This appeared Janurary 26, 2006
By now you've seen the signs, and you may be as bewildered about the whole thing as I am. I mean the "West Chester" signs that have popped up, seemingly from nowhere, all across the borough.
They direct you to parking. They direct you to the Chester County Courthouse. They tell you you're entering the borough. They thank you for leaving the borough. They do everything except give you a recipe for a nice pot roast.
I didn't start bothering about them, though, until I paid a visit to the West Chester Library on North Church Street a few weeks ago. The stately old building has a huge turret tower that overlooks the street, and around which the words "Public Library" are emblazoned in bold wrought iron. Down below, a pleasant wooden sign announces that the West Chester Public Library was established in 1872. Symbols of books decorate the windows.
And now it has a cutesy little blue and yellow sign along the curb reconfirming that, yes, indeed, you're not mistaken, this is an actual library. Oh. Thanks. I was a little dubious.
(Note to borough sign officials: Blue and yellow are Downingtown colors; it's garnet and white at good old B. Reed Henderson High. This whole Devlin thing is out of control.)
Then I noticed the banners hanging from every street lamp on Gay Street. They must come in very handy on Friday and Saturday nights, when out-of-town revelers wake up face up on the brick sidewalks, after a few hours of revelry, and wonder where they are.
"Oh," they say, reading the banners. "West Chester. Thanks. Thought it was Manayunk."
All the new signs remind me of the flap a few years ago when the county commissioners decided to blow a few grand on signs, and planted an ugly gray stump of a sign in front of the courthouse that read: "Chester County Courthouse." They should have added: "Erected by the county Department of Redundancy Dept."
What this town needs isn't a sign letting you know that you just left town. What this town needs is a motto.
Mottoes are cool, like nicknames. You know, "San Francisco: The city by the bay." "New York: The city that never sleeps." "Philadelphia: Leave the money on the dresser."
We used to have a pretty serviceable one: "West Chester: The Athens of Pennsylvania." It had historical cache for all those radical preservationists who consider it a sin against God and Paul Rodebaugh to tear down any building older than their Aunt Charlotte, but it didn't seem to catch on with the public.
We tried, "West Chester: Little town, big art," but with the galleries closing right and left these days, it's more like, "Little town, Art who?"
I tried to get people interested in my own personal favorite during the garbage wars - "West Chester: Come grab our trash" - but the powers that be shut that one down.
So here's a few more suggestions I'll pass along to the folks at Gay and Adams streets. Use them as you see fit.
For the West Chester University set: "West Chester: Pat Croce didn't graduate, so don't sweat it."
For the aforementioned out-of-town revelers: "West Chester: More bars than barbers."
For in-town merchants: "West Chester: Plenty of parking. Really."
For the anxious: "West Chester: Don't worry, Coatesville's 10 miles to the west."
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
A Park Sprawls In West Goshen
This appeared February 19, 2006
Just a few hundred feet south of the corner of Green Hill Road and Pottstown Pike in West Goshen, you can see the future.
There's even a sign telling you: "Future West Goshen Township Park Site."
But if the past is prologue in West Goshen, the future may hold no treat for park lovers.
Just look at what the folks in West Goshen did when they got their hands on a piece of property on Fern Hill Road. They created something called West Goshen Community Park, acres of land about as far away from what you want from a park as Modena is from Malvern. It's a parceled-out wasteland of segmented recreation areas that, taken together, form the suburban sprawl of a place to play.
Over here are the tennis courts. Over there is the Little League field. Here's the adult league field. Here's the regular youth soccer league field. Here's the concrete block amphitheater. Here's the asphalt walking path, 0.8 miles long, if you are counting.
Even the name gives you the creeps. "Community Park?" Reminds you of the beer bottles in old sitcoms whose labels read, plainly, "Beer." "Community Park" is a name that makes generic drugs stand up and take pride in their individuality.
It isn't as though they couldn't have found a good name. "Fern Hill Park" conjures up pictures of glistening green rolling fields, a place you linger with the dog just one more minute after the sun goes down, because it's just so darned nice outside.
Nearby is the site of the township's historic weeping beech tree (a sign tells you that). You can't find a more appealing name than "Historic Weeping Beech Tree Park." I see that, and my picnic basket is packed and ready.
Contrast that recreational monstrosity with West Chester's signature park, Everhart Park, at the western edge of the borough. In a quiet one-square-block area, you have everything you want in a place to go play, or walk, or cook out, or sit at a picnic table on a cool day in July, have a turkey and Swiss sandwich and read the paper.
Everhart, opened in 1920, when the world apparently had not come under the spell of "organized recreation," has meandering walkways, old-fashioned swing sets, shaded groves and a field the perfect size for a game of Frisbee.
And trees. Oh my, has it trees. Towering sycamores line one side on Brandywine Avenue. There are crab apples and tulip poplars, Kwanzan cherries and dawn sequoias. Ask an expert what trees are at Everhart and you get told, "You want it, we got it."
Whereas Community Park has a lovely view of the parking lot at Animas Corp., motto: "Bringing New Life to Insulin Therapy."
Everhart is a place to go have fun, not to recreate. You could tell that this past week, when a foot of snow blanketed the borough, yet footprints lined almost every inch of the fields at Everhart.
Even when outdoor recreation wasn't in season, according to the schedule posted at Community Park, people wanted to go to Everhart to play.
Just a few hundred feet south of the corner of Green Hill Road and Pottstown Pike in West Goshen, you can see the future.
There's even a sign telling you: "Future West Goshen Township Park Site."
But if the past is prologue in West Goshen, the future may hold no treat for park lovers.
Just look at what the folks in West Goshen did when they got their hands on a piece of property on Fern Hill Road. They created something called West Goshen Community Park, acres of land about as far away from what you want from a park as Modena is from Malvern. It's a parceled-out wasteland of segmented recreation areas that, taken together, form the suburban sprawl of a place to play.
Over here are the tennis courts. Over there is the Little League field. Here's the adult league field. Here's the regular youth soccer league field. Here's the concrete block amphitheater. Here's the asphalt walking path, 0.8 miles long, if you are counting.
Even the name gives you the creeps. "Community Park?" Reminds you of the beer bottles in old sitcoms whose labels read, plainly, "Beer." "Community Park" is a name that makes generic drugs stand up and take pride in their individuality.
It isn't as though they couldn't have found a good name. "Fern Hill Park" conjures up pictures of glistening green rolling fields, a place you linger with the dog just one more minute after the sun goes down, because it's just so darned nice outside.
Nearby is the site of the township's historic weeping beech tree (a sign tells you that). You can't find a more appealing name than "Historic Weeping Beech Tree Park." I see that, and my picnic basket is packed and ready.
Contrast that recreational monstrosity with West Chester's signature park, Everhart Park, at the western edge of the borough. In a quiet one-square-block area, you have everything you want in a place to go play, or walk, or cook out, or sit at a picnic table on a cool day in July, have a turkey and Swiss sandwich and read the paper.
Everhart, opened in 1920, when the world apparently had not come under the spell of "organized recreation," has meandering walkways, old-fashioned swing sets, shaded groves and a field the perfect size for a game of Frisbee.
