SPORTS: Pickleball is a hit at the Kennett Y

What is pickleball?
It's a game along the lines of tennis, played with oversized Ping Pong paddles. Three doubles matches were being played in the gymnasium at the Kennett YMCA the other day while I was walking around the track, and it looks like a great deal of fun. I spotted my gym friend Rita and her husband Felix welcoming players of all skill levels to the game.
I noticed that the game has an unusual scoring system, not the love-15-30-40 of tennis but a three-digit score, 9-1-2 for instance. I looked it up when I got home and found that the third digit denotes whether the server is the first or second server for his or her side.
The gymnasium is reserved for pickleball on Tuesdays and Thursdays at mid-day; check the schedule.

FIRE: Historic home gutted, tenants displaced

What a shame about the 1884 Chalfant House! The mansion, at 220 North Union Street in Kennett Square, went up in flames on Wednesday afternoon. Known for its imposing "upside-down chimneys," the house was designed by noted Philadelphia architect Frank Furness and built for Kennett businessman William Chalfant.
Fortunately no one was seriously hurt in the fire, and the four tenants (the house was divided into apartments) and their pets all escaped. A GoFundMe website (220 N .Union Street Fire Relief Fund) has been set up to help the victims, who lost all of their belongings. (I've contributed and I hope you will, too.)
Multiple local fire companies, including Longwood, Kennett, Po-Mar-Lin, Avondale, Oxford and Hockessin, were on the scene; in addition to the flames and smoke, these hardy firefighters had to cope with the strong winds and sub-freezing temperatures.
Two news helicopters were flying overhead, and people who live near the scene (including Kennett Square mayor Matt Fetick) posted their dramatic photos on social media.
As soon as I heard about the fire I turned to my copy of "Greetings from Kennett Square" by local historians Joe Lordi and Dolores Rowe. They describe the Queen Anne-style house as "magnificent" and say that the top-heavy chimneys "are thought to resemble early locomotive smoke stacks."
The house was an important work by Furness, who also designed the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts on North Broad Street in Philadelphia, the old library at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Wilmington train station.
I'm told that the house once was a funeral home, and there was still a crematorium in the basement. The house was on many summer walking tours of the borough and was slated to be on this year's candlelight tour as well.

PENNOCKS: Quakerism and the Pennocks in Chester County

West Marlborough resident Mark Myers gave a fascinating talk at Primitive Hall on Wednesday night about the Pennocks (Joseph Pennock built the Hall in 1738) and Quaker life in eighteenth-century and nineteenth-century Pennsylvania. Mark lives in a house built by one of the Pennocks, serves on the Hall's board of trustees and has done a great deal of research on the family.
He started his talk-- held in the candlelit grand center hall--on an amusing note by asking for a show of hands: How many audience members were Pennock descendents? Several people raised their hands.
"OK," he said. "That helps me decide what I'm NOT going to talk about."
Mark discussed the basics of Quakerism like temperance and pacifism and how they shaped the lives of the Pennocks and other colonists: one Pennock was "eldered" for getting drunk at Darby Meeting, and others relinquished their roles in government rather than vote for military action.
Mark talked about Quakers during the Battle of the Brandywine (basically, neither the Americans nor the British trusted them), the Hicksite/Orthodox schism, and the differing Quaker perspectives on slavery. He also showed slides of suburban Philadelphia buildings that Joseph Pennock would have known, including the Chester courthouse, and photos of a half-dozen more recent Pennock descendants, including baseball great Herb Pennock.

KENNETT: Lunch and an art sale at two N. Union St. churches

Artist Patsy Keller alerted me to an "Artisan Fair" that the Episcopal Church of the Advent in Kennett Square will be holding from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 22. In addition to Patsy's fused glass (both art glass & jewelry), there will be works by a dozen other artists, including Hattie Weselyk's silver jewelry, Carol Apicella's mosaic mirrors, and Ray Parisi's photographs. Part of the proceeds will support the church’s outreach programs.

Also on Saturday, Nov. 22, and just a block away, is Kennett Friends Meeting's "Quaker Fare" luncheon to benefit the American Friends Service Committee. For $10 ($5 for kids) you get a chicken salad sandwich, mushroom soup, cranberry salad and other goodies. It runs from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.

RESALE: Goodwill store is opening on November 28 next to Lowe's

A new Goodwill resale store and donation center is opening at 7 a.m. Nov. 28 next to the Lowe's home-improvement store in Avondale. The sign is already up, and the store is already full of clothes hung on racks, arranged by color. Some of my budget-minded friends are excited to have a Goodwill store so close. As for me, I'm more likely to drop off stuff I don't wear anymore -- which makes me happy, too.

AUTOMATIC: A machine that splits logs for you

Just in time for wood-stove season, a video has been going around on social media showing an amazing, high-powered machine that splits logs for you. All you do is feed the log in and it comes out split as neatly as a cut-into-eighths apple.
After watching this machine in action, a friend of mine (and a new wood-stove owner) informed his wife that to get his hands on one of these, he would sell both her and the dogs.
But another friend was less impressed: "Let me know when they market one that actually stacks the wood!"

COURTS: Why top-notch defense lawyers earn the big bucks

A friend was called to jury duty in West Chester this week and was seated on a criminal case involving a man accused of writing a large number, a very large number indeed, of prescriptions for narcotic painkillers. My friend takes his civic duty seriously and was determined to be impartial, so he listened carefully to the opening arguments.
After the prosecutor spoke, my friend was convinced the guy was guilty.
Then the defense attorney got up, and he spoke without notes, conjuring up folksy imagery about his grandmother's pancakes and painting his client as a warm-hearted soul who just had his clients' best interests at heart. Sure, he conducts business a little differently -- the cash payments, the lack of an office staff -- but look how loyal his patients are! (The pancakes, it seems, were a metaphor for the fact that there are two sides to every story. You probably shouldn't analyze that one too closely.)
Then the first witness was called. He made reference to a previous arrest of the defendant, and the proceedings came screeching to a halt as the judge declared a mistrial.
My friend came home and promptly started doing research on the Internet. He rarely curses, but he let a few choice words fly when he came across the dozens of articles about this guy's years-long involvement with the law and realized how he had almost been swayed by the defense lawyer's smooth talk. He even recognized a photo of a man who had been sitting at the prosecutor's table -- a federal DEA agent.
A reporter friend of mine who wrote many of the stories about this guy said one of the highlights was when she discovered a defamation suit he filed against some of his med-school professors who dared to suggest that perhaps medicine wasn't the best career choice for him. (He lost the lawsuit.)