This appeared on Sunday, April 29, 2007
When I was 10 or 11, my father, a chemistry professor, brought home a vial of mercury for me to play with. I found it fascinating. When I poured some of it out and tried to put my finger on it, it squirted away. You could not pin it down.
Sort of like Chester Springs, in northern Chester County.
I find that Chester Springs — that tweed, cheese and horse-dung community referred to as ”one of the most affluent and desirable locations in Southeast Pennsylvania‘“ — keeps moving, stretching its limits like mercury on a glass table. Supposed to contain only parts Upper Uwchlan, West Pikeland, East Nantmeal and West Vincent, I find that people who live in East Pikeland or Uwchlan or Charlestown are creepingly beginning to answer ”Chester Springs“ when someone asks where they live. Soon it will extend to the outskirts of Exton.
It‘s the Postal Desirability Factor at work. You can‘t blame people who would rather have the distinction of having a Chester Springs address than one from say, Phoenixville or Royersford.
Finding the limits of Chester Springs may be difficult, but for me the heart of the place is right where Conestoga Road meets Fellowship Road. It‘s there that years ago I stumbled across a trio of spiritual symbols of Chester Springs.
Two still stand, the third is no more.
The first two I like to call the Twin Churches of Chester Springs, although they do not resemble one another, not in any physical sense, but rather by the saint from whom they took their names — St. Matthew. On one side of the road you‘ve got St. Matthew‘s United Church of Christ, a comfortable looking, homey sort of a building that just exudes a sense of history.
A few hundred yards up the road you‘ve got St. Matthew‘s Evangelical Lutheran Church, a stately building that would not look out of place among the grand churches of Old City, Philadelphia.
You‘d think that there might be a copycat name-calling game going on between the two congregations, but those I spoke with assure me that‘s not the case. The two churches sprung, you see, from the same source, back when congregations shared buildings for convenience sake.
The Lutheran and Reformed churches went their separate ways in 1879, when the Lutherans decided to build their own house of worship.
The split was supposed to be amicable, and I see no reason to believe otherwise, seeing as the Reformed folks threw in $1,000, a wood stove and half the books in the church library to seal the deal. But I do note that the Reformers took their sweet time granting the dissolution — putting it off once owing to the weather being ”very rainy“ and again because, according to a church history, ”the matter escaped notice.“
Diane Myer, the church secretary at St. Matthew‘s United, told me that the two congregations get together sometimes for joint outdoor services, and I‘m sure the Lutherans do like to come down for the chicken barbeque dinners the Uniteds sell in the summer. There‘s some ambiguity, though, about who is who, and Myers told me that travelers confuse one church for the other ”all the time.“
Oh, and the third part of my Chester Springs triumvirate? That would be the Fellowship Road barn that used to hold a private squash court. Playing squash inside a barn is the height of the tweed, cheese and horse-dung life, it seems to me.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
Boro' to 'Bucks: Drop Dead
This appeared on Sunday, April 22, 2007
Remember when you were a freshman in college and there was this person, this beautiful blond, who you really wanted to meet? Maybe get to know them, maybe start a relationship, maybe propose, maybe settle down, maybe raise a family and buy a mortgage and send the kids to college and celebrate each other‘s 50th birthday and retire to the South of France with? Remember that?
But they weren‘t having any of you. They were just way too cool for you, and they had other friends to be with and places to go and Spring Break vacations to take, and you, well, you just weren‘t up to their speed. Remember that?
Then you made a splash in the college newspaper because you had been cast in whatever MTV reality show was debuting that September (or whatever the 1960s equivalent of the MTV reality shows were), and all of a sudden your dream person started showing up at your dorm room around 7:30 a.m. wanting to know if you could accompany them to the cafeteria for breakfast and maybe have a ”study break“ later and then send the kids to college and retire to the South of France with. Remember that?
Then you will know how we felt when we heard the news that Starbucks is planning to open a café in West Chester.
After all this time, the Starbucks folks have decided that we here in West Chester are classy enough to be part of their ultra-hip, ubiquitous coffee culture. Not only will Starbucks come to town, but they‘ll be plopping down right smack dab in the middle of the borough, at the corner of High and Gay, where nobody can miss them, not even a West Chester University student walking home at 2:30 a.m. from a ”study break“ at Rex‘s Bar.
We are not amused.
Remember, this is the coffee company that decided it was better to open cafes in Paoli, Chester Springs, Kennett Square, Exton and Downingtown before coming to our fair borough. Remember, this is the coffee company that opened four, count ‘em, four outlets in Johore Bahru, Malaysia, before it opened one in downtown West Chester.
You think we‘re happy? You think we are going to start counting down the days until we can order up a grande of Ethiopean Yergachefee and crank up the Norah Jones on our iPods at the ‘Bucks? You couldn‘t be farther from the truth if you were Albert Gonzalez trying to explain the attorney general firings.
Read our lips, Starbucks folks: We don‘t want you anymore. We are not going to fall for your newly discovered attraction for our brick sidewalks, our historical county courthouse, our brightly painted street signs, our newly elected Democratic state legislators, and just roll over and order whatever size Breakfast Blend you tell us to, like we fell for that beautiful blond back in college.
