All The Dirt On Dirt Roads

This column originally appeared on Sunday, Nov. 25, 2007


Why would you think that I would just flat out tell you where he penultimate Chester County dirt road is?

Why would you think that after discovering it by accident on recent misty morning I would give up its location without so much as a second thought?

Why would you think that I would immediately spill the beans when the people who live and frolic on this rut-strewn cart-way have obviously gone to some lengths to keep their wilderness wonderland private?

Is that what you think of me?

Well, if that's the case then all I will tell you is that I was driving along a local highway on that misty morning, not truly paying attention to the road ahead, when off to the side I noticed a set of joggers running through a wooded area I had always thought as just a mess of native Chester County underbrush. The fallen foliage had made their presence clear; had they been running their route in mid-summer, they would have been hidden.

Being the curious sort, I made my way to the area I thought their hidden road would emerge. And there it was: a glorious stretch of prime country back road, with enough character to populate any Brandywine Valley picture postcard.

I knew it was designed to meet the requirements of Frost's a "less travelled road" for a number of reasons. First, the potholes marking the path were deep enough to hold cauldrons, and I remembered from my cub reporter days the folks who live up in the Mount Misery area of Tredyffrin begging the supervisors not to pave their roads, so that the tourist traffic would be kept to a low boil.

Second, dirt roads in Chester County mean, "Oops, you're off the beaten track." They don't put up new auto dealerships and banks and lifestyle malls on dirt roads around here.

And third - as Maxwell Smart might say -- was the sign on the post and rail fence that read "Posted: Private Property" within 10 feet of the road's beginning.

I knew the road was mean to be private because of its quiet, simple beauty. On the one side of the road was an outcropping of Wissahickon Schist, plopped there as if waiting for a passing watercolorist to notice it. On the other side sat a ruin of an old stone farmhouse, which I imagined had housed runaway slaves in their journey on the Underground Railroad And meandering all along the way the sight of the Brandywine Creek itself. The affect of the mist in the autumn trees made me appreciate its twists and turns all the more.

I say this is the penultimate dirt road in Chester County because I know you are wondering where the ultimate dirt road is. And just to get you off my back, I'm going to tell you.

Blackhorse Road, Chester Springs, West Vincent. Just don't speed.

An Andy Moment

This column first appeared on Sunday, Nov. 18, 2007

There must be a category somewhere in the register of Chester County Citizenship Requirements that dictates that you have to have at least one Andrew Wyeth Moment.

That is, a time when you or someone close to you have a brush with the most famous painter ever to eat at Hank’s Place.

I thought about this when I saw him on the front page of Friday’s Daily Local. Andy – you get to call him Andy if you’ve lived here long enough and run into him once or twice -- was honored as a recipient of a 2007 National Medal of Arts at a White House ceremony Thursday morning.

Wyeth, now 90, is no stranger to White House honors. In 1963, President Kennedy gave him a Presidential Medal of Freedom, and he got the first Congressional Gold Medal given to an artist from Bush One is 1990.

But it was still good to see him up there next to the president – smiling what must be a trademark smile and wearing what must be the only lapel-less, collarless suit jacket in America. It’s the “local boy makes good” story on a grand scale.

And Andy remains a local boy at heart. He was raised here in the land around Chadds Ford and Birmingham and Pennsbury, and if you pick up the West Chester telephone book today and page through to the “W’s,” you’ll find a listing for an “A. Wyeth” on Route 100. It’s his business office mind you, but you still can call him up if you’d like.

It was just that kind of neighborliness that marked the two encounters I’ve had with him. In November 1986, as a major exhibition of the works of Andy, his father N.C. Wyeth, and Andy’s son Jamie Wyeth was about to open in the then-Soviet Union, I picked up the phone and dialed his number. The phone rang a couple of times, then someone answered and I asked to speak to Andrew Wyeth. A moment later, he came on the line.

I probably didn’t ask him any questions that could have been considered probing or thoughtful, but he was jovial and responsive during the interview and seemed pleased when I told him of an evening a few nights before that we’d spent together – and by together I mean we both occupied space in the same large auditorium at the Metropolitan Life Building – in New York City.

The occasion was a preview of the hour-long documentary, “The Wyeths: A Father and His Family.” After the viewing, I approached Andy for a few words and a quick photograph. He was sitting with his older bother Nathaniel and his sisters Henriette Wyeth Hurd and Ann Wyeth McCoy. When I mentioned I was from the Daily Local News, Andy turned to his siblings and said, “It’s the man from the hometown paper!” I snapped off three or four shots and took my leave.

I was looking at one of those photographs recently and felt pleased. One, it’s in focus. Two, I didn’t cut anybody out of the frame. But best, Andy is wearing that lapel-less suit, holding his sister Ann’s hand, and smiling a smile as big as the Brandywine.

Not bad for an Andrew Wyeth Moment.

Bar Light, Bar Bright, First Bar That I See Tonight

This column originally appeared on Sunday, Nov. 11, 2007


We gathered together Friday evening, a lively group of friends and me, in a beautiful, historic home on the west side of High Street in West Chester, for a flavorful meal of spicy soup, crisp salad, leg of lamb and lightly fluffed potatoes.

Naturally the talk turned to old bars. Old West Chester bars to be exact.

I will state for the record here and now that it was not my decision to bring up the subject. I understand I have a reputation for enjoying a memory or two about saloons I have inhabited in the past. I am well aware that I have, on occasion, mentioned my fondness for certain old West Chester bars that no longer exist. I am fully cognizant that I have been accused of bringing the subject up whenever it struck my fancy, even if the conversation into which I inserted myself dealt with the root causes of the Civil War, or current monetary policy in Trinidad and Tobago.

But I’m pleading innocent on this one. I did not start the conversation this time, although I merrily went along with it. I believe it was Paul, a former borough resident now exiled to the rural pastures outside Marshallton, who broached the subject. I could be wrong.

Paul and his wife lived in the borough for a decade or so, and he became fond of the myriad pleasures the borough had to offer, pleasures I have described on these pages in the past: the historic architecture, the cozy neighborhoods, the alleys that open up newly discovered treasures almost daily.

But what he missed most, it seemed, were the bars.

He told of days spent exercising, finishing up a bicycle ride or a long run and finding himself quenching his thirst at the Square Bar, the best bar in town without a sign on the front door. Or ending a night of fine, upscale urban dining with his bride at a pub where the bartender had no teeth.

We compared notes on those taverns we missed, either because their ambiance was friendly and warm or because their ambiance was slightly threatening and edgy. I’ll let you be the judge which was which.

There was Carlini’s on North Church Street, The Shingle on East Gay Street, Donohue’s at the corner of High and Gay, and the bar they called Joe’s Sportsman’s Lounge on the west side of town. They all echoed a time and place when the borough was something different; an earlier version of its current self, like a teenager just growing into an adult skin.

Most of those places are gone now, replaced by other tap rooms of slightly pricier menus. West Chester endures with or without Carlini’s and Donohue’s, and constantly reinvents itself.

Mosteller’s Department Store becomes the annex to the Chester County Courthouse. The Mansion House Hotel becomes a bank and office building. Mr. Sandwich’s Coffee Shop becomes home to first stockbrokers, then politicians. W.E. Gilbert’s appliance store, where I once bought a VCR, is now Carlino’s Foods, where I recently bought chicken parmesan.

The beer may cost more now at the new spots that have replaced the old, but it doesn’t taste any better.

Just ask Paul.