And trees. Oh my, has it trees. Towering sycamores line one side on Brandywine Avenue. There are crab apples and tulip poplars, Kwanzan cherries and dawn sequoias. Ask an expert what trees are at Everhart and you get told, "You want it, we got it."
Whereas Community Park has a lovely view of the parking lot at Animas Corp., motto: "Bringing New Life to Insulin Therapy."
Everhart is a place to go have fun, not to recreate. You could tell that this past week, when a foot of snow blanketed the borough, yet footprints lined almost every inch of the fields at Everhart.
Even when outdoor recreation wasn't in season, according to the schedule posted at Community Park, people wanted to go to Everhart to play.
When Special People Die
This appeared February 19, 2006
What happens when special people die?
That question has been weighing more heavily in the past month or so, as every passing day seem to be marked by the passing away of someone of unique experience or ability or devotion or personality.
Nationally, we've just buried Coretta Scott King, the woman who personified the modern civil rights movement and the link to one of the 20th century's greatest men. But locally, funerals have been held recently for Bob Thompson and Terry Muzzy and Colin Fitzpatrick and Sherry Franklin.
Thompson's was arguably Chester County's most popular politician; trying to find someone who had something bad to say about him - even as he was working against their personal political goals - was next to impossible. Muzzy was among the county's most revered counselors - a man who looked into the eyes of teenagers in crisis with drugs or alcohol or other personal demons and made them see the good in themselves.
Perhaps less well known were Fitzgerald and Franklin, but they touched more lives around them than anyone could reasonably expect: Fitzgerald as a captain on the Unionville High School hockey team, where his peers raised him to near-idol status, and Franklin as a counselor at Brian's House and Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Handicrafters, where her friendly hand helped steer the lives of those who found themselves challenged emotionally and mentally.
So what, collectively, do we do now that they are gone? How do we compensate for the loss of people who are, in some way, irreplaceable?
It seems at first blush an impossible task. I read reporter Anne Pickering's account of Muzzy's memorial service in which one student said flatly that Muzzy, "taught me how to live." Another called him, "an angel put on earth by God to help us."
Forgive me, but if someone walks up to me and says: "You're going to have to pick up the slack now that Mr. Muzzy is gone," I'm not going to be able to answer the bell.
Or at least, not in the way that people like he did. Put it this way: They are going to hold a special election in May to find the person to fill the 19th state Senate District's seat. They are not going to find someone to replace Bob Thompson.
But I put the question to people I know, who in turn knew these people. How do we go on without them? I wondered. Do we have an obligation to improve ourselves, to meet their standards? Do we wait for someone else to come along and take their place?
To my shock, the responses I received were not full of fear for the future, but rather with optimism.
"When really great people leave us the only thing we can do is what they would want us to do, and that is to follow their lead. As role models they would want nothing more than for us to take what they've given us and continue the work," said one friend.
About those people who follow in their footsteps, one person wrote: "Hopefully, the new person, taking all they've seen and been taught .... can in turn push the bar a little higher still, so we are all constantly leaving the world in a better place than when we 'found' it."
Good advice.
What happens when special people die?
That question has been weighing more heavily in the past month or so, as every passing day seem to be marked by the passing away of someone of unique experience or ability or devotion or personality.
Nationally, we've just buried Coretta Scott King, the woman who personified the modern civil rights movement and the link to one of the 20th century's greatest men. But locally, funerals have been held recently for Bob Thompson and Terry Muzzy and Colin Fitzpatrick and Sherry Franklin.
Thompson's was arguably Chester County's most popular politician; trying to find someone who had something bad to say about him - even as he was working against their personal political goals - was next to impossible. Muzzy was among the county's most revered counselors - a man who looked into the eyes of teenagers in crisis with drugs or alcohol or other personal demons and made them see the good in themselves.
Perhaps less well known were Fitzgerald and Franklin, but they touched more lives around them than anyone could reasonably expect: Fitzgerald as a captain on the Unionville High School hockey team, where his peers raised him to near-idol status, and Franklin as a counselor at Brian's House and Big Brothers/Big Sisters and Handicrafters, where her friendly hand helped steer the lives of those who found themselves challenged emotionally and mentally.
So what, collectively, do we do now that they are gone? How do we compensate for the loss of people who are, in some way, irreplaceable?
It seems at first blush an impossible task. I read reporter Anne Pickering's account of Muzzy's memorial service in which one student said flatly that Muzzy, "taught me how to live." Another called him, "an angel put on earth by God to help us."
Forgive me, but if someone walks up to me and says: "You're going to have to pick up the slack now that Mr. Muzzy is gone," I'm not going to be able to answer the bell.
Or at least, not in the way that people like he did. Put it this way: They are going to hold a special election in May to find the person to fill the 19th state Senate District's seat. They are not going to find someone to replace Bob Thompson.
But I put the question to people I know, who in turn knew these people. How do we go on without them? I wondered. Do we have an obligation to improve ourselves, to meet their standards? Do we wait for someone else to come along and take their place?
To my shock, the responses I received were not full of fear for the future, but rather with optimism.
"When really great people leave us the only thing we can do is what they would want us to do, and that is to follow their lead. As role models they would want nothing more than for us to take what they've given us and continue the work," said one friend.
About those people who follow in their footsteps, one person wrote: "Hopefully, the new person, taking all they've seen and been taught .... can in turn push the bar a little higher still, so we are all constantly leaving the world in a better place than when we 'found' it."
Good advice.
The land of Big Eats
This appeared on February 26, 2006
Crossing the border into Lancaster County is something we all should do once every while, for a change of perspective if nothing else.
After all, swimming in the sea of Chester County without dipping your toes in other ponds is akin to eating filet from the finest restaurant every day.
Sometimes, you need a little roast chicken. Or meat loaf. Or chicken pot pie. Or prime rib. Or hot bacon dressing. Or mashed potatoes. Or shoofly pie.
You go to Lancaster County because it is truly The Land of the Big Eats. Everyone there, it seems, wants you to eat, and eat big. You can't drive for more than 100 yards down Route 340 without seeing a sign saying just ahead is the biggest amount of food ever assembled for retail purchase, all yours.
And you don't have to feel the least bit guilty about exercising your nonreligious, constitutional right to gluttony. They call it "Family Style" or "Home Style" dining, although most homes in America wouldn't have the space needed on the kitchen table to serve this much food.
It's a way of leading you back to a time when calories were not counted and extra portions were just a matter of course. In SuburbanSprawlLand, the sight of a 240-pound man tucking in his bib for another round of pork chops with macaroni and cheese might be cause for alarm, or at the very least an emergency meeting of the Fox Run Farm Homeowners Association to discuss the possibility of a weight restriction on new ownership.
But not in Paradise. We're speaking of Paradise, Lancaster County, mind you, just around the corner from Smoketown and within easy driving distance of Bird In Hand, two places just made to remind you of eating big.
Paradise is where you can catch up with a big breakfast from Waffle House, where time hasn't changed much in terms of portions served since it opened in 1955. Paradise it may be, but to Big Hungry People, paradise is instead found a few miles away in East Earl.
There, on the top of a hill like a heavenly shrine, is the Shady Maple Farm Market and Smorgasbord. Shady Maple Smorgasbord is built for comfort, as they say, not for speed.