You had your chance. We asked, nearly begged, for you to come here years ago and you ignored us. Coffee love has a small window of opportunity, and for you we have slammed it shut.
Now The Gap, on the other hand ...
Remember when you were a freshman in college and there was this person, this beautiful blond, who you really wanted to meet? Maybe get to know them, maybe start a relationship, maybe propose, maybe settle down, maybe raise a family and buy a mortgage and send the kids to college and celebrate each other‘s 50th birthday and retire to the South of France with? Remember that?
But they weren‘t having any of you. They were just way too cool for you, and they had other friends to be with and places to go and Spring Break vacations to take, and you, well, you just weren‘t up to their speed. Remember that?
Then you made a splash in the college newspaper because you had been cast in whatever MTV reality show was debuting that September (or whatever the 1960s equivalent of the MTV reality shows were), and all of a sudden your dream person started showing up at your dorm room around 7:30 a.m. wanting to know if you could accompany them to the cafeteria for breakfast and maybe have a ”study break“ later and then send the kids to college and retire to the South of France with. Remember that?
Then you will know how we felt when we heard the news that Starbucks is planning to open a café in West Chester.
After all this time, the Starbucks folks have decided that we here in West Chester are classy enough to be part of their ultra-hip, ubiquitous coffee culture. Not only will Starbucks come to town, but they‘ll be plopping down right smack dab in the middle of the borough, at the corner of High and Gay, where nobody can miss them, not even a West Chester University student walking home at 2:30 a.m. from a ”study break“ at Rex‘s Bar.
We are not amused.
Remember, this is the coffee company that decided it was better to open cafes in Paoli, Chester Springs, Kennett Square, Exton and Downingtown before coming to our fair borough. Remember, this is the coffee company that opened four, count ‘em, four outlets in Johore Bahru, Malaysia, before it opened one in downtown West Chester.
You think we‘re happy? You think we are going to start counting down the days until we can order up a grande of Ethiopean Yergachefee and crank up the Norah Jones on our iPods at the ‘Bucks? You couldn‘t be farther from the truth if you were Albert Gonzalez trying to explain the attorney general firings.
Read our lips, Starbucks folks: We don‘t want you anymore. We are not going to fall for your newly discovered attraction for our brick sidewalks, our historical county courthouse, our brightly painted street signs, our newly elected Democratic state legislators, and just roll over and order whatever size Breakfast Blend you tell us to, like we fell for that beautiful blond back in college.
You had your chance. We asked, nearly begged, for you to come here years ago and you ignored us. Coffee love has a small window of opportunity, and for you we have slammed it shut.
Now The Gap, on the other hand ...
Monday, April 09, 2007
Recalling Bitter/Better Days
This appeared on Sunday, April 8, 2007
It was one of the oddest stories I have ever covered.
In August 1988, my editor dispatched me to Valley Forge National Park, where the Ku Klux Klan was holding a hate rally.
I remember being miserable, and not simply because I would have to spend several hours covering what essentially was a non-event. It was a typical summer afternoon in northeast Chester County — hot and muggy, or what we journalists like to refer to as ”sun drenched“ — the type of afternoon I‘d rather spend sitting in an air conditioned theater watching the latest Scorsese.
I say non-event because there really was no news taking place that afternoon, in the sense that no one was being elected, no flooding had occurred, no politicians were being indicted. The news had already passed, after the Klan announced that they were going to rally at the park and the Park Service let them.
What remained was a bunch of slightly overweight white men dressed in the strange garb of the Klan, standing on an amphitheater that bore a vague resemblance to Stonehenge (prompting more than one droll aside from reporters about the intelligence of those participating in the rally), and saying not really much of anything.
If I dug out the story I wrote that day I could find a quote or two to share with you — something dealing with superiority or separation or subjugation or some such. But what struck me at the time was the lack of interest the Klan folks who spoke seemed to have for what they themselves were saying. They didn‘t put much passion into their declarations, and they drifted from one subject to another haphazardly.
Their main interest came from getting a reaction from the few people who gathered to protest their appearance. The crowd, such as it was, was separated from the Klansmen by a storm fence the park people had erected to keep the sides apart. The fence was 50 or more feet from the stage, I recall, so you had two groups yelling at one another from a block away. Not much excitement there.
The whole situation quickly became ridiculous, and I stayed only as long as I needed to, filling up about less than half my notebook before flipping it shut.
The scene came back to me last week after I took an afternoon drive to Valley Forge, hoping to see the park‘s flowering trees in full blossom. They weren‘t, so instead my mind wandered back to other days spent there.
I remember touring the historical aspects of the park with my mother, who never met a vacation that didn‘t involve some educational opportunity. I also remember a summer picnic with a young woman I was enamored with at the time, and who I thought would be impressed with my ability to wrap cold chicken in Saran Wrap and open a bottle of white wine with a corkscrew. (She wasn‘t.) I remember also seeing the flowering trees on Gulph Road Hill tinted with snow after a freak storm one late April morning.
And I felt better letting those memories overtake all that hate I had seen, that one hot summer day in August 1988.
