Several people have asked me what's going on next to the Po-Mar-Lin firehouse in downtown Unionville. The next phase of the Unionville Community Park is being built.
A brick sidewalk, crosswalks and street trees will be added right along Route 82, just west of the firehouse. And small entry plaza, a rain garden, eight parking spaces, landscaping and 750 feet of new walking trail will be installed in what is now the sunken-appearing field next to the firehouse.
There are complete details about the park on East Marlborough Township's website.
Saturday, July 2, 2016
WEST MARLBOROUGH: Science fiction double feature
Driving home through West Marlborough on Friday evening at about 9:30 was magical and weird. On Earth level, the fireflies lit up the fields. Up in the sky, there were still some thunderstorms around, and the lightning would periodically light up the clouds. Occasionally I'd see an actual bolt of lightning rather than the general glow. It reminded me of some Saturday-afternoon mad-scientist movie where the experimental brain pulses with light.
HAIR: Customer service, good and bad
Over breakfast yesterday a Unionville friend told me a very funny anecdote that could serve as a business-school case study for why those no-appointment chain haircut places have become a booming franchise.
She said she was 10 minutes late for her appointment at the upscale, expensive salon she has patronized for years (the delay involved cattle), and from the moment she walked in she got nothing but dirty looks and attitude. (Her imitations were priceless.)
Desperate for a haircut, she headed to a strip-mall place, had her hair cut, and was out of there, shorn, in 5 minutes. The bill: $13. And her hair doesn't look bad at all.
Somebody just lost a customer, and somebody else just gained one.
She said she was 10 minutes late for her appointment at the upscale, expensive salon she has patronized for years (the delay involved cattle), and from the moment she walked in she got nothing but dirty looks and attitude. (Her imitations were priceless.)
Desperate for a haircut, she headed to a strip-mall place, had her hair cut, and was out of there, shorn, in 5 minutes. The bill: $13. And her hair doesn't look bad at all.
Somebody just lost a customer, and somebody else just gained one.
CHATHAM: Median strip plans are online
The photographs that I took of the median strips being proposed for Chatham didn't make it into last week's newspaper (space was short), so if you're interested you can see them online at the website www.pa41.com.
In an email, engineer Rob Nuss said that "These designs are still conceptual in nature while the PennDOT project team optimizes the designs to achieve the desired traffic calming effect while accommodating all vehicles and minimizing impacts. We are open to additional public feedback for the gateways along PA Route 41."
In an email, engineer Rob Nuss said that "These designs are still conceptual in nature while the PennDOT project team optimizes the designs to achieve the desired traffic calming effect while accommodating all vehicles and minimizing impacts. We are open to additional public feedback for the gateways along PA Route 41."
MUSIC: Three outdoor concerts in one week
Earlier this week I found myself enthusiastically singing Mumford & Sons' big hit "I Will Wait for You" and was baffled as to how that song had gotten stuck in my brain. Then I remembered: on June 25 we saw a band, the Vulcans, whose harmonies sounded a lot like the Mumfords.
The Vulcans, who are three young men from Mechanicsburg, played as part of the series of Saturday-night summer concerts in the apple orchard at the 1719 Hans Herr House in Willow Street, Lancaster County. We have gotten accustomed to the macabre situations that represent a time-honored staple of folk music lyrics, but even we were a little taken aback when the band announced their next song by saying, "Does everybody know what patricide means?"
I feel confident in declaring that this past week's concert at Anson B. Nixon Park by Kid Davis and the Bullets will be one of the summer's highlights. We went to the show with two great friends, and if you grew up in the 1970s like all of us did, Pink Floyd's classic album "Dark Side of the Moon" was a significant part of your adolescent soundtrack (I have owned the album in eight-track, vinyl, cassette, and CD format). So when the Bullets broke into an out-of-left-field rockabilly version of "Brain Damage," our jaws dropped in amazement and we were helpless with laughter. Absolutely loved it!
Our third outdoor concert of the week was by a bluegrass/gospel group named Cousin Jake at the Myrick Center on Unionville Wawaset Road (at the Brandywine Red Clay Alliance, the former BVA) on June 30. The Lancaster County band just couldn't catch a break. The mandolin player was seriously delayed and didn't show up until after intermission. The electricity went off about 45 minutes into the show, so we all moved our chairs close to the stage and the band played an acoustic set without microphones or speakers. The power came back about 10 seconds before the end of the show.
The Vulcans, who are three young men from Mechanicsburg, played as part of the series of Saturday-night summer concerts in the apple orchard at the 1719 Hans Herr House in Willow Street, Lancaster County. We have gotten accustomed to the macabre situations that represent a time-honored staple of folk music lyrics, but even we were a little taken aback when the band announced their next song by saying, "Does everybody know what patricide means?"
