PENNSYLVANIA HIGHWAY SAMARITAN DIED DOING GOOD, AS ALWAYS

Joseph "Big Joe" Kelly Sr.'s son was in shock yesterday after learning that his dad was struck and killed at 2 a.m. while trying to save a wheelchair-bound homeless man on the Vine Street Expressway near the 15th Street off- ramp. But Joseph "Little Joe" Kelly Jr. was not surprised that his father - on his way home from his wee- hours job transporting maritime workers from incoming ships to their homes or to hospitals - risked his life in the middle of the night, attempting to guide a total stranger out of harm's way.

"That's the kind of guy my father was," Kelly Jr., 33, said in a quiet, ragged voice, his eyes red-rimmed and bloodshot on the most awful day of his life.

"He was always helping family, neighbors, anyone who had a problem. I was always calling him for advice about everything. I feel like calling him right now. I don't know what I'll do without him. I'm going to be lost."

Kelly Jr. swallowed hard and couldn't speak for a moment, staring at the Olney block he grew up on - Rosemar Street near Mascher - as neighbors stopped by to share memories, hug him, offer condolences. Although Kelly Jr.'s mom and dad divorced a few years ago, they remained best friends. And although father and son moved to Levittown in Bucks County, their decades-old roots on Rosemar Street remain strong.

"I'm doing my best to keep a good head on my shoulders," he said. "In a way, this hasn't hit home yet. Through thick and thin, he was always there. He was my father. He was my good, good friend. "We got a baby due in September. We don't know what it will be but my wife just told me that if it's a boy, it's going to be another Joe." Kelly Jr. swallowed hard again.

According to Philadelphia police, Kelly Sr., 56, stopped his van on the eastbound Vine Street expressway and got out to help Jeffrey Williams, 43, who was in a wheelchair rolling westbound in that lane. Both men were struck and killed when the driver of a pickup truck failed to swerve around them. He was questioned by police but not charged.

When the skies suddenly filled with dark clouds yesterday and a cold rain started to fall, Tom Gontz, a close friend of Kelly Sr.'s for more than 20 years, invited everyone onto his porch, under the roof that Kelly Sr. helped him build. "He helped me put in my hot-water tank, fix my car, put in those railroad ties in my front yard," Gontz said. "This wasn't no 'let me help you for 15 minutes.' We're talking hours. Never asked for a penny.

"When I was out of work years ago, Joe went to Atlantic City, hit for $2,500 at a casino, came back and handed me $500 to help till I found work again. That's the kind of guy he was." Everyone agreed that Kelly Sr. was also the kind of dad who loaded all the kids - his three and the neighbor kids - into the van on weekends and headed down the shore. "Crabbing, fishing, good times," said Greg Grookett, who grew up on the block with Kelly Jr.

"Blues, flounder, whatever got on our hook," Kelly Jr. said. "Keep 'em, throw 'em back, didn't matter. Barnegat. Cape May."

"Fishing off jetties, off piers, off boats," said Kelly Sr.'s nephew Michael Ferber. "Night blues, whatever." Among Kelly Sr.'s many skills - including the ability and the willingness to fix just about anything - was his training as a paramedic. Kelly Jr. remembers his father telling him about the day he continued administering CPR to a woman long after she had passed away.

He tells that story to explain why his father would stop at 2 a.m. on a Philadelphia expressway to try to save a wheelchair-bound man from oncoming traffic.

On Holly Drive, in Levittown, where father and son have lived for the past few years in a neat single home with a goldfish pond out front, Sharon Wright, who lives across the street, said, "We call them 'Big Joe' and 'Little Joe,' and they both would do anything for you. "In the winter, you'd go to sleep during a snow, and when you woke up, Big Joe would be out there shoveling your driveway. That's who he was."

"Big Joe and Little Joe taught our son all his colors," said John Wright, Sharon's husband, while their 5-year-old son, John IV, worked on his jump shot in the driveway. "Big Joe always found time to play basketball with him, too," Sharon said. Summer nights, Wright said, found his family and the Kellys sitting around the Wrights' fire pit - "drinking beer, telling stories, playing dice." "I'm going to miss him," Wright said. *