It is enormous. It is bigger than an average high school, and handles about the same number of buses everyday - all full of folks wanting to eat.
Inside is a testament to gastronomical opulence, with lines of brilliantly shiny steam tables and heat lamps, advertising the allure of over 100 different menu items. You can eat all you want there for a price, the nonmonetary version being a sense of satiation that will have you lolling in an overstuffed chair in the lobby until someone pulls you to your feet and tells you they've just brought out a new dessert cart.
On a recent trip back from Lancaster I passed through Honey Brook, where once I stopped at a roadside stand and bought ingredients for a wonderfully cholesterol-filled lunch of tomato-and-mayo sandwiches and butter-laden corn on the cob.
The stand isn't there anymore, but a new shopping center is, complete with its own restaurant.
It serves sushi, I think.
Crossing the border into Lancaster County is something we all should do once every while, for a change of perspective if nothing else.
After all, swimming in the sea of Chester County without dipping your toes in other ponds is akin to eating filet from the finest restaurant every day.
Sometimes, you need a little roast chicken. Or meat loaf. Or chicken pot pie. Or prime rib. Or hot bacon dressing. Or mashed potatoes. Or shoofly pie.
You go to Lancaster County because it is truly The Land of the Big Eats. Everyone there, it seems, wants you to eat, and eat big. You can't drive for more than 100 yards down Route 340 without seeing a sign saying just ahead is the biggest amount of food ever assembled for retail purchase, all yours.
And you don't have to feel the least bit guilty about exercising your nonreligious, constitutional right to gluttony. They call it "Family Style" or "Home Style" dining, although most homes in America wouldn't have the space needed on the kitchen table to serve this much food.
It's a way of leading you back to a time when calories were not counted and extra portions were just a matter of course. In SuburbanSprawlLand, the sight of a 240-pound man tucking in his bib for another round of pork chops with macaroni and cheese might be cause for alarm, or at the very least an emergency meeting of the Fox Run Farm Homeowners Association to discuss the possibility of a weight restriction on new ownership.
But not in Paradise. We're speaking of Paradise, Lancaster County, mind you, just around the corner from Smoketown and within easy driving distance of Bird In Hand, two places just made to remind you of eating big.
Paradise is where you can catch up with a big breakfast from Waffle House, where time hasn't changed much in terms of portions served since it opened in 1955. Paradise it may be, but to Big Hungry People, paradise is instead found a few miles away in East Earl.
There, on the top of a hill like a heavenly shrine, is the Shady Maple Farm Market and Smorgasbord. Shady Maple Smorgasbord is built for comfort, as they say, not for speed.
It is enormous. It is bigger than an average high school, and handles about the same number of buses everyday - all full of folks wanting to eat.
Inside is a testament to gastronomical opulence, with lines of brilliantly shiny steam tables and heat lamps, advertising the allure of over 100 different menu items. You can eat all you want there for a price, the nonmonetary version being a sense of satiation that will have you lolling in an overstuffed chair in the lobby until someone pulls you to your feet and tells you they've just brought out a new dessert cart.
On a recent trip back from Lancaster I passed through Honey Brook, where once I stopped at a roadside stand and bought ingredients for a wonderfully cholesterol-filled lunch of tomato-and-mayo sandwiches and butter-laden corn on the cob.
The stand isn't there anymore, but a new shopping center is, complete with its own restaurant.
It serves sushi, I think.
Monday, April 24, 2006
Just Another Day in District Court
This appeared March 5, 2006
Just another day of criminal cases at District Court 15-1-01, Barnard Building, West Chester Plaza, 720 Market St., West Chester, Magisterial District Judge Mark Bruno presiding. On the docket? Let's see. Drugs, DUIs, disorderly conduct, public drunkenness, and, oh yes, the U.S. Constitution.
It's a treat anyone with time owes themselves, to sit in the back of a small courtroom at a district court and watch how the messy basics of the criminal justice system get handled by professionals.
The folks in charge on the bench are called magisterial district judges, but there is nothing magisterial about the ones I've seen over the years, if by that you mean aloof or arrogant or imperious.
Think of a traffic cop at rush hour, or workmanlike goalie on a disorganized hockey team with no defensemen on duty in front of him, taking shot after shot after shot and sending them back out of the crease, only here with a load of paperwork in triplicate to get signed after each puck has been dispensed with.
I like to compare them to a parent of a very large family, where everybody's got a problem, everybody's got an excuse, and everybody wants to talk. Loudly. You sit at the kitchen table after dinner trying to take one kid's case at a time, but wind up having to work through three things at once, until finally the child with the biggest complaint gets a whole half hour to themselves.
On a recent Tuesday - criminal court day in West Chester - Judge Bruno sorted though the various cases as they came his way: making decisions on the fly, chatting with the defendants as they file into the courtroom, sending them out on the street or back to prison, and looking each person in the eye as he wished them "good luck" on their way out the door.
Not all of it was pretty.
"Go back to Chester," he told one ragtag-looking fellow, accused of causing a drunken disturbance at the apartment of a girlfriend - apparently a former one. "You're getting too old to keep getting in trouble like this."
The judge checked the man's arrest sheet, searching out his date of birth. "You've even got a few years on me," he winked.
Then there was the scruffy couple who were clearly agitated that he had been locked up on a fine that she thought had been paid several months back - although keeping track of similar charges seemed to be sort of a minor hobby for everyone involved. Bruno sent them on their way with a promise to look further into the case, and the advice to come back next week with a canceled check.
The final case of the morning involved a professional protester's claim of First Amendment violations by West Chester University authorities. Not your average everyday criminal case, but on the docket nonetheless. Although the legal verbiage got a bit heady at times, Bruno reacted with the same equanimity he had dealing with the earlier cases.
Like the parent at the table, he settled things as best he could for now, and let everyone know that life would go on tomorrow and things would sort themselves out in the long run, just as long as you sign the white copy, give us the pink and keep the yellow one for your files.
Just another day of criminal cases at District Court 15-1-01, Barnard Building, West Chester Plaza, 720 Market St., West Chester, Magisterial District Judge Mark Bruno presiding. On the docket? Let's see. Drugs, DUIs, disorderly conduct, public drunkenness, and, oh yes, the U.S. Constitution.
It's a treat anyone with time owes themselves, to sit in the back of a small courtroom at a district court and watch how the messy basics of the criminal justice system get handled by professionals.
The folks in charge on the bench are called magisterial district judges, but there is nothing magisterial about the ones I've seen over the years, if by that you mean aloof or arrogant or imperious.
Think of a traffic cop at rush hour, or workmanlike goalie on a disorganized hockey team with no defensemen on duty in front of him, taking shot after shot after shot and sending them back out of the crease, only here with a load of paperwork in triplicate to get signed after each puck has been dispensed with.
I like to compare them to a parent of a very large family, where everybody's got a problem, everybody's got an excuse, and everybody wants to talk. Loudly. You sit at the kitchen table after dinner trying to take one kid's case at a time, but wind up having to work through three things at once, until finally the child with the biggest complaint gets a whole half hour to themselves.
On a recent Tuesday - criminal court day in West Chester - Judge Bruno sorted though the various cases as they came his way: making decisions on the fly, chatting with the defendants as they file into the courtroom, sending them out on the street or back to prison, and looking each person in the eye as he wished them "good luck" on their way out the door.
Not all of it was pretty.
"Go back to Chester," he told one ragtag-looking fellow, accused of causing a drunken disturbance at the apartment of a girlfriend - apparently a former one. "You're getting too old to keep getting in trouble like this."
The judge checked the man's arrest sheet, searching out his date of birth. "You've even got a few years on me," he winked.
Then there was the scruffy couple who were clearly agitated that he had been locked up on a fine that she thought had been paid several months back - although keeping track of similar charges seemed to be sort of a minor hobby for everyone involved. Bruno sent them on their way with a promise to look further into the case, and the advice to come back next week with a canceled check.
The final case of the morning involved a professional protester's claim of First Amendment violations by West Chester University authorities. Not your average everyday criminal case, but on the docket nonetheless. Although the legal verbiage got a bit heady at times, Bruno reacted with the same equanimity he had dealing with the earlier cases.
Like the parent at the table, he settled things as best he could for now, and let everyone know that life would go on tomorrow and things would sort themselves out in the long run, just as long as you sign the white copy, give us the pink and keep the yellow one for your files.
Bad Bottlenecks
This appeared on march 26, 2006
The U.S. Department of Transportation last September issued a wide-ranging report on traffic congestion in our fair nation, and included a list of the top 24 "Worst Physical Bottlenecks in the United States."
Surprisingly, Route 100 through Eagle didn't make the cut.
It is, of course, important to study traffic bottlenecks because, as every high school sophomore can tell you, bottlenecks make up the last of the fabled Seven Sources of Traffic Congestion - the others being traffic accidents, work zones, bad weather, Sleepy, Dopey and "That Guy Who Thinks It's Perfectly OK To Go 25 In A 35 mph zone."
The top bottleneck, according to the study, is the Ventura Freeway in California, where U.S. 101 meets Interstate 401 in Los Angeles. Every year, motorists spend an extra 27,144 hours stuck in traffic out there, quietly humming the words to "Ventura Freeway" by America to themselves (sample lyric: "Where the days are longer, the nights are stronger than moonshine ...") until they eventually go insane.
Some bottlenecks have even developed nicknames, says the USDOT, such as the "Spaghetti Junction" on I-285 in Las Vegas, the "Stack" and "Mini-Stack" in Phoenix, and, my favorite, the "Malfunction Junction" on I-275 in Tampa Bay, Fla.
I am sure that the USDOT researchers were simply blinded by the glamour of the locations they found themselves in while doing their study, and otherwise would have included Route 100 on the list, had they been able to pry themselves away from the blackjack tables at Aladdin's for a moment or two.
Eagle has gone from a sleepy little town with a general store and a quaint tavern to one big fat traffic jam tumor on the spine of Chester County. It deserves a place on the top bottleneck list if only to make the poor fools who have to suffer through the daily grind there feel it's all worth the attention.
Meanwhile, they are left to sit in their cars and ponder the following questions:
* "Why do the car dealerships along this road all look slightly like churches, and the churches look vaguely like car dealerships?"
* "It's nice that the township imposed some architectural standards on the new construction in Eagle, but why do all the buildings here remind me of the Bates Motel from "Psycho?"
* "Did the traffic all come to Route 100 because of some strange magnetic attraction created by the triangulated confluence of a used car lot, a Harley dealership and a school bus company, or what?"
Actually, if you want to assign blame for the growth of traffic congestion down Route 100, I propose that you need go no further than the pride of Owen J. Roberts High School, the one and only Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates, the blue-eyed-soul singers of "I Can't Go For That" fame. Imagine it.
D. Hall decides to name the group's second album "Abandoned Luncheonette" after a popular eatery in Eagle, where he probably spent hours honing his craft. The song "She's Gone" shoots Hall & Oates to stardom. In 1975, the men who would later develop Eagle into an East Coast destination come across the album in their daughter's LP collections. They think, "Hmmm, this place looks cool."
Fast forward 20 years and what have you got? The "Eagle's Nest" bottleneck.
The U.S. Department of Transportation last September issued a wide-ranging report on traffic congestion in our fair nation, and included a list of the top 24 "Worst Physical Bottlenecks in the United States."
Surprisingly, Route 100 through Eagle didn't make the cut.
It is, of course, important to study traffic bottlenecks because, as every high school sophomore can tell you, bottlenecks make up the last of the fabled Seven Sources of Traffic Congestion - the others being traffic accidents, work zones, bad weather, Sleepy, Dopey and "That Guy Who Thinks It's Perfectly OK To Go 25 In A 35 mph zone."
The top bottleneck, according to the study, is the Ventura Freeway in California, where U.S. 101 meets Interstate 401 in Los Angeles. Every year, motorists spend an extra 27,144 hours stuck in traffic out there, quietly humming the words to "Ventura Freeway" by America to themselves (sample lyric: "Where the days are longer, the nights are stronger than moonshine ...") until they eventually go insane.
Some bottlenecks have even developed nicknames, says the USDOT, such as the "Spaghetti Junction" on I-285 in Las Vegas, the "Stack" and "Mini-Stack" in Phoenix, and, my favorite, the "Malfunction Junction" on I-275 in Tampa Bay, Fla.
I am sure that the USDOT researchers were simply blinded by the glamour of the locations they found themselves in while doing their study, and otherwise would have included Route 100 on the list, had they been able to pry themselves away from the blackjack tables at Aladdin's for a moment or two.
Eagle has gone from a sleepy little town with a general store and a quaint tavern to one big fat traffic jam tumor on the spine of Chester County. It deserves a place on the top bottleneck list if only to make the poor fools who have to suffer through the daily grind there feel it's all worth the attention.
Meanwhile, they are left to sit in their cars and ponder the following questions:
* "Why do the car dealerships along this road all look slightly like churches, and the churches look vaguely like car dealerships?"
* "It's nice that the township imposed some architectural standards on the new construction in Eagle, but why do all the buildings here remind me of the Bates Motel from "Psycho?"
* "Did the traffic all come to Route 100 because of some strange magnetic attraction created by the triangulated confluence of a used car lot, a Harley dealership and a school bus company, or what?"
Actually, if you want to assign blame for the growth of traffic congestion down Route 100, I propose that you need go no further than the pride of Owen J. Roberts High School, the one and only Daryl Hall of Hall & Oates, the blue-eyed-soul singers of "I Can't Go For That" fame. Imagine it.
D. Hall decides to name the group's second album "Abandoned Luncheonette" after a popular eatery in Eagle, where he probably spent hours honing his craft. The song "She's Gone" shoots Hall & Oates to stardom. In 1975, the men who would later develop Eagle into an East Coast destination come across the album in their daughter's LP collections. They think, "Hmmm, this place looks cool."
Fast forward 20 years and what have you got? The "Eagle's Nest" bottleneck.
The Gifts Parents Give
This appeared April 2, 2006
Be careful what you do, parents. What you inflict upon your children at a tender age will come back to, if not haunt them, then at least visit them unexpectedly the rest of their lives.
