents were good friends." Him: "Yup. Two or three years old. She was my first date when I was about four, five, or six, or something like that, and she completely denies it. (She laughs) I really wasn't into girls until high school..." Her: "He was a late bloomer." (They laugh) "How long have you been together?" Him: "Going on 63 years" "What's your favorite thing about her?" Him: "We think alike. We even *look* alike..." (They laugh) Her: "You *do* get to look alike." (More laughing) "What's your favorite thing about him?" Her: "That he puts up with me. He's an easy person to get along with." "When my first son was born, I was off the coast of Hawaii. I was in the navy at the time and we were doing Operation RIMPAC; it's a military exercise that we do where it's my group--I was on the U.S.S. Constellation, a U.S. carrier--against another U.S. carrier, which was the U.S.S. Independence. We had the Canadian Navy, the Australian Navy, the Japanese Navy, and the South Korean Navy, all one big old wargame. During that time, I got my AMCROSS message when my son was born. I didn't get to see him until he was two weeks old. The did offer to give me emergency leave, but the would only give me a week, and my son was here on the East coast, so it wouldn't have been worth it. So, I made a deal with my chief engineer and he told me that if I didn't mess up the watch bill, the moment we hit San Diego, the moment the brow hit the pier, I'd be off the boat with two weeks leave, so I got to spend two weeks with him. That was 21 years ago." "I found Pepper wandering the West Ward, my ex-girlfriend and I, and she literally ran up and jumped into my ex-girlfriend's arms and we carried her home. We walked around the neighborhood and found the previous owners. She had her brother and a couple of young children and she said, 'I can't handle 'em all. She's had all her shots. If you'll treat her well, please take her.' And that was almost three years ago." Paul Deery, designer of Waterway, a new installation on the Karl Stirner Arts Trail, explains its origins and execution: "So, first, what I did when they put out a call to artists for the proposals, they asked for a site specific installation work. I came out here in the late winter last year and I just walked the trail a couple of times. I just started seeing spots where something could go , and I have a couple of different other ideas that I was thinking about, because I have another sculpture here in town. It's called "Chime Tree" and it's a bike rack sculpture that was commissioned by the city a couple years ago, over by Riverside Park. It has these bells that hang from it; it's an interactive sculpture where you can ring the bells. So I thought about doing something like that along the trail. But then when I was walking and I was looking at some of the space and I was looking at all the information plaques, I wanted to have something that was a little *more* interactive in the actual environment. So, I saw this space because of the old Silk Mill across the creek and I just started envisioning something that people could walk through, and how it curves and how the creek curves and everything kind of moves with the creek, it gave me this idea: I wanted to give people that feeling in a short couple of moments of engaging and interacting in that kind of space. "There's three streams I fish: the Bushkill, the Monocacy, and the Saucon. I like to come down the Bushkill because the water runs down a little deeper here, the trout are a little bigger here, there's some nice holdover Brown Trout in this stream. It's catch-and-release. I get hungry to eat one every once in awhile; maybe once a year I'll keep one or two, but I usually release them. Today I released about fifteen or twenty trout." "I was part of the rebirth of Easton back in the early 70s. There were three Mohican marketplaces that was an old chain--one was in easton, one was in Bethlehem, one was in Allentown. My intention was to bring new businesses into Easton, so I converted it into six or seven different boutiques including my hairdressing salon, and then opened up a private nightclub disco in the basement. In three months, I had 2200 members. And I opened two weeks before Saturday Night Fever hit the big screen, so I hit a wave. But my intention was to be part of bringing Easton back again. It's getting there. If we could just get more things like the Public Market happening, because a lot of the businesses downtown are friends of mine and I said to them, 'Is this helping you?' And, yeah it is. I've never seen so much traffic as what I'm seeing now. It's a good start." Local poet Beth Seetch recently had one of her poems painted onto a wall in the tunnel between the Karl Stirner Arts Trail and the Easton Cemetery. She explained to me how it came to be, and began with a recitation of her poem: "'Turn me into water Pour me from a great height Into a bent-corner Cedar box May I overflow.' The last few years, I've been writing a poem a day in April, and one April we were vacationing in Portland, Oregon, waterfalls everywhere, Native American art--bent-corner boxes, which are not caskets; they're meant to hold water. I was taking notes and firing on all this stuff and this is one of the few poems I've written with very little change in just one or two sittings. And then I really like the Cemetery. I write about the Cemetery sometimes, too. And cutting to the chase, last summer when the Friends of the Karl Stirner Arts Trail and Jim (Toia, of the Lafayette College Arts Program) said 'Let's have a little competition to generate more art to go on the trail.' I had sent the poem to Jim earlier and he said, 'Let's make sure we try that as a wall poem.' So, because he had the means to make that happen, the means