This column originally apperaed on Aug. 26, 2007
OK, class. Geography discussion time.
Get out your copy of Franklin’s “Chester & Delaware Metro Street Atlas,” and turn to map number 3182. See that little corner of Upper Uwchlan labeled Lyndell? That’s our topic for today.
The folks who decided to dam Marsh Creek and inundate the village of Milford Mills back in the early 1970s knew there would be unintended consequences to their actions, but they likely figured those would be on the order of unplanned-for growth in the population of bass fisherpeople in Chester County.
What they did not foresee was the creation of a separate colony of residents who are citizens of, but somewhat alienated from, the larger Upper Uwchlan community. Call them, as one wise man did with me in a recent conversation, “The Folks on the Other Side of the Lake.”
This is not to say that homeowners on Davenport Drive and Reeds Road and Colts Meadow Run and Fox Hollow Road live on the proverbial wrong side of the tracks. In a township where the median income for a household is $96,711 and only 2 percent of residents are below the poverty line, you’d be hard- pressed to hard to find any sort of housing distinction in Upper Uwchlan that would qualify as your average shantytown.
But the Folks on the Other Side of the Lake are disadvantaged in that the rest of the township — the vibrant, functioning, car dealership-laden part of the township — is cut off from them by the 530 acres of Marsh Creek Lake. To get from Lyndell to Eagle is a nearly impossible task, requiring a switchback series of back-road turns reminiscent of the outdoor maze that Jack Nicholson got trapped in at the end of “The Shining.”
I normally don’t have sympathy for the woes of the people who populate DevelomentLand. It’s hard to break spiritual bread with people whose low point in life comes when their Blackberry loses reception in the jacuzzi.
But I do feel for the Folks on the Other Side of the Lake. They want so much to be part of the swank wine, cheese and horse dung life of Chester Springs, and yet they find themselves tied geographically to the rubble of “historic” Guthriesville.
While their neighbors in the village of Uwchland (Motto: “No, We Are Not Going To Explain The Extra ‘D.’”) are deciding whether to shop at the Lexus dealership or stick with the SUVs at CarSense, folks in Lyndell have to worry that some renegade paper mill owner might drop roofing tacks on their driveway. It has to be hard to realize that it is easier to get a burger at the McDonalds in Downingtown than it is to have dinner at the Eagle Tavern.
I believe, however, that there may be a solution to the “East of Eden” dilemma that the Folks on the Other Side of the Lake face. Passage of SB 90210, the “Chester County Open Space Creation Act of 2007 (As Amended),” would require the Army Corps of Engineers to fill in Marsh Creek Lake. When accomplished, Lyndell residents would be able to scoot over to Eagle in no time.
Plus, there’d be the natural side benefit of the drop in the bass fisherpeople population.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Lazy Bones' Mea Culpa
Sorry, folks. I haven't been posting my columns in the past few weeks because I, well, uh, becaue .. I had a hangnail? Had to wash my hair? Had to defrost the refrigerator? Had to defrost my hangnail?
Face it, people. I get lazy every now and then and neglect my duties. Don't believe me? Check my kitchen sink. There's a plate at the bottom of the pile that contains scraps from a dinner I had sometime around the end of July.
Hope you have found other things to occupy your time with since I disappeared, and that you'll enjoy reading these musings.
Happy end of summer!
Face it, people. I get lazy every now and then and neglect my duties. Don't believe me? Check my kitchen sink. There's a plate at the bottom of the pile that contains scraps from a dinner I had sometime around the end of July.
Hope you have found other things to occupy your time with since I disappeared, and that you'll enjoy reading these musings.
Happy end of summer!
Chester B. DeMille
This column originally appeared on Aug. 12, 2007
Maybe you saw the news that a New Mexico production company is proposing building a multi-million dollar film and television studio in the Philadelphia area. Maybe you didn’t. But then again, maybe you saw the major motion picture “Chubb-Chubbs Save Xmas,” and maybe you didn’t. I will tell you that from what I can gather, both productions rate about one star on my grading scale — out of a possible 100.
It’s not that I don’t love the idea of saving Xmas, or the whole Mid-Winter Holiday Season Concept for those of you atheists and pagans celebrating at home. Nor do I object to the idea of locating a film and television production facility in the Philadelphia area, for that matter.
