Cheryl Deep has fond memories of growing up in the Charleroi area.
"Ahh, yes, those roots," said Deep, a communications consultant in Northville, Mich. "I'm proud of the years I spent in Charleroi. I learned most of what has remained important to me during those years. I gained the courage to jump out into the world and explore, living in more than a dozen different cities from Hawaii to Australia to Connecticut. One of the benefits of growing up in a small town is that we are just naive enough to not be afraid. So I tend to jump into things assuming I'll figure it out as I go along."
Deep is the daughter of Virginia Everett, now 80 and living only a few miles from her in Northville, and Harry Everett, who was her stepfather for 30 years before his death in 1998. The Everetts owned Everett Homes on Fallowfield Avenue in Charleroi and built more than 100 homes in the Charleroi area. Later they built sun porches and greenhouses under the Azcon Total Construction name.
Deep's father and stepmother, Joe and Holly Deep, live in Upper St. Clair.
"My friends and I liked to walk the streets of Charleroi on Thursday and Saturday nights when the stores were open late," Deep said. "We'd go into Orange's (department store) and admire the fancy clothes and jewelry, though we couldn't afford any. The 5 and 10 was more our speed. The girls and I would walk past the pool hall, wondering what sorts of mischief went on in there and being slightly miffed that girls weren't allowed in."
Deep also recalled Cox's, on the corner of Fifth Street and McKean Avenue, where "we bought most of our school clothes."
"And there were a landmark bakery and a candy store we frequented," she said. "Keystone had the best apricot-filled cookies ever and Gene and Boots had the biggest variety of delicious candy. Of course, Armando's pizza was the absolute best in the world. Saturday night wouldn't be complete without a piece of that pizza."
Generally, Deep, a 1974 graduate of Charleroi Area High School, remembers the "whole town was thriving" in those days.
"Stores did well, and there were no empty storefronts," she said. "New banks and shops were opening. We had the latest clothes and shoe styles. People you knew were always out on the streets. Charleroi bustled with a genuine sense of community and goodwill that I had not experienced anywhere else.'
Deep and her family lived in Rodgers Manor, a new development in Fallowfield Township that had "only a few houses but plenty of woods when we moved there," she said.
"I loved walking through those woods and exploring with my dog, Bananas," she said. "Of course, I kept hoping other children would move into our neighborhood, but that took a few years."
Eventually, a family named Guynes moved in behind the Everetts and they had a daughter who attended Charleroi Area Junior High and who would go on to gain international acting fame as Demi Moore.
"I baby-sat her a few times, never dreaming she was destined for greatness," Deep said. 'I also worked with her dad, Danny Guynes, who got me a summer job at The Daily Herald newspaper in Monongahela before I went off to Northwestern University to study journalism. He was the head of advertising at the paper. Jack Schiffer, our next door neighbor, was the publisher. I often wonder if that had anything to do with my getting the job."
Deep's good friends from the same grade in high school were Pam Magruda, Karen Flament, Cindy Colvin, Diane Koren, Vicky Motycki, Brenda and Debby Simala, Cherle Watts and Debi Sikora, "some of the B-Lunch girls."
"Pam's grandfather bought her a new car when she got her driver's license," Deep recalled. "Pam and Karen and I would cruise through California trying to get college boys to give us a second look. It never worked but we felt very cool and grown up when we did it."
For summer fun, Deep said, she and Karen Flament enjoyed swimming.
"We made friends with some kids who lived in Roscoe and would go swimming up there," she said. "They had a diving platform set up across the river. We'd jump in on the Roscoe side and swim across that river fast, because a barge was usually heading toward us. It was nuts and dangerous with no adults anywhere around, but we never gave it a second thought. We'd spend the whole day there swimming, picnicking and water skiing. The water was probably toxic with pollution, but we survived and had cheap yet memorable fun on the Magnificent Mon."
Deep also recalls swimming at Redd's Beach (now Pine Coach Beach Club) in Fallowfield Township.
"When we weren't being river rats, we were splashing around in that giant pool and having competitions in the sauna to see who could spend the most minutes in there without passing out," she said.
Among the boys, Deep said she became friends with Blane Black, Eric Huhn, Ed Hank, Reed Popovich and Jim Hazy. And she had a special friendship with Scott Kellman.
"Scott was the person who suggested I go to Northwestern for journalism because his sister had, and that was a life-changing decision for me," Deep said. "He now lives in Ann Arbor, about 20 minutes from me, and has been extremely successful in life. I see him now and then. Eric (Huhn) and I have remained close, too, although it's harder since he lives outside Philadelphia. We share similar, bizarre senses of humor."
Today, at age 49, Deep is "working hard to stay fit."
"I started running for stress relief in college and have kept up the habit ever since," she said, noting that she ran "very slowly" in the St. Louis Marathon several years ago. "Now I run about five miles twice a week and do lots of yoga because old joints like that much better. I feel good most of the time although clearly I'm aging. There is something quite motivating about knowing I have roughly 25 good years left."
Deep said her life in Charleroi and the Mon Valley played a role in her decision to relocate her family to Northville.
"A big reason I chose to move here when we returned from Australia is that Northville has a little downtown of shops and restaurants like Charleroi," she said. "Unfortunately, Northville is struggling, too, because the small shop owners can't compete with the major national stores. But the sense of community is still there. I like that. My upbringing in Charleroi and experience of the world have convinced me that smaller is better. It's more human. I'd rather have five people know me well than 500 people who barely know my name."
