Two towns, linked by tough times

Marlton is wealthier, the Clementon area worn; they share the strain of job loss.

For a while, the family appeared to be living with just that kind of luck, until Bisicchia, 45, was laid off in January from Comcast, where he worked as a newscaster and TV producer.

Born in Camden and raised in South Philadelphia, Bisicchia always thought of middle-class places like Marlton as tidy-lawned utopias.

His bricklayer father, who lived for a while in a cave in Sicily to escape Benito Mussolini, preached social mobility and forbade his boy from even picking up a brick.

"I want my son to be somebody," Carmen Bisicchia announced.

Joe Bisicchia, a fit, dark-haired man with kind eyes, majored in communications at La Salle University. After graduation, he married, visited Marlton, and was instantly drawn to it. "It didn't have a blue-collar feel," he said. "It had a sense of Americana. Here was a chance to let your kids be part of soccer Saturdays.

"It was people making something of their college educations, following their dreams."

Recently, Bisicchia took a break from his job search to play with his four sons, ages 14, 12, 10, and 5. They rolled around on a lush lawn in a neighborhood where nothing outwardly looks amiss.

But then Dad ended the frolic. It was a workday without work, after all, and Bisicchia had to get back to the phone and computer in the dining room and generate a miracle.

"Unemployment has been a roller coaster," he said. "There are times you feel you find your core, say it's good to be alive, and you can get down to basics.

"Then you hit the nadir - get rejected for a job. Those moments are devastating."

Bisicchia cried when he explained that he didn't get a high-school job teaching English that he'd applied for after passing a state teacher's exam.

So far, Bisicchia hasn't missed a mortgage payment, though, he said, "it's property taxes that scare you."

Still, the severance he was paid and his savings are evaporating. And the $600 weekly unemployment check, which is standard, is a fraction of what he used to make.

College savings are nonexistent, and the "fix engine" light has been on for a while in the family's 1997 Buick LeSabre with 113,000 miles. Meanwhile, his wife, Cosima, just ended her temporary, part-time day-care job.

It's rough, but Bisicchia tries to stay positive, drawing hope from his religious faith. The family might have to move, but he wants to stay.

"We're blessed in Marlton," he said. "There's a sense of God, family, and work here. It's where you want your kids to be." To remain, Bisicchia said, he must reinvent himself: "I'm trying to figure out who next to be. I really want to be a teacher because I think I can make a difference. And all I've been going through would make me a better teacher, I believe."

What makes it harder for the unemployed in Marlton is their inconspicuousness.

Deacon Tarzy of St. Joan of Arc said many people in a middle-class community like Marlton weren't used to asking for help. "The unemployed were still coming to church," he said. "But you don't see what a person is praying for - asking the Lord to help them find a job." Now, he counsels nearly 50 people in biweekly meetings.

The Marlton area (which makes up quite a bit - but not all - of Evesham) is as diverse as it is large, making it hard to gauge. It encompasses what Temple urban-studies professor David Bartelt calls a "crazy mix" of McMansions on golf courses, a quaint downtown, suburban sprawl, and a large forested area.

Nevertheless, Tarzy said, unemployment is having a slow, rippling effect.

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