two bettys walk into a historical society poetry reading.

i've been loving the "two bettys walk into a bar" phrasing for the past week or two, although i had to more accurately twist it into a different venue and kind of hangout, a historical society poetry reading.

betty kunkel and betty yeager are these specific betty-types. in my second and third volumes of this poetry project, respectively, with betty kunkel also in betty yeager's poem, i delighted in the minutes of time spent with them during a program where i read their knitting milll job memories out loud for the hamburg area historical society at the hamburg area high school last thursday evening.

and a third betty joined these two in walking into the building, which i loved. "yodeling betty" naftzinger is not in my books and project on manufacturing history of berks county. but i don't know how often you can say you have three bettys walking into a doorway at once. here are the three bettys: naftzinger, kunkel, and yeager.

and the two bettys in my project drove to the wrong entrance of the school, as did i. since they have some struggles walking but do pretty well for their age, i walked back to get my car and acted as their chauffeur before and after the reading. and i loved that. 

in the early minutes of the reading, we heard a loud, awkward tech-y sound in the hallway outside of where we were. i said into the microphone that it sounded like an electrical fart. the crowd whirled into a good roar of laughter for a while. i told everyone that poetry builds you to be more in tune with how to describe things you notice in the world.

 

betty yeager commented during the reading that she gave brian riegel (he kindly took the photos here) of the historical society his lunch in his school days when she worked in the high school cafeteria, but she said he didn't have whiskers below his chin then. she's pretty good at incidental comedy. this was one of her jobs after her knitting mill days shared with betty kunkel.

and one woman in the audience raised her hand to let me know her mother had been in my first book, irene schappell. at the time, she'd been 98 going on 99. she said irene died a few months ago, at 100. i was so grateful that she spoke out and shared this news. irene struggled with hearing and memory yet had a wonderful and witty personality. here is irene's obituary which i just discovered.

by the end, outside, the moon perched low in the sky, bigger-seeming (it's technically the moon illusion), and it looked like a rounded chunk of muenster cheese. they gazed at it above hamburg's hills a bit before getting into betty yeager's car to head home. i told them that these moments were a poem.