u/harlequinhawk

Mmm we need a survey! You folks fry your Jersey tomatoes in the summer right? When preparing them do you use green or red? Tonight we had Pa’s fresh-out-the-garden green tomatoes with dinner. But my grandmother never had fried green tomatoes. No sir, Granny Lewis always used red tomatoes 🍅 when frying up a batch of deliciousness. And I remember having lots of fried food growing up. Fried snapper, fried chicken, squash and red tomatoes all served up piping hot there along Junction Road in Browns Mills NJ. My wife’s grandfather taught her it was green tomatoes you fried up. So what’s the consensus?

As a historian, I collect things that seem to be destined for the trash heap but should be put in a museum one day when I’m long dead and gone. For I have grown an attachment to my things. And the history of a thing is but a memory to some who still carry the torch of what once was. You’ll see here an assortment of things that sit on my record shelf(s). Records and books are but two of the obvious things that I collect. Another is old T-shirts, which my wife pointed out to me is from the Flemington Farm Fair, which no longer exists, from years and years ago, when I grabbed the T-shirt thrown to the crowd out of the sky. It still fits nicely and is as comfy as your favorite chair at home. What memorable knick-knack do you own that, when you pass away, the kids will put in a yard sale one day?

Bumper crop of sundews in the NJ Pines. These images are from an excursion last week. You’ll notice on some of the sundews (round leaves & threadleaved shown)a green stalk with tiny pea size or less balls dangling which is the flower blooms to be. Probably flowering as we live and breathe today.

What’s our Piney Tribe’s Origin Story? A long read please dont roast me! Written without AI’s help.
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Established April 30th, 2019, as a way to connect people with local history and support Piney culture, traditions, the beauty of the Pines, and more. It’s the only official author page of yours truly, William J. Lewis. Early on, I shared my struggle on Facebook to find a traditional publisher for my very first book project with the group. We grew from 1 to many, over fourteen thousand today in 2026, some seven years later. And we found a publishing company willing to take a chance on a book that today represents the only Piney museum out there- 2021 New Jersey’s Lost Piney Culture. And now, on the eve of number six, we still have more stories to tell! We’ve had our share of challenges along the way. A computer hard drive crash in 2019 nearly derailed the first book’s image-intensive release due to lost one-of-a-kind photos. Another similar incident occurred when a personal laptop was stolen on the island of Oahu from a rental car, which held the only copy of the manuscript for our third 2024 book, eventually being restored from an unknown backup service by the computer manufacturer.

My personal backstory doesn’t seem that significant to me, but I’m willing to share (and have shared) bits and pieces of how I became a writer through life experiences unique to me. I joined the Marine Corps at age 18 to escape the small town I lived in and the limited options in front of me. A high school graduate just starting a career as an ironworker like my father. Nothing wrong with my father's path in life, but I wanted to do something different, not understanding that all paths of a father are much the same in the end. Being of Piney stock, I think I was the first to be born in a hospital. Also, I was the first USMC service member in the family, the first to ever graduate from a 2-year college (Burlington County College BCC), and then a 4-year college (Rider University), and now the family's first published author, with History Press being my publisher for three of my six books.

Yet, no one would have expected it. From a kid who nearly failed first grade due to being out of school too long while battling arthritis causing fluid to accumulate on one knee, hospitalized for months in Mt. Holly. Which was scary for a 7-year-old but probably more traumatic for my mother and father, who had previously lost a one-year-old son, my younger brother Keith Edward, to spinal meningitis. In a family that still worked six to seven days a week to make ends meet. We lived in a trailer park growing up until we got our very first home in New Egypt, which eventually wasn’t sustainable when it was taken over by the bank. Leaving my folks scrambling to keep my sister and me under a roof and fed. My father, never afraid of hard work, who as a 16-year-old high school dropout helped build T & M Homes housing development in Browns Mills, never flinched from his responsibilities to us and never looked for others to help.

Like the creeks and rivers of the Pines, only filled by rain and the trillions of gallons of H2O below, not from outside the Pines but from within, being refreshed, recharged, and renewed. In my lifetime, he dug trees by hand at a nursery. Did manual labor at Clayton Sand Company, eventually became an Iron Worker, but moonlighted by working in the woods to harvest plants from the Richardson Calendar for the Dried Floral Industry, taking my sister and me along as soon as we could walk. We were poor but not that poor, if you know what I mean. My personal work ethic was forged down Warren Grove, NJ, pulling pinecones in winter or pulling grapevine used for wreaths at various farms in Burlington, Monmouth, and Ocean counties, sold to John Richardson, after whom the Richardson Calendar is named. Yet, the example set by my mother and father instilled in me the character that you see today. Work harder and smarter than the next person.

