The Mushroom Drop, 2020-style

 Happy New Year, friends!

Our celebration was a little different this year. Instead of attending Midnight in the Square (aka the Mushroom Drop) in person on New Year's Eve, we watched the two-hour video at home the next afternoon. (The video is available on Midnight in the Square's Facebook page (1) Facebook.)

Because of the pandemic, the organizers moved the site of the Mushroom Drop from the middle of Kennett Square down to the big parking lot in the 600 block of South Broad Street. Spectators were encouraged to stay home and watch the livestreamed event. 

The Mushroom was escorted to the site by fire trucks, sirens blaring, and was raised at 9 p.m. New Year's Eve. The livestream started at 10:15 p.m. In the time-honored spirit of "the show must go on!" the usual Mushroom Drop emcee, Tom Lafferty, handled the challenge masterfully. During the two-hour show, he did a super job of integrating his live announcements with photos from past Mushroom Drops and virtual musical performances. 

This year's entertainers were Kevin Pierce, William Rose (we enjoyed seeing the dog sleeping on the sofa behind him), and two members of the Funsters, the oldies band that traditionally warms up the Mushroom Drop crowd. Kevin Pierce was a wonderful and truly engaging singer that made us smile with his versions of classics like "The Way You Look Tonight" and "What a Wonderful World." We Googled him and found that he is a former state trooper (Bio - Vocals By Kevin)!

As midnight approached, Mr. Lafferty spoke from the heart about how he hoped 2021 would be a better year for all. And then he counted down as the lighted mushroom was slowly lowered to the earth.  

How we spent our Christmas vacation

Here's hoping you had a splendid Christmas holiday!

We enjoyed the Zoom Christmas program put on by London Grove Friends Meeting, with carols, a story and Scripture readings. Marlborough Friends Meeting's customary Carol Sing also went online, with a podcast featuring music, songs and Bible verses. The latter ended with the hope that God willing, we will be able to meet in person in 2021.

For the past several Christmas Eves we've had the pleasure of going to a laid-back open house in Embreeville, and we did it by Zoom this year. The toddler son of the hosts stole the show. He and his father were assembling a toy John Deere tractor that had many, many parts, one of which just wouldn't fit.

The youth carefully studied the situation.

"I see the problem!" he announced to his father triumphantly.

We had a short Zoom meeting on Christmas Day with family members. We listened to "The Nutcracker Suite" and hours-long YouTube Christmas carol playlists. We watched "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation," the original animated Grinch movie (the only one worth watching), and the 1951 Alistair Sim version of "Scrooge." 

And we particularly enjoyed watching "The Prince and the Carrot," the Pantomime (this year a virtual one) produced by the Kennett Amateur Theatrical Society. We got to sing the Silly Song and greet the Dame, just like it was a normal year and we were at the Kennett High School auditorium! The Panto is online at KATS British Panto | Kennett Amateur Theatrical Society | Inc. (callkats.org) and is highly recommended.

And oh, did we feast! On Christmas Eve we ate our free Giant ham (well, a tiny fraction thereof) along with macaroni and cheese and peas. And on Christmas Day we had breakfast-as-dinner: Kodiak pancakes and a spectacular omelet made with eggs from a friend's hens and cheese from one of those holiday food parcel gifts, this one from the electrician.

Imagine my amazement to find I hadn't gained any weight despite all those deliciously rich Christmas cookies. I'm not at all sure how that happened.

Godspeed, Bill Landmesser

My friend Bill Landmesser died on Dec. 16 at the age of 89. What a nice man he was! I worked with Bill on a local volunteer board for several years. When difficulties arose -- and we faced our share of them -- he took an analytical approach, gathering reams of data and synthesizing it methodically. Bill spent his career working in employee relations for large companies, so naturally, he took the lead when it came to things like personnel evaluations for the staff. 

It was hard to rankle Bill. I never heard him raise his voice, and the worst thing I ever heard him say about someone was that he really wasn't acting very sensibly. "D'ya think he might have some kind of a chip on his shoulder?" I remember him asking, with a baffled chuckle, when our board had to deal with a particularly cranky individual.

Bill was eager to learn and was fascinated with technology. He'd see me doing something on the computer, maybe working on a newsletter, and he'd sit down next to me and ask endless questions about what I was doing. He also spent a lot of time volunteering with service groups, in particular SCORE, a group of retirees who help young people who want to start their own businesses. 

Bill unplugged completely in the summer, heading north to his cabin in the Adirondacks, where mail arrived irregularly, via boat. 

A widower, Bill leaves behind three children, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. 

He will be greatly missed.

Stinking up the joint

There's an exact type of gym top that I like to wear when I'm exercising, and it's tough to find because (just my luck) the manufacturer, Athleta, has moved on to other styles. Don't they know who I am?! So I keep an eye on eBay and whenever one pops up in my size, I bid on it. 

So I purchased one a few weeks ago, and when it arrived it was in fine shape, except for a foul odor. It wasn't the usual locker-room funk. No, I think it was an overdose of some kind of fabric softener or clothing deodorizer. The stench was almost overwhelming. 

I tried low-tech remedies, like hanging it out on the clothesline in the wind and rain, laundering it repeatedly, and soaking it in vinegar and baking soda. The odor may have lessened slightly, but I still had to quarantine it from my other clothes so they didn't become contaminated.

A friend recommended hydrogen peroxide, which she uses to get skunk smell out of one of her mishap-prone dogs. I didn't really want to try that, as the garment tag said not to use bleach.

So I went online and discovered that smelly secondhand purchases are common and troublesome to resolve; it seems the offending chemicals are often stubbornly adherent to the fabric. A smell-lifting "laundry enhancer" made by a Florida company called Enviroklenz received universally positive reviews, even from people with chemical sensitivities, so I've ordered some. It hasn't yet arrived, but I did receive a call from their customer service people thanking me for my order. I'm inclined to like this company. I'll let you know how the laundry product works!