JENNERSVILLE: Road improvements

I've been following with interest the plan to improve the busy, sometimes frustrating Red Rose Inn crossroads (Route 796 and Baltimore Pike). According to newspaper stories, Penn Township has received the go-ahead from PennDOT to solicit bids, with construction to start as early as next spring.
But I've always wondered: exactly how are they going to reconfigure the tricky intersection? Here's what I found out:
1. Southbound 796 will be widened to create a left-turn lane, a through lane, and a right-turn lane at the crossroads. (In and of itself this should be a major improvement, as cars now back up behind left-turners, sometimes all the way to the Route 1 interchange.) 
2. The alignment of Route 796 north and south of the intersection will be improved.
3. "Turning radius improvements" will be made at the corners of the crossroads.
4. The left-turn lane along westbound Baltimore Pike approaching the crossroads will be reconfigured.
5. A new traffic light will have "updated signal phasing." (From what I can gather, this means tweaking the timing of the turn arrows.)

 

 

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KUBRICK: Never only a dream

Last week I was editing a fascinating book about Stanley Kubrick's last film, "Eyes Wide Shut." It discussed the extensive planning of the movie, the arduous process of writing a screenplay that "satisficed" the director, the lengthy, no-expenses-spared shooting (New York taxicabs and newspaper honor boxes were shipped to the London studio for verisimilitude), and the film's impact on popular culture.
In short, it was one of my rare work projects that I would actually read for pleasure (please don't tell my employer).
As part of my task, I had to keep a running list of where the footnotes appeared, so I printed out the list of notes and jotted down the page numbers as they appeared.
Call it frugality or what you will, I never recycle a piece of office paper without using both sides. So today I was preparing my quarterly financial report for an organization I belong to and printed it out, reusing my pages of notes. My fellow board members are going to get a surprise when they see on the back of the profit-and-loss statement details about fin-de-siècle wallpaper, 16-foot-tall Christmas trees, the precise measurements of Tom Cruise's face, the many alternatives considered for Nicole Kidman's famous line "if you men only knew," and how (conspiracy theorists believe) Kubrick was murdered for revealing the secrets of the Illuminati as part of the masked ball.

BLOOD: A skewed sample?

This morning I went to one of those blood-drawing places (sorry, specimen collection centers) for some routine bloodwork. The pleasant man drawing my blood was accurate and efficient, and I complimented him on his skill.
I'm sure it was just coincidence that he immediately gave me a photocopied sheet with his name on it and instructions on how to give feedback to his employer.
"We want to hear from you," the form read, "positive patient feedback."
One wonders whether all patients are asked to provide feedback.

WEST MARLBOROUGH: Road closed

Not that it will affect too many people, but the lightly traveled Runnemede Road in West Marlborough is closed until the township finishes repairing a crumbling bridge just west of the former railroad trestle. Township road crew chief Hugh Lofting, who has ample experience dealing with fickle motorists, posted on social media, "Please don’t drive past the three 'road closed' signs."

LUIGI'S: Pizza and pasta

If you're in Hockessin and have a hankering for Italian food, try Luigi's Café on Route 41 in Hockessin. It's a casual family place, in the same strip mall as Five Fat Guys and Okura, sandwiched between a liquor store and a sports bar.
Luigi himself, a young, energetic, friendly fellow, was our waiter (and a very busy guy: he was also slicing pizza and organizing to-go orders). I ordered capellini with garlic and broccoli and Dearest Partner had tortellini with mushrooms and crabmeat; both dishes were very tasty. Though we were both hungry, neither one of us could finish the more-than-ample portions. Salads and delicious fresh rolls with sesame seeds came along with dinner.
And how great was it to hear Frank Sinatra as background music!


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TBI: Much love to Paddy

Sending out our best wishes to Paddy Young, his family and everyone at Young Racing.
In May 2017 Paddy, a champion jockey and a much-loved horseman, suffered a traumatic brain injury in the Radnor Hunt Races but had recovered to the point that he could ride again. His barn is down the road from me, and it made my day the first time I saw him riding out.
Unfortunately, in early October, he had another fall. Although it was less serious that the first, it sent him back to Bryn Mawr Rehab. Here's hoping that he's back home soon.

