"I was probably about fourteen and every summer we would go up to my grandparents' cabin on a lake and I would stay there and work the bait shop. There was a group of us kids because the lake was only seasonal, so we all hung out together. A bunch of us got together and we went skinny dipping. It was probably my idea, to be honest with you."
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I was in a Santa Claus suit two winters ago in a kayak under the Free Bridge, and flipped it to prove that I could be rescued by a rescue team in cold water.
"The craziest thing I ever done? I guess get on a horse that wasn't broke yet, back in the day when I was a young fella. I lived on a farm in Somerville, New Jersey and we got some brand new horses. The guy said, 'You can ride 'em in the morning.' Thirty-two horses, and in the next couple of weeks we got another couple horses, and he said, 'These horses ain't broke,' and wow! I had the ride of my life. It was like... I had never gone on a horse that wasn't broke, and when I got on that one, I got my ride. He went buckin' and carryin' on and jumpin' and buckin.' And he threw me off. But I got back on. This is when I was thirteen, fourteen. You just gotta stay on 'em."
"I go prospecting for gold with my granddaughters a couple times a year down in North Carolina out through Ohio, and it's just great fun. I've found about an ounce, maybe two, so far, and also some gemstones to go along with it."
"How did you get into this?" "I was flipping the channels on TV a few years back and I seen this show called Gold Fever, from the Gold Prospectors Association of America and I thought I'd join it." "I lost my mom--it's been a long time--2001, but I miss her all the time. When I get sad, I think of the last couple years of her life. We became really close. She was no longer working; she took care of my three sons when I was working. And I would spend time with her, cooking. Her baking--oh my God, she was a baker. Her cheesecake and her pies were amazing. Everybody loved them."
"I'm a cook for a nursing home. I cook for the patients, and I've been on my job for 38 years, started when I was 17 years old, and I've been there ever since. It's really fun being around the patients, talking to them. Sometimes they're lonely and they need somebody to talk to. They love that."
"Looking at his smile makes me so happy. What he does for the city of Easton. I'm sure you must know his page: 'Joshua's Journey Covering Miles With Smiles' on Facebook."
"How did his page get started?" "The generosity of a few people on the EASTON, PA page donated Dorney Park tickets and a few other gifts for his birthday. And when I started posting pictures, everybody really responded and it took their mind off of all the parking meters and the politics and things like that, and everybody wanted to see his smile, so everybody voted for the name of his Facebook page and it's growing. He's go almost 390 followers now, so make sure you like the page!" One participant was Dustin.
Dustin: "I'm a cook here at Pearly Baker's. My aunt recently passed earlier this year from cancer, and they don't know where it started, but it spread all over. So, it's support. I've had a lot of people pass from cancer, so it's a good cause to support." BlinkPix: "How much do you think your beard is going to make?" D: "I don't know, but I hope it's a decent chunk of change." B: "How do you feel right now?" D: "Nervous. I haven't seen my face in a little over a year..." Dr. Tricia Kelly is the organizer of "Beards for Breast," a beard "auction," which took place at Pearly Baker's Ale House last night. Men went into the bar sporting beards--many of them long and lush--and left without them in order to fight cancer.
"We wanted to do something to support our local community and Pearly Baker's wanted to support the cause as well, so we called and joined forces with Pearly's, Steve from Suddenly Samantha, and then St. Luke's. I'm a breast surgical oncologist; that's all I do, all day, every day--take care of women with breast cancer. So I also have with me Dr. Deb, who is the radiation oncologist that I work with, and Chris Davco, who also works for our organization and is also a survivor. The idea started about a month and a half ago." "Did the guys with the beards think it was a cool idea, or were they like, 'No way...'?" "Well, some of them were kind of into volunteering. There were some people who were resistant to giving their beards, like, 'No way, you're not getting my beard!' But here they are. One other thing: they wanted to call this 'Beards for Boobs,' and I was adamant that I'm not doing it unless it's called 'Beards for Breast,' just because of what I do and the sensitivity. You know, women go through a lot; women lose their breasts in addition to their hair, so I wanted to make it sound a bit more sensitive to the patients who go through this." "This is going to sound really corny, but my mother has had the greatest influence on my life. My mother is an unusual ad outstanding woman. First woman sports editor of a national newspaper. And hilariously funny. She's just truly one in a million. She's in her 90s and still phenomenal. I just moved back to Easton because I thought, 'My mother's still alive in her 90s; I want to be around her.' I always wanted to come back to Easton because it's where I grew up, and it's really cool for me to see all the exciting things going on in town." "My brother is a filmmaker down in Florida. He's my mentor. He's a writer, film director, and he's worked in different kinds of movies. He's worked on casting in New York--he did one with Denzel Washington in New York--"American Gangsters," I think it was. He's older than me; he's 45. We separated for awhile. I haven't seen him for about eight years now. He's going to California now..." "Wrestling saved me. When I was eighteen, I became homeless and then I went to live with my sister and at that point, my sister knew somebody who was, like, into backyard wrestling. I became big over there. There's basically actual fighting, but some of the moves are kind of fake because if they were real, they could actually kill you. It's basically all in the technique." Him: "I like showing care and loving my baby. It teaches you a lot, really. I mean, before, I was just running around partying and stuff, but now he's shown me to give back and