This appeared on May 27, 2007
The plight of the Orphan Creeks of Chester County has been well documented, at least in this space. They are the creeks and streams and runs scattered throughout the county that —while making a real contribution to the community and its environment, by way of playing the role of tributary to larger creeks and streams and runs — have been left off the map, if you will, by going unnamed.
And while our local politicians have seen fit this election season to weigh in on supposedly more weighty topics such as property tax reform, liquor tax implementation and turnpike privatization, they have been strangely silent on the issue of giving names to those proud but officially ignored bodies of water.
Not one of the recently nominated candidates for county commissioner, Democrat or Republican, for instance, bothered to make even passing reference to the Orphan Creek Scandal in his or her acceptance speech. Their message, thus far, has seemed to be: "Millions, no … billions, no … umptydumptygazillions!!! for open space; not one dime for creek names."
How sad and ineffectual they all must find themselves when their children look to them for true leadership and see only abject failure.
But citizens, I am here to tell you that it is not too late, nor in any way impossible, for us to take matters into our own hands and begin to right this wrong of monumental proportions. You, me and your Aunt Sarah can all take part in naming the Orphan Creeks of Chester County. All it takes is a trip to the Web site for the U.S. Board on Geographic Names; its got a form there for just that purpose.
Water Resources Executive Director Jan Bowers, aka ”The Stream Queen of Chester County,“ assures me that although all of the large creeks and most of the medium sized ones here have names, many do not. Or if they do, they are ”local“ names, not known outside of a few villagers and people through whose backyards the creeks cut, streams flow and the runs, well, run. So it wouldn‘t be like you‘d slap a name like ”Dinniman Run“ on that trickle that runs through your West Nottingham neighborhood, only to find that it already has been named Hog Run.
There‘s a list of the names already taken, so you can check to make sure your nomination wouldn‘t trample on others' toes. Like Massacre Run or Leech Run or Dennis Run or Pigeon Creek or Trout Creek or Two Log Run or Jug Hollow. Just use your imagination.
I started this quest a few weeks ago by wondering what was the name of the stream that flows in back of the Downingtown Friends Meeting. One caller suggested that she knew it as a child as Park Run, but no such name exists on my BGN list. The caller suggested that I check with Francis Brown, the local historian and eminent Quaker, whose property through which the stream runs.
But knowing what I know of Mr. Brown, his place in the community and love for that stream, I think the better choice would be to fill out the BGN naming form in his honor.
That‘s : http://geonames.usgs.gov/bgn.html.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Coconut Soda, and Other Mysteries
This appeared on Sunday, May 20, 2007
They say the difference between young people and old folks is the level of self-awareness one gathers as one gains in years. Perhaps it is the result of making mistakes over the years, seeing others do so, or just because we‘ve lived with ourselves for so long, but as we enter the second half of our lives we come to know better what makes us who we are.
So now that I‘ve reached that stage in life when people ask me how I‘m feeling because they want to know if the arthritis has kicked in yet, I want to let you know the one truth I am most certain about concerning myself.
That is that I should never be left alone in an ethnic grocery store with a pocketful of cash, or a working credit card.
The phrase "kid in a candy store" is as picture-perfect an image for me wandering the aisles of a Latino or Asian or Indian market as you are going to get. I put things in my shopping cart I‘ve never seen before, and buy way too many things I already have at home.
Consider: On a recent morning, as an excuse for research for this column, I drove over to the Qualy (I think they mean "Quality," but I could be wrong) Food Asian Market in Frazier, just to get the sense of some of the things one might find on the shelves of such a store. Just need to jot down a few names of things, I told myself. Be in and out in five minutes. Ten tops. Fifteen at the outside.
Half an hour later, I left with a shopping bag full of frozen shrimp springs rolls, two family-size tubes of wasabe paste, three bottles of chili-sesame oil, and two packages of Korean Pan Cakes, instructions: "1. Heat in toaster or oven until they are hot. 2. Eat with any kind of dish or butter or cheese." I like that — ”Eat with any kind of dish.“ Makes dinner preparation a snap.
I realize that this proclivity for purchasing exotic items is not altogether without its benefits. I‘ve discovered a lot of very good foods just by throwing things in the basket because they look interesting — soba noodles, chorizo sausage and gyoza of every description, for starters.
But there is also a part of me that simply revels in the wonder of these markets when everything is foreign, even the advertising posters on the walls, and yet located just down the street from me. I mean, what are dried olive kernels used for anyway? I haven‘t a clue, but there they are on the shelf at Qualy, right next to something called "Dried Lillium Lancifolum Thunb."
"Thunb?"
I‘d like someone familiar with ethnic foodstuffs and cooking to accompany me on my trips, just so I can ask them what you actually do with crispy soybean sauce, or chu hou sauce, or black fungus in a can. What are these odd looking strands of fiber packaged in cellophane in the noodle section of the store? What do Coco Rico Coconut Soda and Fried Round Gluten taste like?