RUNNING: UHS boys are going to states!

On Friday the Young Relative's cheering section (mother, father, grandmother and aunt) headed north to Lehigh University for the District 1 cross-country championships. The Unionville High School boys did a fantastic job in a hard-fought, very fast race, taking first, fifth and sixth places and earning the right to compete against the best youths in the state in Hershey on Nov. 4. We'll be there!
I was so proud that I could hardly speak as I watched the Y.R. talk to the press (he's a natural; I wonder why), joke with his teammates and shake hands with kids from other schools.
At the awards ceremony in Goodman Stadium, four spiked shoes were prominently displayed in front of the podium. Runners had lost them out on the course and, rather than stopping and losing seconds, had simply continued with one shoe. The P.A. announcer drew attention to them several times, looking for their owners (as well he might, given the cost of these special shoes)!
Just an FYI that the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike is being widened between the Lansdale and Quakertown exits. Workers in giant excavators and backhoes are cutting through layers of red stone and dump trucks are hauling it away -- all in close proximity to turnpike-speed traffic.

BIRTHDAY: A twinkle in his eye

A happy belated milestone birthday to my friend Ed Fahey, the former mayor of Kennett Square who now lives in the Jenners Pond community. His daughter Sue told me that even though her dad has reached 90, he is "still going strong." No one who knows Ed will have trouble believing that!

FOCUS GROUP: Not a roundtable discussion

The other evening I attended a focus group in West Chester sponsored by a local organization looking to raise its profile in the community. If people want to pay to listen to my opinions AND feed me dinner, who am I to say no?
One of the first questions was how we would describe Chester County. What a divergence of opinion! People from the southern part of the county mentioned diversity in terms of race and income; those from the Main Line described the county as almost entirely white and affluent ("Yeah, there's a lot of diversity -- in terms of hair and eye color," one man said).
I know little about market research, but I had to wonder about the choice of focus group participants. Are folks who are already committed members of the organization in question really the right people to be interviewing? Shouldn't they be seeking the opinions of people who aren't familiar with the group?
And the physical setup of the room wasn't conducive to a comfortable, natural conversation. The leader sat at the end of a very narrow table, with us guests on either side. This would have been an OK arrangement except for the fact that the end of the table was teardrop-shaped, which meant the leader was sitting off to the side and nobody had a good direct view of her. I had to keep craning my neck to look around the other participants. If I ran into the leader today, I'm not sure I'd recognize her.

KENNETT: Pancakes, art, gratitude

Three upcoming events of interest in Kennett Square:
1. The brothers of the Kennett Masonic Lodge 475 are holding another of their famous pancake breakfasts on Saturday, Nov. 10, from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. The cost is $8 for adults, $4 for kids under 12. The lodge is at 121 Center St. (FYI, the pancakes are very good.)
2. Also on Saturday, Nov. 10, the Episcopal Church of the Advent, 401 N. Union St., is hosting its annual artisan fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free. Among the artwork for sale will be jewelry, pottery, paintings, glass art, woodwork, photography, and fiber/textile art.
3. At 7 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 18, St. Patrick's Catholic Church, Unionville Presbyterian Church, the First Baptist Church of Kennett Square, and the Episcopal Church of the Advent will co-host an interfaith Thanksgiving service at St. Patrick's, 212 Meredith St.

MANNERS: Pay attention!

A gym friend was telling a bunch of us how frustrated she was when she was leading a training session and people were chit-chatting instead of listening to her.
She didn't get the sympathy she was looking for.
"My LIFE is people talking when I'm teaching!" said one woman, a second-grade teacher.

AUTUMN: Change in the weather

Just a few days ago it was so humid that I had the AC on, and then, seemingly overnight, the temperature dropped and it's autumn. Bananas no longer go black in a matter of hours. Shampoo flows out of the bottle, and toothpaste out of the tube, more slowly. The stinkbugs have become sluggish and easy to suck up with the Bugzooka. A hot shower once again feels heavenly. My favorite fleece garments have reappeared. And after all that wretched humidity, polishing my furniture was a real treat; instead of sticky and dull, the wood is back to being smooth and gleaming.