of production and the labor, we did it. We finally got it done. So now we're hoping it's going to be the first of several more wall poems in Easton. I was the Guinea pig." (Laughs) Tod Auman of Dundore and Heister, which carries local and organic pastured meats at the Public Market: "We're here because there's something special happening in Easton. We're from the Berks County area and this is everything we'd love to have there. The passion, the dedication, the loyalty of this community, the pride that people have: it's just magic happening and we just want to be a part of it. It's an opportunity for us to tell our story about sustainability, about the Pennsylvania Dutch. We say "eat like you live here, celebrate what's great about this area including our farms," and this provides us an opportunity for us to do it and meet all the great citizens of Easton." "I saw Misfits probably back in 2008 at Crocodile Rock and after the show, Jerry was signing autographs for everybody. I went up to him and told him if he signs my arm, I'll get it tattooed. The next day I talked to my tattoo artist and he inked it up for me. At first, Jerry didn't think I was gonna do it. He told me, he said, 'You're not gonna get that tattooed,' and I said, 'Yeah, I will.' Now, every time I see him, I show it to him and he's amazed." Yousef, from Yousef's Nuts and Spices at the Public Market, explains the origins and future of his business: "We was in Reading and Lebanon. I'm thinking about if it grow up good here, make it as a franchise. Same name and different places. Because most of the people here, especially Lebanese people, when they want some nuts or dried fruit, they go all the way to Bath or something. I said, 'Why not open one here in Easton?' 'Cause, you know, this community has a lot of Lebanese here which I hope they get my word and they come over." "What's your personal favorite thing to eat that you sell?" "The Max Fitness. That's healthy like raisins and nuts mixed together. Yeah. And cashew, of course." "I was in Austin Texas for a music festival and I saw Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki from the TV show Supernatural, and that was one of the coolest things that ever happened to me. That makes me sound really boring, doesn't it? I was there with my boyfriend and it's his favorite TV show, too, and we got a text from one of his friends saying, 'They're here!! They're here!! I see them!!,' so we ran over to the spot they were at. We were like a foot or two away from them and my boyfriend got all giddy and flushed and giggled a lot." "One time I went whitewater rafting in the Swiss Alps. I went on a trip with some friends. It actually was very exhilarating, very scary, and awesome at the same time. I was hoping that we wouldn't hit a rock when we were going down the rapids, but once you get on there it's really fun and you forget about everything. Feelings of joy and fun and friendship shine through." "About two years ago, I had a spiritual epiphany that completely transitioned my life, so one day I was one way and the next day I came out of the shower and I was a completely different person. About ten years ago, I lost my son and I went through a lot of years of being in that; my lower chakras were all blocked up. So after deciding to leave corporate--I did that about three years ago--I started doing weekly meditations and doing some chakra work. I'm a tarot card reader and a Wiccan and I've been a pagan for a long time, about twenty-five years. Anyway, I've been really putting myself out there and practicing something I call, 'Say Yes.' Any opportunity that comes up to you, if you have no viable reason to say no, ya gotta do it, even if you're afraid. And that's how I raised my kids; that's how I live my life. So, about two years ago, I had been doing a lot of acupuncture and work on reconnecting with myself, and just one day, it clicked. It was an amazing experience that nobody else had except for me, I was alone. But it was a physical body response that I actually felt happen, and when I came out of the shower, and went on my normal day, the way I drank my coffee no longer tasted good. The foods that I was attracted to, not anymore. We called it a reverse stroke, like I came out of being broken and into fighting for myself." He's a chef at Maxim's 22. "It's hard work. Hard. Always on your feet. Seventy hour weeks. Hot all the time in the kitchen." "What made you want to do this if it's so difficult?" "I was always into blue collar kinda stuff, you know, I never pictured myself behind a desk or anything like that. That's what drew me to it. The best part about it is making great food. My specialty is steaks." "The secret to a good steak?" "Nice sear on the grill, nice seasoning. That's it. Don't overthink it cause in the end, the meat is what you really want." Mojo the dog had just spotted an Easton K9 cruiser when I came upon him and his owner. He began barking up a storm. "He's an Australian shepherd lab mix. That's what we were told. And that makes him a herding dog, so anytime he sees a dog, he starts barking at them, wants them to join the crew. And then when the dog doesn't come to join the crew, he gets angry and does this barking. And then when the dog goes away with his owner, he starts crying." "I like being a mom. At least I have a reason to do things now. Before, it was, like, 'Whatever, boring, I have to do it.' He's really hyper and he can give you a little bit of worry when he gets sick and stuff. At least, him, he's a really good kid. I don't really have to worry, like you see other kids that are, like, bad. He's gonna be three next month." |
These are the stories of the people of Easton, PA Archives
August 2018
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