EMBREEVILLE: Out on a sunny day

I've written about it many times; I've been to parties and township meetings there; I've even tried to give blood there (the presence of stinkbugs freaked out the blood drive volunteers). But until Sunday I had never hiked at the 1,282-acre ChesLen Preserve.
We took advantage of the first nice day in what seemed like weeks to explore the preserve. The sun was bright and warm, and there was a gentle breeze, unlike the gales we've had all winter.
There were lots of other hikers there, many with their dogs. One fellow with a cattle dog told us it was the best dog he'd ever had: "I ask him to do something and he does it." A nice older couple was walking with a boisterous yellow lab, their grand-dog.
We spotted one brave kayaker at Corcoran's Bridge; I noticed he was wearing a Davey Tree shirt, so we figured he had been very busy working and needed a day on the water. (A permanent access for canoes is being installed on the downstream side of the bridge.)
We decided to take the three-mile-long Peter Hausmann Trail, which wound through farmland and passed Potter's Field (established 1800), where about 200 inmates of the former county poorhouse at Embreeville were buried. The simple, identical stones have only numbers, no names or dates, on them. "Known but to God, Respected by Us," reads the sign. The cemetery is a lovely, sunny spot, enclosed by a chain-link fence and with a large evergreen at each corner. Daffodils were poking their heads up between the grave markers.

UHS: East meets West

We go to each Unionville High School musical with great expectations and we're never disappointed. "The King and I" was a hugely entertaining evening. The King's dozens of children were played by district elementary and middle-school kids and they stole the show with their enthusiasm and just downright cuteness. The sets (especially the Buddha statue) were beautifully done, and the choreography, especially during the play-within-a-play, was stunning.
I have to confess that I got a little emotional when the curtain came down, realizing that some of the kids we'd watched over the years were graduating. The wonderfully talented Ethan Pan, whom we'll never forget as the Donkey in "Shrek," did a fabulous job portraying as the King, an intelligent but pompous man who is torn between tradition and modernity. 
And watch for the up-and-coming Tyge Thomas, a sixth-grader at Patton Middle School, who didn't miss a line or a cue in his first musical ever.
The lavish costumes for the 84 actors and actresses were designed and created by Mary Boeni and her team. After the curtain call the director, Scott Litzenberg, promised her he would never again have a cast that big; she rolled her eyes and mouthed "thank you."

GLOBE: A melting pot

On St. Patrick's Day, I drove to the Holy Ghost Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Coatesville and bought home-made pierogies and nut rolls. For dinner we went to La Pena Mexican Restaurant, where the TV was showing a match between two British "football" teams, with Spanish-language commentary from "Fox Deportes En Vivo." Then we headed to Unionville High School to see "The King and I," about nineteenth-century Siam.
All in all, it was an international day even in our little corner of the world.