Concert at St. Michael in Unionville

St. Michael Lutheran Church in Unionville is inviting the community to a free concert at the church at 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 7. Professional singers Massimo Brutto and Evan Graver will perform popular stage and Broadway music in the genre of Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban, with such hits as “The Prayer,” “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” "You Raise Me Up," and “Bring Him Home” from Les Miserables. St. Michael's music director, Ryan Peteraf, will accompany them on piano. 

Guests are asked to bring a can of soup, a box of cereal, or another non-perishable food item for Kennett Area Community Services (KACS).

Masks are not required, although the church asks that non-vaccinated people continue to wear masks.

St. Michael Church is at 109 East Doe Run Road, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

MUSIC AT ANSON B. NIXON PARK!

Wednesday night live music is back at Anson B. Nixon Park in Kennett Square!

No, one exclamation point is not enough. 

Wednesday night live music is back at Anson B. Nixon Park in Kennett Square!! We sorely missed these free concerts during the pandemic. 

Shows start at 7 p.m. and last until 9 p.m. Bring your folding chairs or blanket and your picnic basket and drinks to the amphitheater. 

Here's the line-up:

Aug. 18, Delta Cosmonauts ("an eclectic mix of blues, folk, country soul, Americana and classic rock songs")

Aug. 25, SydeTwo (featuring former Kennett Square mayor Leon Spencer)

Sept. 1, Late Ambitions (" six member cover band, playing rock, country, pop and folk from the Beatles and the Stones to Portugal The Man and The Black Keys")

Sept 8, Betty & the Bullet ("Michael Davis, Bethany (Betty) Bullington, and Mark Unruh are Betty & the Bullet: Roots music trio")

Sept. 15, Too Tall Slim and the Guilty Pleasures ("Homegrown rock 'n' roll band from Wilmington, Delaware plays originals and a healthy dose of covers")

Concerts on Sept. 22 and 29 are still to be announced.

A retirement party for Hugh Sr.

Three generations of the Lofting clan showed up to honor Hugh Lofting Sr. as he stepped down from his  longtime position as a West Marlborough Township supervisor.

Before the May 4 meeting, township officials held a brief ceremony in the township garage to say goodbye to Hugh. On hand were his wife, Ann; his son, Hugh 2, and daughter-in-law, Sally; sister, Cintra Murray, and his young grandson, Tuff.

Supervisors' chairman Bill Wylie said no one seems able to pinpoint the date of Hugh's first official township meeting. Hugh said not even he is not sure of the date, but he thinks it was held in Ken Cruse's living room. Hugh served as township roadmaster for many years, so as a farewell gift, the supervisors presented him with a toy truck. 

Refreshments were apple cider from Barnard's Orchards and a delicious cake, baked by Bill Wylie. Tuff Lofting did a great job distributing plates of cake and glasses of cider to the guests.

Emery Jones, formerly the secretary of the township planning commission, is taking over Hugh's position on the board of supervisors.

Bill Wylie, Hugh Lofting Sr., Hugh Lofting Jr., and township secretary-treasurer Shirley Walton at Hugh Sr.'s retirement celebration in the West Marlborough Township garage.

After the ceremony, the supervisors held their monthly meeting. Hugh Lofting Jr., who is stepping into his father's shoes as roadmaster, said he and the crew were busy mowing intersections, filling potholes and doing spring grading of the roads. He outlined some badly needed repairs he plans to do on the beds of the township's dump trucks: "They're from the 1990s, and they live in salt." 

In an attempt to slow traffic and improve safety, the supervisors asked him to come up with ideas for narrowing the stretch of Newark Road between Upland Road (Route 842) and Route 82. 

The supervisors also said they sent a violation notice to JLT Enterprises and set a deadline for the company to stop manufacturing wooden pallets at their property in the 1600 block of Newark Road. Neighbors had reported the manufacturing activity to the township, and there was a major fire at the site in March. 

Pro-Vaxxer

Re: the COVID-19 vaccination program: 

1. I'm healthy and under 65. I fully expected to wait until sometime this summer before getting my vaccination, and I was fine with being at the back of the line. Let the vaccine go to those who are more at risk.

2. In anticipation of the relaxed eligibility guidelines, I registered online with the Chester County Health Department last week. They said they'd notify me when they could give me an appointment.

3. I got an email from CCHD yesterday announcing that I was eligible; did I want to schedule an appointment? I did indeed!

4. Minutes later (literally), I got an email offering me an appointment for 16 hours later at my first-choice location: the Jennersville YMCA, only 20 minutes from my house. They attached a two-page form that I filled out and signed.

5. I showed up at the Y. The workers could not have been nicer and the whole process couldn't have been easier or more efficient. Before I knew it, I'd received my vaccine in the left arm and scored that beautiful, coveted vaccine card. 

6. I hung out in the waiting area for a while (they want to make sure you don't have a bad reaction). Even this wasn't a hassle, as my brother got his shot shortly after me, and we got to catch up on news.

This is just my experience, of course, but I have nothing but good things to say about the entire process. 10 out of 10!

A new supervisor for West Marlborough

"It's been a good ride," said West Marlborough Supervisor Hugh Lofting Sr., summing up his decades of service to the township. At the April 6 meeting, he submitted his letter of retirement, which was regretfully accepted by the other two supervisors, Jake Chalfin and Bill Wylie.

Mr. Wylie asked long-time township secretary Shirley Walton how long Hugh Sr. had been a supervisor, and she said he started serving as a planning commission member back in the 1980s.

