A letter to the JTTA

The JTTA is a non-profit organization designed to encourage growth of tourist based businesses in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania. As a coal region daughter, I know too well the plight of the generational local. My last name is the name of an historical mining town for goodness sake (Eckley Miner’s Village).

I see the way gentrification can both help and hurt the local economy, and therefore have a love/hate relationship with this town and the tourists it brings in.

This was my response to April’s JTTA meeting and to my first “tourist based employer” who hired a 14 year old who was qualified to babysit any child in the entire state, but didn’t know her worth (YET).

Y’all have me ON ONE tonight. I’m still fired up from the “competition” mindset you seem to have when you talk about our locals.

I feel I’m in a unique position to talk about this as someone who comes from generations of locals. My grandmother had a campground in Albrightsville and my father told me stories of raising the pennies to finally rename the town after Jim Thorpe-a name of a HUMAN that meant something in 1950.  We watched the economy rise and fall and rise again while we lived our simple lives in nature, struggling to make it in a world we didn’t understand.

I dreamt of an escape to a better world, a world where creatives gathered and shared ideas and inspiration. I heard my father yell and my mother scream as we struggled to make it in the world when we could barely afford to put food on the table and clothes on our bodies. We watched as other kids had things we could never dream of having and cried over the opportunities we may never have. I was poor in money and objects, but I was rich in ways you couldn’t imagine.

I can’t believe I found my way through college, I scrimped and saved and cried and hyperventilated as I navigated how to afford my next book, how was I going to put a roof over my head? What was I going to eat? I never even saw $100 all at once and my cohorts were going shopping on a Friday night. I listened as the other students talked about how hard this college was because “I was never shown how to do this in my prep school” well neither was I, but what I had and they didn’t, was grit.

I had a family determined more than others to see me succeed in a world not meant for us. That encouraged me to thrive, survive, create, and learn while they challenged themselves to put food on the table. I stopped at the library to gain years of knowledge while you asked me to scrub your floors. They didn’t understand why my boss downtown needed two houses and a nice truck.

My boss gladly took advantage of my requested rate of “$4 an hour” because we were some small town bumkins with no money and no education. But THAT my friend is where he was wrong. My family was poor, but we weren’t dumb. We come from a line of hard-working people, who would rather see our brethren succeed than others fail. I weeped as he stood over me, shouting “I pay you to do this so you better do this right” not knowing that my father weeped over me “I hope you can make a place in this world” I was glad to see that other students called me smart…but also disappointed. They had NO IDEA how hard I worked to get there, the feelings I kept inside while I suffered my imposter syndrome.

I cry for my locals who feel choked out of their homes as you complain about 18 empty parking spots on a Saturday afternoon, while they see the home they’ve been dreaming of buying was choked out by another “cute small business” a tourist “excited to move to the area” and a concert they’d been dying to see. They resent the tourists because they cling to a past that no longer exists and grieve a future they’ll never get to see.

I somehow made it out of this town alive and was able to return with a new perspective. I have honors from one of the TOP colleges in the nation but am not taken seriously because I’m just a local coal region nobody. I have swam with turtles in Hawaii, climbed 12th century ruins in Estonia, done yoga in India, and prayed with my ancestors in Italy. I don’t brag because I know the pain of desire to travel but no resources to do so. My parents saved their money not for clothes and fine dining but enrichment and experiences.

 I work with people who are scared of this world and think I’m pompous because of my diction “I’ve got grammar” they say as I read my next book.

I weep for my “hill people” because they can’t see how they’ll afford school, their wedding, their lunches. They are overwhelmed by the world around them, that makes them feel small and it feel huge. They drive, avoiding “the main road” downtown because they want quiet on the way to their low paying job as someone else takes a house for an “air bnb” or short term rental. Meanwhile, they can’t figure out how to afford their next car.

In all of my frantic energies, I find peace around my tribe. We find peace in nature. We have simple values, a beer in the backyard on a hot night, a few friends firing up the grill, cards at the kitchen table, a cuddle with our dog, a shoulder to cry on when life just gets a little hard. I can think of 5 houses I can stop in right now, no key, no calling first, because they’re trusting people with beer in the fridge and a couch to lay my head on when I’m going through it.