No, when I read the story, the sentence that struck me as something for the cutting room floor was this one: “Pacifica” — that’s the name of the production company from New Mexico — “is looking at sites in Bucks, Delaware and Philadelphia counties.”
“Cut!” as they used to say in those Hollywood movies about Hollywood movies.
Never mind the fact that we’re dealing here with a company named Pacifica that’s located in a state that does not currently border the Pacific Ocean, or any ocean that I’m aware of. But here they are practically slapping us folks in Chester County who are of the firm belief that our hometown would make the perfect place for a studio, slapping us like Moe would slap Curly.
The announcement comes about a month after state lawmakers approved $75 million in film tax credits for the fiscal year that started July 1. Gov. Ed Rendell said at a news conference with the film production company’s chief, who is trying to put together a $10 million incentive package to get the studio project off the ground, that the idea was a natural for the Philly area.
Rendell said the Philadelphia region should be attractive to filmmakers for its variety of shooting locations, from rural farms to the gritty neighborhoods of the inner city. “This area has unlimited capacity for different scenes,” said Rendell, the former Philadelphia mayor and current Eagles acolyte. “You can't get urban grime in Albuquerque.”
Hey, yo, Ed! If you hadn’t looked, we got it all. You want rural, we’ve got rolling hillsides that roll into other rolling hillsides. You want grime, take a walk around Phoenixville sometime and see what ends up on the soles of your shoes. You want drama like the Western standoff in “High Noon”? Check out the battle between Borough Council in West Chester and their historic preservation comrades. You want comedy like the confused townsfolk in “Blazing Saddles”? Do the words, “Hear ye, hear ye! The Council of the City of Coatesville is now in session!” strike your funny bone?
According to the Associated Press, the Delaware Valley studio would need to grow to about 1 million square feet, comprising sound stages, production offices and other space. One million square feet is about the average size of a foyer in a Mcmansion in Upper Uwchlan. We’ve got square feet just sitting around waiting to be used — a lot of it in strip shopping centers that have nearby Quiznos, so catering wouldn’t be a problem.
And did I mention that Bam’s all set for his close-up?
Maybe you saw the news that a New Mexico production company is proposing building a multi-million dollar film and television studio in the Philadelphia area. Maybe you didn’t. But then again, maybe you saw the major motion picture “Chubb-Chubbs Save Xmas,” and maybe you didn’t. I will tell you that from what I can gather, both productions rate about one star on my grading scale — out of a possible 100.
It’s not that I don’t love the idea of saving Xmas, or the whole Mid-Winter Holiday Season Concept for those of you atheists and pagans celebrating at home. Nor do I object to the idea of locating a film and television production facility in the Philadelphia area, for that matter.
No, when I read the story, the sentence that struck me as something for the cutting room floor was this one: “Pacifica” — that’s the name of the production company from New Mexico — “is looking at sites in Bucks, Delaware and Philadelphia counties.”
“Cut!” as they used to say in those Hollywood movies about Hollywood movies.
Never mind the fact that we’re dealing here with a company named Pacifica that’s located in a state that does not currently border the Pacific Ocean, or any ocean that I’m aware of. But here they are practically slapping us folks in Chester County who are of the firm belief that our hometown would make the perfect place for a studio, slapping us like Moe would slap Curly.
The announcement comes about a month after state lawmakers approved $75 million in film tax credits for the fiscal year that started July 1. Gov. Ed Rendell said at a news conference with the film production company’s chief, who is trying to put together a $10 million incentive package to get the studio project off the ground, that the idea was a natural for the Philly area.
Rendell said the Philadelphia region should be attractive to filmmakers for its variety of shooting locations, from rural farms to the gritty neighborhoods of the inner city. “This area has unlimited capacity for different scenes,” said Rendell, the former Philadelphia mayor and current Eagles acolyte. “You can't get urban grime in Albuquerque.”
Hey, yo, Ed! If you hadn’t looked, we got it all. You want rural, we’ve got rolling hillsides that roll into other rolling hillsides. You want grime, take a walk around Phoenixville sometime and see what ends up on the soles of your shoes. You want drama like the Western standoff in “High Noon”? Check out the battle between Borough Council in West Chester and their historic preservation comrades. You want comedy like the confused townsfolk in “Blazing Saddles”? Do the words, “Hear ye, hear ye! The Council of the City of Coatesville is now in session!” strike your funny bone?
