the sixth annual memorial open mic for frank kelso wolfe.

2020. what a year, to put it lightly.

this autumn, we are hosting the sixth annual memorial open mic for frank kelso wolfe all online in a digital approach with blog posts, thus more flexibility for different people to be able to participate and check out content when they can.

dedications to frank as a pivotal inspiration in the labors of our fingertips: poems from manufacturing history in berks county's three volumes are tied to this. submissions are welcome via my blog for frank.

gratefully,

jrh

the fifth annual memorial open mic for frank kelso wolfe.

annual news! the good kind. wholesome for hearts. and very poetry-centric.

via the blog for frank kelso wolfe.

the open mic is very relevant here, as frank served as 

one of the major inspirations for this project.

leroy fretz from volume two in this project, born in 1920, passed away november 20, 2018.

leroy fretz from volume two in this project passed away last week at the age of 98.

he worked for glen-gery in the world of brick-making for almost four decades in his younger years; i just happened to use a glen-gery knit beanie on a snowman built with my niece nights earlier (sometimes, you just want to make a snowman in the evening) after having it stored away in a drawer for a year or two. 

and on the day when i learned of his passing but before i'd actually heard the news, i'd taken a long walk around wyomissing on my lunch break and discovered a hidden-away driveway with a no trespassing sign. deciduous tree branches probably of a more weedy variety were overgrown on the pavement, and i was tempted to check it out anyway, but in the end, i didn't and moved on in my walk around the borough. but before i moved on, i saw that glen-gery was the business name on the plaque noting not to trespass.

i had not stopped to think of glen-gery for probably months or even a year or more, before this.

—some eerie yet comforting happenings for ties to a man i so enjoyed my brief minutes with in visiting him a few times to document the memories of his job life. and also seeing how much he cherished and savored coloring beautiful images on sheets of paper into his 90s.

here is a link to leroy's obituary. 

summer 2018: the corner shoppe in gilbertsville is now carrying these volumes of poetry.

the corner shoppe in gilbertsville, montgomery county, a few miles from berks county's southeastern border, began carrying copies of all volumes of the labors of our fingertips: poems from manufacturing history of berks county this summer.  it is well-worth visiting and is known for its colorful spinners along the sidewalk up to the front door.

this gift shop joins the peppermint stick candy store, the swamp door, and firefly bookstore in selling these volumes.

(letter bead + hands photo = by lilly-jay hetrick ludy)

a poetry reading at the berks county heritage center this august 2018.

the berks county heritage center, as a part of summer programming through the berks county parks & recreation department, is hosting a poetry reading for the labors of our fingertips: poems from manufacturing history of berks county on sunday, august 5, 2018 at 2 p.m. 

the address of the heritage center is 1102 red bridge road, reading, pa 19605.

see more about this project at hetrickmedia.com.

a poetry reading at keystone villa at douglassville in april: celebrating national poetry month.

in early april, i ventured to keystone villa at douglassville and hosted a poetry reading from all three volumes of the labors of our fingertips: poems from manufacturing history of berks county in celebrating national poetry month. it's always nice to find out the mills in the histories of residents with their own job-related stories. knitting mills often come up in the sharing of memories. this particular crowd especially enjoyed casket factory stories from boyertown which isn't too far from douglassville.

a poetry reading with the women's group at good shepherd evangelical lutheran church in muhlenberg township in late march.

earlier this week, i visited a women's group at the good shepherd evangelical lutheran church along stoudt's ferry bridge road in muhlenberg township to do a poetry reading for them.

barb greth invited me to speak and read to the group a few months ago after attending one my poetry reading featuring shirley kohl as a special guest from my second book last year at the muhlenberg community library.
 

barb kindly assisted with photography, so she's not in the eye-scenes here.

since i began handing out one sample poem (in large font, to boot) for people to follow along with and keep at each of my poetry readings in the past year or two, to help those in the audience absorb the language a little more easily than just hearing the lines, i featured charlotte o. moyer's poem as an introduction. barb and i decided on this in advance since we wanted to have a woman's story as the first focal point during march as women's history month, and while i read many other female-based poems, we mixed in some from men by the end, too, including the one based on john groff's jobs as a resident of earl township, born in 1936. john was a part of a poetry reading at oley valley community library in september of 2016.

below is charlotte's poem from my third and final volume of the labors of our fingertips: poems from manufacturing history of berks county.

charlotte o. moyer, upper bern township | born: 1938

mae fisher nudged me to get a job at glo-ray knitting mills
in 1958. i knew mae from church—a friend of my parents.
a woman from west lawn drove through south heidelberg,
picked up me and mae on the way to robesonia. we’d give her
some cash to help her out, thank her for the ride. i remember

children’s sweaters, striped across the chests and arms with
dyed red fibers, white ones in between the wide lines. trying
to match up the stripes perfectly, linking the arm-parts and
what touched the back and belly, seemed like some cruel joke,
silly but real stress by day. i checked sleeves first, then sewed

them into their grand finales, finishing off the wait of selvage,
the underside of excess where the two faces of material met.
i started up the sides, from the bottom of the waist to a loop
around the armhole. workers would bring me one heaping
pile of sleeves and the main middle halves. you had to be very

exacting with those sleeves because if you stitched too far by
a small measure in the intended zone, they’d turn out more
than just a bit awkwardly. and nobody wants clumpy-fitting
sleeves, nor would those be approved for packaging. merrow
manufactured the machine i used. it stitched and cut off any

excess at the same time. every night, i came home, felt fuzzy
wads of sweater aftermath in the creases of my neck, elbows,
irritating, pesky annoyance to scrunch my nose at once i
walked through the door. i extracted them from my skin,
pulled off pieces of clammy sweater debris sticking to my

clothing. at a picnic one summer, they had a shaving contest,
women taking razorblades to santa claus-like faces of men,
done up in cream. they draped long, red fabric over the guys
to keep from getting far too messy. i took some of that ruby
textile with me—they were going to throw it out, anyway, and

i still have it in a box, to this day. that game of passing a single
orange from one person’s neck to another, with the no-hands
rule in full use, is in a picture i took that afternoon, a camera
often stuffed into my purse, even back then, documenter

of history that i am, knowing simply—stories are everything.

a poetry reading at keystone villa at fleetwood in mid-march.

in mid-march, i visited keystone villa at fleetwood and hosted a poetry reading from all three volumes of the labors of our fingertips: poems from manufacturing history of berks county. this served as a part their history program series. the event was coordinated and sponsored in part by the fleetwood public library.

several residents in the audience mentioned that they knew edna machemer from volume one since they worked at diener's underwear mill in leesport with her, too. they remembered her hard work ethic but also great wit and how fun she was to be around. her edna-specific humor is evidenced in her poem, which is above where her name is hyperlinked.

a poetry reading at the boyertown area historical society in mid-february.

the math of mixing snow-rain as ice meant the original date for a poetry reading at the boyertown area historical society was pushed out to this past wednesday from the previous one. but a nice crowd arrived for it, and thankfully, alice gerhart was able to make it as a special featured guest, even though harold schoenly unfortunately couldn't.

besides talking about alice's short-lived job in a paper mill in west reading where parachutes were made during world war ii, she also told us about her father owning a knitting mill in the city of reading, selling hosiery to businesses in european countries, and being an inventor of an inspecting machine in his industry.

this audience involved some really great curiosities with questions asked, like about any inspirational poets and styles impacting this project's work. while the style of the poems is a blend of many influences and creative utility fleshed out across years of working with words, interviewing, documenting, and translating details onto the page, i did mention a few names of recent poetic appreciation: ted kooser, jim harrison, and nayyirah waheed. and i talked about their lives and approach to writing for a bit, too. 

photography credits during this event go to eric eidle of the boyertown bulletin.

library-borrowing of volumes from this poetry project.

it is so nice to see when volumes from this project are taken out of the berks county library system by patrons.

