![]() Wasiowich became somewhat of a Pinelands celebrity after he was mentioned extensively as a character in a major book written about the Pinelands 55 years ago by Pulitzer Prize-winning author John McPhee. He turned 83 in June but didn't celebrate. He has a satellite radio but no phone or television, which he said is not worth watching. "I'm never sick except for a cold once in a while," boasts Wasiowich, a quiet man who has never been a big talker. A hint of white whisker stubble shows on his weathered face. His signature outfit: a plaid flannel shirt hanging outside of khaki trousers, and topped off with a baseball cap - his latest in woodsy camouflage. "I moved here later because it was cheaper to live," he said in recounting a scant more of his early life. Raised in Chatsworth, he attended elementary school in Vincentown and high school in Pemberton Township but says he dropped after ninth grade. Forager says he moved to the Pines due to cost As a side business, he still makes wreaths from pine cones he collects and paints, often in brilliant colors. Lately, he's spending time clearing out the largest of his sheds where he used to store his sphagnum moss. I started getting checks after I found out the farm employer where I picked berries for 10 years from 1959 to 1969 had that money taken out of my pay for me." "At my age, I can't do everything I once did. He no longer forages regularly for moisture-rich sphagnum moss that carpets many swamp bogs of the Pines, nor is he gathering stalks of harvested blueberry bushes after decades doing that back-breaking work to make a living by selling them to florists and crafters. "My days of working like a 20-year-old are coming to an end." What's he doing these days? "When I work around, I do whatever comes into my head whenever," the scruffy Wasiowich said while tinkering outside at his wooden work bench on a humid afternoon. He's still cutting felled trees to sell for firewood - though not as often now -and to heat his rented house. And living alone in the woods he he has no one to answer to. Woodcutter and forager Bill Wasiowich is taking it easier and doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants.Īs one of the very last of the hunter-gatherers living off the land in the more than million-acre New Jersey Pinelands, the independent and resourceful "Piney" has no set daily work schedule now that he is 83. An old timer living a solitary life in the wilds of the New Jersey Pinelands is in no hurry to work as the day dawns.
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