According to the Associated Press, the Delaware Valley studio would need to grow to about 1 million square feet, comprising sound stages, production offices and other space. One million square feet is about the average size of a foyer in a Mcmansion in Upper Uwchlan. We’ve got square feet just sitting around waiting to be used — a lot of it in strip shopping centers that have nearby Quiznos, so catering wouldn’t be a problem.
And did I mention that Bam’s all set for his close-up?
My Gift To The Midwest
This column originally appeared Aug. 5, 2007
The folks in Hawarden, Iowa, and Centerville, S.D., might think about sending me an invitation to come out their way for a quick camping trip.
Since they have little-to-virtually no precipitation at all during the month of July and are suffering a Stage Two Drought as a result, my presence there with a tent and a sleeping bag could be counted on to change things overnight, bringing cool buckets of rain to their parched landscape.
It is, after all, axiomatic: Wherever I camp, it rains.
If you think I am exaggerating, then I hasten to point to the family vacation the Rellahan family took in the summer of 1973 to Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Word had it they’d been having a dry spell that summer until my family pulled up in our 1972 Dodge Dart. It was past dark when we arrived, but I confidently pitched by canvas pop tent out in a field near the resort hotel where we would be staying.
I woke up about six hours later in both darkness and about two inches of water. The point in the field where my tent was situated was the outdoor equivalent to the bottom center of a swimming pool, with me acting as a drain plug. Things have ever been thus when I venture out into the world of outdoor recreation.
It is not simply that it rains where and when I camp. It rains when I make reservations to go camping, my actual physical presence not being needed to open up the heavens.
Don’t believe me? Ask the rangers at Bowman Lake State Park in Oxford, N.Y., who had not had appreciable rain the third weekend of August since the late 1990s. But when I paid my fee for a camp site for that weekend last week, the front started moving in almost immediately. The town got 2.73 inches of rain in one day — the day I was scheduled to arrive.
Ask my friend Julia about the weekend when we were supposed to spend a relaxing weekend in September 2005 at Worlds End State Park in central Pennsylvania and instead spent an afternoon dodging the overflowing banks of the Saucon River. They tell me that folks up in Sullivan County had never seen rain clouds so big and black and wet.
Coincidence? Is it a coincidence that sales at local beer distributors increase when West Chester University opens for its fall session? Is it a coincidence that when the phone rings at 1520 WCHE-AM that Tony Polito is on the other end? I think not.
The point hit home again last weekend when I made my way to New York for a go at camping at Bowman Lake. (Last year I saw the writing on the wall, or the storm centers on the weather radar, take your pick, and stayed home.) Thursday evening was cool and dry, Friday dawned with blue skies, the noontime crowd at Cooperstown outside the Baseball Hall of Fame was bathed in sunshine, and by 2:30 p.m. there was enough rain, hail, thunder, winds, fallen trees and lightning to make a television weather broadcaster reach for his GoreTex jacket and waterproof microphone.
Take note, thus, you residents of Hawarden, Iowa and Centerville, S.D. My services can be arranged, for a nominal fee. Just keep the umbrellas handy.
The folks in Hawarden, Iowa, and Centerville, S.D., might think about sending me an invitation to come out their way for a quick camping trip.
Since they have little-to-virtually no precipitation at all during the month of July and are suffering a Stage Two Drought as a result, my presence there with a tent and a sleeping bag could be counted on to change things overnight, bringing cool buckets of rain to their parched landscape.
It is, after all, axiomatic: Wherever I camp, it rains.
If you think I am exaggerating, then I hasten to point to the family vacation the Rellahan family took in the summer of 1973 to Old Orchard Beach, Maine. Word had it they’d been having a dry spell that summer until my family pulled up in our 1972 Dodge Dart. It was past dark when we arrived, but I confidently pitched by canvas pop tent out in a field near the resort hotel where we would be staying.
I woke up about six hours later in both darkness and about two inches of water. The point in the field where my tent was situated was the outdoor equivalent to the bottom center of a swimming pool, with me acting as a drain plug. Things have ever been thus when I venture out into the world of outdoor recreation.
