Occupy Emmaus is Still Happening

Despite how things may have appeared at the Emmaus Triangle today, Emmaus is still “occupied.”

Just after lunch, Casey, age 18 and a graduate of Southern Lehigh High School, was sitting on one of the stone planters in , his handwritten, cardboard-box sign lying next to him.

Casey was in the process of donning his ear buds when I identified myself as the Emmaus Patch editor, asked him if he was familiar with Patch (he was!) and if we could talk for a few minutes.

He told me is still going on, but that he’s a bit disappointed with the support the movement is getting. He’s spent the past three days on the Triangle, he said.

Casey’s reason for supporting Occupy Emmaus is simple – he can’t find a job and hasn’t been able to since he graduated from high school. He lives a couple of blocks from the Triangle and wants to find work that he can do with his hands within walking distance of his home.

“I’m good with my hands,” he said, adding that he went to “tech” after graduating from Southern Lehigh.

When I told him that Emmaus Patch users think that Occupy Emmaus is over because the Triangle has been empty today, he said that he wasn’t on the Triangle this morning because he had to babysit his nephew.

Casey said that the number of Occupy Emmaus supporters on the Triangle had thinned because many of the people who came out Friday afternoon and over the weekend are students and they are back in school today.

Plus, he said, “we had a hard time waking people up to get them out here this morning.”

The high school supporters are expected back later today when school gets out, Casey said, and more people will come out because the weather is so nice today, he added.

He also said that although he was the only Occupy Emmaus supporter in Triangle Park during our chat, he wasn’t there alone this afternoon – two others, event organizers Chris Marksberry and Kurt Thomas had just left the Triangle to go buy some coffee.

As got in my car and was driving away from Triangle Park, Casey got up from his bench, picked up his sign and walked over to the Triangle Park fence along Main Street. He was holding up the sign as cars moved through the traffic light at Fourth and Main streets when I left.