Billybytes Publications have investigated and established the nexus between octogenarians Anna Mae Kessler, age 81, a former resident of 574 Bangor Road, Plainfield Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, and Alice Mae (Nee Kays) Kitchen, 86, of Hainsburg Village, Knowltown Township, Warren County, New Jersey.

Anna Mae Kessler and Alice Mae Kitchen share more in common than just the initials of their middle name (which also, not coincidentally but through the inscrutable intervention of God Almighty, is also the middle name of my mother, Ida Mae Givens. age 92.

What these two octogenarians and one nanogenarian do not share, however, is this: My mother lives in the home of her loving daughter and my sister, Patsy and her husband, Bill, both of whom I have mentioned in postings on this blog.

Octogenerians Anna Mae Kessler and Alice Mae Kitchen, unfortunately, both live, against their wills, are warehoused in assisted-living and/or nursing homes: Anna Mae in Williams Manor, located at 164 baron Road, Bushkill Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania.

Alice Mae Kitchen is held incommunicado except for her son Ralph in the Slate Belt Nursing Home in Bangor Borough, Northampton County, Pennsylvnia, even though Alice Mae spent all her life in New Jersey until December 2006, when she was forced into involuntary confinement in the the Slate Belt Nursing Home, where she remains incarcerated to this date.

The two octogenarians share something else, and it is sinister: The attorney representing Ralph Kitchen in the custody/guardianship battle currently waged between him and his daughter Diane Kays Kitchen, Alice Mae’s granddaughter, is Donald Souder, Esq.

Souder, a resident of Nazareth Borough, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, but licensed to pracitice law in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, recently joined the New-Jersey headquartered law firm of Florio, Perrucci, steinhardt, and Fader as a partner.

Partner Florio is James Florio, a resident of South Jersey, and a former U.S. Congressman, Governor, Chairman of the New Jersey Pinelands Commission, and a member of the board of directors of the newly created New Jersey Highlands Water Protection Commission with authority over seven New Jersey counties, including Warren County.

Partner Perrucci, a native of Phillipsburg, Warren County, New Jersey, who may also be a dual resident of Saucon Valley, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, is a former chairman of the Warren County Democratic Party Committee, treasurer fof the campaigns of former U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli, and a principal of Sands BethWorks LLC, the Las Vegas gambling casino of gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson, the major shareholder of the Sands/Venetian combine that owns casinos in Las Vegas, the colony of Macao, Red China, and the BethWorks casino proposed for construction on the former Bethlehem Steel Corporation in the City of Bethlehem’s South Side neighborhood, a toxic, contaminate Superfund Site.

Doughlas Steinhardt is the Mayor of Lopatcong Township, Warren County, New Jersey, and Chairman of the Warren County Republican Party Committee.

Paul Fader is a former Mayor of Englewood, Bergen County, New Jersey, and an associate in that municipality of Beth Gorin.  Gorin left her position as Englewood’s Director  Community and Economic development to replace the Executive Director of the troubled Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation, Ray Suhocki, who suddenly resigned.

His unexpected resignation shocked the Lehigh Valley - just as it was shocked by the sudden resignation of Beth Gorin after only eight months at the helm and with a severance package of $70,000 plus benefits.

Needless to say, the law firm of Florio, Perrucci, Steinhardt, and Fader (and the list of new partners joining the firm seems to grow daily) wield enormous influence in both Warren and Northampton counties, in both the keystone state of Pennsylvania and the Garden State of New Jersey, in their capitals, Harrisburg and Trenton, respectively, and Inside the Belthway.

Douglas Steinhardt is deeply involved in the mushrooming scandal in the Warren County Pollution Control Financing Authority stemming from the large deposits of PCFA revenue in the First Hope Bank of Hope, Warren County, New Jersey.

The Billy Bytes Publications see and report the growing evidence of corruption  in both Warren and Northampton counties, especially since Warren County was rejoined as a siamese twin of Northampton County by the federal Office of Buget and Management (OB&M) based on the year 2000 national census.

Both Anna Mae and Alice Mae owned their homes, which they’ve lost, and stocks.

There is evidence that their stocks may have been wiped out in the Prudential-Bache stock fraud of the not-too-distant past.
(To be continued)

P.S.  There is another connection the Billy Bytes Publications almost forget to mention here: It was an article posted on the www.billybytes.com/blog/ regarding Anna Mae Kessler that Alice Mae Kitchen’s granddaughter, Diane Kays Kitchen, saw and led her to the blog - initially with a comment on the posting.

As the Billy Bytes Publications came to learn, their blog’s creator and editor came to know that Diane’s great uncle, Casey Kays, is the storied savior of Sunfish Pond, a pristine, a survivor with its unmistakable bluish-green hue of the Glacier Era, nestled in the Appalachian Mountains near the Pennsylvania-New Jersey border, not far from his home in Hackettstown, New Jersey, where he still resides.

This editor had met Casey 20 years earlier, before leaving his home in Blairstown Township, Warren County, New Jersey, and moving to Easton, Pennsylvania, Northampton County, just across the Delaware River from Phillipsburg.

This editor met Casey in connection with the Paulinskill Valley Trail, built on the bed of an abandoned railroad traversing all of Warren County and a third of Sussex County, New Jersey, to the north and west.

Casey Kays’s fight to save Sunfish Pond included enlisting the support of Justice William O. Douglas of the U.S. Supreme Court who left his bench in the nation’s capital to come to New Jersey and hike the Appalachian Trail to Sunfish Pond.