I'll give you an example:
My friend Patrick loves to share stories of his family, and recently sent one concerning his maternal grandfather, who it seems was a bit of a showman. As Patrick wrote in the story, every now and then his grandfather would enlist younger brother Michael to entertain at a party. They would dress in top hats and canes and perform the old standard "Me and My Shadow."
As a helpful reference to those who are strangers to the song, Patrick included a few sample lyrics. As for me, I didn't need them any more than a Philadelphia football fan needs to know that the "L" comes after the "G." My eyes hadn't finished passing over the "My" in the song title before the tune started playing in my head.
"Me and my shadow/ Strolling down the avenue/ Me and my shadow/ Not a soul to tell or troubles to."
To this day, I do not remember ever hearing that song on the radio. But my father sang it to my sisters and me perhaps every night while we were falling asleep when we were between the ages of 3 and 10. Every night.
"And when it's 12 o'clock/ We climb the stairs/ We never knock/ 'Cause nobody's there."
You could kill me tomorrow, cut my flesh into chicken nugget-sized pieces, grind them into fertilizer, strew it across a grove of apple trees, harvest the fruit, feed them to pigs, teach one to talk, put the pig on a stage, start up the music, and the pig would, without blinking, belt out, "Strolling down the av-en-ue!"
You can believe me or not.
I don't know what caused my father to choose that particular song to lullaby us with. It was written by Broadway impresario Billy Rose in 1927, around the time my father was born. He probably heard it on the radio when he was growing up.
Just as you, Mr. and Ms. Child-Of-The-1960s, probably put your children to bed with your own rendition of Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Our House." And because of that, your young Ashleys and Tylers are doomed to someday be driving along a strange road with their new boss, see a "For Sale" sign off to the right, and auto-reflexively start singing, "With two cats in the yard ... "
This infliction of popular culture upon our youth reached a high point for me when I visited friends in Brooklyn. Sondra and Ed were getting their 3-year-old son Mario ready to go to the park, stuffing him into his snowsuit and strapping him into his stroller. "One land, one king!" Ed shouted. "One land, one king!" Mario returned.
"It's a game they play," Sondra explained. "Movie lines. That's from 'Excalibur' - you know, the one about King Arthur."
"Oh," I smiled.
Then Ed said, "Forget it Jake, it's 'Chinatown!'"
As Mario responded in kind, I thought, "My God. This boy is going to grow up thinking one of the most chilling lines in movie history means it's time to go to the park and have fun."
This madness must end.
Be careful what you do, parents. What you inflict upon your children at a tender age will come back to, if not haunt them, then at least visit them unexpectedly the rest of their lives.
I'll give you an example:
My friend Patrick loves to share stories of his family, and recently sent one concerning his maternal grandfather, who it seems was a bit of a showman. As Patrick wrote in the story, every now and then his grandfather would enlist younger brother Michael to entertain at a party. They would dress in top hats and canes and perform the old standard "Me and My Shadow."
As a helpful reference to those who are strangers to the song, Patrick included a few sample lyrics. As for me, I didn't need them any more than a Philadelphia football fan needs to know that the "L" comes after the "G." My eyes hadn't finished passing over the "My" in the song title before the tune started playing in my head.
"Me and my shadow/ Strolling down the avenue/ Me and my shadow/ Not a soul to tell or troubles to."
To this day, I do not remember ever hearing that song on the radio. But my father sang it to my sisters and me perhaps every night while we were falling asleep when we were between the ages of 3 and 10. Every night.
"And when it's 12 o'clock/ We climb the stairs/ We never knock/ 'Cause nobody's there."
You could kill me tomorrow, cut my flesh into chicken nugget-sized pieces, grind them into fertilizer, strew it across a grove of apple trees, harvest the fruit, feed them to pigs, teach one to talk, put the pig on a stage, start up the music, and the pig would, without blinking, belt out, "Strolling down the av-en-ue!"
You can believe me or not.
I don't know what caused my father to choose that particular song to lullaby us with. It was written by Broadway impresario Billy Rose in 1927, around the time my father was born. He probably heard it on the radio when he was growing up.
Just as you, Mr. and Ms. Child-Of-The-1960s, probably put your children to bed with your own rendition of Crosby, Stills and Nash's "Our House." And because of that, your young Ashleys and Tylers are doomed to someday be driving along a strange road with their new boss, see a "For Sale" sign off to the right, and auto-reflexively start singing, "With two cats in the yard ... "
This infliction of popular culture upon our youth reached a high point for me when I visited friends in Brooklyn. Sondra and Ed were getting their 3-year-old son Mario ready to go to the park, stuffing him into his snowsuit and strapping him into his stroller. "One land, one king!" Ed shouted. "One land, one king!" Mario returned.
"It's a game they play," Sondra explained. "Movie lines. That's from 'Excalibur' - you know, the one about King Arthur."
"Oh," I smiled.
Then Ed said, "Forget it Jake, it's 'Chinatown!'"
As Mario responded in kind, I thought, "My God. This boy is going to grow up thinking one of the most chilling lines in movie history means it's time to go to the park and have fun."
This madness must end.
Buffalo Bill Meets The Invisible Man
This appeared April 9, 2006
Two famous men - William "Buffalo Bill" Cody and Claude "The Invisible Man" Rains - spent part of their lives in West Chester. But although their homes stand directly across from one another - Rains' Georgian on the southwest corner of South Church and Dean, and Cody's brick Victorian on the northwest corner - they never met. Until recently...
Claude Rains (approaching Cody on South Church Street): Dear man, whatever are you looking for? It's a rainy night and your buckskin rags are soaked!
Buffalo Bill: The marker! My historical marker! I'm sure it must be here somewhere.
CR: What historical marker? There's nothing of the sort on this block.
BB: The devil you say! Look here, sir. I am one of history's great figures. I have been chronicled across time. There is a museum named in my honor, and a town in Wyoming as well. I have known Sitting Bull and Annie Oakley, and been portrayed on screen by Paul Newman. Sure as shootin' they must have a historic plaque here to remember me by.
CR: Sorry, old man. The town that honors a skateboarding jackass and a Jewish reggae rap artist simply has no place for the likes of a dead buffalo scout. There's nothing here of you but that redwood tree you planted so many days ago.
BB: Good investment. Say, what do you think of the old homestead these days? A bit racier than Hollywood in your time?
CR: Reminds me of Casablanca in the '40s, without the Nazis. Cafes populated by wanton women, and run by gambling gun runners. Mealy mouthed chiselers selling exit visas, for who knows where. Czechoslovakian princesses asking piano players for free songs, or spare Mardi Gras beads. All so sordid.
BB: Snap out of it man! That was a movie! This is real life.
CR: Sir, the movies are so much more real to me than life. And you? How does our town strike you?
BB: Lower than a snake's belly.
CR: Well put.
BB: When I brought my Wild West Show to the old Opera House on High Street, I had no idea that 100 years later it would be taken as license to turn the town into its own wild West Chester show. Now, the town seems noisy enough to scare even the most churlish dog in any Indian village I've ever seen. And the characters across the stage! Smarmy dance hall proprietors all. Makes me long for my uncle, who introduced me to West Chester. General Henry Guss. Did you know him?
CR: Gusz, you say?
