Exeter Township School District

Thomas Penn Houck of Spring Township turned 65 just before midnight.

They were born in Reading in St. Joseph Medical Center as 1947 turned to 1948, which happened to be the city’s bicentennial.

Somebody decided to make them a big deal. They were proclaimed as Reading’s “Bicentennial Twins.”

“Any celebrity who came to town, we had our picture taken with them,” Tom said Monday.

Those celebrities included President Harry S. Truman; comedian, singer and actor Eddie Cantor; and comic duo Abbott and Costello.

Younger readers might be wondering who any of those people are.

Those were celebrities from an age when fame wasn’t achieved by releasing sex tapes but by having talent and working hard … except in the case of the Houck boys, who gained fame just by the happenstance of their birth.

Older readers might be wondering whether Abbott and Costello conducted an impromptu routine for the twins called “Who was born first?”

Older readers are also probably grateful that Abbott and Costello never made a sex tape.

For some unexplained reason, a photo of the “Bicentennial Twins” was on the front page of the Reading Eagle every New Year’s Day for a decade or so.

“Then we got to fifth grade and said, ‘That’s enough,’” Tom said. “We rebelled a little bit.”

Perhaps because the city wanted to make their birth a big deal, their mother, Ellen, named her sons after Thomas and Richard Penn, the brothers who planned Reading and who were the sons of state founder William Penn.

Was Ellen a history buff?

Tom never asked, and she died in 2006.

“Somebody came up with the idea (for our names), but I guess we’ll never find out,” Tom said.

Tom, who had four sons, retired from teaching in the Exeter School District. Richard, who had three sons, retired as an electrical engineer.

They aren’t famous anymore. They chose to allow their acclaim to fade.

They also aren’t on the front page every New Year’s Day anymore, but, hey, they’re on page B1 today, and that’s pretty neat.