"A (musical) comedy tonight"

The Gilbert & Sullivan Society of Chester County is presenting the witty operetta "Iolanthe; or the Peer and the Peri" at West Chester University Nov. 18 though 21. I first saw this group perform years ago at the Brandywine Valley Association, and they are so talented and so silly. Tickets are available at http://www.gsschesco.org/; ordering, the Society assures us, is "so easy, even a Peer could do it!"

Heads up

A dear friend of mine got a major haircut the other day. It looks great, but she realized that with all the missing volume, now her riding helmet is going to be too loose. She's going to have to stuff foam into it.

Country hours

I realized this weekend just how "country" I am when George Mutter, a well-traveled, cosmopolitan friend from Boston, was in Media to visit his folks. We arranged to meet for dinner, and he e-mailed me that he had made reservations for us at the Rose Tree Inn in Media.
For 8 p.m. Yikes!
By the time we finished our wonderful meal (a crusted tuna appetizer and amazing duck glazed with cherries), it was 10:30 p.m. and they were closing the restaurant. I didn't get home til after midnight.
Thank goodness for strong coffee, and for his riveting conversation about the discoveries his pathology lab  is making.

Here there be Dragoons

Revolutionary War re-enactors from the Fourth Continental Light Dragoons are going to be camping out at Primitive Hall Nov. 12 through 14, complete with tents and horses.
The camp will be open to the public from noon til 4 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 13, and the re-enactors welcome curious civilians, both children and adults. At 1 p.m. they will be holding an authentic court-martial for one unfortunate soldier who got a little rowdy the previous evening. At 2 p.m. there will be a "Children's Muster," where the soldiers will teach kids how to drill using wooden muskets. Then at 3 p.m. "the infantry and cavalry will perform a joint drill to demonstrate how a combined legion of troops operated in the 18th century."
I've met several of these re-enactors, and they are fascinating and absolutely dedicated to historical authenticity. This is the third year in a row they have camped at the 18th-century Primitive Hall, which they love because it provides such an authentic backdrop.
Primitive Hall is on Route 841, between Route 926 and Route 842, near the village of Chatham (830 North Chatham Road). You can see photos of a previous encampment at http://www.primitivehall.org/galleries/dragoon_gallery/index.html and for more details on the Dragoons, visit http://www.fourthdragoons.com/.

Huan ying (Welcome!)

Xuan Yang, a visiting scholar from Wuhan, China, is bringing Chinese culture, language, art, games and music to the elementary school pupils in the Unionville-Chadds Ford district. Miss Yang spent the first six weeks of the school year at Unionville Elementary and is now at Hillendale Elementary. According to an e-mail from Hillendale's principal, Steve Dissinger, Miss Yang "is one of approximately 20 delegates sponsored by the Chinese Ministry of Education who are spending the 2010-2011 school year visiting and teaching
in American public schools."

Things we do for love

A hapless young fellow appeared at a hearing last week asking West Marlborough to bend its zoning rules. He is getting married soon, he explained, and his fiancee wants to bring her two horses along when she moves in. But the township code requires one acre per horse, and he was proposing to keep two horses in a now-wooded area measuring only 3/4 of an acre. The board members, most of whom had long experience with livestock, gently explained to him why this was not a good idea: the animals would quickly eat all the grass that could be coaxed to grow, the bare pasture would erode and the dirt would run into a neighboring stream.
The landowner admitted that he knew little about horses and had never owned any.
"You're a lucky man," quipped one board member dryly, who knew how horses become a priority for their owners.
Friends in Newlin lost water for the better part of a day last week (some mechanical problem), and I was struck by how their sole concern was making sure their horses had enough water. Toilets, drinking water and showers for themselves? Completely secondary and unimportant issues.

Not just desserts

They're clever, those 4-H Creating Community Networks folks. They've scheduled their annual "Be a Sweetheart" fundraiser for a weekday night -- Tuesday, November 9, to be exact. I went last year and I'm going again. It pulls together a diverse group of folks, the desserts are excellent, there's a minimum of speeches -- and most importantly it raises money for really useful and creative youth programs. Instead of just writing a check to the general fund, you get to pick a project to "adopt"; last year I sponsored a journal-writing program for kids. The event is held at the Kennett Flash, which is always a fun venue. It's from 7 to 9 p.m. and tickets ($30) are available at the door.