BB: No, Guss. Consarn it! The past is always escaping here in West Chester. We've so much of it to go around that when bits disappear, we seem not to notice. Piece by piece, it slips by us. And then we wake like the Indian who has lost the prairie, acre by acre. Or the buffalo, one pelt at a time.
CR: Beg pardon?
BB: Sorry. Misting up. Wish I could find my plaque.
CR (gently taking Cody by the elbow): Don't worry, old man. I hear there is a Free French garrison over by Romansville. They'll be needing a few good men. And I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
BB: What the deuce are you talking about?
Two famous men - William "Buffalo Bill" Cody and Claude "The Invisible Man" Rains - spent part of their lives in West Chester. But although their homes stand directly across from one another - Rains' Georgian on the southwest corner of South Church and Dean, and Cody's brick Victorian on the northwest corner - they never met. Until recently...
Claude Rains (approaching Cody on South Church Street): Dear man, whatever are you looking for? It's a rainy night and your buckskin rags are soaked!
Buffalo Bill: The marker! My historical marker! I'm sure it must be here somewhere.
CR: What historical marker? There's nothing of the sort on this block.
BB: The devil you say! Look here, sir. I am one of history's great figures. I have been chronicled across time. There is a museum named in my honor, and a town in Wyoming as well. I have known Sitting Bull and Annie Oakley, and been portrayed on screen by Paul Newman. Sure as shootin' they must have a historic plaque here to remember me by.
CR: Sorry, old man. The town that honors a skateboarding jackass and a Jewish reggae rap artist simply has no place for the likes of a dead buffalo scout. There's nothing here of you but that redwood tree you planted so many days ago.
BB: Good investment. Say, what do you think of the old homestead these days? A bit racier than Hollywood in your time?
CR: Reminds me of Casablanca in the '40s, without the Nazis. Cafes populated by wanton women, and run by gambling gun runners. Mealy mouthed chiselers selling exit visas, for who knows where. Czechoslovakian princesses asking piano players for free songs, or spare Mardi Gras beads. All so sordid.
BB: Snap out of it man! That was a movie! This is real life.
CR: Sir, the movies are so much more real to me than life. And you? How does our town strike you?
BB: Lower than a snake's belly.
CR: Well put.
BB: When I brought my Wild West Show to the old Opera House on High Street, I had no idea that 100 years later it would be taken as license to turn the town into its own wild West Chester show. Now, the town seems noisy enough to scare even the most churlish dog in any Indian village I've ever seen. And the characters across the stage! Smarmy dance hall proprietors all. Makes me long for my uncle, who introduced me to West Chester. General Henry Guss. Did you know him?
CR: Gusz, you say?
BB: No, Guss. Consarn it! The past is always escaping here in West Chester. We've so much of it to go around that when bits disappear, we seem not to notice. Piece by piece, it slips by us. And then we wake like the Indian who has lost the prairie, acre by acre. Or the buffalo, one pelt at a time.
CR: Beg pardon?
BB: Sorry. Misting up. Wish I could find my plaque.
CR (gently taking Cody by the elbow): Don't worry, old man. I hear there is a Free French garrison over by Romansville. They'll be needing a few good men. And I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
BB: What the deuce are you talking about?
Fellow Chili Lovers Unite
This appered April 16, 2006
By the time you are reading this, I will be far away, in heaven.
No, not Heaven heaven. Culinary heaven, better known as Cincinnati, Ohio, the birthplace of Cincinnati chili.
You'll remember that last month I wrote a pair of columns about my discovery of, and disappointment with, a batch of so-called Cincinnati-style chili being plied upon an unsuspecting populace by a local West Chester restaurant, which hereafter shall remain nameless. (It's not that authentic Irish "gentlemen's club," however, if you must know.)
I have written hundreds, if not dozens, of stories in my 23 years and counting at the Daily Local News. I have covered murders, fires, presidential elections, marching band concerts, alleged UFO sightings, and former West Chester Borough Council President Tony Polito, but never have I received the response that I received for my columns on Cincinnati chili.
And it is not only the chili that those who read and wrote love.
Wrote traveling salesman Ned Lackey: "I am a resident of West Chester after moving here in 1974. When I return to the Miami Valley I savor three food specialties! 1) Skyline and Gold Star chili franchises; 2) Frisch's - love their traditional Big Boy's; and 3) The Montgomery Inn and their great ribs. I can testify to the uniqueness of Cincinnati food. Believe me, I travel on my stomach."
Meanwhile, Mary L. seems to get home only once in a while: "I'm writing to you from my office at work which is where I have a beautiful picture of Cincinnati's skyline. You are so correct that there is nothing like Cincinnati chili. I thought I was the only crazy one who at every visit home returns with cans of Skyline chili, along with LaRosa's spaghetti sauce, Husman's potato chips, etc."
Mary, meet Annalie Korengel Lorgus, of the West Chester Lorguses:
"We ate chili before we could talk! Every time I go 'home' to Cincy, I bring home a case of the chili mix envelopes. My brother and I took a 'culinary tour' of Cincy once and ate at White Castles, Skylines, and Graeters Ice Cream all in one day!"
One letter hit closer to home than others, in a physical way. That came from Ross Hamel, who might have sat next to me once or twice at my favorite chili parlor:
"As a University of Cincinnati graduate, I frequented that same Ludlow Skyline, and though a Philly native I came to relish the stuff. Now as a W.C. resident of 15 years I was floored to see such an offering come to town. (But) I'll stick to my own cans of Skyline."
The crown jewel came from Tim Thompson of Downingtown, though: "You can find Skyline Chili in cans at Wegman's in Downingtown," he reported. "When I discovered this, I e-mailed Wegman's and asked about the possibility of them carrying several other Cincinnati delicacies but, Wegman's didn't answer my e-mail. So, I guess I'll have to settle for the Skyline and continue to make a Kroger's run whenever I get back home.
I'd pick some stuff up for you Tim, but I'm afraid the car's already full.
By the time you are reading this, I will be far away, in heaven.
No, not Heaven heaven. Culinary heaven, better known as Cincinnati, Ohio, the birthplace of Cincinnati chili.
You'll remember that last month I wrote a pair of columns about my discovery of, and disappointment with, a batch of so-called Cincinnati-style chili being plied upon an unsuspecting populace by a local West Chester restaurant, which hereafter shall remain nameless. (It's not that authentic Irish "gentlemen's club," however, if you must know.)
I have written hundreds, if not dozens, of stories in my 23 years and counting at the Daily Local News. I have covered murders, fires, presidential elections, marching band concerts, alleged UFO sightings, and former West Chester Borough Council President Tony Polito, but never have I received the response that I received for my columns on Cincinnati chili.
And it is not only the chili that those who read and wrote love.
Wrote traveling salesman Ned Lackey: "I am a resident of West Chester after moving here in 1974. When I return to the Miami Valley I savor three food specialties! 1) Skyline and Gold Star chili franchises; 2) Frisch's - love their traditional Big Boy's; and 3) The Montgomery Inn and their great ribs. I can testify to the uniqueness of Cincinnati food. Believe me, I travel on my stomach."
