i recently learned the news that one of my favorite people in the world, and the man whose poem is the very first one in my first book of poetry through this project, willie kramer, passed away. here is a photograph i took of him in 2015:
i began crying as soon as i read this news from my hiking club [of mostly senior-aged folks; i have been 83 inside for years despite being apparently young]. i haven't had time to hike with the club in years because of how hard it is to keep up with life in working by day and being incredibly wiped out from that in having health issues which really need non-short rest in order to improve and potentially clear. i am slowly working toward the goal to be able to take time off, but it's a long way down the road, in having bills to pay. and this is also why i had been so behind on my goal to reach out to willie and his wife gerry and to visit them. i have missed them so much more than they could know. i used to write letters to gerry, and she'd write letters back to me, but i've been unable to keep up with my old norms for a long time now. yet i'm determined to get a letter out to gerry soon, now that i know we've lost willie.
it was absolutely intentional that willie's poem was the first in my first volume of poetry in this project. i can't recall, but he may have been the first person i interviewed for my poetry project on the manufacturing history of berks county, or if he wasn't the very first, he was one of the first few people i interviewed. and his poem which i wrote from interviewing him is one of my favorites because of the details it involves and how beautifully it flows in simple throws of lines from the memories he shared of his job at a former tannery in fleetwood, berks county. and i loved being able to create the gift of a meaningful poem about his life to give him in him being such a good friend, person, and human in my life and world.
willie was so kind, fun, caring, attentive, easy to talk to, and someone i loved spending time with. he and gerry meant the world to me. willie was a featured guest at my poetry readings for berks bards at goggleworks center for the arts, albright college, boyertown museum of historic vehicles, berks encore's senior center in wernersville, and possibly other community venues which i can't recall at the moment.
i remember the last poetry reading he joined for me was at the berks county heritage center, and i adored seeing how much audience members appreciated hearing about his life reflections through poetry and then getting a chance to talk to him and ask him questions about what he remembered. i loved this about every reading and every special guest senior i asked to be involved, but since willie meant so much to me as a friend i'd met through my hiking club, i valued this even more, and it made my heart swell with glee and a richness i am falling back into in a new way now in remembering that day.
in reading his obituary, i didn't know, or at least i didn't remember that he worked as a morse code operator in the korean war while serving in the u.s. army. i am so bummed that i didn't get to ask him more about that and what he remembered from those times, but as frank sinatra once sang, that's life.
here is a link to when i originally featured willie on this blog in 2015, with only a partial version of his poem, plus photos of him back in his tannery days while he labored there, but below, i am posting his full poem to honor him now in the largest way i can in knowing that i won't get a chance to talk to him or hug him again. i'm so grateful to have known him in what a gem of a soul he was. i'm also including photos of willie when he and gerry graciously traveled to several of my poetry readings for him to be a featured guest, including some with him or him and gerry as well, and looking back, i now realize he may have been the one person who was at the most of my poetry readings in order to help me teach the community about the lives of seniors in our area and their contributions from when manufacturing was at the forefront of everyday life in the u.s. he and gerry were in their 80s then, and it meant so much to me that they ventured out to help me share education, awareness, history, and understanding through this project.
willie kramer, south heidelberg township | born: 1932
i still have my cutting knives. but i spent
18 years in the color department before i began
slicing leather that soon became what people
would later sit on in automobiles. i kept cups
of colors in front of me, starting in 1957.
i matched mixed paint to the samples car
manufacturers mailed to garden state tanning
in fleetwood. we carpooled from cressona,
schuylkill county, and had some icy-roaded
scares on route 662 in the chillier months.
about 20 different hues took homes inside
50-pound barrels. they never put it this way,
but i became an incidental chemist, regularly
measuring and weighing what i blended.
one guy applied a base coat. another fellow
did a top coat. they called me a color matcher
until i spit up blood, spending several days
in the hospital. afterward, they moved me
to the cutting department, where i worked
for 20 years—split only automotive hide
and had to work fast, following the patterns.
one day, i saw three birds perched up high
in the factory. the mom and dad flew out
and sat on the street’s power line. they called
for their baby bird to join them. the mom flew
back, chirping up a storm next to the baby. it
flittered out the window behind her, to the wire.
*
