Wednesday, September 28, 2016

jim dalrymple became the first senior to pass away during this project's two years.

today when i stopped in at country meadows in wyomissing to visit my four poem-sources there because i am hoping to schedule an upcoming poetry reading with them at the library in their borough, i learned that resident jim dalrymple died earlier this month.

his poem is the very first one in my second volume in this project, and i just read his poem in mid-september on poets' pause on bctv.org, not knowing he had died a few weeks earlier. i also found out that his family called specifically asking to be notified when his copy of my latest book arrived from my project because they wanted to be sure to pick it up soon afterward. and they wouldn't have known that i chose his poem to introduce the whole entire collection of 25 stories told through the use of line breaks.

jim made it to the incredible age of 100, and he had great specific memories about his old job at cartech from before the 1980s. here is a link to his obituary.

i have felt tremendously fortunate that for the past two years of this three-year poetry project, not a single senior (to my knowledge) had passed away. now with jim's death, this circumstance has changed. and while living to the age of 100 is something which doesn't happen with a very high up there number of people, especially when some people leave this life at much earlier ages and through often extreme tragedy, it still seemed hard not to fall into a more somber mood at the loss of jim. knowing less pain is involved for him now, though, is some solace, though. pain can be so crippling, and i wouldn't wish it on any kind soul.

jim liked to throw humor into his conversations every time i'd visit him, so i am sure he did this with others in his life, too. not everyone has that jovial way about them, so this tends to stand out. and it made me all the more grateful to know jim, if only briefly through my project. it is good to be a part of creating one very special continuing memory for his loved ones, toward the end of his days, through the poem about him in this project.

to honor jim and the energy of his life, below is my photograph of him, the cover of the second volume of poetry from this project, with him on it, and not just an excerpt (like usual, here), but his entire poem.



*




jim dalrymple, wyomissing borough | born: 1916

i lived out my childhood days at 397 pine street in west 
reading, completing high school in 1935. my father moved

here first, landed work as a sign painter and an artist, very
clever. he sent money to my mother so she could travel here 

by boat. the two of them married once they had their scottish 
feet planted on the ground in this country. in 1936, i knew 

cartech’s machines by heart. i learned how to run all of their
equipment—the milling machine, lathe, planer, boring mill. 

in those days, we were one of the only places across the u.s.
making steel of exotic combinations. i had books of formulas,

400 different combinations of mixtures, grades. with repairs,
i often worked around the clock. they’d phone me any old

time of night, when an issue surfaced. the foreman would
call and say, jim, you have to come out—we have a problem.

i heard those words more frequently than i could keep track
of them. guys stood around, watching, waiting for me to finish

my fixing. my boss relied on me to keep that mill going. now 
and then, you noticed the rolls breaking. you had to replace 

the bearings. during the war years, i worked a couple of days 
a week, getting paid 22 cents an hour. when the government

found out what they were giving us, they made the company 
pay the minimum, 23 cents an hour. suddenly, we thought,

we’re rich. i believe we sent shipments to england, where 
they used our supply to build mercedes airplane motors. 

sales reps for grease and oil took me out to lunch, wined and 
dined me, if they had accounts with us or wanted to land us 

                          as clients. by 1980, i left my fixing-career, 
                                                                      finally able to sleep through the night.


Thursday, September 22, 2016

a poetry reading at the oley valley community library this september.

in mid-september, the oley valley community library kindly hosted a poetry reading for this project. at this particular event, john groff (born in 1936) and donald gilbert (born in 1940), both of earl township, were the featured guests from my recently published second volume of poetry on the manufacturing history of berks county. 

several of the people who attended continually learned that they know same friends and family in common, despite never having met each other before, and these connections across everyone seemed to bring an unexpected delight into the room with how demeanors peeled toward positives. it just shows how we're all more tied together than we realize and that supporting each other as human beings is at the base of what's needed in this world.

below are some eye-scenes of the afternoon and long excerpts of the first poems which were shared. photography credits go graciously to helen clogston of the library itself.












