frackville, pa
by Colleen Halupa
da crick: in proper English, known as a creek;
cumpnee: company; people coming over the house so both you and the house
better be clean
Usage:
Don’t youze guys go play near the coal hole or da crick, we’re having cumpnee!”
I can still hear the “coal speak” that made Frackville in the 1970’s unlike any place on earth. People had little formal education, ate strange foods, had strange customs, and struggled to put food on the table since the closing of the coal mines. The Industrial Revolution started in this county in the United States, but it’s remains now lay rusted and broken as the old derelict mine equipment left out on the mountain to rot. The coal dust from the defunct anthracite mines coated row homes like breading on chicken drumsticks crowded together in a pan. Mines intertwined under the town like snake, sometimes biting through the ground to create a sinkhole that swallowed a car or a house. This is where I come from.
Culture
3. babushka: a word from the Polish and Russian language meaning woman’s
head scarf usually in garish patterns or colors
4. shanty Irish: a shanty is an old rundown shed; many Irish were stereotyped as
lazy drunkards and were the lowest level of coal region society
Usage:
Mildred and Gloria da’ wind is blowin’, so youse better get your babushkas on or them
“shanty Irish will make fun of youse guys’ hair or thief them when they blow away!
Frackville was a microcosm filled with blue collar husbands and their wives who wore babushkas on windy days with their cotton house dresses and sensible shoes. Gaggles of children noisily ran rampant in the streets playing ball and riding bikes in the summer, and built snow forts and had snowball fights in the winter. My father was the lowest of the low—a garbage man and shanty Irish to boot. But, I never knew. I was just like anyone else. We never knew or cared whose parents made the most kapoosta (money), the clothes we had, or where we went out to et (eat) supper (not dinner) which we never did, since we couldn’t afford it.
Frackville was one mile long by one mile wide; population 5,000, no car needed. We walked where we needed to go; groceries were a block away. Vegetable gardens were bountiful, as were close friends, family, and nosy neighbors. Neighbors and family fought constantly over stupid slights. The Brady Bunch may have gone to Hawaii, but we never even dreamed about going to da shore (Atlantic City). All we had was each other through the long summer days as we caught lightnin’ bugs (fireflies to every else) in the waning evening light. We never realized we talked “funny” by other people’s standards because of the mispronunciations and bastardization of English and foreign words embedded into our patois by our immigrant forefathers.
Food
5. bleenies: Polish word for potato pancakes
6. halupkies: Ukrainian dish made of rice, beef or pork wrapped in cabbage and
cooked in tomato sauce.
7. pierogies: also called three-corners. Polish food make of boiled minced potatoes,
cheese and finely minced raw onion placed into rolled dough that is folded in half
and pressed together; can be fried or served in butter and onions.
8. block party: a festival usually held by fire companies or churches where food is
served and bingo is played by half-blind old women who never miss a number while
playing 30 cards at a time (and slap your hand if you try to touch them or help)
Usage:
At da block party, we ate bleenies, halupkies and pierogies til’ we puked our guts
out!
Nuf said! The prequel to these events were fire truck parades with eardrum piercing sirens, and the waving flags of the small, out-of-step high school band.
People
9. asspurn: aspirin; an analgesic taken for everything from headaches to piles
(hemmorhoids) in the coal region
10. baba: Ukrainian/Russian for old woman/grandmother; also called stada baba;
11. butt: no, not the gluteus maximus; a coal region term for “hey you.”
12. doopa: Polish; doopa really is the butt or gluteus maximus
13. goin’ to see Aunt Sally: shat women said when they are
excusing themselves to go to the bathroom and don’t want the men to know
Usage:
Hey butt, why’s your baba keep goin’ to see Aunt Sally…her doopa will get sore… she
need an asspurn?
Unique people also brightened and darkened our lives. Older men and women with faded concentration camp tattoos and thick accents. The low-level Mafia wannabees. The hermaphrodite born before corrective surgery who carried a knife in her boot to fend off those who mocked her. The veterans who saw their comrades die and marched in every Decoration Day (Memorial Day) parade. The five-foot tall, obviously senile, former candy store owner who chased my elementary classmate with an axe on the playground. The epileptic who fell into the church’s block party bean soup and lived (they served it—waste not, want not). The former breaker boys who lost fingers as young children pulling rock from the coal at the turn of the 20th century. The teachers, parents and grandparents who struggled to give us a better life.
Customs
14. Anthracite special: meal served family style for funerals, weddings and other
occasions consisting of regional foods above plus city chicken, rolls and butterene
and canned vegetables (never fresh)
14a. city chicken: small chunks of pork, veal and chicken placed on a stick,
breaded and deep-fried
14b. butterene: margarine; Blue Bonnet if you were being fancy
15. Mischief night: October 30th when children soaped windows and threw eggs at
houses (eggin’), especially the people they did not like.
16. Half-holiday: every Wednesday when businesses and banks closed at noon;
custom left over from the Depression when banks had little money and businesses
had no wares
Usage:
There’s a half-holiday on Mischief Night, you daresn’t start eggin’ early or dere will be
an Anthracite special after youze funeral!
Good Friday: no food, TV, reading or movement from 12 noon to 3 p.m., the three hours Christ was on the Cross. Nuns with the rulers they used to smack bad public school kids’ hands in catty-kism (catechism).
New Year’s Day: pork and sauerkraut to clean out the digestion whether you liked (or needed) it nor not. 2nd Christmas: January 7th, Russian Christmas. August 15th: Donut day—everyone ate doughnuts or it was “the hex on ya” (bad luck). Beer: acceptable morning, noon or night from the age 10 on.
Be polite: “Or youze will get whacked on the on the dupa!”
Fight your own battles: “If youze get hit on the playground and don’t hit ‘em back, then
I’ll whack youze on the dupa!
Tell the truth, even if you get in trouble: “Then I won’t whack youze on the dupa.”
Work hard: “No one is gonna’ do it for youze, money don’t grow on no trees.”
Word hard: “Have a better life than we’z guys did.” This meant I love you.
Schuylkill County PA, home of Tommy Dorsey, the Molly McGuires, John O’Hara and the polka capital. Frackville: Freakville, Frickville, The Mountain City (town actually) and Planeville (if one drunk had not lost to the other drunk who wanted the town after him). Where I come from—humbly.
P.S. I worked hard—
Reference
Coal Region Enterprises. 2020. The CoalSpeak Dictionary. Accessed January 27, 2020.
https://www.coalregion.com/speak/speaka.php
Colleen Halupa is a university dean, professor, and former health care administrator. She is a creative, multi-modal writer; she has published poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction. She is a graduate of the University of Denver's creative writing program. She lives in Texas with her husband and numerous animals on a small farm in the piney woods, but grew up in Frackville, PA.