Tracy "Gypsy" is captain of her chapter of the Guardian Angels.
"We started here in 2007; we were going to training and we came out in 2008. We hit the streets. We trained for sixteen-and-a-half to seventeen weeks here in Easton. We also go to New York and do the subway patrols, but we mostly patrol the streets of our own town. We do civilian policing; we are the eyes and ears for the police and we are also mentors for our youth. Our headquarters is out of the Easton Community Center on 9th and Washington Street so we been there since day one. Curtis Sliwa was just here actually on May 12th--we had our 2018 regional convention so he came to debut a movie that he made, too, and it's called, 'Vigilante: The Story of Curtis Sliwa and the Guardian Angels.'" "How did *you* get involved?" "Back then, there was a lot of gang activity going on; there was a triple homicide, like, two blocks from where I live by 13th Street and Northampton. I had kids that were young then. So, caring about the community, the kids, keeping them safe was a main concern of mine. I went to a meeting at the Community Center and ever since then I just joined since day one and I've been patrolling the streets ever since. We do a lot of things for the kids, like on June 25th through the 30th we're doing 'Angels in the Park' on 12th and Ferry Street, from, like, 5 to 7:30: food, activities, face painting, games, last day hopefully a carnival with a dunk tank, dunk a cop or an Easton Angel." Check out their website for more information: www.guardianangels.org, or their Facebook page, Easton Guardian Angels.
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"I do parkour. I'm fairly new; I've been doing it for about five years, but this spot is new to me. It's mainly about moving through your environment really quick and finessing it, kind of. You're moving quick and you're doing flips. I want to be sponsored by Red Bull."
You can check out his Insta @hyson2017 I moved up here 29 years ago for love and I had two children in my forties. I got married and moved here because he was born and raised here. He's been a musician in the Valley for about forty years. I kinda stayed here; we're not together for a long time, but my children are both here. My son works at Mr. Lee's Noodle Shop in the public Market. My daughter works for Barred and Broody; she's a vegan baker. I'm a pastry chef, so I started her out right! But Easton's a wonderful place. It's going through a phenomenal rejuvenation. It was so nasty when I moved here I didn't think I'd ever come downtown and I love it here. A lot of good restaurants, a lot of fabulous independent shops, a lot of good people. I think it's nice to see how it's turning around."
"I work for a major oil and gas company, and I spent the last five years living in the Middle East. I lived in Saudi Arabia working for a petroleum chemical company and it was a great life experience, but...it's really hot! (Laughs)"
"What are some misconceptions that we have about the Middle East?" "Wow. I don't think you have enough recording time for that... Well, umm, not everyone there is as conservative and radical as the media often perceives. The countries over there, they're filled with very hospitable people. It's their nature. It's their culture. They're very welcoming. I mean, I've been in many villages throughout the countries there and you meet people, they will invite you to their home just to hear *your* story. To meet you and learn about you and even to try to work on their English, right? But, mainly just to feed you! That's a big thing in their culture. I find that the people are quite open-minded and accepting, except for what we do see in the media--that doesn't represent everyone, right? Obviously those people exist, but that's not the majority of them. They want to just live their lives and work their jobs and have their families at the end of the day. It *is* really hot there, though! (Laughs) It was a great experience for me, and I didn't leave because of the culture, I didn't leave because of the environment, I left because I wanted a new job, a new step in *my* career. So I went back to the U.S. I was really glad to have been there. And one of the reasons I went there was to not only see their culture but to get out into the rest of the world more readily. Middle East is in the middle. You can get to a lot of places really quickly, compared to here. In the U.S. everything is far. Except Canada... So, from there, six hours you're anywhere in Europe. Ten hours, you're in Asia. And then you can really see all types of things, so that was one of my motivations for going there. And having the financial means to explore." "The group is 'Anonymous for the Voiceless,' and this is called a Cube of Truth. We're an animal rights movement. These groups are all over the world and they started about two years ago. What we're doing is, all the screens you see here are showing footage from slaughterhouses in the U.S.. Just in the U.S., but this is where your food comes from, so if you eat meat or dairy, we're just showing you where it's coming from. And all this is legal, which is scary, because if people would see this and it would be a dog or cat, there'd be riots. I mean, they're literally burning cows, they're throwing chicks into grinders and killing them. So we're just here to spread the message, see if anyone has seen footage like this before, answer any questions. Every member in this group is vegan. We all said we couldn't go vegan, but we all did when we saw footage like this. I've been vegan for two years and I was looking for a way to do activism with my photography. I'm not, like, a PETA person to go and do disruptions like laying naked with blood on me, so I really love this type of activism where I can just talk to people. We have a lot of people who are really open minded; they just don't know where their meat comes from. We all grow up thinking we need meat and dairy to survive, and that's just what we're told, so you live by those rules that your parents tell you and don't really look outside the box. And I did. And once I saw this, I just had to do something about it. If I had seen this sooner, I would have been vegan a lot sooner, but this stuff doesn't flash across the news--you have to look for it. And that's what the government wants; they don't want people to see this or they wouldn't make money for the meat and dairy industry. We're not here to badmouth farmers or farms. We understand you need to make a living, but we're here to offer options on different ways to do it."