Meanwhile, Mary L. seems to get home only once in a while: "I'm writing to you from my office at work which is where I have a beautiful picture of Cincinnati's skyline. You are so correct that there is nothing like Cincinnati chili. I thought I was the only crazy one who at every visit home returns with cans of Skyline chili, along with LaRosa's spaghetti sauce, Husman's potato chips, etc."
Mary, meet Annalie Korengel Lorgus, of the West Chester Lorguses:
"We ate chili before we could talk! Every time I go 'home' to Cincy, I bring home a case of the chili mix envelopes. My brother and I took a 'culinary tour' of Cincy once and ate at White Castles, Skylines, and Graeters Ice Cream all in one day!"
One letter hit closer to home than others, in a physical way. That came from Ross Hamel, who might have sat next to me once or twice at my favorite chili parlor:
"As a University of Cincinnati graduate, I frequented that same Ludlow Skyline, and though a Philly native I came to relish the stuff. Now as a W.C. resident of 15 years I was floored to see such an offering come to town. (But) I'll stick to my own cans of Skyline."
The crown jewel came from Tim Thompson of Downingtown, though: "You can find Skyline Chili in cans at Wegman's in Downingtown," he reported. "When I discovered this, I e-mailed Wegman's and asked about the possibility of them carrying several other Cincinnati delicacies but, Wegman's didn't answer my e-mail. So, I guess I'll have to settle for the Skyline and continue to make a Kroger's run whenever I get back home.
I'd pick some stuff up for you Tim, but I'm afraid the car's already full.
Waiting For The Bell
This column appered April 23, 2006
I can't wait for the bell to ring.
That bell is the signal that the West Chester Growers Market is open for business once again, and consequently aural notice that my Saturday mornings will return to the enjoyable routine that has been under suspension since the final days of autumn.
The West Chester Growers Market, you see, is a seasonable exercise. It opens the first weekend in May and closes in December. The stalls and canopies that line the parking lot at the corner of North Church and West Chestnut disappear, gone into hibernation, darkening the very world we live in.
That is a crying shame, in my opinion, because there is no finer way to spend a few hours on a Saturday morning than shopping for good, fresh food and bumping into friends you haven't seen since, well, the week before. The experience combines the small town aesthetic of a bunch of colorful characters plying their wares in an otherwise non-descript parking lot with the innate sense that pretty soon you are going to find yourself munching on a good old fashioned tomato and mayonnaise sandwich.
Or, perhaps find yourself opening a jar of blueberry jam that came from Betty's Kitchen, a legend in Southern Chester County, and which you know goes very well on that French bread the guy sells from out the back of his truck. Or maybe you just want to go with that peach smoothie you can whip up with help from one of the half dozen stands that are showing off the best peaches this side of Atlanta, Ga.
I'm not alone.
I know this because the men in my neighborhood take an immense pride in rallying to be the first to hit the market and get their shopping done before the clock strikes 10. As early as I try to make it the few blocks up Church Street to the market, I still catch them coming home, their bags already full and their minds clearly focused on lunch.
I'd accuse them of camping out on the front steps of the Friends Association building across the street from the market, but we in the news businesses don't like to go throwing wild implications around. Plus, their families might object - not to them staying out all Friday night, but to my reporting their conduct to the public.
But I say this May-December romance we have with the market is a situation up with which we should not put. If you are dating the prom queen, after all, you shouldn't have to give up her companionship just because the calendar reads January and not June.
You know me, I don't ask for much. So I don't think it's too much of a request that the powers that be at Borough Hall take a break from deciding how much I'm going to have to pay to throw away the fresh flowers I pick up from the growers' market and dig into the rainy day fund for a permanent growers' home. I say the borough funds construction of an enclosed market space where those who want to, can buy and sell 12 months of the year.
It wouldn't cost much, I bet, and the loss of the parking spaces won't upset anyone. After all, the borough now has more parking garages than Irish-theme bars - something we can all be duly proud of. The enclosed market would bring in more merchants, I suggest, and none would object to paying a small fee for the honor of making my life that much more fulfilled an extra five months of the year.
They could still have the bell outside, too.
I can't wait for the bell to ring.
That bell is the signal that the West Chester Growers Market is open for business once again, and consequently aural notice that my Saturday mornings will return to the enjoyable routine that has been under suspension since the final days of autumn.
The West Chester Growers Market, you see, is a seasonable exercise. It opens the first weekend in May and closes in December. The stalls and canopies that line the parking lot at the corner of North Church and West Chestnut disappear, gone into hibernation, darkening the very world we live in.
That is a crying shame, in my opinion, because there is no finer way to spend a few hours on a Saturday morning than shopping for good, fresh food and bumping into friends you haven't seen since, well, the week before. The experience combines the small town aesthetic of a bunch of colorful characters plying their wares in an otherwise non-descript parking lot with the innate sense that pretty soon you are going to find yourself munching on a good old fashioned tomato and mayonnaise sandwich.
Or, perhaps find yourself opening a jar of blueberry jam that came from Betty's Kitchen, a legend in Southern Chester County, and which you know goes very well on that French bread the guy sells from out the back of his truck. Or maybe you just want to go with that peach smoothie you can whip up with help from one of the half dozen stands that are showing off the best peaches this side of Atlanta, Ga.
I'm not alone.
I know this because the men in my neighborhood take an immense pride in rallying to be the first to hit the market and get their shopping done before the clock strikes 10. As early as I try to make it the few blocks up Church Street to the market, I still catch them coming home, their bags already full and their minds clearly focused on lunch.
I'd accuse them of camping out on the front steps of the Friends Association building across the street from the market, but we in the news businesses don't like to go throwing wild implications around. Plus, their families might object - not to them staying out all Friday night, but to my reporting their conduct to the public.
But I say this May-December romance we have with the market is a situation up with which we should not put. If you are dating the prom queen, after all, you shouldn't have to give up her companionship just because the calendar reads January and not June.
You know me, I don't ask for much. So I don't think it's too much of a request that the powers that be at Borough Hall take a break from deciding how much I'm going to have to pay to throw away the fresh flowers I pick up from the growers' market and dig into the rainy day fund for a permanent growers' home. I say the borough funds construction of an enclosed market space where those who want to, can buy and sell 12 months of the year.
It wouldn't cost much, I bet, and the loss of the parking spaces won't upset anyone. After all, the borough now has more parking garages than Irish-theme bars - something we can all be duly proud of. The enclosed market would bring in more merchants, I suggest, and none would object to paying a small fee for the honor of making my life that much more fulfilled an extra five months of the year.
They could still have the bell outside, too.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
Cincinnati Chili Comes To West Chester
It’s called compartmentalization, and even though it is an unsuitably long word, the idea seems to work pretty well.
In basic form, compartmentalization means sectioning off areas of your brain for certain functions – your artistic inclinations in one area, your rational attributes in another. In life, you could think of it as separating work from home. Extend things a little, and you get a separate compartment for how you deal with, say, people you knew when you were 10 and people you met when you were 30. Not everyone in the office can get away with calling you “Tubby,” after all, when your name is Dwight.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened up the menu at a popular West Chester restaurant and saw the words, “Cincinnati Style 4-Way Chili” among the specials. (I’m not going to name the restaurant, since the management here has rules about the rank commercialization of its columnists, but suffice to say the place has a big beer kettle in the window and it used to be a Woolworth’s.)