STATION 36: Po-Mar-Lin's open house

The Po-Mar-Lin Fire Company's open house on Monday evening drew a big crowd to downtown Unionville. You couldn't miss the flashing red lights down the center of Route 82.
Kids got to meet real firefighters and see fire trucks and bunker gear up close, and there was plenty of swag for all to take home, like helmets, stickers, pencils and rulers. The energetic Philly Phanatic mascot was there, as was a pharmacist from Acme giving flu shots (I got one, and he was so adept I didn't even feel the injection).
The firefighters did a demo of how they rescue car-crash victims by smashing car windows, forcing open the doors and cutting off the roof. I was amazed at how efficiently they turned a junk car into a convertible.
I had fun catching up with John "Jackie" Weer, the county fire marshal, and Robin Mastrippolito of Embreeville, who was there cuddling her adorable new grandson and selling Po-Mar-Lin sweatshirts. I learned that if you designate Po-Mar-Lin as your Amazon.com charity, Amazon will donate 0.5 percent of your purchases to the fire company. Every little bit helps, the volunteer said.
I also talked to a woman from the Pennsylvania State Animal Response Team (maybe you've seen their white trailer parked behind the fire house). She explained that they partner with the fire company to handle emergencies involving animals -- in recent months, a cow that wandered into a manure pit and a horse that got stuck in mud. She gave me information about putting together a "disaster preparedness plan" for pets in case of disasters like severe storms.
Given the financial and staffing stress that volunteer fire companies are under the days, the open house was a smart way to show people how hard the volunteers work and to try to drum up more community support.

ANIMALS: Furry and scaly friends

Last weekend was full of animal events.
First we went to the Harvest Festival at Baily's Dairy in Pocopson, where we said hello to cows, chickens, ducks, and goats, watched a master pumpkin carver at work and enjoyed an apple-cider float with vanilla ice cream and caramel drizzle.
And on Sunday I took our sweet rescue cat Clarence to the annual Pet Blessing at the Unionville Presbyterian Church. The pastor, Rev. Annalie Korengel, said a prayer over the little guy and gave him a Certificate of Blessing and a little St. Francis medal.
Also at the Pet Blessing was a menagerie brought by an outfit called Critter Connections: the kids in attendance had the opportunity to handle a variety of snakes, lizards, tortoises, a tarantula, a rabbit and a guinea pig. Mike, the fellow in charge of the creatures, explained that because it was a chilly day, the cold-blooded animals appreciated the warmth of human skin.

WALMART: Cranky consumers

My coffeemaker died the other day and I promptly headed to the Walmart to buy a new one. As I was walking out of the store carrying my purchase, the greeter in the lobby, politely, almost apologetically, asked to see my receipt.
"Of course," I said, handing it over. "I'm glad you checked."
She was stunned.
"Thanks for saying that," she said. "Seriously. That means a lot."
It seems a lot of customers give her a hard time. Apparently they don't think it through and realize that shoplifting costs us all money.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: At some point in their life, everyone should have to wait tables or work with the public in some other way. Then maybe they'd stop and actually think before being rude to someone who's just doing their job.

PASTRIES: The Hillendale Huskies

On Thursday morning at Hillendale Elementary, pupils, parents and siblings celebrated Donut Day in the best possible way: by converging on the cafeteria and eating donuts! Even though nutrition-minded school administrators are pushing "healthier" snacks these days and discouraging the intake of Halloween candy and birthday cupcakes, Hillendale has kept up this sweet tradition for 17 delicious, sugar-filled years.
Speaking of donuts, there's a Dunkin (they've dropped the "Donuts" part) coming to Jennersville, in the Jenners Commons center on Baltimore Pike just east of the busy intersection with Route 796.

UHS: National Honor Society

When I was in high school, I considered the National Honor Society hokey, uncool and (in the parlance of the day) irrelevant, just something to put on your college application.
I thought you were supposed to get more cynical with age rather than less, but I found the Oct. 10 National Honor Society induction ceremony at Unionville High School to be heartening and completely relevant. Mrs. Veronique Liska's remarks (she is the 2018 UHS Teacher of the Year) about "quiet leadership" were completely on target in today's grandstanding world, and the society's lofty standards for scholarship, leadership, character, and service that seemed so corny to me as a teen now seem to be excellent benchmarks.
Congrats to the dozens of new inductees. And the Chamber Choir's performance of the National Anthem was magnificent.

