Folk Fest

A young friend asked me to mention that the Brandywine Folk Collective will be hosting the Brandywine Folk Festival along the -- you guessed it -- Brandywine River in Mortonville, starting at 2 p.m. Saturday, July 28. Performers will be "folk legend Paleface, i am Love, Kit Colt, the Pretty Ditty's, Pedro and Pearl, 100 Acre Woods, and more TBA." Tickets are $10, and for more information about the show visit the "Brandywine Folk Festival" event page on Facebook.

Good food served quickly

Mary Hutchins, the executive director of Historic Kennett Square, sent me a message about last week's story concerning Larry Bosley's request to allow "multiple fast food restaurants" at his office building at 148 West State Street.
She wrote:
"`Fast food' in the zoning code refers to any food that is served without wait staff like, Talula's Table, La Michoacana, Sammy's Sub Shop etc. Larry and Geoff Bosley have no intention of bringing in a `stereotypical' fast food restaurant. They are planning on creating an open air market similar to the Ardmore Market and may have vendors such as a coffee shop, ice cream or frozen yogurt etc."
They need a special exception to do so, and the hearing will be held before the borough's zoning hearing board July 24 at 7 p.m. at Borough Hall.

Shades of gray

Just overheard in the Giant, as a Mom with two little girls walked through the hair-dye section. 
Daughter: "Mommy, what's this for?"
Mom: "Well, some people don't like the color Mother Nature made their hair."
Or perhaps, we liked the color Mother Nature ORIGINALLY made our hair just fine...

Battery

Here's a useful tip for people who have Verizon FIOS Internet service. If your system is like mine, you have a white box somewhere linking you to the connection from the street. My box is in the garage. The other morning it was beeping sporadically, and a red battery warning light was glowing. My Internet connection is a critical part of my life, so I noted the battery details and headed out to Radio Shack to buy a replacement.
They know all about FIOS systems there: I barely had to mentions the specs before they had the correct battery in my hands. They also suggested that when I got home, I should unplug the battery, wait 10 minutes, and plug it back in. They said that often fixes the problem.
I did so, and the warning light went off and has stayed off. So now I have a backup battery, which I'm storing in the refrigerator. (My neighbor claims that extends battery life, and over the years I have observed that he's rarely wrong about anything.)

Shaking my head

A friend of mine performs a useful service that takes him into people's attics and basements. He was working in a sweltering attic the other day, in the midst of the heat wave. When he finished his job he came back downstairs and was approached by the homeowner.
"Don't sweat on the carpet," she instructed him.
I was astonished when he related this story to me.
"Was she KIDDING?" I asked him.
"Ohhhh, no," he said.
Now that is just plain abominable behavior. He's another human being (and, in this case, a military veteran and a good guy). Offer him a towel and a drink. You're worried about your carpet? Put down a runner for the guy to walk on. 
Like the old saying goes: If you treat people like dirt, you haven't come very far from the ground yourself.

Township business

Put July 30 on your schedule if you live in West Marlborough. The township supervisors will be holding public hearings on two contentious topics: (1) at 7 p.m., a zoning amendment that would allow off-site parking in the villages of Springdell and London Grove and (2) at 8 p.m., a 0.5 percent earned income tax assessed on township residents.
The common thread linking these two issues is the Whip Tavern, the Springdell bar/restaurant that is popular with everyone except a few of its neighbors (known as the "Springdell 8"). The Springdell 8 have complained vociferously about the parking problems at the Whip. In response, the township first banned parking on the shoulders of Springdell Road, but the problem has persisted: the lot is simply too small.
Which leads to Issue 1, the proposed zoning amendment, which would allow a business to have parking on a  separate lot from the principal use in the township's Village-Residential zones (Springdell and London Grove village). The logic, according to the proposed amendment, is that many of the lots in the zone "do not meet the minimum lot area requirement thereby resulting in principal uses on lots that do not have adequate space for the use." (That would certainly seem to be the case with the Whip.)
The parking lot has to be within 150 feet of the main property, 500 feet if there's "a continuous off-street path, sidewalk or accessway that directly connects with the principal use."  The ordinance includes regulations on the off-site uses in terms of size, lighting and signage. (The township planning commission suggested forbidding overnight parking and requiring the lights to be turned off after closing.)
Cathy Huston, one of the Springdell 8, objected to the amendment at the July 3 township meeting, saying that nonconforming uses like the Whip "don't really belong there" and should be tolerated only if "they stay their right size." The Whip, she said, has "greatly expanded" and "outgrown its space," and lifting the parking restrictions "flies in the face of the zoning ordinance." 
Moving on to Issue 2, the earned income tax. The township has tried several times to broker a compromise between the Whip and the neighbors, but to no avail. The Springdell 8 have filed several ongoing legal challenges against the Whip, and because of these actions West Marlborough Township has incurred legal and engineering fees of at least $50,000 -- and rising. Coupled with the decrease in income from the real-estate transfer tax, the township has had to borrow from other accounts and has proposed this tax as the best way of raising the needed money to get back on its financial feet.
Come to the hearing and let the supervisors know what you think.

