I lived in Hopewell Township in western Pennsylvania, a classic blue-collar mid-America town. There wasn’t much to do or much around other than the steel mills, factories, and hills. My father worked at the J&L Steel mill and my mother at the Phoenix Glass factory. They were hard-working people that couldn’t even imagine leaving their hometown. Western PA was filled with hard-working, dedicated blue-collar workers, who took great pride in what they did for a living. This work ethic and pride were instilled in all of us, especially some of my closest friends from junior high and high school. Friends like Ed Wilamowski, Danny Raines, Joe Durinsky, Bob Rosati, Bill Sosko, Jeff Hineman, Ed Burak, Gary Ciccone, Tony Dorsett, and others. All of my friends and I competed in high school athletics. Most of us played high school football and baseball. There wasn’t much else to do at the time, and this is what was expected of boys.
Joining the FBI was a dream that most people from our small town would never consider pursuing. That was for big-city folk. Most of the residents of Hopewell ended up working in the steel mills or other factory jobs that were in abundance. The mills offered a great way to make a living just like our fathers and their fathers before them. But I knew that it was not for me. I had to be an FBI Special Agent.
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