stuff and to have a life. He makes me think wiser, gives me more choices." Her: "Our relationship is better now." Him: "It made us closer. We don't argue a lot anymore. We want the baby to have a better life. You see, we didn't have our fathers when we were growing up, and I just want to be a father to him." Me: "How did you meet?" Him: "We met in church. She grew up in Freemansburg, and I was from northern New Jersey and I went to Muhlenburg in the '50s, and able-bodied men had to serve in the military. I came out of that and went to Lehigh University for some graduate classes and I went to her church to worship one Sunday and we've been together ever since. We met there and were married there." "We're the Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania, and we've been here since time immemorial, but we've come back out now and we have a Culture Center here in Easton. It's to show our heritage and our culture and to teach other people that we're still here." "What's been your experience growing up and being of the Lenape Nation and Native in general?" "Okay, well, first of all, I'd like to say that the State of Pennsylvania, the government of Pennsylvania, doesn't recognize any American Indians living within their borders. So that's a problem right there; they believe that we want something that we don't, which is gaming, land issues, anything like that. We've approached them many times on our sovereign rights and our heritage and we've been in a battle with them, and I personally have been working to give recognition for over twenty years now." For more information, visit their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Lenape-Nation-Of-Pennsylvania-345712745214/ "I'm visiting my niece. I'm from Queens. I figured I never been out here, so let me try it. Queens is extremely different from Easton. You would not believe the difference. From what I seen out here last night, you can't see this in Queens. Trust me, in Queens, you gotta tie everything down. Out here, I see it's peaceful, everybody's pleasant. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. You don't have gates on your windows or your storefronts, you can leave your car garage open. Not in Queens. It's a rough world out there, sir." Pastor Michael Dowd of the First United Church of Christ, on their program "Cover the Piggies," which collects new and gently used shoes for Easton's children: "'Cover the Piggies' is an initiative run by a couple of people in our church; Barbara Parisi, who is our administrative assistant, really had the idea. She saw another community that made sure the kids had new shoes before they went back to school for the first day of school. We realize how important that is for a variety of reasons: one is that kids' feet have grown over the summer so you want to make sure they have the right shoe on. Second, it's really important for everybody to fit in--everybody has new shoes, so we make sure the kids have new shoes. Good shoes for kids are remarkably expensive and in six months, they may be going through another pair. So we thought it would be good for us to look at a large segment of our Easton population and say, 'Can we help those kids get new shoes and go to school proud and happy?' A couple years ago, there was a beautiful little girl and she got a new pair of pink shoes and she was so absolutely excited, she ran all over the place with those new sneakers on, and her mom said, 'Now we have to take those new sneakers off because we want to make sure they're good for the first day of school...' and to see her face, her face began to melt because she was so happy with those shoes." Me: "What was your experience like as a Marine?" Him: "Very rewarding, pretty much the entire experience. Coming out of boot camp and understanding everything they taught you there was for a reason. That was important and something special. After a week or so in boot camp, you wondered why you were there, and later on you get used to it. I became a track vehicle repairman and I worked on am-tracks for the most part. I had been out to Camp Pendleton and Camp Geiger which is part of Lejeune. I was a brig guard in San Diego for a while. All in all, a very rewarding experience." Kimberly (left), Jilian (middle), and Kristen (right) of the Swingtime Dolls: Jillian: "We perform 1940s swing music: a lot of the Andrews Sisters, and we take modern songs like 'Walk Like and Egyptian' or 'I Will Survive,' and we turn them into 1940s style versions. We're brand new, but I grew up with this sort of music and nobody around here has been doing it and it needs to continue, so why not try it and have some fun?" Harry Greenberger has been a gun maker since 1972. He is self taught: Me: "What's your opinion on the Second Amendment then versus now?" Harry: "To me, if you take the Second Amendment and read it, and don't add to or take away from, it'll tell you exactly what you can do. Many people have gone and taken small parts of it to suit what they think it should say. Read the whole thing and then tell me what it says. Don't tell me what a part of it says. I believe in it, it's been in our Constitution, let's keep it there. Let's not make any changes to *any* of the amendments that are in our Constitution; they were put there for a reason. I don't care what your political beliefs are, follow the Constitution." Greg Geist, singer for The Large Flowerheads: "We're a '60s tribute band. We enjoy the groove and the whole style of the '60s music. We like to have a lot of fun with what we do, we try to make use of everybody's talents in the band. We switch around and we all kinda play whatever we can play, and we all sing. My favorite song to do would have to be 'Delilah' by Tom Jones. If you don't know why, stick around for the second set." I stuck around, and it just so happens that during the performance of "Delilah," a parade of women of all ages, shapes, and sized shower him with bras and panties. Lady T from the Easton-based band, Lucky Seven:
"It's one of the best bands I've been with. There's a lot of energy, we do a lot of old and new songs and just being with the guys in the band we got a lot of energy with the people helping us. My favorite song to sing is 'At Last,' by Etta James." |
These are the stories of the people of Easton, PA Archives
August 2018
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