It was one of the oddest stories I have ever covered.
In August 1988, my editor dispatched me to Valley Forge National Park, where the Ku Klux Klan was holding a hate rally.
I remember being miserable, and not simply because I would have to spend several hours covering what essentially was a non-event. It was a typical summer afternoon in northeast Chester County — hot and muggy, or what we journalists like to refer to as ”sun drenched“ — the type of afternoon I‘d rather spend sitting in an air conditioned theater watching the latest Scorsese.
I say non-event because there really was no news taking place that afternoon, in the sense that no one was being elected, no flooding had occurred, no politicians were being indicted. The news had already passed, after the Klan announced that they were going to rally at the park and the Park Service let them.
What remained was a bunch of slightly overweight white men dressed in the strange garb of the Klan, standing on an amphitheater that bore a vague resemblance to Stonehenge (prompting more than one droll aside from reporters about the intelligence of those participating in the rally), and saying not really much of anything.
If I dug out the story I wrote that day I could find a quote or two to share with you — something dealing with superiority or separation or subjugation or some such. But what struck me at the time was the lack of interest the Klan folks who spoke seemed to have for what they themselves were saying. They didn‘t put much passion into their declarations, and they drifted from one subject to another haphazardly.
Their main interest came from getting a reaction from the few people who gathered to protest their appearance. The crowd, such as it was, was separated from the Klansmen by a storm fence the park people had erected to keep the sides apart. The fence was 50 or more feet from the stage, I recall, so you had two groups yelling at one another from a block away. Not much excitement there.
The whole situation quickly became ridiculous, and I stayed only as long as I needed to, filling up about less than half my notebook before flipping it shut.
The scene came back to me last week after I took an afternoon drive to Valley Forge, hoping to see the park‘s flowering trees in full blossom. They weren‘t, so instead my mind wandered back to other days spent there.
I remember touring the historical aspects of the park with my mother, who never met a vacation that didn‘t involve some educational opportunity. I also remember a summer picnic with a young woman I was enamored with at the time, and who I thought would be impressed with my ability to wrap cold chicken in Saran Wrap and open a bottle of white wine with a corkscrew. (She wasn‘t.) I remember also seeing the flowering trees on Gulph Road Hill tinted with snow after a freak storm one late April morning.
And I felt better letting those memories overtake all that hate I had seen, that one hot summer day in August 1988.
Monday, April 02, 2007
A Modest Proposal
This appeared on Sunday, April 1, 2007
Although I am certain he means well, the new legislation that state Sen. Andy Dinniman, D-19th, of West Whiteland, introduced at a sparsely attended session of the Legislature last week seems to me to be, well, shall we say, a trifle odd.
His legislation, SB 90210, is termed the ”Chester County Open Space Creation Act of 2007.“ When you get past most of the legislative gobbledygook that these documents always include (”Whereas …“ ”Be it therefore resolved …“ ”The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hereby enacts ...“ ”The term ’Dinniman‘ shall refer to the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful Legislator from Exton …“) what it comes down to is that Sen. Andy is tired of seeing open space in Chester County simply preserved; he now wants to actually make more of it.
Which I admit is a pretty nifty idea on its face. But somehow draining Marsh Creek State Park Lake and filling it in with prime topsoil from Carbon County appears to pose some engineering obstacles that might prove nettlesome, to say the least.
To his credit, Dinniman is optimistic about his plan.
"What a worthy goal this extensively researched legislation aspires to," the county‘s lone Democratic senator said in prepared comments. "For far too long, the waters of Marsh Creek Lake have taken up too much room, when that acreage could instead be a fertile plain among the landscape of Uwchlan Township, giving homeowners a place to walk their dogs, provided they are leashed.
"We all know that we can‘t just sit idly by while developers rape and pillage our hills and valleys and meadows and compost farms," Dinniman continued. "We‘ve got to be pro-active about this. What better way to start creating new open space than by also creating a massive civil service project that would bring new jobs to the underemployed in northern Chester County. Like, those so-called ’soccer‘ moms I see sipping Starbucks at Exton Square in the middle of the day. Don‘t they have a game to go to?"
Regarding the environmental impact of draining a 535-acre lake, Dinniman stated: "Impact, schmimpact. We‘ll grow grass there, and in my book green is good. Except for that moldy stuff that forms on my dog‘s teeth when we don‘t give him the right snacks."
At this point, it appears the biggest fallout over Dinniman‘s bill has been the introduction by state Rep. Carole Rubley of another piece of legislation, seemingly put together to keep her potential rival from getting the lead in the fast-developing Open Space Race.
Rubley, R-157th, of Tredyffrin, said her bill, HB 4-01-2007, the ”Even Better Chester County Open Space Creation Act“ would tackle two problems at once — making more open space and reducing rush-hour traffic.
"I know it would be expensive to tear down the entire Great Valley Corporate Center and return it to the farmland it once was," Rubley said. "But come on! How many cars would that take off 202 at the worst time of day, and how many more ears of corn could it put in the stalls at the West Chester Growers‘ Market? You do the math."
Me, I‘m reserving judgment on the entire thing.
P.S. Check the date on this posting.
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