Monday, May 23, 2016

For Carlinpa


1 comment:

carlnepa said...

Thank you, again, kind sir. I found an article which reported that in 1928 Mr. Weismuller, then promoting a brand of swimwear, let's call it Jantzen, came to Wilkes-Barre, PA., to swim in the Susquehanna River. I grew up close enough to the Susque, as we called it, that you could smell it two miles away. The water and shoreline was orange with iron oxide from the acid mine water and run off. Mine water still flows into the river. Back in the 70's a truck stop operator figured out that the Butler Mine Tunnel ran under his property. He allowed tanker trucks to dump whatever toxic waste they had into a bore hole that drained into the tunnel and under the city of Pittston.
Coal was washed in river water. There is still dredging 50 miles downriver toward Harrisburg to retrieve the coal that washed downstream. There was a lot of other stuff dumped into the river as well. Mr. Weismuller needed the courage of Tarzan to swim in that river. They probably didn't have to apply any make up while filming the Tarzan movies to darken his skin. The river took care of that. Probably burned off all his body hair, too.