Stink bug roundup

(1) People are coming up with some medieval-sounding concoctions to ward them off. I've heard of brews containing bleach, cayenne pepper (boiled in a coffee filter), WD-40 and Dawn dish soap.
(2) My little Oreck vacuum died. This past month it has done an absolute yeoman's duty of sucking up stink bugs, and I blame them for its demise; it couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that I've had it since the millennium. When I bought a new one, the sales guy asked if I wanted some charcoal-lined odor-fighting bags. I said yes without even asking the price.
(3) I remarked to a visitor, with great relief, that the stink bug population seems to be lessening inside my house. He gave me a quizzical look and wordlessly pointed to a few crawling on the ceiling and the windowsills and the doorjamb. "But that's nothing," I said. What does he know? He lives in a tight, modern, non-Unionville house; to him, this was an infestation.

Lenape Park

Lenape Park (now the Brandywine Picnic Park) was a magical place when I was a kid in the 1960s. We'd go as a family, and while we were heading down Route 52 I remember straining to catch the first glimpse of the wooden roller coaster over the trees. I went on the roller coaster, only once, with my Dad, and was terrified. I much preferred the big swings and the way your stomach would drop at the top of the arc, and the wonderful carousel, where you really could grab a brass ring (if you were taller than me, that is). My favorite attraction, though, was the "Fun House," with its cackling monsters and freaky mirror and the trick slide that propelled you out at the end.
I'm not sure such a park exists anymore. Nothing was "monetized"; there weren't tie-ins with fast-food restaurants or TV or movie characters. You didn't get a discount if you brought a certain number of soda labels. The only music came from the carousel, punctuated by the screams of the roller-coaster riders.
And on the way home we'd stop at Baldwin's Book Barn. Back then they had glass jars of penny candy (and it really was penny candy), and each of us kids would leave with our own little brown bag of nonpareils, orange slices and multicolored sugar "dots" stuck to white paper.
There are some memory-inducing photos of Lenape Park at http://www.oldwilmington.net/oldwilmington/lenape-park.htm (thanks to Jim Dugan for the link).

Artistic license

A clothing catalogue I received in the mail the other day cracked me up. On one page a wholesome-looking model stood in a well-tended vegetable garden proudly displaying a bunch of carrots. A purple pickup truck was visible behind her, just waiting for her to jump in and head to the local certified organic farmers' market.
Very stylish, certainly, but the sanitized scene bore little relation to the earthy joy of gardening as I know it.
The model's clothes looked more suited to a yoga studio. She wore sandals (dirty toe alert!) and a chiffon scarf with a tattoo-style pattern artfully knotted around her neck. There were no signs of gardening gloves or utensils. The "freshly harvested" carrots were scrubbed clean and perfectly uniform, a food stylist's dream. Even the vintage truck looked spotless.
In contrast, the circular I received from a Lancaster County store for Carhartt work clothes was a whole lot more realistic. The guy depicted wearing Carhartt overalls was holding some kind of a pipe valve, and he actually looked like a working plumber.

As it was

Thank you to Mary Larkin Dugan of Marlborough Village for sending along this link to a fascinating website about Unionville history, full of wonderful old photos and stories. Perhaps it will distract you from your work the way it did for me. http://www.eastmarlboroughhistorical.org/

Northward Ho!

My kind neighbor invited me to the opening of "Chilling Reality" (http://www.chillingreality.com/), the fascinating new exhibit at the Chester County Historical Society in West Chester. It tells the story of four adventurous county residents -- Isaac I. Hayes, Amos Bonsall, Samuel Entrikin, and Harry Whitney -- who traveled to the wilds of the Arctic in the 19th century. The exhibit runs through June. Don't miss seeing the spoon that Entrikin carried with him throughout his travels and the tiny dog that he carved.
My own trek northward took me to the plant sale at the Downingtown Friends Meeting Fall Festival. Why do Quakers seem to have such wonderful, unusual plant sales? This one was under the supervision of local plant expert David Culp (http://www.davidlculp.com/), who helped me select the Gentiana "True Blue" with the most buds. I also bought an Epimedium "Spine Tingler" (barrenwort) and a Gautheria procumbens (winter berry).

Thanks but no thanks

PennDOT made an offer to the Newlin Township supervisors that they found it easy to refuse.
PennDOT wanted to "give back" to the township the state roads Brandywine Drive and Green Valley Road and offered to pay the township $16,000 per year to pay for upkeep on the roads. The supervisors, however, said no deal: it would cost far more than that to maintain the roads.