In the Marines, I was an Honor Graduate, top of my leadership school. Yet, we left that all behind in Hawaii when it was suggested I might have to take a tour in Japan without my wife, who was soon to be a first-time mother. No job, a doctor or hospital to give birth at, or a home to bring the newborn home to, we did what we had to for our sprouting family to survive. A mobile trailer across from the Vincentown Diner became home, and I went back to being an Ironworker for a short time until I eventually made my way to college and back to federal employment, leading to getting accepted in the Federal Career Intern Program (25 years of service YTD). Just after a few years spent working as a forklift operator in Burlington, NJ. Since then, we’ve written 6 books, the first debuting at number one on Amazoon and filmed a 90-minute documentary on the life of the Piney is and was because we believe in the history of this place. But again, none of that matters more than my family, which includes our two lovely daughters, who are all grown up now. And yet, today I have to extend that family to you, Piney Tribe, for you've seen me struggle for the last 7 years of my life, knowing the highs and lows and still following along. Thank you for that, my friends. I suppose our story doesn’t end here, so we will have to keep on keepin’ on, remembering where we came from but striving to do better as we go along life’s sugarsand roads.

P.S. Image taken in the late 1980s at the two-story house my paternal grandparents rented off Junction Road, Browns Mills, NJ. There you see Pa in black and me sitting on metal milk crates under the shade of probably the Catalpa tree of my youth growing right out back of the house. Above me, to my left, is a pair of dungaree jeans being dried on the clothes line. Also, to my left would be the steps of the back porch, which would have had a plastic gallon jug or two sitting in the sun making tea. Directly behind me is a pile of freshly cut cattails, and piled high over by the blue wheelbarrow are grapevine wreaths, both items of the Richardson Calendar. A few yards past the cars parked in the dirt is the old Philadelphia and Long Branch Railway, which later became the Pennsylvania Railway, that crosses Junction Road there just before dead man’s curve of lore. There’d be days when we went visiting, where hanging by the tail from a tree in the backyard, a headless snapping turtle that would become yummy fried snapper and/or snapper soup dinner. I spent my summers over at my grandparents' place, which were filled with swim lessons down at the cedar creek at Mary Ann Forge or off the bridge along the Greenwood. Life sure seemed simpler back then, I guess cause I was just a thick-glasses-wearing kid then who idolized my father just like today. That’s our story, and I’m sticking to it!

Trip out last Tuesday to check on some snake mouth orchids which have mostly gone to seed. With all this rain I’m assuming a lot of the wildflowers have taken a pounding. My deepest sympathies for those in flooded and storm tattered neighborhoods. First the heat wave now the heavy rains. Be well, friends.

Michael Tyrrell behind the camera doing an impromptu book cover reveal for My Daily Piney: Heartfelt Stories Rooted in the Pines Fall & Winter Editions. This book completes the 2-book series and is one of our best yet! Michael created the whimsical Sage on the cover and has two pieces of art (Sandhills cranes & Turkey vulture) contained with in the flip book. It’s a daily reader series that requires you to flip the book upside down to read the second portion of the book or the next season of stories. All inspired by time spent in the NJ Pine Barrens. Thank you Michael Tyrrell for helping this project become more than just a stack of paper pages. It comes out officially September 1st.

My talented friend Michael and illustrator for our forth coming book series titled My Daily Piney (rel.9/01). It’s my second series (Quintessential NJ Pine Barrens Collection the 1st). I caught up with him today to give him a T-shirt that I had made up special as promotion but also as a thank you for helping this project come to fruition. He had not seen the second book cover as my book cover designer took all the pieces given and created the work for book one and now book two. A talented friend and fellow local history author Dennis McDonald’s photography is also seen on the cover of book one and two. We shot a short video that I’ll post up later this afternoon. Thanks for reading and being an aficionado of knowledge!

Just got done with processing our last batch of fresh picked Jersey blues. And on to some light reading to keep up with My Daily Piney. By the way, like the hat says, so I’m not the only one who has a Ma like that, right?

Roast me if you want but I know these musical devices have been used historically in our area. In a local Pemberton Township history book it featured several bodies of Jew or Jaw harps found out at Hanover Furnace. I’m a Piney who likes to keep it simple. Toss one of these little twanging things in your pocket and you’re on your way to a good time. Any one else play one? Or dug one up while metal detecting?

hEY hey Hey what's happening?

We have a list of events that had one date change due to the unforsaken weather forecast for this Friday. That event at Whitesbog Village in Browns Mills, NJ, is thankfully moved to earlier in the day and on Sunday. Please be advised and plan accordingly!

How will you be celebrating tomorrow, June 28th, 2026? It will be 113 years since the governor of New Jersey gave a campaign speech that has forever shaped how the nation and the state see the Piney. That's if you know what a Piney is in the first place.

Yesterday, after blueberry picking, we did more garage cleanout and organizing, and I put about 20 bales of grapevine wreaths out to the curb. One stack went to a lady in a jacked-up truck who said she was an interior designer, and she asked where I got them. I told her I was a Piney and that I made them. She didn't know what a Piney was. Here I'm celebrating the history of the people of the Pines 113 years later, as the history hasn't been lost to me or to those who choose to read. And the negative stereotype exists still, but some have forgotten all about the people of the Pines. Yet, some of us are still proud to be Piney, especially knowing the history of the word.

My brother-in-law and my sister handcrafted a museum-case-style box for me to hold the deteriorating Boston Evening Transcript I found online from June 28th, 1913 (even the lock was made in 1913). No Piney Museum to donate it to, I hope one day there will be one before I die.

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