The Best of Times: Joe Zanotti on Growing up in Braeburn, Pennsylvania.

Joe Zanotti

As a kid, Joe Zanotti spent considerable time at his grandparents’ home in Braeburn, a small Pennsylvania town of hard-working steel mill employees. He tells a story about the town’s train station and how, on St. Patrick’s Day in 1936, a flooding river washed it away. There are many memories from that era that hold a spot firmly in Joe Zanotti’s heart. Take, for instance, his family trips to Pollack’s farm, where the group would pick chickens to cook for Sunday dinner. He likes to tell the story of how he once saw his grandmother remove an egg from a cooking hen. He was so confused and appalled that he refused to eat chicken for the better part of a month. He had always taken for granted that eggs came from the grocery store; he found out otherwise that summer!

There were a lot of lessons taught in that little town of immigrant workers, and Joe Zanotti is proud to have had the chance to learn them first hand.