Though he left Uniontown for Maryland after high school, Jim Burger has never stopped visiting or thinking about the town where he grew up. <\/p>\n
The Baltimore-based photographer and writer has turned those reflections into a new book, \u201cLong Journey Home \u2014 Tales Of Growing Up in Uniontown, Pennsylvania.\u201d He\u2019ll be selling and signing copies from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday at Darby\u2019s Pub & Restaurant, 145 Morgantown St.<\/p>\n
Burger went on to become a professional photographer, working for the City Paper and Baltimore Sun before becoming a freelance photographer in 1999, gathering clients like AARP and BlueCross BlueShield. <\/p>\n
He\u2019d already written a book about Baltimore a few years ago. For his latest book, he\u2019d set out to write about the concept of home, planning to weave between stories of Baltimore and Uniontown that would tie in to each other.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started gathering together all the Uniontown stories, and I thought, \u2018You know what? I have enough here that I could just write a Uniontown book.’\u201d<\/p>\n
Plenty of landmarks from Burger\u2019s childhood make appearances in the book, from stories about going to the Uniontown Jewish Community Center to working at his father\u2019s bar, Lenny Burger\u2019s Hillside Inn. He started out washing dishes and cleaning, eventually becoming a bartender when he was old enough. His parents had made a deal with him: They\u2019d pay for his college education at the Maryland Institute College of Art; in return, he\u2019d come back and work for any college break longer than a weekend. <\/p>\n
\u201cI could do nothing but some bar stories if I wanted to,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Most of the book covers the period before Burger graduated Uniontown Senior High School in 1978. But it ends with a walk he took around Uniontown a couple of months ago, retracing his steps and thinking about the many former sights that aren\u2019t there anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe book is about the passage of time and friendship and loss, things that have changed,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s a very loving look at Uniontown.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some of the photos Berger took as a fledgling photographer became catalysts for stories. <\/p>\n
Shortly after he got his first camera, Ronald McDonald made a promotional visit to the McDonald\u2019s in Uniontown. Burger was part of the crowd that flocked to see McDonald drive around the parking lot of the Uniontown Shopping Center in a motorized hamburger.<\/p>\n
\u201cHundreds of people came out to see Ronald McDonald, and that\u2019s one of the first photos I ever shot, and it\u2019s one of the photos that\u2019s in the book,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
That, in turn, led to a chapter on the shopping center, and how much influence it had on his neighborhood and the people who lived nearby. <\/p>\n
One of those things that have changed is his father\u2019s bar, now Darby\u2019s Pub & Restaurant, which is hosting Saturday\u2019s book signing. <\/p>\n
Many of his friends, some of whom make appearances in the book, are getting together for Saturday\u2019s reception. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes something like this to get a group of people to come back to Uniontown,\u201d he said. It\u2019s often a life event, either a wedding or a funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n
Burger\u2019s seen a few other books on Uniontown, recalling one particularly dense tome he tried to make his way through as a child. <\/p>\n
Readers won\u2019t have that struggle connecting with Burger\u2019s book, which he likes to think of as \u201centertaining and a good read.\u201d<\/p>\n
For locals, it\u2019ll remind them of places they\u2019ve forgotten about, or give them another perspective on places they remember. <\/p>\n
But it also hits on universal themes \u2014 childhood mischief, missing your friends, or seeing the way your hometown has changed \u2014 that could hook any reader, Burger said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s set in Uniontown, but other people can read it,\u201d he said. \u201cUniontown just happens to be the catalyst for it. I\u2019d be very surprised if anybody could read this book and at the end of it say, \u2018You know what? I felt nothing.’\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though he left Uniontown for Maryland after high school, Jim Burger has never stopped visiting or thinking about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":33174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[692,223,88,27660,27661],"class_list":{"0":"post-33173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-book","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-fayette-county","12":"tag-uniontown"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}