If given the opportunity to sit across the negotiating table from Wheatland Tube Co. Vice President Bill Kerins, Leslie Powell would have but a few simple requests.

"One of the things I would ask Bill is that he take the time to listen to what they (striking workers) are saying and try to negotiate to the best of his ability," Mrs. Powell, 36, said Friday, nearly 16 weeks after her husband Chris and his union, United Steelworkers Local 1660, went on strike at the Wheatland plant. "And I'd ask him to try to think about the families and the company for the best interests of everyone involved."

The Powells and their three sons -- Tyler, 12, Trey, 9, and Tanner, 6 -- of 2356 Mercer-West Middlesex Road, Lackawannock Township, are among some 470 families struggling to make ends meet since Local 1660 went on strike on April 28 in what is believed to be the longest strike in company history.

And they, like the hundreds of other families, are doing their best to make the most of what has become a lost summer.

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