BLUEGRASS: Sad songs say so much

I have finally gotten around to listening to a CD I bought at the Delaware Valley Bluegrass Fest over Labor Day weekend and, boy, does it put the "blue" in bluegrass. It's a catalog of woe: corrupt judges, card sharps, greedy factory owners, unfaithful lovers, two-faced companions.
In one song, the singer tells us that he let a handsome stranger shelter in his barn on a cold night. The very next day, the handsome stranger was gone -- taking with him the singer's wife and child.
"No!" I cried.
But at least there's always the next train out of town -- unless, of course, the gallows is involved.

MYCOLOGY: A seasonal name

A reader sent me two photos of a "very pretty" orange mushroom that she spotted growing along Cedar Springs Road in New Garden Township. She said her grandson tentatively ID'd it as the poisonous Jack O'Lantern mushroom (Omphalotus olearius).

 

 

I'm no mycologist, but I believe he's right. I also found this amusing story from Michael Kuo (MushroomExpert.com) about this species:

"The Jack O'Lantern is the focus of the largest and most insidious conspiracy in the mycological world. According to every field guide, and every other source of literature available for the species, its gills glow in the dark. I'm not making this up; pick up any mushroom book that describes the Jack O'Lantern, and you'll find the author coolly mentioning the "luminescence" of the gills, or telling stories about 19th-Century pioneers finding their way back to their cabins, in the dark, following the Jack O'Lantern's glowing gills.

All of these authors are lying, and they are in cahoots. See, what they enjoy is knowing that hundreds of amateur mushroomers, every fall, shut themselves into closets, bathrooms, and garages, eagerly peering through the darkness for hours, waiting for the Jack O'Lantern's gills to luminesce."

 

 

DENTIST: Take my appointment

A "Unionville in the News" reader who wants to remain anonymous sent me this sweet story about a very nice gesture:
"Today my Dad, who is 99+, and I headed out in the rain to a 9:00 dental appointment. When we checked in, there was no record of Dad having an appointment. We were both a little puzzled, as we do try to keep appointments straight.
"As we were having the receptionist make a new appointment, a woman approached the desk and said Dad could have her 9:00 appointment. The receptionist said that could be done.
What an act of kindness!! I asked her name and she said it was Sue.  A HUGE thank you to Sue for being so kind and thoughtful. I’ve never heard of anyone doing this.
 I did kid her and ask if this is her way of getting out of her appointment, knowing how some folks aren’t too keen on the dentist.  She said no, that she has the time to reschedule. 
. . . Just thought you and your readers would enjoy this wonderful story of just how kind and thoughtful folks are around here."  

 

CPR: Saving a life

Jon Zacharkiw, a member of the Unionville High School class of 2003, was one of three deputies who saved the life of a week-old baby named Audrey in Clackamas County, Oregon, on Sept. 30.
Audrey aspirated her milk and stopped breathing while she and her parents were at a shopping mall to get her photo taken. The deputies happened to be outside the mall on a traffic stop when they got the emergency call and raced inside.
"She was blue and technically deceased when I arrived," said Jon. The three performed CPR until the Clackamas paramedics arrived about 2 minutes later.
Audrey was taken to the pediatric intensive care unit, where she has made steady progress. She no longer needs her feeding tube and breathing tube and, though still in the hospital, she has been discharged from the ICU. 
On Oct. 7, her parents, Kaylob Harmon and Jessie Siefer, invited the three deputies to visit her in the hospital.
"Kaylob told us he wanted a picture to show Audrey one day of the guys who saved her life," reported Jon. "It was unbelievably heartwarming to be invited back, and amazing to see how far she has progressed since last Sunday."
"No amount of words can explain how thankful we are for the men that made this possible," wrote her father on social media.
Audrey's aunt has set up a GoFundMe page, "Help Baby Audrey," to defray the family's expenses and lost wages.

