Life Along the Delaware: An Introduction to Hog Town Moon

I lived near Chester, PA. Delaware County. Used to get my Easter outfits at Speare Brothers every year. We bought our Ukrainian food at Timinski’s Market on Third Street between Ward and Wilson Streets.

My old man was born in Chester in the ‘30s. His family lived on the West Side. My grandfather sailed on several tankers, boxed at Saint Hedwig. He probably knew hometown great fighter Bobby Burman. Later on he ran the boilers at the Philadelphia Electric Company.

Once upon a time Chester was a lovely town: quaint, elegant, wealthy; now it’s a toxic dump. Everything is gone. Ok… they’re making a resurgence with the new Harrah’s, and the new soccer stadium built over the grounds of Sun Ship. These are small increments. And a long time coming. Poor William Penn must be turning over in his grave.

You’d never know some of the most important industries, industrialists and their contribution to the U.S. came out of Chester: Sun Shipbuilding and Dry Dock creators of the T-2 tankers, Baldwin Locomotive Works, the Ford Assembly Plant, American Viscose, Baldt Anchor, Westinghouse, Penn Steel Casting Company, Ranger Joe Breakfast Cereal, South Chester Tube Corp., Wetherill Plant, and the list goes on.

Writers write what they know. It’s true. I grew up around Italians, Ukrainians, Jews, Irish, Blacks, Poles, Russians, a melting pot of ethnicity. “Hog Town Moon” is real. It’s tough, gritty. You can smell rust covered hulls of greasy tankers as welders stand around steel barrels with fire burning keeping warm in the winter. Almost everything in “Hog Town Moon” happened. Some truths have been stretched – makes for good fiction.

I continue to create short stories, novellas about the area. I hope to see one of these babies published soon. Contact me if you’re interested in publishing my work.