"The coolest thing that ever happened to me is going on tour with the Bach Choir in Germany. Singing in Germany! It was twenty years ago. We sang and we toured Germany, in the church that Bach was music director of. We sang in his hometown! It was great to sing in those places."
"I'm from Washington State and I just retired. I moved here a week ago to live with my son, who was good enough to take me in. I looooooove Easton. I looooooooooove it. I love the old buildings. My head hurts from always turning it from side to side looking at them. I'm always standing in front of them and Googling the building for its history."
"I live in Williams Township on a small farm."
"What's it like?" "It's the spring. Things are coming out of the ground, the sheep have to be sheared, and the chickens are laying eggs." "How did you get into farming?" "Moved from New York City. I had the land, I never did it, and I decided to try it. That was fourteen years ago." "I'm a comic book writer visiting Easton from Denver. I've been into comics since I was five when my father bought me a comic because he wanted me to read; he's a journalist. It was The Flash. It was the one where Barry Allen was on trial for murdering Reverse Flash. (Laughs) That's some super geeky shit! It's interesting because The Flash wasn't popular when I was a kid, and now it is. Like, I would go to comic conventions when I was a kid, and I'd be not only the only kid, but the only black person. There were only about two or three hundred people there, and now, there are like 100,000 will go. Denver Comic Con was 120,000 last year."
"So what made you decide to write comic books?" "I started a couple of years ago. I write one called The Burning Metronome and it's pretty cool. I just decided I wanted to try it." You can check out his comics at www.theburningmetronome.com. "I moved here a few years ago with my wife; she's the curator of the Sigal Museum. We were in Philly before, and I followed her up and found a job here. It's a neat little town with a hoppin' downtown area."
"I'm originally from the Pacific Northwest. *laughs* It's where the faeries live--it's enchanted! One of a kind place. I miss home every day, but I'm hanging in there."
"I've been in the restaurant business for about seventeen years. The guys here at River Grille are great. Great family."
"What got you into the business initially?" "Uhhh, high school. I was a bus boy and I went right into waiting tables. I love the money, I love the instant gratification, and just serving people. You know, how you see the smiles. Having them come back asking for me is very nice as well. Also, I love food. I'm a big food geek, so I love plating food and trying to help people out." "I used to be a trainer, so I expect that soon I'll get back into training: fighters, boxers. But right now I'm on dialysis, so I'm waiting to be more comfortable with that and then get back to training fighters. Try to be the best trainer in the world, man."
"What does it take to be a good trainer?" "Dedication! Cuz somebody's always trying harder, somebody's doing more. You gotta do the most you can and nothing's easy if it's worth it." "Was there any person you trained who you were like, 'This person's a star'?" "Oh, wow. Well, I started training under my father and we took in a guy (he's a lot older than me). He was on the streets and not doing that well, let's put it that way. My dad took him in and through fighting he learned discipline and responsibility and he really, really changed his life. So, when I saw how much that fighting could give you something to wake up to and how much it changed his life, like, that was it. Like, I wanted to be a trainer forever. And I was like eight years old." |
These are the stories of the people of Easton, PA Archives
August 2018
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