Current Bordentown
SEPTEMBER 2020 FREE
COMMUNITYNEWS.ORG
Spark on the diamond Rees Pillik an asset in summer tournaments
Teacher takes rare diagnosis into her own hands
BY RICH FISHER
BY SAM SCIARROTTA
As he was officiating rec basketball this past winter, Jim Petersohn was also moonlighting as a baseball talent evaluator. Petersohn reffed in the Bordentown Recreation League. One of the participants was Rees Pillik, who happened to also play on Petersohn’s Hamilton-Northern Burlington Babe Ruth All-Star team. During last year’s 14-yearold season, Pillik was not a starter but still managed some key hits. During the hoop season, his manager got a better read on him where intangibles were concerned. “He fights hard and he’s just a real competitor,” Petersohn said. “I learned a lot about him over the winter. I started to really respect a lot how hard he works. Even though it was a different sport, I could see I could utilize that in baseball.” He harkened back to the past in describing Pillik on the court, comparing him to a Los Angeles Laker from the 1980s. “He’s a very good, scrappy basketball player; he’s like the Kurt Rambis of the Bordentown Rec League,” Petersohn said. “He’s an old school player. He did all the dirty work and I just gained a real respect for the athlete that he was overall.” The qualities described by Petersohn are what a team likes to see from its leadoff hitter. And with H-NB losing See PILLIK, Page 10
Christina Koysla knows her body. The self-described healthiest person she knew, Koysla taught yoga, stayed active—she even hiked the 500-mile Camino de Santiago spiritual pilgrimage from France to Spain. So when she first felt a tinge of pain in her shoulder in 2017, she knew something was wrong, and she was right. Koysla was eventually diagnosed with a desmoid tumor that next year. But that diagnosis came after months of self-advocacy and fighting for her medical rights. At first, Koysla chalked the pain up to handstands and other advanced yoga poses. She saw a physical therapist who thought it was an impinged nerve. A coworker at Stuart Country Day School, though, noticed some swelling on Koysla’s collarbone and encouraged her to get it checked out. All of this started a few months before that Camino de Santiago journey, and she started to get nervous. She saw one more doctor before she left and was told she had a lipoma—a lump under the skin—and that she could safely continue on with her trip. They would go ahead with surgery when Koysla, a Bordentown resident, came back. See KOYSLA, Page 8
Jim Parker (left) and Melissa L. E. Baker will both be performing at the Bordentown Historical Society’s Harrowing History storytelling series starting this month.
The dark side of Bordentown Storytelling event to showcase the city’s spooky past BY SAM SCIARROTTA
Bordentown’s historical past is well-documented—residents like Thomas Paine and Joseph Bonaparte, its part in the American Revolution. But Kristi Kantorski and the Bordentown Historical Society took an interest in another side of that story: the city’s seedy underbelly. Starting Sept. 19, the historical society will present Harrowing History, a storytelling
program that focuses on true tales from the darker side of the area’s past. “Harrowing History is about Bordentown’s creepy, scary, and often hushed history as pulled from century old local and national records,” Kantorski said. “These are the true stories of murder, mayhem and tragedy.” Old newspaper articles sparked the idea for the program in January 2019. Bordentown Historical Society co-president Doug Kiovsky found a file of old Register News articles from the 1870s, many of which were “dark and somewhat sinister,” Kantor-
ski, the society’s artistic director, said. “Seeing the articles, I began to wonder what else might have occurred here,” she said. “My curiosity was piqued, and I began researching. I’ve spent over 18 months researching these stories and continue to do so even now— I’ve gathered info that paints the picture for a few dozen events and stories. I liken the research path for this program to detective work. The more I find, the more inspired I am to find more.” Costumed storytellers— including Kantorski and society co-president Timothy RolSee HISTORY, Page 6
(609) 379-3860 www.TitleEvolution.com See our our ad ad on on page See page 3
Grand Opening! see our ad on page 12
1179 NEWARK, NJ