I feel confident in declaring that this past week's concert at Anson B. Nixon Park by Kid Davis and the Bullets will be one of the summer's highlights. We went to the show with two great friends, and if you grew up in the 1970s like all of us did, Pink Floyd's classic album "Dark Side of the Moon" was a significant part of your adolescent soundtrack (I have owned the album in eight-track, vinyl, cassette, and CD format). So when the Bullets broke into an out-of-left-field rockabilly version of "Brain Damage," our jaws dropped in amazement and we were helpless with laughter. Absolutely loved it!
Our third outdoor concert of the week was by a bluegrass/gospel group named Cousin Jake at the Myrick Center on Unionville Wawaset Road (at the Brandywine Red Clay Alliance, the former BVA) on June 30. The Lancaster County band just couldn't catch a break. The mandolin player was seriously delayed and didn't show up until after intermission. The electricity went off about 45 minutes into the show, so we all moved our chairs close to the stage and the band played an acoustic set without microphones or speakers. The power came back about 10 seconds before the end of the show.
BRAZIL: Locals on Team USA!
Don't be surprised if you see some familiar town names on the screen while watching the Summer Olympics: several people from our little corner of the world will be heading to Rio de Janeiro to represent the United States.
Phillip Dutton, riding Fernhill Cubalawn, and Boyd Martin, riding Blackfoot Mystery, are members of the Olympic eventing team. It's the sixth Olympic Games for Phillip (his third riding for the United States) and the second for Boyd. Both are native Australians but now live in the Unionville area.
Cierra Runge of Cochranville is on the swimming team; her event is the 400-meter freestyle relay. Cierra's name and the record-setting times she set during her early days of Y competition are on the wall of honor at the Jennersville YMCA.
Midfielder Katelyn Falgowski of Landenberg will play on the field hockey team. A graduate of St. Mark's High School in Wilmington and the University of North Carolina, this is her third Olympic Games.
Para-equestrian dressage rider Margaret "Gigi" Macintosh, who rides out of Blue Hill Farm in Newlin Township, will be participating at the Paralympic Games with her mare, Rio Rio. Her teammate para-rider Becca Hart (a former barista at the Kennett Starbucks) also trained out of Blue Hill Farm until she recently moved to Florida.
Wheelchair athlete Amanda McGrory of Kennett Square is heading to Rio as part of the 2016 U.S. Paralympics track and field team.
Long-time Tilda reader Laura suggests that I also mention several foreign riders who train locally and are short-listed for their country's teams: Ryan Wood (Australia) and Waylon Roberts (Canada) train at True Prospect Farm; Ronald Zabala has qualified for the Ecuadorean team; and Nilson Moreira da Silva has a chance to represent Brazil on Muggle, a horse owned by Melissa Stubenburg.
Phillip Dutton, riding Fernhill Cubalawn, and Boyd Martin, riding Blackfoot Mystery, are members of the Olympic eventing team. It's the sixth Olympic Games for Phillip (his third riding for the United States) and the second for Boyd. Both are native Australians but now live in the Unionville area.
Cierra Runge of Cochranville is on the swimming team; her event is the 400-meter freestyle relay. Cierra's name and the record-setting times she set during her early days of Y competition are on the wall of honor at the Jennersville YMCA.
Midfielder Katelyn Falgowski of Landenberg will play on the field hockey team. A graduate of St. Mark's High School in Wilmington and the University of North Carolina, this is her third Olympic Games.
Para-equestrian dressage rider Margaret "Gigi" Macintosh, who rides out of Blue Hill Farm in Newlin Township, will be participating at the Paralympic Games with her mare, Rio Rio. Her teammate para-rider Becca Hart (a former barista at the Kennett Starbucks) also trained out of Blue Hill Farm until she recently moved to Florida.
Wheelchair athlete Amanda McGrory of Kennett Square is heading to Rio as part of the 2016 U.S. Paralympics track and field team.
Long-time Tilda reader Laura suggests that I also mention several foreign riders who train locally and are short-listed for their country's teams: Ryan Wood (Australia) and Waylon Roberts (Canada) train at True Prospect Farm; Ronald Zabala has qualified for the Ecuadorean team; and Nilson Moreira da Silva has a chance to represent Brazil on Muggle, a horse owned by Melissa Stubenburg.
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
KENNETT SQUARE: A stolen first edition
A first
edition of Vladimir Nabokov's 1955 novel "Lolita" has gone missing
from RLD Books, 111 South Union Street in Kennett, on June 16 or 17, according to an online alert from the "New Antiquarian," the blog of the Antiquarian Booksellers' Association of America. It was
"likely" removed from its custom box. Any bookseller who is
offered the stolen book is asked to contact the bookstore owner, Roz
DuPont, roz@rldbookstore.com.