It is not simply that it rains where and when I camp. It rains when I make reservations to go camping, my actual physical presence not being needed to open up the heavens.
Don’t believe me? Ask the rangers at Bowman Lake State Park in Oxford, N.Y., who had not had appreciable rain the third weekend of August since the late 1990s. But when I paid my fee for a camp site for that weekend last week, the front started moving in almost immediately. The town got 2.73 inches of rain in one day — the day I was scheduled to arrive.
Ask my friend Julia about the weekend when we were supposed to spend a relaxing weekend in September 2005 at Worlds End State Park in central Pennsylvania and instead spent an afternoon dodging the overflowing banks of the Saucon River. They tell me that folks up in Sullivan County had never seen rain clouds so big and black and wet.
Coincidence? Is it a coincidence that sales at local beer distributors increase when West Chester University opens for its fall session? Is it a coincidence that when the phone rings at 1520 WCHE-AM that Tony Polito is on the other end? I think not.
The point hit home again last weekend when I made my way to New York for a go at camping at Bowman Lake. (Last year I saw the writing on the wall, or the storm centers on the weather radar, take your pick, and stayed home.) Thursday evening was cool and dry, Friday dawned with blue skies, the noontime crowd at Cooperstown outside the Baseball Hall of Fame was bathed in sunshine, and by 2:30 p.m. there was enough rain, hail, thunder, winds, fallen trees and lightning to make a television weather broadcaster reach for his GoreTex jacket and waterproof microphone.
Take note, thus, you residents of Hawarden, Iowa and Centerville, S.D. My services can be arranged, for a nominal fee. Just keep the umbrellas handy.
What A Beach!
This column appeared on July 22, 2007
We consider this column to be, among all other things, an extension of the Daily Local News’ commitment to public service.
Over the years, we have endeavored to bring attention to various social, environmental and gastrological needs that have gone unmet in the general West Chester/Chester County area.
It is well established that we have campaigned vigorously for the addition of the township of Chadds Ford to our county’s boundaries, unchaining it from the tyrannical yoke of Delaware County; that we have urged the powers that be to open a public swimming pool within walking distance of the 300 block of South Church Street, preferably one with a diving board and a cool, shaded area for sitting; and that we have decried the absence of authentic Cincinnati chili from the menus of restaurants across the county’s landscape.
Although to date none — give or take — of those causes has received so much as a passing nod from cartographers, politicians or restaurant owners, we are proud to have raised them as issues of concern.
But now we come to an even more pressing need that has yet to be addressed by any responsible party involved in county government or business.
Folks, we need a beach.
Chester County has been around for more than 300 years (I checked), and although it has amenities such as a world-class public gardens, a historical Revolutionary War battle site and a potato chip factory tour, it does not have a large expanse of sand and shells and horseshoe crabs that sits beside a large body of water, one that features waves.
We, meaning I, recently spent several days at two beaches that find themselves attached to the Atlantic Ocean — one in Delaware, one in New Jersey — and we can say with confidence that days spent lounging on a beach with the sun overhead and a breeze at one’s back is good for the soul. Maybe bad for the skin, but good for the soul.
Why, we would even venture to suggest that the estimable former county Commissioner Colin Hanna would declare, “¡Estoy teniendo un tiempo muy, muy bueno! ¿Puedo tener otro mojito?” (Translation: “I am having a very, very good time! Can I have another mojito?”) if he were sitting on a beach in the county.
But we hear you say that Chester County does have a beach already, up at Marsh Creek State Park, right next to the snack bar. We have seen this beach. We have spent time on this beach.
We, however, do not consider it worthy of the name “beach” and would suggest that anyone who does has spent too much time in the sun.
(Besides, we have it on good terms that the lake at Marsh Creek is going to be drained soon to make way for additional open space in the county.)
We are confident that once this idea gets in the hands of the proper authorities at the Army Corps of Engineers that the day will come soon when we can all enjoy a day at the beach without having to drive to New Jersey or Delaware.
Or having to cross any large bridges on the way.
We consider this column to be, among all other things, an extension of the Daily Local News’ commitment to public service.
