About Me

My photo
I'm not doing this project to necessarily make new longterm friends, or go have a drink with these people. Nor is it to pass any judgements on ones life. My goal is to simply meet interesting, and maybe not so interesting strangers who I wouldve never taken the time to talk to otherwise. One that may differ, or perhaps relate to my own life. So many times, you walk past someone, and they wont even raise their head in the slightest to say hello. I'll never understand why. The challenge to myself is not only to surpass that simple hello with one person a day, but to convince them to look into my lens and tell me something about themselves. My name is Amanda Surkin, and this is my journey of meeting 100 new faces. Take the time to listen, you may learn something :)

Monday, February 13, 2012

Stranger #1


Stranger #1-

Do you know your mailman? Yea, me either. But I had the chance to stop and meet one of Frankfords longterm mail carriers when I was photographing in the area. It's only day one, and one lady looked at me as if I was absolutely insane, another one blessed me with her cross. Which in turn, only made me want to keep searching for that one stranger who would give a shit enough to talk to me.

Meet Kathy Dial. Without talking to her, you would never know it, she's a hardworking woman, a mother of three, and upholds 3 jobs. She has been delivering mail for 18 years, bags your groceries at Acme, and serves that shot of Jack in a local bar. She admitted that bartending is her favorite, but at this point I was wondering why and how in the world she made time for all of this.

I talked to Kathy for quite awhile, longer than I thought considering she was working. During this conversation, she mentioned the amazing survival story of one of her sons, named Eric Dial. Eric has been a police officer for 12 years, and now teaches at the Police Academy. At 34, he was diagnosed with Colon Cancer which eventually spread to his liver. He has had over 20 surgeries, chemo therapy and 75% of his liver has been removed. There has been countless amount of fundraisers in his honor, and he is respectfully known all around Frankford. Medical bills have racked up, and it's been a struggle. You think you have it bad? This is why I love talking to people. Everything that you think is so wrong in your life, reconsider. There is someone out there that may be facing a bigger battle.

Erics story.
http://www.getyourrearingear.com/stories/survivor-stories/eric-dial/ - Survivor story

Search, Support & LIKE- Team Eric Dial

1 comment:

  1. here is his story, as seen through the eyes of his wife http://dialsuseofforce.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete