Plantings

My observant reader Beth sent me this email:

"Have you noticed that for whatever reason this year's barrel plantings in downtown have been really gorgeous? They are always beautiful but it seems they've added dimension with more height and trellises. The Garden Club really makes this small town look well cared for. Just wanted to say that their work does not go unnoticed!"

She is absolutely right. They are spectacular this summer!

 

 

Ride on the funk

Red Alert certainly put on a high-energy show at Anson B. Nixon Park on Aug. 6: The "dance gravel" in front of the stage was full of boogeying folks young and old, myself included. The band played a great mix of Motown classics, disco hits (you're talking my language there!) and newer songs like "Call Me Maybe," "Blurred Lines" and the megahit-of-summer-2014 "Happy." They even threw in a Latin number, highlighted by the impromptu performance of an audience member (and Kennett Y member) named Audrey who came on stage and wowed everyone with her salsa dancing.
On Saturday night on the way home from another concert, we heard on Jonny Meister's WXPN blues show a very funny song called "Dump That Chump" by Little Charlie and the Nighcats. The call-and-response chorus was the title, and my companion said, "Red Alert should do that song!" We'd like to suggest they incorporate it in their repertoire (though perhaps not when they do wedding receptions).
I'll be really sorry when this concert series ends; what a variety of terrific acts we've seen this summer at the park.

Keeping the dust down

From a restaurant's deep-fryer to the gravel roads of West Marlborough: the township is experimenting this summer with using recycled cooking oil to keep down dust on its unpaved roads.
At the township supervisors' monthly meeting on Aug. 5, supervisor Hugh Lofting reported that the road crew obtained a drum of recycled oil from Waste Oil Recyclers in Modena and spread it using watering cans on a stretch of unpaved Ryan Road as a test. He said so far they've been "very pleased" with its effectiveness, and apparently the recycled cooking oil is less expensive than the soybean oil the township had been using.
"It sounds like a win-win for us," commented supervisor Bill Wylie.
I drove over the test patches just after the oil was applied and stuck my head out the car window like an excited dog to see if I could get a whiff of French fries or fried chicken. Not a bit.

Mystery solved!

Last week I wrote about a tour bus that stopped on my back road, blocking it for a few minutes. Another resident said she spotted it earlier on Newark Road, too, and was baffled. What on earth was it doing here, we wondered.
I found out it was carrying a group of young people interested in cattle breeding, and they -- and a few other busloads full -- were on their way to an event hosted by a prestigious West Marlborough Angus farm.

Township business

It was a pretty routine half-hour summer meeting of the West Marlborough Township Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Aug. 5.
Zoning officer Al Giannantonio told the board that one zoning permit was approved in July, for a Richard Wilson Drive resident building a deck. And a demolition permit was granted for the Stone Barn banquet facility to tear down its mill. The building's roof collapsed in February under the weight of the heavy snow. (I saw someone removing the weather vane from the mill's cupola a few weeks back, so I'm guessing demolition is imminent).
Anna Myers of the township planning commission reported that the planners will be looking for a new person to run their meetings after their chairperson, Jeb Hannum, resigned (he and his family have moved out of state).
Officer Robert Clarke reported that he wrote 11 citations in July, all for speeding.
The board set a work session for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 7, to review the township's list of required permits and inspections. At their July meeting the supervisors said they'd be looking at the list so they could eliminate those that represented an unnecessary burden on property owners.

East Linden Street

I was invited to a very nice ceremony on Tuesday, Aug. 5, to honor the East Linden Street community in Kennett Square as part of "National Night Out," which highlights partnerships between residents and their local police officers.
As I walked from the parking garage to the outdoor ceremony, I was enormously impressed by how far East Linden Street has come. It's now a charming and meticulously kept neighborhood. Many of the houses have historical plaques on them and well-tended gardens.
Speaker after speaker -- members of Borough Council, Kennett school superintendent Barry Tomasetti, and Chief Ed Zunino and the borough's police officers -- stood up and praised the residents for taking responsibility and working together to upgrade their once-troubled neighborhood.
In the printed program Chief Zunino noted that in 2009 the police department issued 53 citations for disorderly conduct in the neighborhood; in 2013, there were only 3.
And in turn the residents thanked the police department for its support and dedication, singling out Officer Jen Albertson for her work with the local kids (she got a plaque and a bouquet of flowers).
After the speeches, the neighbors and kids enjoyed pizza and other goodies.

New license

An employee named Nathan made my trip to the Pennsylvania driver's license center in Oxford a pleasure. Thanks to his efficiency, I was in and out of there with a new license in literally five minutes -- as opposed to a friend of mine who had to cool her heels for the better part of the afternoon at the license renewal center in Frazer just the day before. (No, I didn't gloat -- too much.)
The Oxford license center is right off the Route 10 exit from the Route 1 bypass.
While I was there, a man came in to order a replacement license. He confessed that he had run over his license while mowing the lawn that morning.

Privacy

I didn't know this: If you put a book on reserve at one of our county libraries, you yourself have to go pick it up. The library employees aren't allowed to release the book to anybody else unless you give them permission to do so by filling out a form specifying the people who are authorized to pick up your materials for you (I filled it out online). The library system says the policy is in place to protect patrons' privacy, which makes sense.
The book I wanted? No secret: It's Vera Brittain's WWI memoir, "Testament of Youth." A British film based on the book is coming out later this year and stars Swedish actress Alicia Vikande (she played Kitty in the 2012 movie version of "Anna Karenina") and British actor Kit Harington (who plays Jon Snow in "Game of Thrones").

Curious minds

Friends from outside the area have noticed the abnormally intense interest that many of us (me chief among them) have in every detail of what's going on in our neighborhood. (My sister theorizes that this is why our local house tours always sell out.) One out-of-the-ordinary incident here on Friday afternoon serves as an example.
I was working at my desk, editing a series of essays on Mongolian Buddhism, when the dog starts barking her "well, this is odd" bark. I look outside, and much to my surprise there's a full-sized tour bus stopped and blocking my narrow road. And there's a Jeep driver who can't get by him. The bus driver tries maneuvering, but it appears he doesn't want to risk either the Scylla of a marsh or the Charybdis of a gravel driveway.
I went outside and chatted with the Jeep driver, who was, understandably, getting frustrated. "I have places to go!" he said. We wondered how the bus driver had ended up here: a GPS error?
After a few minutes of this standoff, the Jeep driver decided to turn around and take another road, and did so. Just then a man in a black car pulled up and signaled to the bus driver to follow him. As the bus drove by I could see that it was full of young women, many of whom waved.
I can comfortably state that I've never seen a tour bus on my road before. Huge livestock trailers, giant agricultural equipment, flatbeds carrying full-sized trees, for sure. But a tour bus? Where on earth were they headed?

"Equasy"

There was an interesting opinion piece in the July 19/20 issue of the Wall Street Journal that might resonate with Unionville's equestrians. The authors, Michael Blastland and David Spiegelhalter, talked about the nature of risk: "Risk isn't a settled fact of nature. In the UK recently, a government adviser lost his job for saying that ecstasy [the illegal drug] was safer than horseback riding, which he called 'equasy.' "
The authors ran the statistics and concluded that the risk is actually about the same: between one-half and two MicroMorts per ride or tablet. (A MicroMort signifies a one-in-a-million chance of death.)
I found the article interesting enough to make me put the authors' book, "The Norm Chronicles: Stories and Numbers About Danger and Death," on my to-read list. If you liked the "Freakanomics" books, this should be right up your alley.

Parkesburg Community Day

Like so many artists before him, David Peyre-Ferry is toiling away at his day job (in his case, at the Jennersville Giant) while honing his craft every chance he gets.
His craft? Sword swallowing.
We caught up with David as he was performing at Parkesburg Community Day on Saturday, August 2. First he ran a blade across his tongue, warning spectators that if they got queasy at that point, they might not want to watch the rest. Then he tilted his head back and, sure enough, slowly lowered the sword almost to the hilt. After removing it quickly, he did the same with a sword with a wavy blade, telling the audience that they might be able to see the blade pressing out on his neck.
There were a few other swords in his portable wooden rack, and a hefty Craftsman screwdriver, but because he was performing all day long he did an abbreviated act.

Afterward David told us about some of the less-obvious perils of sword swallowing. He recently bought a pre-owned sword that had been used for stage combat, and even though he smoothed the metal as best he could, it still had a few rough spots. And in his profession, any imperfection whatsoever equals a major case of "sword throat." (He's going to have the offending blade glass-beaded.)
Parkesburg Community Day was a delight. The activities were held in three separate venues -- Minch Park, First Avenue and Main Street -- so we strolled through a fair amount of downtown Parkesburg, enjoying its architecture, people and dogs.
We had a fabulous dinner at Bread's BBQ and Soul Food at 321 Main Street: BBQ chicken, collard greens, baked beans and cornbread. We saw five Parkesburg cops there eating, which you just KNOW speaks to the quality of the food. The friendly husband-and-wife owners told us they'd had an extraordinarily busy day thanks to the festival and had already run out of string beans. We assured them we'd be back.
We also want to try the One Love Jamaican Restaurant, 402 West First Avenue. They had a booth across from their restaurant and the aromas coming from the food were amazing.
Walking down West Street to the car, we heard some terrific live music coming from Minch Park and went to investigate. It turned out that Syde 2, featuring Leon Spencer, was performing (Leon heads Kennett Square's borough council and was the borough's mayor for many years). We stayed for their whole set; what a pleasant surprise!
Well done, Parkesburg organizers! It was a splendid festival. My only suggestion would be that a map would've been really helpful, indicating the different locations and what was going on at each. As non-Parkesburg residents we were wandering around vaguely, wondering how to get to the Main Street venue, and were ready to give up when a helpful native showed us the way.

Family traditions; or, thank goodness for name tags

Being a reporter is good training for many things in life, including enjoying a family reunion even when the family that's reunion-ing is not yours. I have no problem introducing myself to strangers. I can show -- and actually feel -- enthusiastic interest in just about any topic, including old family photographs and marriage certificates. I have vast experience sitting through business meetings in which "Roberts Rules of Order" are cited repeatedly.
And it's even easier when there's a picnic table nearby groaning with macaroni and cheese, devilled eggs, pasta salad, fresh fruit and whoopie pies made with mini chocolate chip cookies.
On Saturday I attended the 132nd annual reunion of a local family, and it marked the president's 36th and final year of service. After some debate (this is where parliamentary procedure came into play), a replacement was elected, and the outgoing president turned over his gavel -- but only his standard-issue one, mind you, not his special one made by an ancestor from a dead pine tree at the Brandywine Battlefield. There was a discussion about putting the reunion on Facebook to encourage the younger generation to attend.
I especially enjoyed deciphering the early-20th-century diploma of one family member from West Chester State Normal School, as West Chester University was known back in the day. She was considered qualified to teach a host of subjects, everything from American Literature to Zoology.

A dirty business

On Saturday, August 16, there's going to be a competition at Unionville's Plantation Field involving just people, not people on horses. In "Mudderella," the competitors take on a challenging and, yes, very muddy five-mile cross-country obstacle course (think military basic training videos). This description of one obstacle says it better than I can: "Trampoline onto a cargo net, climb up a wall and shoot down a slippery slide into a muddy pool; it’s three obstacles in one that tests agility, strength and fearlessness."
It's not to everyone's taste, certainly, but I know a few hard-core athletes who formed a team and signed up enthusiastically as soon as they heard the national series was coming to our area. They are counting down the days.

Who will buy, follow-up

I got three responses to my friend's search for someone to buy her unwanted crystal and china.
The first suggested the Encore consignment shop at Routes 1 and 52, where she volunteers. Proceeds from Encore sales benefit the Chester County Hospital. She wrote, "If you check the Encore web site at www.encoreshop.org if will give you all the important information. . . . The BEST part is that the money is staying in the community and helping the hospital. Stop in to see the shop when we reopen after Labor Day. You will be impressed by the huge check on the wall that shows the amount  given the hospital this past year by the Encore Shop of the Kennett Auxiliary. Over the years we have raised over $1,000,000!"
Another reader suggested checking the website replacements.com.
And a third, a quick-off-the-mark staffer for a local land preservation nonprofit, suggested that my friend could always donate the goodies to her group's upcoming silent auction.

Bins

What do you think of the new blue paper-recycling bins at the Unionville post office? They are the size of an office trash can, with a slot for paper in the locked top. Postmaster Bill explained to me that he replaced the former open bins because people were dumping coffee cups and other trash in them. The new, smaller bins are sturdier and easier for him to haul out to the Dumpster in the parking lot, and he said they are in standard use in post offices that offer recycling.
The circulars and catalogs I was tossing this afternoon didn't fit through the narrow slot, so I had to fold them up and try to cram them into the full can (somebody else's supermarket circulars were already bulging out from the top). I had to think I may just start carrying my junk mail out to the Dumpster myself (proceeds from the paper collected there go toward Unionville Elementary School).

Rolling Thunder

The Rolling Thunder Blues Revue played a wonderful show at Anson Nixon Park on July 30. I know two of the band members, Rob Mastrippolito and Biff McNeil, and it was a thrill to see these "regular working guys" up there on stage in front of the crowd, playing guitar and sax and singing up a storm. So talented! (I should mention the rest of the band, too: Paul Wilkinson on guitar and Tim Celfo on bass, joined for the evening by Glenn Ferricone on drums.)
We've been to every show in this summer's series of Wednesday concerts and we've come to know the regulars: the friendly guy who walks his two border collies; the group of cute little kids running around and dancing; the people who don't clap, ever; the husband and wife who sit front and center at every show; and the lively downtown Kennett contingent.
As I was leaving I struck up a conversation with the people in the car next to mine as they were loading their kids into the back seat. They said it was their first concert at the park, and they were delighted at how relaxed and family-friendly it was. They asked me what the next show was and said they were definitely coming back.
Despite the band's name, the weather was beautiful. I was telling my companion I remembered sitting at last summer's concerts sweltering in the heat and humidity.

"Annie"

Thanks to my kind neighbors, we went to see the Brandywiners' performance of the musical "Annie" at Longwood Gardens on July 31. I rarely give standing ovations, but this show was worth it: funny and well done, with terrific acting, singing and dancing and, of course, a well-trained dog. The scene where President Franklin Roosevelt orders his gloomy Cabinet to sing Annie's optimistic "Tomorrow" song had me doubled over with laughter. To top it off, Longwood's Open-Air Theatre is a great venue, with a pleasant and efficient staff of ushers and helpers, and we were fortunate enough to have a perfect evening for an outdoor event. Every seat was taken, and I was happy to see a lot of kids at the show, including an adorable little girl next to us in a party dress and a big bow in her hair.