Tom Berner is in Tamaqua - He Sent This Picture of Our Old House

221 Catawissa Street - Tamaqua PA

Tom Berner used to be the sportswriter for the Tamaqua Evening Courier. He later went on to be a professor at Penn State University. After he retired - he moved to New Mexico about the same time we moved to Florida.

This week - Tom returned to Pennsylvania and bought a home near State College. You can take the boy out of the Coal Regions - but you cannot take the Coal Regions out of the boy. We are fellow Coal Crackers forever. A couple of months ago - we visited Tom in Albuquerque NM.

In 1973 - Lulu and I built this house from a cedar kit marketed by Lindal Cedar Homes of Seattle. The home cost $20,000 to build including the $3000 for the land. After living in it 30 years - in 2003 we sold it for $130,000. Except for a few decorations - and the trees being a little bigger - it looks just like we left it. Paul Dodson - my former shop teacher - did most of the building - I simply held the boards :-)

Lulu and I built our home in this spot because from the porch you could see the spot where we met in the summer of 1969 - the community swimming pool. I was the life guard - she was the cute girl in the bikini.