this poetry project as the final feature in a positive-only local news publication called news, not blues.

in 2018, i've finally retired my positive-only local news publication called news, not blues and used this poetry project to do so. here is a link to the final feature to say adieu to the publication.

a poetry reading at the boyertown area historical society—*rescheduled to wednesday, february 14 at 7 p.m.

the boyertown area historical society is hosting a poetry reading for the recent release of volume three of the labors of our fingertips: poems from manufacturing history in berks county on wednesday, february *14 at 7 p.m. (recently rescheduled from wednesday, february 7 due to expected winter weather) the poetry reading will also be a final recap of volumes 1, 2, an 3 in this project.

the historical society's programming room at the front of their main building is located along 43 south chestnut street, boyertown, pa 19512. for non-members, the cost of attendance for the event is $5.

special featured guests for the event will be alice gerhart from volume one and harold schoenly from volume three. there's a chance someone from volume two may attend as well, but that can be a surprise for now, since it's in limbo.

here is harold's poem, as a hint of what the night's programming will involve.

*

harold schoenly, douglass township,
montgomery county | born: 1931

after richard yoder checked the documentation to match
my workload, i learned 1968’s fatal gunfire of senator robert
kennedy led to his body joining a casket i’d made with my
own hands. these caskets didn’t sell so often, priced high, not
so profitable. i’d started at the casket factory in boyertown

in 1958, remember hearing that these three-inch thick planks
as mahogany caskets cost around $5,500, even back then. we
called them no. 4900 mahogany. they were heavy—a finished
casket might weigh around 300 pounds. i spent 15 years
making these caskets, but how long it took to do them well

meant you didn’t make much money per hour. i think i still
have my first paystub, $46 typed out across that old piece
of paper. my mortgage cost $36.30 a month back then. i’d left
the u.s. air force in 1957 after carving out three years serving
in germany, glad i knew pennsylvania dutch so i could

understand some of the conversations better. i’d learned
intelligence, tested in, signed off with a top secret clearance,
but you can’t ask me about that. you can try, but it won’t help
you any—history is bound to be hidden sometimes. john
brower did help me get into a casket once, closed that

lid down, didn’t lock it shut on its cart. olive johnson
walked over to push it to the finishing room. when she
went to grab the tag inside, she saw me in it, my eyes open
boldly—jumped back, screamed. the lid bounced back down.
i built houses around town for a while, some before i quit

in 1973. by 1979, boyertown planing mill company hired me.
i did shaper work, a white-knuckled kind of job, especially
with fancy stair railings, elegant, but the pressure in getting
it right made me think i even left fingerprints in the wood
sometimes. a desk at one of the philadelphia television news

stations had known its early changes through my palms.
i retired in 1996. my handrail work is still in an 11-story
hospital in wilmington, delaware. what comes from trees
remembers who touched it, whose eyes know its integrity,
how much it misses the memories of its oldest roots.

a book review of volume 3 published in "north of oxford" based in philadelphia.

north of oxford, with its hometown as philadelphia, recently published a review of the third and final book in this poetry project, beautifully penned by local writer marian wolbers.

here is a link to the review published in january 2018. north of oxford is run by editors diane sahms-guarnieri and g emil reutter who have been wonderful to work with in getting to know them in the past few years.

volume 3 & book donations to libraries & historical societies in berks county.

it's been a busy year, to put it lightly.

a total of 41 envelopes are now finally prepped and ready to mail donations of the third volume from this project to libraries and historical societies in berks county.

i am a big advocate of supporting libraries since they are so supportive of me, in a sense, and the community. all of us who love libraries back. i appreciate being able to borrow books, books on CD, music CDs, and DVDs of films. as i get older, libraries become more and more valuable to me. and since the beginning of this project, making my books available to those who can't necessarily afford to buy them or don't feel a need to own copies can still enjoy them—has been a goal.

for anyone who would like to buy copies, other than reaching out to me for an old-fashioned sale, there is the gofundme campaign to donate to with your name, snail-mail address, quantity, and book volume(s) wanted.