Over the years, we have endeavored to bring attention to various social, environmental and gastrological needs that have gone unmet in the general West Chester/Chester County area.
It is well established that we have campaigned vigorously for the addition of the township of Chadds Ford to our county’s boundaries, unchaining it from the tyrannical yoke of Delaware County; that we have urged the powers that be to open a public swimming pool within walking distance of the 300 block of South Church Street, preferably one with a diving board and a cool, shaded area for sitting; and that we have decried the absence of authentic Cincinnati chili from the menus of restaurants across the county’s landscape.
Although to date none — give or take — of those causes has received so much as a passing nod from cartographers, politicians or restaurant owners, we are proud to have raised them as issues of concern.
But now we come to an even more pressing need that has yet to be addressed by any responsible party involved in county government or business.
Folks, we need a beach.
Chester County has been around for more than 300 years (I checked), and although it has amenities such as a world-class public gardens, a historical Revolutionary War battle site and a potato chip factory tour, it does not have a large expanse of sand and shells and horseshoe crabs that sits beside a large body of water, one that features waves.
We, meaning I, recently spent several days at two beaches that find themselves attached to the Atlantic Ocean — one in Delaware, one in New Jersey — and we can say with confidence that days spent lounging on a beach with the sun overhead and a breeze at one’s back is good for the soul. Maybe bad for the skin, but good for the soul.
Why, we would even venture to suggest that the estimable former county Commissioner Colin Hanna would declare, “¡Estoy teniendo un tiempo muy, muy bueno! ¿Puedo tener otro mojito?” (Translation: “I am having a very, very good time! Can I have another mojito?”) if he were sitting on a beach in the county.
But we hear you say that Chester County does have a beach already, up at Marsh Creek State Park, right next to the snack bar. We have seen this beach. We have spent time on this beach.
We, however, do not consider it worthy of the name “beach” and would suggest that anyone who does has spent too much time in the sun.
(Besides, we have it on good terms that the lake at Marsh Creek is going to be drained soon to make way for additional open space in the county.)
We are confident that once this idea gets in the hands of the proper authorities at the Army Corps of Engineers that the day will come soon when we can all enjoy a day at the beach without having to drive to New Jersey or Delaware.
Or having to cross any large bridges on the way.
Fear Strikes
This column appperaed on July 8, 2007 (weeks befor the Minnesota tragedy)
I can cite for you at least 15 reasons why I appreciate life in Chester County, and those are the 15 covered bridges that call this place home.
But lest you think that I love them for their antiquity, their unique architecture or their rough-hewn grandeur, let me steer you off that path before you get too misty-eyed. No, I love covered bridges because when you go over them you can easily pretend you are not driving over a bridge.
I have an unreasonable fear of crossing bridges.
The people who know call this gephyrophobia, and here’s what I learned about it from the good folks at MedicineNet.com (Motto: “We Bring Doctors’ Knowledge To You”).
“Fear of crossing bridges is a relatively common phobia, although most people with it do not know they have something called ‘gephyrophobia.’ However, the derivation of the word ‘gephyrophobia’ is perfectly straightforward (if you know Greek); it is derived from the Greek words ‘gephyra’ (bridge) and ‘phobos’ (fear).”
Why thank you, MedicineNet.com, for being so helpful and so condescending, all at the same time.
If you think for a moment that knowing my fear is “a relatively common phobia” or that its name is derived from the “perfectly straightforward” Greek is going to help me the next time I’m confronted with the impending upstroke of some upcoming span, you are sorely mistaken.
Every Greek in the world, common or not, would not be able to convince me that the moment that this particular bridge would completely come apart and dissolve like steam, plunging me into the emptiness of the abyss, would be the exact moment that I am at its apex, helpless and alone.
I am going camping in Delaware this week and that means two things: One, that it will rain sometime between now and when I decamp and two, that I have been mentally preparing myself for a forced bridge crossing over the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal for about three weeks. And it is not going to help.
When I drive over a bridge I keep my eyes locked on the blacktop in front of me and both hands firmly on the steering wheel. I sweat and hum a lot, too. If my eyes drift over the side and glimpse an instant of the space and water below, I am convinced that my subconscious will involuntarily jerk the car to the right over the edge and into the water below.