RIP: Goodbye to Kathee

I can't remember how or when I met Kathee Rengert, a West Marlborough friend and neighbor who died on October 6. Maybe it was through our love of gardening; or through mutual friends; or maybe through the Pennsylvania Hunt Cup, of which she was the longtime executive director.
Kathee was so active, so distinctive and so vital that a lot of us are having a hard time thinking of her as gone; she died shortly after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I just wrote about her over the summer when she spoke at a township meeting, playing for the supervisors two recordings of noise from the gun club near her house.
It didn't matter that Kathee and I disagreed on a lot of issues. I was always delighted to see her, and she always had some interesting news (and, in season, garden cuttings) to share. She knew so much about birds and horticulture: I was always dismayed when she'd inform me that a favorite plant was actually "invasive" (one of her least favorite things).
At her request, her memorial service was held at London Grove Friends Meeting. The meeting house was packed with a diverse crowd that reflected so many facets of her life: tennis partners; Hunt Cup colleagues; friends from Fair Hill and the bloodstock world; neighbors; hiking partners; photography friends.
Her two sisters are asking that memorial contributions go to the Arbor Day Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Brandywine Conservancy, or the Chester County Library System. 
 

REN FAIRE: Back in time

The Pennsylvania Renaissance Faire in Manheim runs every weekend through October, and it is a hoot. We didn't dress up, but many visitors did, and what an astonishing variety of costumes: there were knights, peasants, wenches, fairy maidens, elves with pointy ears, cassocked monks, Plague doctors, and pirates (and, inexplicably, the Incredible Hulk, a Roman centurion, a Pharaoh and a couple of Storm Troopers). It was hot and humid on Sunday, and I certainly didn't envy those wearing leggings, long, full dresses, leather jerkins, or masks and headdresses.
There are shows and exhibitions throughout the fairgrounds all day. In "Archery Through the Ages," we learned about different types of chain mail and watched three archers display their skills with longbows and crossbows (there's a tradeoff between power and ease of use, we learned).
The "Delightful Deceptions" magic show was well named: the magician's sleight of hand with interlocking rings and balls and cups was astonishing -- how did he do it?   
One of the costumed actors that roam around the fair persuaded us to join in the Peasant Dance, where they taught us three dances. We did OK at first, but just as we were starting to get the hang of things, the musicians relentlessly picked up the tempo. We later saw one of the dance instructors and asked her if we were the worst dancers they'd had that day.
"Oh, no," she said. "We've had people fall down."
 The Royal Falconer was probably my favorite part of the afternoon. He put three beautiful birds of prey -- Merlin, a Common Buzzard; Thor, a Harris's Hawk; and CC, a Crested Caracara -- through their paces, and we were amazed at the bond between them and their trainer.
The 35-acre "Shire" is full of shops where you can buy everything from daggers, to magic wands, to butterfly headbands, to lace-up corsets, to dried herbs. There are food and drink vendors on every pathway, and I saw plenty of turkey legs being devoured. I can't imagine how many bottles of Poland Spring water they sold that hot afternoon.
There were plenty of kids and even infants at the Faire, and there are special activities for the little ones. There are also bawdy comedy shows for adults, and though not to my taste, we could hear howls of laughter coming from the audiences.

ATHLETICS: On and off the field

Thanks to some athletic accomplishments, the Young Relative this week had his first encounter with representatives of the Fourth Estate (other than me, of course) for post-game interviews. He handled himself beautifully, if I do say so myself: he was articulate, polite, poised, and colorful. In short, he was eminently quotable -- which should come as no surprise to "Unionville in the News" readers.
I smiled thinking about how his grandparents would have reacted. Dad, I know, would have been utterly delighted by his steady eye contact, a facet of public speaking he always stressed.

CAT: Tina is attuned

Bright and early Tuesday morning, Tina the Fat Cat had an appointment for her annual checkup at the vet's. At 7:45, I decided we'd better get going. I looked for her but she wasn't in any of her usual post-breakfast lounging spots, either windowsills or soft furniture. Finally I found her cowering under the bed, which she hasn't done since the first day we brought her home.
Somehow she knew what was going on! How?
I eventually coaxed her out, with some gentle nudging from a broom, and loaded her into the carrier. She got a clean bill of health and, thanks to her ample subcutaneous tissue, she didn't even feel her shots. Maybe she'll be less anxious next time, poor creature.

Miss Tina in a calmer moment. 