tom mauger's poem in volume three, which is now for sale.

last sunday, i hosted one of the last poetry readings for this project besides any which are requested by local organizations (boyertown area historical society reached out afterward and wanted a poetry reading for this work for their february 2018 program–more on that later).

poems from volume three of the labors of our fingertips: poems from manufacturing history of berks county, the final book in this project, were the focus of this particular afternoon at studio b in boyertown.

copies of volume three are now available for purchase for $20 each (including tax) the old-fashioned way by cash or check (email thelaborsofourfingertips at yahoo dot com with your request) or through donating to the gofundme campaign for this project.

only one of four special featured guests were able to attend, tom mauger, but i'm very grateful for that because one is far better than zero, and tom had some good prank-rich stories to share from his old jobs, including ones outside of his poem which is below. 

and poetry reading photography was kindly contributed by laura kline.

*

tom mauger, amity township | born: 1948

too young to get hired by some factories, at 17, i took a truck
route delivering bottles of milk, ice cream, eggs, and butter
for longacre’s modern dairy, still in washington township
today. one of my stops at unicast in boyertown involved

pushing a cart to sell bottles of milk, before they installed
a machine to keep it cold, automated for quick grabs.
some workers paid in cash right away. others paid their
tabs to me weekly. anybody who didn’t pay didn’t get

more milk—the same went for families i delivered to—
they didn’t get more milk until they paid up, either.
but the trips into unicast led to them hiring me
part-time. weight-moving, inspecting, grinding,

and pulling castings out of sand, swatting or sawing
off excess molten iron where it first and last entered
the cavity opening to meet the pattern. we called that
knocking off the gates. i might have done that job

first, before the others. we made trivets for resting hot
skillets and casserole dishes, to let them cool, little
toy trucks, nutcrackers, even the meowing persuasion
of cats crafted in cast-iron. itty bitty-sized cars and

motorcycles were produced, too. charlie miller taught
me how to mold, fiery foundry minutes bringing out
my sweat. on the hottest days, molders went home
early—too hot of weather for pouring. the guys there

called me a blond-headed kraut, combining my german
heritage and the hue of my hair. one guy only spoke
pennsylvania dutch, so you had to know the dialect,
or you couldn’t talk with him about work or anything

else. coal crackers came from up north, carpooling
to work with us, maybe from schuylkill county. some
men would find an ideal second to drop a lit cigarette
butt into a guy’s back pocket as he worked, waiting

for the stench of the smoking to catch up to his nose.
even a cut-off pig’s tail made it into some back pockets.

a poetry reading at studio b on sunday, october 8 at 1 p.m. to introduce volume three officially.

studio b in boyertown is hosting a poetry reading for this project and its final book's release.

the poetry reading is set for sunday, october 8 at 1 p.m., and studio b's address is 39a east philadelphia avenue, boyertown, pa 19512. it is near the long-lived grill shop (which is in a poem this year, by the way) and neighbors with spirit holistic center, the local united way office, modellbahn ott hobbies, inc., and the peppermint stick candy store.

please send your RSVPs to thelaborsofourfingertips at yahoo dot com. invite friends and the famfam, if you like. we'll have some refreshments, too.
 
the bulk of copies of volume three will be available for purchase by the time this poetry reading rolls on around.

betty seifrit (she wasn't able to attend during a july poetry reading) and tom mauger will be special featured guests from the third and final volume in this project, as will gary and doris williams. the opportunity to ask the poem-sources questions about their lives after their poems are read is the always-there perk of these events so that you can learn more about them through genuine connections in conversation.

here are eye-scenes of them and a teaser poem about one of them, in the order in which they were mentioned above.