Any time I make a decision on financial growth I go through a manic episode: how am I going to make it in a world that matters so little to me? I watch my poor confused parents not understand my experience in marketing.  I see their pain in my trauma while I relive the imposter syndrome I had in a job that doesn’t suit me. My parents tell me to get a real job  with real benefits, and the planning and dedication it takes to get there. Especially when technology makes you want to spin your heads around.

My simple friends always tell me I’m TOO generous, they have water waiting for me when I arrive and gifts sitting on the porch. They stop by to look at my oil tank and wouldn’t DREAM of charging me because that’s what friends do for each other. And they’re right, if they break their foot, I’m helping their wife get to the dentist the next day. I offer them pay and they insist they can’t take it. They don’t value their hard work as much as my friendship.

I’m turning away work because I can’t take on more.  Or rather, I don’t want to. I value my peace and my time at much higher than $15 an hour for 40 hours a week, because I am worth more.

I have an education from a top school in the nation, and the business owners don’t see that. I’m just some coal region nobody. I talk to friends who think they have nothing, but have so much that you business owners don’t have. We have community. We tiptoe through your world based on money mongering and fear. We know the best spot for ice cream and the least expensive hoagie. We know the best trail for hiking, and the nicest spot in town to lay on a warm day, we know the greatest swimming holes, and the most beautiful view in town. We avoid the hustle and bustle of a Downtown Jim Thorpe Saturday because we just want a simple peaceful day. And we resent your business forward mentality because you threaten our simple way of living. Your tourists jump in front of our cars as we sleepily drive to work and watch your expensive new cars fly down the streets that our kids used to run and play on.

You think we’re hicks, we think you’re yuppies, you think we’re ignorant, well …. Seriously man, DITTO.

In studying eastern philosophy, I think of the balance of things, the ebbs and flows. Man put toxicity into this world by demanding income over compassion. If you put toxicity into the world it comes back to you in threefold. This covid disease is a prime example. We could have killed it already, but instead of choosing compassion, we chose to retaliate. So the disease spread and more people died.

But the same can be said about positivity “Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it, Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way.”- Albert Einstein (assumed). We are grieving a past that wants to be left behind and trying to create a future that won’t exist.

Keep us bumpkins in mind when you’re stressing about your next bill. We can’t afford your $50 lunch plates but we can clean your chimney. We know the best place for ice cream and the easiest way to get beer for your patio. I weep when you talk of losing money over a donation to the school. I sometimes barely had the $0.40 for a reduced lunch program. When you make your decisions about what to do for the locals, just remember that $16 you’ll lose on a sweater or dinner means more than you could imagine. As you hope to grow, don’t forget about us little guys who grieve a town and world that no longer exists.

Let's stop breaking each other down, let's find solutions instead of fighting.

Let's be kind to ourselves and kind to each other.

Suffer in silence and know that others do as well. No one is REALLY out to get you, just to heal themselves!

A letter to my first “employer”
Joan Morykin, I've known you for a long time. I was one of the first people to work for you and Victor Stabin... and believe I was the first of many to quit.

When you talk about being from "generations of townspeople"

Well, this is why I shake my head.

Generations of locals have said we need to fix the parking, that it's nearly impossible to find a spot. We dream of scraping pennies together to afford our next meals and cars and houses while people move in from the city and snatch them up first.

I can't believe that after being in this area for 20 years, you can't see how miniscule 18 parking spots are in this town. It is 18 parking spots of the tens of thousands of people who come into this town.. who interrupt our daily lives, who take money out of our pocket and put it onto your tables.

If you want to shake your head at how "unfriendly" we locals are, perhaps you should look inside yourself and think about your responsibility in that role.

Plenty of generational locals believe in tourism, I'm a prime example of that. But plenty are pissed.. I've seen wave after wave of people who move in from the city, looking for a better life, only to ignore the plight of those who have lived here for generations.

Unlike many, I try to remain courteous, considerate, and professional. I can't say the same about your husband and my father has a few things to say about you (and he's not as polite)

I'm happy to chat further if you can open your mind to the plight of a coal region girl.

Bre

Me and my papa, two coal region dutchies. Neither of which are perfect, but we certainly are great!