SUPERMARKET: Shopping around

Last week I wrote about how Giant supermarket has increased from $50 to $75 the amount you have spend to get double the gas points. This past week they tweaked their circular again: you had to spend $95 to get triple the gas points!
I'm a lifelong coupon user and I like to save money as much as anyone, but there's a tipping point here somewhere: I'm not going to put my back out wrestling an extra 35-pound bucket of cat litter into the grocery cart just to get 30 cents off a gallon of gas (not to mention the $40 chiropractic adjustment).
A "Unionville in the News" reader shares her story: "When my husband checked out at Giant yesterday with his $95 coupon and only $92.50 worth of groceries he asked the cashier if could he buy something else. She said, yes, but take it to customer service with your receipt. When he got to customer service with a $3 box of blackberries and his tale of woe, they said the $92.50 was close enough and they would give him the gas credits and he didn’t have to buy the blackberries if he didn’t really want them. That was nice of them, but STILL!"

AAA: Jumping through hoops

Just a heads up to AAA members from a friend who was in a crash this past week. She's fine, but her car isn't. She called AAA to summon a tow truck, but they wouldn't dispatch one because the membership is in her husband's name. They needed to talk to him AND see a photo ID!
Needless to say, my friend was not happy. She said she has been a Triple-A member for years, has used their towing service on many occasions, and has NEVER run into this complication before.

WILLOWDALE: Freedom of speech

A friend said she was driving her elementary-school kids to soccer practice at UHS on Wednesday afternoon when she came upon a protest at the Willowdale crossroads. There were anti-Brett Kavanaugh protestors on the Sovanna Bistro corner and, across the street, a pro-Trump contingent on the Landhope corner. (The Eckman Dentistry corner was taped off; no protestors allowed.)
Her kids, predictably, wanted to know what was going on.
She explained that the picketers were expressing their opinion, as we have the right to do here in America. The ones on this corner disagreed strongly with the ones on that corner, and that's why there was a police officer standing by.
"They disagree about a politician," she said.
"What's a politician?" they asked (again, predictably; these are bright kids).
By that time they'd reached UHS, for which the mother was grateful, because she told me she had no earthly idea how to even start explaining that one.

THE FAIR: A community tradition

The Unionville Community Fair, in its 94th year, is such a wonderful tradition. I love donning my Holstein-print apron and catching up with my "Fair friends" each October, among them longtime volunteers Bonnie Musser, Debra Swayne, Dave Salomaki, Karen Statz, Danielle Chamberlain, Berta Rains, Terry Hawkins, Bonnie and Ed Lewis, Ray McKay, and so many more. 
I knew that the Exhibit Barn had been fixed up since last autumn -- but wow, what a difference. New skylights let in far more light, the roof no longer leaks, and the stall partitions have been removed, greatly opening up the space. It looks terrific, and I was glad I ran into Landhope owner Dixon Stroud on Thursday and got a chance to thank him.  
The number of entries to the Fair varies greatly from year to year. I had only 11 entries in the youth baking category that I ran, but the adult baked goods and the canned and preserved foods tables were almost overflowing.
One mother entered her daughter's cookies on Thursday morning -- they were beautifully decorated, almost like old-fashioned marbled paper. She told me her daughter was determined to create them all by herself.
"Don't help me, Mom!" she kept saying (the mom said she insisted on putting them in the oven and taking them out, though).
There were lots of house plants, artwork, crafts, Lego creations and photography entries, and given the very wet summer we had, the specimen flowers and the garden vegetables had a respectable showing.
Martin Reber, the head of the youth vegetables category, was especially delighted with one entry: a family that was brand-new to the Fair entered a lovely collection of vegetables that included peppers, beans and three different types of okra. One vegetable neither he nor I had ever seen before was a spiky yellow-green gourd called a bitter gourd (Momordica charantia). It's edible (and in fact is used in traditional medicine) but tastes "grossly bitter," Martin said.
Students from the professional gardener program at Longwood serve as judges for the flowers, plants and vegetables classes and take their work very seriously, critiquing and discussing each specimen at length and leaving detailed comments on yellow sticky notes.
I overheard one saying that given the number of entries, there really ought to be a class for "other tomatoes."