Sad news

Two dozen Angus at a farm in East Fallowfield were electrocuted by a lightning strike during the thunderstorms that blew through our area early June 29. I saw a photograph of the poor creatures lying lifeless on the ground. 

Another victim of the storm, though far less significant, was West Marlborough Township secretary Shirley Walton's work computer. Lightning fried both the computer and the router at the township office. Another expense for our beleaguered township (I'm told the loss might or might not be covered by insurance).

Jan Dorothy

I spotted this little sign outside the Kennett Y the other day and a vivid memory of Jan came back to me. The aerobics class that I took for years followed the one that she taught, and so when I came into the Y I'd always see her sitting in the lobby chatting with her friends. She'd always make a point of greeting me, with a fond "my dear." She was a warm, delightful, loving human being.

Photo search

A Unionville friend asks:
"Where would you go, or who would you ask, for historical photos of the old Brandywine Hounds or VicMead Hunt?  I’m trying to dig up a photo of Frank V. Turner, who hunted hounds for both back in the 1950’s.  Both hunts have since folded, and I don’t know who might have a photo collection."
Please contact me (uvilleblogger@gmail.com) if you can help her out. (After all, she's the one who came up with Tilda's nom de plume!)

Athletes

I am in utter awe of the athletes who rode in the Chester County Grand Prix bike races that went through our township last week. I just got home from watching the July 4 Road Race, whose start and finish line was at Brooklawn on Newark Road. I was sitting on a stone wall, under a walnut tree, with a nice breeze, friends and a Victory beer. In contrast, the bicyclists were out there racing, hard, pushing themselves to their limits in 90-degree weather.
"This is like riding 92 miles in an E-Z Bake Oven," said the announcer at one point.

"That's a very good description," agreed one exhausted cyclist as he passed me, walking back to his vehicle.  

According to a press release I received the next day: "Over 400 cyclists in seven different categories competed in yesterday’s Chesco Road Race, which also served as the Pennsylvania State Road Race Championship for the Masters and Elite men’s classes.  The 13.2-mile circuit was an up-and-down challenge for cyclists who raced from 2 laps (26 miles) for juniors and novices to 7 laps (92 miles) for the pro/elite men’s category ..."
"Only half of the eighty riders who started the featured pro race were able to finish as temperatures soared into the mid nineties during the nearly four hour race. An early breakaway of nine riders built up a nearly four-minute lead before falling apart as the heat and hills took its toll in the closing laps."
From a spectator's point of view, it was great fun watching and cheering, even if we didn't understand the intricacies of racing strategy -- and what a nice way to show off our township's beautiful countryside. I understand there were some traffic problems earlier in the day on Newark Road between 82 and 842, and when I arrived at noon they had closed that stretch of the road. I parked at the Upland corner and walked in.

On the grid

The other night at dinner, my mother posed a question to me.
This is not uncommon. I believe I have previously described my mother as the world's most inquisitive person, a characterization that no one in the family or the larger community would dispute.
Anyhow, she wanted me to find out what those yellow grids are that are showing up on roadside utility poles.
I accepted the challenge (not that I had any choice).
So on the way home from dinner I was on the lookout for these yellow grids, and I found one in Unionville, pulled off a little bit up the road and walked back to snap a quick photo.
While I was returning to the car, two friends happened to be driving by and stopped, fearing I had car trouble and might need a ride.
I explained what I was doing and -- just because this is how things work in my world --  the husband knew what the yellow grids were, because PECO had just installed a bunch of them near his farm, and he had asked them the same question.
They are safety reflectors.
I emailed my long-suffering father on the spot and told him the answer so he could relay it to Mum.
"Thank you," he wrote back. "Now I can get some sleep."

Penny is wise

How I love my sharp-eyed readers.
Penny from Kennett Square pointed out in an email that I should have used "farther" instead of "further" in my item a few weeks back about the bicyclist I saw on a usually deserted West Marlborough road: "He must have turned around and come back down, because maybe a half mile further along he zoomed past me, waving."

She's absolutely right, and to think that I call myself a grammar queen. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? My readers, obviously! Thank you, Penny!

New restaurant

Here's hoping this brand-new restaurant on Baltimore Pike, west of Kennett Square, has better luck than its predecessors. It seems that nothing has done well in this spot since the much-loved Barnwood Restaurant closed down some years ago. When I drove by on Sunday afternoon, it was already open for business.