A description of the book: "Nabokov, Vladimir. LOLITA. Paris:
Olympia Press, 1955. First edition. 12mo. Original green wrappers. 188/223
pages. Very good. Price on back of vol. 1 has sticker with new price 1200 fr.
Price on vol. 2 is 900 fr. indicating title is correct first edition. Light
edgewear to spines and previous owner's name on ffep of vol. 2. Some pencil
notations to penultimate end paper in rear of vol. 2. Top half-inch corner of
vol. 2 back cover is missing. Overall an attractive set of this fragile
classic. (Protected by Mylar jackets. REMOVED from custom box.)"
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
KENNETT: "Stop committing fraud!"
Someone is certainly ticked off.
This afternoon I spotted a yellow sign posted where Chandler Mill Road meets Kaolin Road. It read (in all caps): "This is not Delaware. If you reside here, tag your vehicle in PA. Stop committing fraud!"
There was no indication of who posted it -- no website, no email address. I took a photograph and shared it on social media, and readers informed me that an identical one has appeared at Route 41 and Sunny Dell Road.
I asked Kennett Township manager Lisa Moore if the signs had been posted by the township, and she said they had not.
Apparently the sign-poster takes exception to the fact that some people who live close to the PA/Delaware border rent post office boxes in Delaware and register their cars in the First State to save on sales tax and inspection costs.
But there's also a fully above-board explanation: Many Pennsylvania residents work for Delaware businesses and drive company cars that, of course, display Delaware tags.
Commented one wag, "I wonder if the sign-posters buy their alcohol in PA state stores or slip across to DE to buy it..."
This afternoon I spotted a yellow sign posted where Chandler Mill Road meets Kaolin Road. It read (in all caps): "This is not Delaware. If you reside here, tag your vehicle in PA. Stop committing fraud!"
There was no indication of who posted it -- no website, no email address. I took a photograph and shared it on social media, and readers informed me that an identical one has appeared at Route 41 and Sunny Dell Road.
I asked Kennett Township manager Lisa Moore if the signs had been posted by the township, and she said they had not.
Apparently the sign-poster takes exception to the fact that some people who live close to the PA/Delaware border rent post office boxes in Delaware and register their cars in the First State to save on sales tax and inspection costs.
But there's also a fully above-board explanation: Many Pennsylvania residents work for Delaware businesses and drive company cars that, of course, display Delaware tags.
Commented one wag, "I wonder if the sign-posters buy their alcohol in PA state stores or slip across to DE to buy it..."
 |
| This sign has appeared at the intersection of Chandler Mill and Kaolin Roads in Kennett Township. |
Monday, June 27, 2016
MICHAEL HERR: We've all been there
Journalists tend to be either good writers or good reporters. Michael Herr, who died June 23, was brilliant at both.
In his most famous work, "Dispatches," he plunged the reader into a confusing world of Hueys, clicks, tracers and sucking chest wounds, deliberately not explaining the military lingo and acronyms to give just a glimmer of the disorientation felt by the Americans fighting in Vietnam.
So many writers today are self-absorbed, shallow, snarky, only out to score points. Herr was none of those things. He was a good enough reporter to make his subjects comfortable, and then he'd just listen. They'd come out with heartbreaking, hilarious, perfect quotations, and then he'd weave those quotes and the details he observed (the peaches in the C-rations) into compelling, powerful sentences.
His writer's voice is unmistakeable, and the people he writes about are unforgettable: the avuncular soldier who simply can't believe that a comrade signed up for another whole year "in country" when he could be killed at any second; Tim Page, the British combat photographer who views "glamour" as an inherent part of war; the veteran with PTSD who only wishes he were as lucky as a blind sidewalk beggar whose sign reads "My Days Are Darker Than Your Nights."
I didn't need to look up any of those details. In fact, I don't have a copy of "Dispatches" anymore; I suspect it's in a former boyfriend's bookshelf. We were both newspaper people back in the early 1980s, and we read "Dispatches" so many times we almost memorized it. It was a stunning achievement of writing and reportage and passion we could only hope to emulate.
RIP.
In his most famous work, "Dispatches," he plunged the reader into a confusing world of Hueys, clicks, tracers and sucking chest wounds, deliberately not explaining the military lingo and acronyms to give just a glimmer of the disorientation felt by the Americans fighting in Vietnam.
So many writers today are self-absorbed, shallow, snarky, only out to score points. Herr was none of those things. He was a good enough reporter to make his subjects comfortable, and then he'd just listen. They'd come out with heartbreaking, hilarious, perfect quotations, and then he'd weave those quotes and the details he observed (the peaches in the C-rations) into compelling, powerful sentences.
