Clara Miller plays trumpet with the Minersville High School marching band during the town's 2019 spirit day. PHOTO BY JACQUELINE DORMER
Originally published in the Pottsville Republican-Herald on September 8, 2019.
Wes Cipolla
MINERSVILLE - At Sunday’s Minersville Spirit Day, a town block party with local food and music, three locals received awards for their service to the community. One of them could not receive his. Joe Lipsett, who died in May at 65, was eulogized by several prominent figures. In his career, Lipsett was a state trooper for 31 years, a gardener, the Rush Township Chief of Police and the Schuylkill County Coroner, among other positions. Sometimes he would even walk into his wife’s salon after work and shampoo the women's hair.
“Joe was a great guy,” said his widow Cel. “Everyone loved him and he did so much for so many people. Even the criminals loved him.”
“You get to know people when you’re in this line of business,” said Representative Neal Goodman. “You see them on their good days and see them in their sad days. And I didn’t know anyone who didn’t like Joe. Everyone had a story about Joe, how he came to their assistance when they needed them most.”
“I wanna thank Minersville for what they do with Spirit Day,” said Schuylkill County Commissioner George F. Halcovage. “I’ve been fortunate to know Joe for his whole life. Our families were friends, but Joe was friends with everybody. Joe was that guy who was never looking for credit, he just wanted to do things for the right reasons.”
“Joe really did care about people, and he was a hometown boy,” Cel said, her voice shaking.
Brothers Alex and Ayden Kurtek won awards for their lemonade stand, the profits of which went to local organizations such as the SPCA, police and fire departments and Litiz’s Wolf Sanctuary of PA, among others.
“This shows what Minersville’s about,” Halcovage said. “The young people that we have.”
Both brothers were speechless.
“I think this is a great honor,” said William, 14, “and extremely… I was surprised to hear my name, yeah.”
“We think it’s a nice thing to do,” said Ayden, 13. “It helps the community and enriches other peoples’ lives, and the animals’ lives too.
“This is the biggest event we have all year,” said Spirit Day Chair Ashley Securda, “and it brings everyone from the borough out.”
Along with Spirit Day, the local fire company held its first breakfast of the season. Inside, antique paintings of firefighters and town notables looked down from the wood-paneled walls, lit by warm electric lamps. On this Sunday morning, families and “old-timers” sat and ate as kids danced across the floor with huge trays of toast. The only building more Pennsylvanian than this one is Independence Hall.
Among the oldest of the “old-timers” is Joe Hudock, 93, a Minersville resident who hasn’t missed a single Spirit Day. Hudock spoke to the fire company about his life and Minersville’s past.
“It was hard, you know?” He said after the speech, sitting in his living room watching the Eagles game with a bag cheese puffs. A dance remix of “Old Town Road” blared from outside. “What can I say? You see mostly all of my friends are all passed away. I know a few people, but the fellas that I used to play with, most of them are all passed away.”
He was born in 1923 and drafted into the U.S. Army while in high school. He was stationed in Yokohama when Japan surrendered, and met an imprisoned Iva Toguri - better known as Tokyo Rose. And he has the pictures to prove it.
“We all had friends, we had people,” he said, sitting in his living room watching the Eagles game with a bag of cheese puffs. “In Minersville it was maybe 6,000 people at one time. We’re lucky to be down to 4,000. The mayor was always right and things were different. At 9:00 the kids had to be home. The whistle used to blow and at 9:00 you had to be home.”
His wife Katie, who died in May of a year he can’t remember, baked a cake every year for the Spirit Day bake sale.
“That was my gal,” he said.
There were more pieces of history to behold at Spirit Day. Webkinz, the stuffed-animal digital pets which were once as sought after as Cabbage Patch Kids in the 80s and Tickle Me Elmo in the 90s, were now unceremoniously dumped in a cardboard box: three for $12. Available at the same souvenirs were stink bombs and “Spice Mice,” plush rats who say New York mobster catchphrases when you squeeze them (“Fuhgeddaboutit!” “I’m da big cheese around here!”) Girls twirled flags and did the Macarena as the Minersville High School marching band played “Don’t Stop Believin’.” A woman in a unicorn headband was filming the concert.
The band members agreed that in a town like this, where everyone knows everyone, it’s good to come together.
“It’s a day of coming together for one big thing,” said clarinetist Joyce Spotts.
“I think that a lot of people think being in a small town is a really bad thing,” said trumpet player Clara Miller, “but when you’re in a small town you get to do things like this and get to know people and it’s like a family.”
Local businesses used Spirit Day to sell their wares. Eric Wurst of Palo Alto, the proprietor of The “Wurst” Hot Sauce, wore a shirt baggy pants covered in red peppers. He has the sunglasses and mustache of a 1980s kung-fu star. He likes the flavor of the hot sauce, as well as the health benefits he says peppers can give you. The spiel is in his bones by now: “There’s no added preserves, no added salts and no added oils. It’s all natural. I can’t say it’s organic, but it’s natural.”
How does one sell hot sauce at an event where the beef kaftas at the Brasil on Wheels food truck have to advertise that they’re “seasoned (not spicy)”? You work the locals over like a true salesman.
“Feel free to treat your taste buds the ‘Wurst’ and try my original flavor,” he said to a customer. She tried his hotter sauce, laughed and took a glug of iced tea. She’d stick to the milder stuff.
“When you run out, give me a shout!” He called to her as she walked away. Then another woman came.
“Step right up, give your taste buds the Wurst!”
Donna Purcell pushed her two grandchildren along the festival street: Lincoln Rhoel, 2, in tiger face paint, shared the stroller with his poodle Angus Young, who crawled all over him.
“Everyone seems so friendly here,” Purcell said about Spirit Day.
Schuylkill Haven’s Artists in Motion Performing Arts school performed for the crowd. Choeli Dullard, 12, of Minersville lip-synced while doing a Spanish flamenco dance in a sequined suit. The golden epaulets on her shoulders bounced as she gyrated and leapt across the macadam, calling herself the great Latin lover “Adolpho.”
“I thought it would be good for the community and make the company happy,” she said. She practiced the routine for several months.
“To me, Spirit Day is about coming as a community together and getting to know each other.”
Choeli’s friend Addison Lescher, 12, of Ashland, sang and played the ukulele.
“I love bringing the community together and sharing music amongst other people,” she said.
After decades of living in Minersville, Hudock could only think of one thing that has changed since his youth.
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