 *

gary williams, rockland township | born: 1948

sam hartline told me, you’re a natural at welding, once he

trained me but acted like i hardly needed the lessons. walter

delong had shown me the heat-firing ropes any time a free

minute or two cropped into our shifts at boyertown auto

body works. before sam’s nodding of final approval, i only

assembled the trucks, starting maybe in the late 1960s or

early 1970s. when contracts were slow to absorb inked

signatures in agreement, they laid me off, so reading

truck body hired me to work on dual-wheeled utility

vehicles. they paid more, but my heart functioned its

best back in boyertown. i welded shelves on the trucks,

crafted the sides of those dual-wheels from scratch.

when boyertown auto body works had some openings

again, i returned. in winter, sometimes walter and i

stole a few moments to throw snow into a cardboard

box outside of building 11. we were up on the balcony,

a perfect location for aiming snowballs down at guys

below, a way to add a laugh or two into a morning.

welding—with it, i felt like i accomplished more than

just putting in rivets and screws as an assembler. few

men there could fashion aluminum just right, its soft

and difficult tendencies always swimming easily close

to failure, botched jobs, but the flame, the sparks and

i got along well enough. stainless or galvanized steel,

too. i’m pretty sure i once glimpsed one of our emblems

on a box truck in a dirty harry movie, maybe magnum

force from 1973. to think our work made it to california,

that what we touched traveled so far and made it onto

the big screen—i like that memory, that little reminder,

to know what we did started in a small town, reached

so far beyond pennsylvania, beyond the blasting flashes

of what the steadied control of my arms made happen.

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.

hamburg area historical society—a poetry reading: thursday, september 7 at 7 p.m.

the hamburg area historical society is hosting a poetry reading for the labors of our fingertips: poems from manufacturing history of berks county as a program for its members and the public on thursday, september 7 at 7 p.m. in the community room of hamburg area high school at 701 windsor street, hamburg, pa 19526.

hamburg's own betty kunkel from the second volume of poetry in this project will be the special featured guest for the evening. audience members will have the opportunity to meet betty and ask her questions about her memories in her former knitting mill jobs in hamburg. she is also mentioned in the poem of betty yeager in the upcoming third and final volume of poetry for this project, as a unique tie-in for her across 2016 and 2017 work in this community effort of preserving memories of seniors through interviews and poems crafted from this local history-hugging.

EDIT: on the eve of this event, i just heard word that betty yeager will be at this poetry reading as well and that the two bettys will be carpooling together. so it'll be an even more worthwhile event.

(below is betty kunkel, and pictured second is betty yeager)

 

here is betty yeager's poem, since betty kunkel will be a part of this poetry reading to share her conversational reflections about her time paralleled with a friend and co-worker of the same first name. (i keep finding myself wanting to say, two bettys walk into a knitting mill...oh spins on jokes.)

* 

betty yeager, hamburg borough | born: 1933

i picked up my man at the church picnic. they had put me

in charge of soda bottles at zion moselem lutheran church

that warm afternoon, so many lines of seasoned gravestones

behind us as we shared our smiles back and forth, savored

sunshine, any sudden breezes from wind and forest, specific

to the old dirt of earth in richmond township. william yeager

and his friend, john setzler, they were thirsty. initial flirting

began by the time william took a sip or a few, maybe a crisp

cola. after we married in 1951 or 1952, he became a truck

driver for burkey underwear company in hamburg, often

making trips to and from their warehouse down the road.

i had a job there, too, put binding on the top of the flatlock

seams on the crotch sections of what men wear under their 

slacks or to sleep when our world switches on its quiet signal

for restful silence. some say, the barn door’s open, a way

to snicker about the region i sewed. i trimmed the straps off

in this anatomy of the front, delicately deliberate motions

with my scissors. sometimes we ventured to the hamburg

diner on state street on a friday around lunchtime. a creek

runs behind our old mill. it’s still there. you didn’t have

time to joke on the clock. you had to get your work done.

another betty—betty kunkel, worked there, too. i’d seen her

at church in our girlhood days, always in vibrantly-patterned

dresses, hand-sewn by her mother, from old feed bags, some

of them flowered, others checkered. on saturday nights, her

parents took  her to zern’s farmers’ market to buy young

plants to raise on their land, that drive about an hour long.