Here’s MedicineNet.com again. “High bridges over waterways and gorges can be especially intimidating, as can be very long or very narrow bridges.”
Yes, and bridges where traffic gets jammed and you are stuck at the top of the span and with each passing of a semi you can feel the bridge shake and roll and you think that in another five minutes the only thing to do is put the car in park, get out and crawl on your belly to the other side.
I have friends who also have this affliction and we keep it mostly to ourselves, the fear of embarrassment being almost as gripping as the gephyrophobia itself. Except when we get together and share the joy of living in a county where bridges have covers.
I can cite for you at least 15 reasons why I appreciate life in Chester County, and those are the 15 covered bridges that call this place home.
But lest you think that I love them for their antiquity, their unique architecture or their rough-hewn grandeur, let me steer you off that path before you get too misty-eyed. No, I love covered bridges because when you go over them you can easily pretend you are not driving over a bridge.
I have an unreasonable fear of crossing bridges.
The people who know call this gephyrophobia, and here’s what I learned about it from the good folks at MedicineNet.com (Motto: “We Bring Doctors’ Knowledge To You”).
“Fear of crossing bridges is a relatively common phobia, although most people with it do not know they have something called ‘gephyrophobia.’ However, the derivation of the word ‘gephyrophobia’ is perfectly straightforward (if you know Greek); it is derived from the Greek words ‘gephyra’ (bridge) and ‘phobos’ (fear).”
Why thank you, MedicineNet.com, for being so helpful and so condescending, all at the same time.
If you think for a moment that knowing my fear is “a relatively common phobia” or that its name is derived from the “perfectly straightforward” Greek is going to help me the next time I’m confronted with the impending upstroke of some upcoming span, you are sorely mistaken.
Every Greek in the world, common or not, would not be able to convince me that the moment that this particular bridge would completely come apart and dissolve like steam, plunging me into the emptiness of the abyss, would be the exact moment that I am at its apex, helpless and alone.
I am going camping in Delaware this week and that means two things: One, that it will rain sometime between now and when I decamp and two, that I have been mentally preparing myself for a forced bridge crossing over the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal for about three weeks. And it is not going to help.
When I drive over a bridge I keep my eyes locked on the blacktop in front of me and both hands firmly on the steering wheel. I sweat and hum a lot, too. If my eyes drift over the side and glimpse an instant of the space and water below, I am convinced that my subconscious will involuntarily jerk the car to the right over the edge and into the water below.
Here’s MedicineNet.com again. “High bridges over waterways and gorges can be especially intimidating, as can be very long or very narrow bridges.”
Yes, and bridges where traffic gets jammed and you are stuck at the top of the span and with each passing of a semi you can feel the bridge shake and roll and you think that in another five minutes the only thing to do is put the car in park, get out and crawl on your belly to the other side.
I have friends who also have this affliction and we keep it mostly to ourselves, the fear of embarrassment being almost as gripping as the gephyrophobia itself. Except when we get together and share the joy of living in a county where bridges have covers.
Enjoying The Show
This column originally appeared on July 1, 2007
Take it from me: Old news stories never die. They get recycled, reprinted and rediscovered. Then they become not news, but history.
The notion occurred to me recently as I revisited two stories from my past. One you’ve heard of endlessly. The other, you haven’t, unless you were born and lived somewhere near Morganfield, Ky.
The better known of the stories is that surrounding the anniversary of the release of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” the psychedelic album by The Beatles that may or may not be the most widely regarded rock music accomplishment in rock’s brief history.
The album came out 40 years ago this summer, and critics have been jumping all over themselves to relive the album’s meaning, its impact on the music world and its true place in rock history. I’ve been revisiting the story because it was one of the last albums I had to plead with my parents to buy me.
In 1967, Sgt. Pepper cost $4.19 cents at the Air-Waye Record store on Ludlow Avenue in Cinncinnati, Ohio, and you could have told me it cost 50,000 gold pieces at the Inn of the Seventh Happiness in Shangi-La, Himalaya and I would have had about as much chance of buying it.
Ten-year-olds in 1967 just did not have $4.19 lying around to spend on a record, even if it was the most monumental achievement in the world of rock music.
