Hi, Bill!

I saw my dear old pal Bill Landmesser having breakfast with a friend at Perkins this morning. A retired engineer, Bill is now a very active community volunteer and serves on many boards and groups, as well as being a much-sought-after parker for the annual Bayard Taylor Library House & Garden Day (which is coming up Saturday, June 4 -- get your tickets before they sell out!).

Colors

Some springs are pink, with cherry trees, azaleas and redbud, and some are purple, with a carpet of violets across a pasture. This one has definitely been yellow. Near Doe Run there's a hillside covered with mustard, just glowing with yellow. The other day I pulled over and gaped in wonder, forgetting about pressing deadlines for a few minutes.
Hummingbirds have been at my feeder for a couple of weeks, the red-winged blackbirds are swooping over the pasture, and behind the light on my deck there's a beautifully constructed robin's nest, with three eggs in it. I'm checking on it daily.

The old days

I was idling going through the archives of a volunteer group I belong to and spotted a Chester County Day newspaper from autumn 1968. It was like going back in a time machine! Phone numbers had letters as prefixes. There were ads for the Farmer in the Dell restaurant, Betty's Ice Cream, Jimmy John's, the Black Angus, and the Yellow Bow, a charming little craft shop that used to be right across Strasburg Road from the Four Dogs in Marshallton. There was even an ad for the (soon-to-be-closed) Brush and Palette back when it was on North Broad Street in Kennett.

Route 162 traffic

A Newlin resident writes:
"Maybe you could blog in your column about my next pet peeve: the new stop signs on 162 at Powell and Brandywine Creek. It's a very dangerous curve and all of us who live around here were thrilled when the stop signs were installed. However, at least 50 percent of the time I see people blowing through the curve without even slowing down, let alone stopping. The law applies to everyone, even knuckleheads. Especially knuckleheads!"

Mixed blessing

Controversial Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick lost out to Cleveland Browns running back Peyton Hillis as the athlete on the cover of this year's "Madden NFL" videogame, produced by Electronic Arts. Mr. Vick may not be too upset, though: being featured on the cover is widely believed to jinx one's season.
"The so-called Madden Curse is the stuff of legend, where players who make the cover of EA's football game find themselves injured or face career slumps," says the videogame website gameinformer.

Buck & Doe

Congratulations to Amy McKenna, new president of the Buck & Doe Trust, a conservation group based in Unionville. Amy, a real-estate agent with Country Properties, takes over the position from Terry Corkran. Other officers are Joe Huston, vice president; Nina Seder-Burnaford, secretary; and John Goodall, treasurer. Board members are Billie Bailkin, Liz Bailey, Gus Brown, Richard Buchanan, Terry Corkran, Jeb Hannum, Anthony Jenks, Brendan Miney, Joe Nolan, Jamie O'Rourke, Maria Pfeffer, Kate Poole, Soctt Richard, Bill Rubin, Janet Sidewater, Ann Givens Sinclair, Susannah Small and Pam Smyth.

Thouron Road

I was getting concerned.
8:15 p.m. had rolled around, the West Marlborough supervisors were zipping through the agenda of their monthly meeting -- but nothing had happened that was remotely Tilda-worthy.
With a worried face I turned to my neighbor and pointed to the blank page in my notebook.
Then, as has happened so many times before, Richard Hayne came to the rescue.
Township roadmaster Hugh Lofting said that because of the extensive construction that Mr. Hayne has done on Doe Run Farm, Thouron Road has been "pretty much destroyed from Route 841 to the Thouron driveway and beyond."
Mr. Hayne has agreed to repair the road at his own expense, and Mr. Lofting assured the residents that "we'll be watching over that."