“Like all West Siders, I think, my funny stories easily slip into Southern Gothic Horror in the blink of an eye. I love the black humor of home,” Barrett said in anticipation of the slam. “I’m going to keep mine on the lighter side with a story about the West Side Missy League, circa early-to-mid 1980s.”

Kate Barrett is a writer and web strategist living in the D.C. area. She grew up in West Side. She still adheres to the Scranton boiled water advisory of the 1980s after her childhood parish priest, a vivid storyteller, described the painful diarrhea that Giardiasis in the tap water gave him.  She has not drunk tap water in Scranton or any of the five states she has lived in since.