It occurred to me after reading the story of the making of Sgt. Pepper one more time that though there is little more new to be added, reading about it still makes me as happy as the day my father brought it home and I dropped our record player’s needle on the rotating vinyl and started singing along.
The other story came jumping back at me a few weeks ago after having slept undisturbed in my memory for the better part of three decades.
At the daily news meeting at the Daily Local News, at which we review the stories available for the next day, an editor began summarizing a wire story about a group of families in Kentucky who were fighting the government to get compensation for the land that had been taken away from them in the days before World War II.
The more the editor read, the more I remembered. I had covered this same story myself in 1980 as a neophyte reporter for the Sturgis, Ky., News, circulation 3,000, just down the road from Morganfield, Ky., the county seat, where the army had built a base on land taken from farmers.
The case was in legal limbo then, and still is, I gather. But it fell to me to write something about the case month after month because, well, that is what passed for news in Sturgis, Ky., population 3,000 -- and one fewer after I’d finally had it with stories about forfeited farms and packed up for Pennsylvania and, ultimately, to writing stories about Andy Dinniman.
Nostalgic nonetheless, I went through my old news clippings from Sturgis looking for whatever I had filed on the Morganfield families. I found much to revisit and rediscover, but nothing of their case. I had indeed left it all behind.
I do, however, have a copy of Sgt. Pepper’s, and I’m still enjoying the show.
Take it from me: Old news stories never die. They get recycled, reprinted and rediscovered. Then they become not news, but history.
The notion occurred to me recently as I revisited two stories from my past. One you’ve heard of endlessly. The other, you haven’t, unless you were born and lived somewhere near Morganfield, Ky.
The better known of the stories is that surrounding the anniversary of the release of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” the psychedelic album by The Beatles that may or may not be the most widely regarded rock music accomplishment in rock’s brief history.
The album came out 40 years ago this summer, and critics have been jumping all over themselves to relive the album’s meaning, its impact on the music world and its true place in rock history. I’ve been revisiting the story because it was one of the last albums I had to plead with my parents to buy me.
In 1967, Sgt. Pepper cost $4.19 cents at the Air-Waye Record store on Ludlow Avenue in Cinncinnati, Ohio, and you could have told me it cost 50,000 gold pieces at the Inn of the Seventh Happiness in Shangi-La, Himalaya and I would have had about as much chance of buying it.
Ten-year-olds in 1967 just did not have $4.19 lying around to spend on a record, even if it was the most monumental achievement in the world of rock music.
It occurred to me after reading the story of the making of Sgt. Pepper one more time that though there is little more new to be added, reading about it still makes me as happy as the day my father brought it home and I dropped our record player’s needle on the rotating vinyl and started singing along.
The other story came jumping back at me a few weeks ago after having slept undisturbed in my memory for the better part of three decades.
At the daily news meeting at the Daily Local News, at which we review the stories available for the next day, an editor began summarizing a wire story about a group of families in Kentucky who were fighting the government to get compensation for the land that had been taken away from them in the days before World War II.
The more the editor read, the more I remembered. I had covered this same story myself in 1980 as a neophyte reporter for the Sturgis, Ky., News, circulation 3,000, just down the road from Morganfield, Ky., the county seat, where the army had built a base on land taken from farmers.
The case was in legal limbo then, and still is, I gather. But it fell to me to write something about the case month after month because, well, that is what passed for news in Sturgis, Ky., population 3,000 -- and one fewer after I’d finally had it with stories about forfeited farms and packed up for Pennsylvania and, ultimately, to writing stories about Andy Dinniman.
Nostalgic nonetheless, I went through my old news clippings from Sturgis looking for whatever I had filed on the Morganfield families. I found much to revisit and rediscover, but nothing of their case. I had indeed left it all behind.
I do, however, have a copy of Sgt. Pepper’s, and I’m still enjoying the show.
Feeling Free At Night
This column originally apperaed on June 24, 2007
Last night, something called the Great American Backyard Campout occurred — presumably, since the National Wildlife federation has been promoting it vigorously — in communities across the country.
The purpose of the event is to acquaint, or reacquaint, American children, with nature, by tuning off the Xbox, turning on the flashlight and dropping off to sleep outside where they can see the stars. It’s supposed to be a time when parents and kids and neighbors and communities can all converge upon one another and bond for a few hours in the presence of trees, grass and a firefly or two.
