This year the Scranton StorySlam is coming to your neighborhood, and our first stop was West Side!
The premier Scranton StorySlam of 2013 took place on Saturday, March 30, in West Side at Haggerty’s Tavern. The theme, of course, was West Side Stories. West Side is full of interesting characters and stories that cannot be repeated in polite company.
Storytellers included beloved West Siders:
Kate Barrett, Mark Dennebaum, Cy Douaihy, Joe Fasula, Mike Foster, Rich Howells, and Maureen Welby McNichols.
Charming and talented West Sider Tony Bartocci was the Master of Ceremonies. People loved his West Side themed charades, during which contestants acted out various neighborhood landmarks all while maintaining the classic West Side hand sign.
Two wild cards from the audience joined the lineup. Ted Michalowski, tried to keep it clean because his eighth grade history teacher Cy Douaihy was in the room. Ted shared memories of serving as an altar boy and the various challenges of parochial school. Jim Bosha took home the Slammy for his story about a childhood discovery of what he imagined was a human soul in a trash burn bin out back of the funeral home in which he lived with his family. You must hear the tale as only Jim can tell it.
Joining us to judge this event was Justine Johnson, J. W. Colwell, and West Side’s own Tom Borthwick.