Now -- outside perceptions to the contrary -- I do not know everything. Can’t recite the state capitals, lousy at balancing checkbooks, wouldn’t get past the first five when asked to name the schools of the Big Ten, etc. But there is one thing I know, and that is Cincinnati chili.
And I’m scared to death about it showing up in West Chester.
I was raised in Cincinnati, the Queen City of the Midwest thank you very much, and have been eating chili there since the age of 13, when I became man enough to walk into the neighborhood chili parlor on my own and ask for “two cheese, with.” And that would be two Cheese Coneys (bun, Vienna sausage, Cincy chili, onions, grated cheese) with mustard.
Full Disclosure No.1: On my bookcase next to photos of my mother and sisters, nieces and nephew, and oldest friends, is a framed picture of that very same chili parlor, the Skyline at the corner of Clifton and Ludlow. I look at it often.
Full Disclosure No. 2: As I type this, there is a four pack of canned Skyline Chili in the cupboard above my refrigerator, and I am thinking of cracking it open this evening for dinner.
Cincinnati chili is different than chili in any other part of the globe. It’s typically served on top of spaghetti with onions and cheese, and not in bowls like Texas chili. I’ve tried to get people from Chester County interested in it when they’re traveling through the Midwest, with varying degrees of success.
I won’t argue that it is the best chili available, but it is my favorite. I have been known to fly into Cincy for a visit, take the airport shuttle downtown, carry my suitcase four blocks to the nearest chili parlor and order lunch, before even saying hello to my family.
I’m not the only one. Sarah Jessica Parker, of “Sex and The City” fame, has her photo hanging on the wall at the Ludlow Skyline. Stop George Clooney from talking about the war in Iraq long enough and he’ll tell you whether he goes Skyline or Goldstar.
But will it play at the corner of High and Gay? We’ll see…
Next week: A 4-way in West Chester.
In basic form, compartmentalization means sectioning off areas of your brain for certain functions – your artistic inclinations in one area, your rational attributes in another. In life, you could think of it as separating work from home. Extend things a little, and you get a separate compartment for how you deal with, say, people you knew when you were 10 and people you met when you were 30. Not everyone in the office can get away with calling you “Tubby,” after all, when your name is Dwight.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened up the menu at a popular West Chester restaurant and saw the words, “Cincinnati Style 4-Way Chili” among the specials. (I’m not going to name the restaurant, since the management here has rules about the rank commercialization of its columnists, but suffice to say the place has a big beer kettle in the window and it used to be a Woolworth’s.)
Now -- outside perceptions to the contrary -- I do not know everything. Can’t recite the state capitals, lousy at balancing checkbooks, wouldn’t get past the first five when asked to name the schools of the Big Ten, etc. But there is one thing I know, and that is Cincinnati chili.
And I’m scared to death about it showing up in West Chester.
I was raised in Cincinnati, the Queen City of the Midwest thank you very much, and have been eating chili there since the age of 13, when I became man enough to walk into the neighborhood chili parlor on my own and ask for “two cheese, with.” And that would be two Cheese Coneys (bun, Vienna sausage, Cincy chili, onions, grated cheese) with mustard.
Full Disclosure No.1: On my bookcase next to photos of my mother and sisters, nieces and nephew, and oldest friends, is a framed picture of that very same chili parlor, the Skyline at the corner of Clifton and Ludlow. I look at it often.
Full Disclosure No. 2: As I type this, there is a four pack of canned Skyline Chili in the cupboard above my refrigerator, and I am thinking of cracking it open this evening for dinner.
Cincinnati chili is different than chili in any other part of the globe. It’s typically served on top of spaghetti with onions and cheese, and not in bowls like Texas chili. I’ve tried to get people from Chester County interested in it when they’re traveling through the Midwest, with varying degrees of success.
I won’t argue that it is the best chili available, but it is my favorite. I have been known to fly into Cincy for a visit, take the airport shuttle downtown, carry my suitcase four blocks to the nearest chili parlor and order lunch, before even saying hello to my family.
I’m not the only one. Sarah Jessica Parker, of “Sex and The City” fame, has her photo hanging on the wall at the Ludlow Skyline. Stop George Clooney from talking about the war in Iraq long enough and he’ll tell you whether he goes Skyline or Goldstar.
But will it play at the corner of High and Gay? We’ll see…
Next week: A 4-way in West Chester.
I Know Cincinnati Chili, and This Ain't It
“Can't even get decent food. Right after I got here, I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce, and I got egg noodles and ketchup.”--Henry Hill, “Goodfellas” (1990)
Let’s review.
Hometown: Cincinnati. Chili: Skyline. Surprise: Cincinnati chili served in West Chester. Danger: Cross-pollination of foodstuffs.
I went well prepared for my date with “4-Way Cincinnati Style Chili.” I memorized the legend of the Lambrinides Family, who started their first Skyline Chili parlor overlooking Cincinnati in 1949. I genuflected before my photograph of the Ludlow Avenue Skyline. I reread the testimonials I received from fellow Skyline lovers across Chester County, and took their passion as my lodestar.
Then the actual chili came.
Imagine you find yourself in some far off city, like Indianapolis or Des Moines, homesick for Philly, and the restaurant you’re seated in advertises a luncheon special of “Philadelphia Cheese Steak.” You order it with heightened anticipation, ready for a taste of home, and then the waiter brings you a roast beef sandwich with melted Swiss and a few slices of onion on a Kaiser roll. Get the picture?
The only thing the dish placed in front of me on Wednesday had in common with Cincinnati chili is the word “Cincinnati,” and I would not be the least bit surprised to learn they spelled that incorrectly.
“It” – I find no other word for the meal useful here -- was in a bowl. Four-ways come on a plate, an oval plate. “It” had strands of what appeared to be fettuccini swimming in its dark meat sauce. Skyline is served with a deep bed of spaghetti. “It” had a sprinkle of melted cheese swirled in the center of the bowl. The four-way has a mound of grated cheddar cheese, piled high. “It’ had a few slices of red onion. Skyline servers plop spoonfuls of chopped white onions on the chili with abandon.
The taste itself was nothing at all comparable to what I grew up eating, and was no improvement. About halfway through the bowl I came across a bay leaf. Cincinnati chili has cinnamon, cayenne, cocoa, vinegar and maybe a little Worcestershire. Bay? No way.
I don’t know who the chef is who thought he could fool anyone with this deceitful concoction, but I am sure he is a good person at heart. Kisses his children good night. Pays taxes on time. Returns shopping carts to parking lot corrals.
What made him decide to label this monstrosity “Cincinnati chili,” I can thus only conclude involves something dark in his past having to do with my hometown.
But what is most frustrating is that it could have worked. People in West Chester would love Skyline! Don’t take it from me, take it from Alice Wathen, age 12, Hillcrest Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio, AKA, my niece:
“I think that Skyline could be great anywhere. Even though Skyline is sort of the “Cincinnati Thing,” if the quality is good, then after eating just one meal, you will be full. And after you eat your meal you will get that familiar, warm feeling of satisfaction and content. You should tell the people in West Chester to take this at heart.”
Thanks Alice, I will.
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