"That was before I was born!" exclaimed his son, Hugh Lofting Jr., who is the head of the township's road crew. The younger Lofting agreed to take on some of his father's tasks in terms of getting grants for township roadwork.

Supervisors Chalfin, Lofting and Wylie, with secretary-treasurer Shirley Walton and engineer Al Giannantonio, at a 2016 township meeting.

The supervisors appointed Emery Jones Taylor to fill Mr. Lofting's term. A lifelong township resident, she was the secretary for the planning commission and is married to former supervisor Josh Taylor. She recently joined the staff of the National Steeplechase Association. Jake Chalfin predicted she will be "a dynamite fit" on the board.

The supervisors also received a resignation letter from zoning hearing board member Tom Best.

Supervisor Chalfin also noted that Kenny Young, "a fixture of the township," died April 4. Mr. Young served in the Army, rode the King Ranch as a cowboy and for 50 years served as the farm manager for  the Runnymede estate. He said the last time he saw Mr. Young was when Mr. Young brought him some Angus steaks from his own cattle. Jake said Mr. Young was immensely proud of his grandchildren and loved talking about them. Supervisor Wylie recalled that Mr. Young and his brothers were all gifted athletes, and the King Ranch baseball team was always a formidable opponent.  Here is Mr. Young's obituary.

Kenny Young

Also at the meeting, Mr. Wylie said he had heard from a former member of the Kennett Library board who told him that West Marlborough's financial support of the library's building project was instrumental in influencing other municipalities to contribute as well. Mr. Wylie noted that he thought this was worth mentioning, given the "concerns" that some West Marlborough residents expressed back in 2019 about whether the township should help to finance a new library building in the center of Kennett Square.  

Artist's rendering of the proposed Kennett Library.

 

Starting the gardening season!

I stopped by the local big-box DIY store this afternoon and found it fully stocked with gardening products, and with hope. 

Potted hyacinths scented the air, with a whiff of fertilizer from off in the distance. Racks of seed packets with beautiful illustrations of flowers and vegetables almost made me forget my lack of success starting pretty much anything indoors. And as they're undoubtedly designed to do, the patio sets, grills and fire pits got me thinking of warm summer days on the deck.

But I was there on a mission. My two-seasons-old gardening gloves had developed a rip in the middle finger. This would not be a problem if the extent of my gardening were planting pretty red geraniums in a window box, and then sitting down to a glass of iced tea. No: my yardwork includes tangling with my arch-enemy the multiflora rose and its mercilessly sharp curved thorns. So I quickly rejected the dainty cotton gloves in floral prints and went straight to the heavy armor: rugged reinforced leather with Velcro closures. They look like something an astronaut might wear. I will soon put them to the test.

Small talk with strangers is something I have greatly missed during the pandemic, so I was happy when another shopper came up to me in the garden center and said he couldn't find those brown coir liners for planters. It was his belief, he said darkly, that the store just wanted you to spend more and buy their premade planters rather than assembling your own.

 

A 1919 reunion

On Friday I had a great time exploring life in Chester County circa 1919, thanks to the microfilm collection at the Chester County History Center on North High Street in West Chester (formerly the Chester County Historical Society). 

At the Cloud family reunion back in August, I had volunteered to research whether the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic had affected the family's 1919 reunion. Back then, stories about family gatherings were a fixture of the Daily Local's society pages, so I asked the library staff if I could take a look at the appropriate reel of microfilm. They very kindly set me up at a microfilm reader, dimmed the lights for better viewing, and I started my trip back in time.

I got my answer within an hour. The Aug. 4 issue carried a lengthy account of the Cloud reunion in East Goshen (we still meet at the East Goshen Park), but it didn't mention the Spanish flu at all. More evident was the long shadow of World War I: the entertainment portion of the gathering included the WWI songs "Keep the Home Fires Burning" and "Good Morning, Mr. Zip Zip Zip" (Google the latter; it's a snappy tune). 

There was a lengthy account of the annual "base ball" game, which featured a pitcher who in his college days at the "State Normal School" had been known for his "cannon-fire speed." (There's no longer a baseball game, but we did have a heated cornhole competition last year.) The luncheon menu included ham, beef, potato salad, ice cream, jellies and lemon butter (still a staple at today's reunions).

After finding the reunion story, I spent another hour browsing through the paper. The Daily Local must have had a huge staff at the time because they ran detailed first-person stories about everything from car crashes, industrial accidents, arrests, and court trials to births, deaths, marriages, club meetings, and church activities. 

One reporter was sent out to find out why a politician decided to drop out of a race. The reporter quoted the man as saying "for party unity," before noting that he turned away from the journalist and busied himself with some paperwork. Can't you imagine his gritted teeth and the horse-trading back-story there!

Police officers were much more willing to provide colorful, on-the-record comments about arrests. One provided an account of how a youth ratted on his friends and turned them in for breaking into houses. And there was certainly no Patient Privacy Act; the paper ran a list of hospital admissions, sometimes giving details of the person's illness and prognosis. A reporter interviewed one recuperating patient who had received several blood transfusions; the enthusiastic patient was happy to share his experience and said he felt years younger.

Some things remain the same over time, of course. According to a letter to the editor, a road south of Oxford was in such rough shape that it would produce indigestion in the soundest constitution. And a West Grove resident complained that the placement of a billboard was an accident waiting to happen because it blocked motorists' visibility. One wonders what they would think about today's distracting video billboards on highways!