john groff's poem excerpt

i do some things in reverse of what’s expected. i grow
            a thick beard in summer. in the icy feel of cold months,
i shave. back in the days when my cheeks were still
newer to scattering beams of sunshine, i had enough
jobs to the point that it’s almost hard to accurately tally
them. for 11 months before i could drive, since my dad

said i needed to own a car first, i repaired machines
at osan manufacturing company, inc. in boyertown.
              soon, i bought a black 1935 plymouth coupe for $125.
but then i met adam stamm who did excavating, operating
out of mohrsville. he hired me to drive his trucks, hauling
dirt away for him. he died in a penitentiary—convicted

of murder, from a love triangle. he liked women entirely too
much, i could tell, or control. several 1961 newspaper articles
note two charred skeletons in a car near lake ontelaunee,
                marie peggy timmons, 34, and john hyneman, 43, set
afire. they discovered two-month-old clara in the blaze, too,
all the evidence pointing to my old boss. i opted instead

for something with less gruesome of ties, worked at bachman
pretzel company near laureldale, wrapping rods in wax-lined
paper to ship abroad. then i had a mushroom-picking job
before driving a huckster truck of farm produce. i later ran
    a machine, cutting metal at a. w. mercer, inc. in boyertown,
but for two winters in my early 20s, i worked at what

everybody called the cheese factory in oley township—
the windmill cheese co. at night, daylight gone, i unloaded
government butter into the building from tractor trailers...

&

donald gilbert's poem excerpt

at some point, my title went from superintendent
of dyeing to head colorist. for at least three decades,
i managed the always-hot dye house at bally ribbon
                  mills, beginning back in the 1970s. i initially started

there part-time while still in high school back in 1956,
taking to the usual longer hours after graduating in 1958.
earning 90 cents by each hour, i labored in the shipping
department. in the finishing department, big heated cans

             had the ribbon rolled all around them, helping it to dry,
lose any wrinkles. since colorists were few and far between,
ed galli drove here from new jersey to manage our powdered
and liquid dyes. he came up to me, questioned if i wanted

to learn his craft. he said, if you are willing to try, i am going
to make a dyer out of you. he trained me, taught me how
many spoonfuls of one dye or another to throw in for a certain
shade required by our clients. i had drawers and drawers

of note cards, of my formulas—thousands of them saved. ed
hit the road home on a thursday, left just me in charge, then
retired. that’s when i realized—wait, this is my break in life.
       not a clean, temperature-comfortable or easy job, i doubt i

would have made a good living otherwise. by the 1990s, we 
were dying 25 to 35 million yards of ribbon a year. in the art
of coloring tightly weaved fibers, you learn that black isn’t
really black. it’s perhaps blue-black, green-black, or jet...




*



and here is a clip from the reading, courtesy of sam traten.


Tuesday, September 20, 2016

upcoming poetry readings in october and november 2016.


below is a listing of upcoming poetry readings for this project. a few of them which are at senior community venues are more geared toward members and residents and will have special guests from my project to talk to the audience.

more readings are pending, too.

  • sunday, october 9 @ 1 p.m. @ studio b in boyertown

Tuesday, September 13, 2016

38 copies of volume two donated to local libraries & historical societies.

in recent days, 19 copies of volume two from this project were mailed or hand-delivered to 18 libraries in berks county, including the oley valley community library, which operates independently from the berks county library system. a listing of these recipients is below.


bernville area community library
bethel-tulpehocken library
boone area library
boyertown community library
brandywine area community library
fleetwood area public library
hamburg public library
kutztown community library
muhlenberg community library
reading public library – main branch
reading public library – southeast branch library (to be re-donated to their senior outreach program)
robesonia community library
schuylkill county library
village library
wernersville public library
west lawn-wyomissing hills library
womelsdorf community library
wyomissing public library
oley valley community library

and 19 copies were donated to historical societies based in berks county as well. that's a total of 38 donated books across these organizations.

oley valley heritage association
earl township historical society
boyertown area historical society
tulpehocken settlement historical society
hamburg area historical society
amity heritage society
polish-american heritage association of berks county
pine forge historical society
leesport area historical society
kutztown area historical society
industries of the wyomissing creek historical society
historical preservation trust of berks county
heidelberg heritage society
fleetwood area historical society
dreibelbis farm historical society
berks history center
berks county genealogical society
andulhea heritage center
albany township historical society

a few more libraries in the main county library system as well as other historical societies in the area may receive donations of the second volume from this project as well, pending confirmation that they'd like to house these localized writings.

and copies are also for sale otherwise in the community for $20.00 each. email poetrywithjenniferhetrick at yahoo com to purchase a copy. copies of volume one are still available for the same price as well.