I’m not certain how this all works in the urban world of downtown Coatesville, but I’m not here to pour water on the campfire, so to speak. Hearing of the event simply made me shake my head once again at how different things have become since my childhood.
In August 1969, Danny Biehl, Bernard Frank — my two best friends since nursery school — and I did not need any national organization to tell us of the pleasures of a sleeping bag on a summer’s night.
We had been pestering our parents to let us sleep out since the summer began, and they let us do it not for any high-minded purpose, but simply because they were sick of hearing us ask.
That is the difference between then and now. About as close as we got to exploring the ways of nature was picking green tomatoes off the vines in Danny’s next door neighbor’s garden. And if our parents had suggested that the whole family would join in the night’s activities, we would have called the whole thing off immediately. Bonding with nature or our families was not the point.
The purpose behind our campout was to finally experience a world we had been waiting for all our lives — the grownup world of the night. We wanted a respite from the supervision of adults, a liberation from normal rules, and, most of all, a chance to stay up late and walk around in the dark.
We got all we had hoped for.
After seeing the lights in Dan’s house go out, we made our way off the property, flashlights in hand. This was dangerous territory, being outside on the street after the world had gone to sleep. It was as close to crime as we had ever come, and it felt great.
We prowled the neighborhood, shining our lights at unsuspecting windows. We broke off tree branches and whacked each other as if in swordfights. We jumped behind bushes at the sound of a car engine and sight of headlights, believing that any adult would have rounded us up and turned us in to whatever authorities existed that governed midnight rambling by 12-year-olds on a moment’s notice. We had fun with an exclamation point.
I am certain that the memory makes the conditions that night more idyllic than they truly were. I doubt that the night was as starry, that the moon was as full, or that the air was as warm as I think of it now.
But I am convinced that the laughs we shared were as loud, the excitement was as tangible, and the sense of freedom was real as I remember.
Last night, something called the Great American Backyard Campout occurred — presumably, since the National Wildlife federation has been promoting it vigorously — in communities across the country.
The purpose of the event is to acquaint, or reacquaint, American children, with nature, by tuning off the Xbox, turning on the flashlight and dropping off to sleep outside where they can see the stars. It’s supposed to be a time when parents and kids and neighbors and communities can all converge upon one another and bond for a few hours in the presence of trees, grass and a firefly or two.
I’m not certain how this all works in the urban world of downtown Coatesville, but I’m not here to pour water on the campfire, so to speak. Hearing of the event simply made me shake my head once again at how different things have become since my childhood.
In August 1969, Danny Biehl, Bernard Frank — my two best friends since nursery school — and I did not need any national organization to tell us of the pleasures of a sleeping bag on a summer’s night.
We had been pestering our parents to let us sleep out since the summer began, and they let us do it not for any high-minded purpose, but simply because they were sick of hearing us ask.
That is the difference between then and now. About as close as we got to exploring the ways of nature was picking green tomatoes off the vines in Danny’s next door neighbor’s garden. And if our parents had suggested that the whole family would join in the night’s activities, we would have called the whole thing off immediately. Bonding with nature or our families was not the point.
The purpose behind our campout was to finally experience a world we had been waiting for all our lives — the grownup world of the night. We wanted a respite from the supervision of adults, a liberation from normal rules, and, most of all, a chance to stay up late and walk around in the dark.
We got all we had hoped for.
After seeing the lights in Dan’s house go out, we made our way off the property, flashlights in hand. This was dangerous territory, being outside on the street after the world had gone to sleep. It was as close to crime as we had ever come, and it felt great.
We prowled the neighborhood, shining our lights at unsuspecting windows. We broke off tree branches and whacked each other as if in swordfights. We jumped behind bushes at the sound of a car engine and sight of headlights, believing that any adult would have rounded us up and turned us in to whatever authorities existed that governed midnight rambling by 12-year-olds on a moment’s notice. We had fun with an exclamation point.
I am certain that the memory makes the conditions that night more idyllic than they truly were. I doubt that the night was as starry, that the moon was as full, or that the air was as warm as I think of it now.
But I am convinced that the laughs we shared were as loud, the excitement was as tangible, and the sense of freedom was real as I remember.
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