PHBA

Congratulations to Jeb Hannum of Unionville, who has been appointed the new executive secretary of the Pennsylvania Horse Breeders Association, which is headquartered in Kennett Square. Jeb will replace Mark McDermott, who retired after 35 years of service. A Unionville native and the son of Jock Hannum and Georgie Stapleton, Jeb is married to Emily Hannum and has three young children.

Crullers!

Why was I not informed that Friday, June 3, was National Doughnut Day?
It seems this extremely worthy holiday has been held on the first Friday in June since 1938, when the Chicago branch of the Salvation Army started the celebration as way to raise money for victims of the Great Depression and to honor its female volunteers who served doughnuts to the doughboys in Europe during World War I.
This was all news to me, but I've already put the date on my 2012 calendar for next June. I'll give you a heads-up.

Milk money

After a recent elementary-school awards assembly, I was chatting with a mother and father and mentioned how energetic, vivacious and kind our school's principal is, in contrast to the dour ascetic I remember from my elementary-school days.
They said all they remembered from "primary school" (they are from England) was the little bottle of state-supplied milk that they drank with lunch. That is, until Margaret Thatcher became Education Secretary in 1970 and started charging for the milk, earning her the unhappy soubriquet "Maggie Thatcher the Milk-Snatcher."
It was probably all for the best, though, pointed out the father, as the milk always seemed to be too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.

After midnight

Over the Memorial Day weekend I had dinner in Media with my old schoolmate George, who lives in Boston but was down here visiting his folks. We had a great time catching up, talking and laughing, and I didn't leave for home til after 11:30, much later than my usual country hours. At about 12:15 Monday morning I reached the London Grove crossroads of Newark Road and Route 926 -- and I was amazed to find four cars at the intersection! I had to wait at the stop sign!
I assumed the motorists were party-goers on their way home, but my clever sister-in-law offered a much more creative explanation: perhaps they were early-birds on their way to downtown Kennett to stake out prime spots for the Memorial Day parade.

B's blog

Bettinita Harris, a former "Philadelphia Inquirer" journalist and now a trainer at the Kennett YMCA, has started writing an excellent blog about fitness called "Training Swag: The Pursuit of Physical Fitness." From a recent entry about what she calls her love affair with the weight room:
"The only thing that matters is my effort. How hard I work and how far I push myself – I decide. It’s my world, and I have total control. Nobody is the boss of me. The possibility of change lives in this room. Bodies can be transformed in this room, but so can minds."
You can read it at http://trainingswag.blogspot.com/

NF fundraiser June 18

Nancy Davidson Wood of Unionville is organizing a benefit to raise money for Isabelle Moulsdale's NF Fund. Isabelle, a schoolmate of Nancy and Crosby's daughter at Hockessin Montessori School, has the genetic disorder neurofibromatosis type 1, which causes tumors to grow on nerves throughout the body. "Kids' Country Carnival 4 a Cure" will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 18, at Plantation Field, 1530 West Doe Run Rd. (Route 82), Unionville. Admission is $40 per car at the gate, and the rain date is Sunday, June 19.

Tilda, Party of 6

There's a NEW sign on the window of King's Island announcing that the Chinese restaurant's grand re-opening will be this month! The popular restaurant in the Superfresh shopping center on Route 1 has been shut down since a fire in June 2010, and I know a lot of folks who will be delighted if it really does re-open this time.
Alas, though, Manny Hattan's, the restaurant next door to King's Island, closed its doors last week. So did the Old Wooden Market and Deli in Chadds Ford (where the Wawa used to be); Bill Bondarchuk, the owner, said that "the economy did not rebound enough for us to continue operations."

Lending

A photo of Kennett Square mushroom grower Chris Alonzo hard at work was used to illustrate a story in the May 28 issue of "Lancaster Farming" entitled "Agricultural bankers ready to lend to farmers." One of the bankers mentioned in the story was Keith Silfee, vice president and business relations manager of National Penn Bank in Oxford. The story said that Mr. Silfee specializes in making loans to mushroom farmers.

Requiem

My first inkling that May 31 would not be an ordinary day came at breakfast when I got a text from a friend: "Bad fire at Boyd Martin's barn last night. Many horses at NB ICU." At first the TV news reported that all the horses had been rescued from the barn at Phillip and Evie Dutton's True Prospect Farm on Hood Road in West Marlborough, but then word started to trickle out online and via the "Unionville telegraph" about just how bad the fire was: six competition horses were killed, four were being treated at New Bolton and one was unhurt (but developed problems later that day and also went to New Bolton).
Three heroic employees who lived at the barn raced out to rescue the horses but lost all their belongings in the blaze. Not only did they lose their beloved equine companions, but they were left without clothes or even a toothbrush.
Usually there's plenty of cheerful small talk at the Unionville post office, especially after a holiday weekend. On Tuesday there wasn't any. A barn fire is every horse owner's nightmare, and a lot of hearts were broken early that morning.
The community has been wonderfully generous. The Whip held an impromptu fund-raiser on Wednesday evening and raised more than $5,000. Updates and videos are being posted daily about how the horses are recovering -- two have already been discharged from the hospital -- and how the victims are settling into their new homes and getting back to work.
To learn more about what's going on, or to make a donation to one of the many funds that have been set up, visit the "True Prospect Fire Recovery Fund" page on Facebook or go to the "Eventing Nation" website(which has been doing a great job covering the story).

I Love a Parade!

I'm sure the Kennett Memorial Day Parade will be well covered elsewhere in these pages, so I will add only one remark: It was truly fantastic, and my friends and I had a great time watching, cheering, clapping and waving our flags. Thank you to everyone involved!

Antiques

In the May/June issue of "Antiques" magazine, there's a photo of Primitive Hall, the 18th-century Pennock home here in West Marlborough. It's part of an article about "Paint, Pattern, and People: Furniture of Southeastern Pennsylvania, 1725-1850," the new exhibition at Wintherthur Museum. One of the pieces featured in the show is an armchair from Primitive Hall.

The show's curators are Wendy A. Cooper (a Primitive Hall board member), who is the Lois F. and Henry S. McNeil Senior Curator of Furniture at Wintherthur, and Lisa Minardi, Assistant Curator of Furniture for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Furniture Project. The Wintherthur show runs through Jan. 8, 2012.