KITCHEN: Doing it her way

A wonderfully talented friend reports that she is in the midst of redoing the kitchen of her Dilworthtown home. Note my wording: she is not paying someone to do it, she's doing it herself. (Stands to reason, as she designed and built the place 30 years ago.)
I asked her what she was doing for meals while the kitchen was gutted -- was she eating a lot of takeout?
Surprisingly, not so much, she said. While clearing out her cabinets, she unearthed a lot of long-forgotten appliances like a rice cooker, an electric wok and a George Foreman grill. Along with a microwave, she said she is able to manage pretty well and has turned the living room into a serviceable temporary kitchen.
But washing dishes in the laundry room is getting really old, she said.

TECHNOLOGY: Native tongue

Autocorrect is unfathomable at times.
A friend reported receiving an email asking if she could help out on Wednesday afternoon at the Unionville Community Fair. Was she, by any chance, "aboriginal"?
Of course, what the sender meant was "available."
My friend was greatly amused. 

LONGWOOD: Fire on high

The last Longwood Gardens fireworks of the season may have had the best grand finale ever. As regular readers know, we, like many others, watch the fireworks from "the cheap seats": the parking lot of the former Superfresh. True, you don't get to see the fountain displays, but you can hear the music and see the majority of the fireworks, and you can't beat the cost.
The musical theme of the Sept. 29 show was "disco" (what's not to like!), with highlights like "Boogie Shoes," "Stayin' Alive," "Lady Marmalade," "I Will Survive," and "Shining Star," with Donna Summer's "Last Dance" to wrap up the evening. I have in my notes that some of the fireworks reminded me of the lighted dance floor in "Saturday Night Fever," ET's glowing fingertip, and graceful downward-facing Datura flowers.
On our way home from the fireworks we saw dozens of cars with New Jersey and New York tags headed south on Newark Road after leaving Plantation Field, where that evening there was another of the popular Lantern Launches.

KENNETT: Beyond the call of duty

"Unionville in the News" reader Pete Kennedy was good enough to share this heartwarming story about Richard's Automotive, 961 W. Baltimore Pike:
"My wife had just come home from the hospital and could not be left at home alone. Our car's steering was regressing to those days when cars had no power steering, so with my daughter's help I dropped it off at Richard's Automotive and let him know it might be a couple of days before I could return and pick it up since my wife was ill.
The next day I went out to the driveway and noticed a van stopped on the road in front of my driveway and a man in the driveway getting out of my wife's car. It took me a second to realize her car shouldn't be there and then I saw the man getting out of the car was Richard.
It was a moment of kindness very unexpected and appreciated after a week at  Chester County Hospital."

BYRD ROAD: Fatal crash

Those roadside memorials are always sad, but the one on Byrd Road is especially poignant: 17-year-old Jacob Burnham of West Grove was killed when he crashed his beloved pickup truck, Maggie Mae, on September 28. At the accident site, which sits on a peaceful stretch of the gravel one-lane road, there's a large wooden cross, with loving messages from his friends, balloons, candles and a string of rosary beads.
His friends, wearing commemorative T-shirts, gathered there for a memorial candlelight ceremony on Sept. 30.
Jacob, son of Jim and Becky Burnham, was a student at Avon Grove High School and was in the automotive technology program at the Technical College High School at Pennocks Bridge. His friends and family set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for an auto tech scholarship in his name.

WEST MARLBOROUGH: A brief agenda

The October monthly meeting of the West Marlborough Board of Supervisors was a quiet and brief one.
Road crew manager Hugh Lofting II reported that his team has been busy mowing and filling in ruts with stone: "We're getting pretty good at it after our third flooding event," he said.
The supervisors approved an inground pool and pavilion that Phillip and Evie Dutton plan to build behind their house on Hood Road.
Supervisor Hugh Lofting said engineers recently visited the township's recently completed Rokeby Road stream stabilization project as part of a tour sponsored by the Chester County Conservation District. He also said the township's emergency services committee was meeting once a month and is collecting information about how emergency services are provided in West Marlborough and at what cost.
The next township meeting will be Monday, Nov. 5, instead of the usual Tuesday, Nov. 6, because the township meeting room/garage will be full of voters on Nov 6.