His writer's voice is unmistakeable, and the people he writes about are unforgettable: the avuncular soldier who simply can't believe that a comrade signed up for another whole year "in country" when he could be killed at any second; Tim Page, the British combat photographer who views "glamour" as an inherent part of war; the veteran with PTSD who only wishes he were as lucky as a blind sidewalk beggar whose sign reads "My Days Are Darker Than Your Nights."
I didn't need to look up any of those details. In fact, I don't have a copy of "Dispatches" anymore; I suspect it's in a former boyfriend's bookshelf. We were both newspaper people back in the early 1980s, and we read "Dispatches" so many times we almost memorized it. It was a stunning achievement of writing and reportage and passion we could only hope to emulate.
RIP.
TRACK & FIELD: A road trip to Atlantic City
It's on to the Nationals in Houston for the Young Relative!
The UHS student won the 1,500-meter race in his age group on Sunday at the regional AAU qualifying meet at Stockton University, near Atlantic City.
Five members of the Tally-ho clan were there to cheer him on. The meet started at 8:30 a.m., and looking at the schedule the evening before we were happy to see that the YR's event was the second on the list. We'll get there by 9 and we'll be home before lunchtime, we thought.
Oh, so wrong. So very, very wrong. The first event was the 400-meter run. Each race was only one lap around the track, and as soon as one heat finished, the next one started.
There were THREE FULL HOURS of heats. Do the math as to how many heats that involves.
What's funny is that initially we were all boasting about how quickly we'd made the trek from Unionville to Atlantic City. I took the Walt Whitman Bridge and the AC Expressway and made it there in 90 minutes, beating my GPS's projected time by 15 minutes. Little did I know that I could have slept in and even gotten some yard work done!
The Tally-hos are eternally grateful to the coaches, parents and athletes of the iHolla Track Club of Philadelphia, who let us share the canopy they'd set up in the bleachers. Of course, we got to chatting and laughing with them during the seemingly endless 400-meter event, and by the time the YR's race started they were cheering for him as vigorously as we were.
As we were leaving after YR's race, one of the iHolla coaches congratulated the YR and told him he was more than welcome to join their club. "Where are you from?" he asked.
"Chadds Ford," replied the YR.
"Chadds Ford? They have a winery there!" said the coach.
The UHS student won the 1,500-meter race in his age group on Sunday at the regional AAU qualifying meet at Stockton University, near Atlantic City.
Five members of the Tally-ho clan were there to cheer him on. The meet started at 8:30 a.m., and looking at the schedule the evening before we were happy to see that the YR's event was the second on the list. We'll get there by 9 and we'll be home before lunchtime, we thought.
Oh, so wrong. So very, very wrong. The first event was the 400-meter run. Each race was only one lap around the track, and as soon as one heat finished, the next one started.
There were THREE FULL HOURS of heats. Do the math as to how many heats that involves.
What's funny is that initially we were all boasting about how quickly we'd made the trek from Unionville to Atlantic City. I took the Walt Whitman Bridge and the AC Expressway and made it there in 90 minutes, beating my GPS's projected time by 15 minutes. Little did I know that I could have slept in and even gotten some yard work done!
The Tally-hos are eternally grateful to the coaches, parents and athletes of the iHolla Track Club of Philadelphia, who let us share the canopy they'd set up in the bleachers. Of course, we got to chatting and laughing with them during the seemingly endless 400-meter event, and by the time the YR's race started they were cheering for him as vigorously as we were.
As we were leaving after YR's race, one of the iHolla coaches congratulated the YR and told him he was more than welcome to join their club. "Where are you from?" he asked.
"Chadds Ford," replied the YR.
"Chadds Ford? They have a winery there!" said the coach.
THE AIR: Hot-air balloons overhead
The Chester County Balloon Festival was held at New Garden Flying Field this past weekend, and as I was heading east on Street Road toward Willowdale early Sunday morning it was very cool to see so many of the colorful hot-air balloons drifting along up in the air. Chase vehicles seemed to make up the majority of the traffic on the road. Later in the day local people were posting on social media photographs of the balloons floating above their neighborhoods.
Linda, who lives in the Traditions at Longwood development in East Marlborough, sent me this photograph, saying, "My husband was surprised while walking the dog to come upon a hot air balloon on our street."
Linda, who lives in the Traditions at Longwood development in East Marlborough, sent me this photograph, saying, "My husband was surprised while walking the dog to come upon a hot air balloon on our street."
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| A hot-air balloon lands in the Traditions at Longwood neighborhood. |
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