Thanks goodness that when I left Qualy that Purvis Indian Market was closed, or I‘d still be there, wondering why they package chick peas in lychee syrup.
They say the difference between young people and old folks is the level of self-awareness one gathers as one gains in years. Perhaps it is the result of making mistakes over the years, seeing others do so, or just because we‘ve lived with ourselves for so long, but as we enter the second half of our lives we come to know better what makes us who we are.
So now that I‘ve reached that stage in life when people ask me how I‘m feeling because they want to know if the arthritis has kicked in yet, I want to let you know the one truth I am most certain about concerning myself.
That is that I should never be left alone in an ethnic grocery store with a pocketful of cash, or a working credit card.
The phrase "kid in a candy store" is as picture-perfect an image for me wandering the aisles of a Latino or Asian or Indian market as you are going to get. I put things in my shopping cart I‘ve never seen before, and buy way too many things I already have at home.
Consider: On a recent morning, as an excuse for research for this column, I drove over to the Qualy (I think they mean "Quality," but I could be wrong) Food Asian Market in Frazier, just to get the sense of some of the things one might find on the shelves of such a store. Just need to jot down a few names of things, I told myself. Be in and out in five minutes. Ten tops. Fifteen at the outside.
Half an hour later, I left with a shopping bag full of frozen shrimp springs rolls, two family-size tubes of wasabe paste, three bottles of chili-sesame oil, and two packages of Korean Pan Cakes, instructions: "1. Heat in toaster or oven until they are hot. 2. Eat with any kind of dish or butter or cheese." I like that — ”Eat with any kind of dish.“ Makes dinner preparation a snap.
I realize that this proclivity for purchasing exotic items is not altogether without its benefits. I‘ve discovered a lot of very good foods just by throwing things in the basket because they look interesting — soba noodles, chorizo sausage and gyoza of every description, for starters.
But there is also a part of me that simply revels in the wonder of these markets when everything is foreign, even the advertising posters on the walls, and yet located just down the street from me. I mean, what are dried olive kernels used for anyway? I haven‘t a clue, but there they are on the shelf at Qualy, right next to something called "Dried Lillium Lancifolum Thunb."
"Thunb?"
I‘d like someone familiar with ethnic foodstuffs and cooking to accompany me on my trips, just so I can ask them what you actually do with crispy soybean sauce, or chu hou sauce, or black fungus in a can. What are these odd looking strands of fiber packaged in cellophane in the noodle section of the store? What do Coco Rico Coconut Soda and Fried Round Gluten taste like?
Thanks goodness that when I left Qualy that Purvis Indian Market was closed, or I‘d still be there, wondering why they package chick peas in lychee syrup.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Message For Readers
Some people may want to go to the www.dailylocal.com Website and look for my blog posts there. Good luck!
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
The Creeks With No Name
This appeared on Sunday, May 6, 2007
If you call up Google maps on the Internet and type in Downingtown, Pa., with a little trial and error you can see a satellite image of the creek that runs behind the Downingtown Friends Meetinghouse.
Not to be a wiseacre about it, but it‘s a friendly creek — big enough not to be a mere drainage ditch but small enough for children to splash around in on a hot summer day while their parents do whatever it is adults do after Quaker meeting is over, without them getting in deep trouble. Or hot water, if you will.
But here‘s the rub. So far as I can tell, it does not have a name. It is a tributary of the East Branch of the Brandywine Creek, so it has a purpose in life. It makes a contribution to the greater good, to the larger whole, and yet it is left nameless — at least on printed maps.
And it is not alone. Looking at the latest edition of Franklin Maps‘ atlas for Chester and Delaware counties, I found countless examples of identifiable bodies of water that have no identity ascribed to them. (Well, countless only in the respect that I really didn‘t feel like counting them.) There they are, drawn onto the map like small blue veins stringing along the countryside of West Whiteland or East Nantmeal or whichever Coventry you care to examine, and they are as nameless as Clint Eastwood‘s character in "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly."
They are the Orphan Creeks of Chester County.
Now, I am certain that everyone reading this has their own favorite creek in Chester County, although I‘m going to bet that a good 65 percent immediately go with the Brandywine, east or west branch, as their personal favorite. Fine. If you want to go with the obvious choice — if you want to root for the Yankees or the Cowboys or one of the easy winners — I‘m not going to denegrate you. What some people lack in creative selectivity I‘m sure they make up for in other ways, like an acute passion for dusting or dishwashing.
Me, I go Valley Creek. Not the Valley Creek in Valley Forge, mind you, but the East Bradford-West Whiteland Valley Creek. If the Brandywine Creek is the Pennsylvania Turnpike of Chester County creeks — flat, straight, wide, well-trafficked, boring — then Valley Creek is San Francisco‘s Lombard Street.
It curves and weaves and twists its way through the woods, emerging here and disappearing there, only to turn up crossing your path just a few yards up the road when you least expect it. It‘s clean and swift and bubbly and full of trout, enviable characteristics for any creek.
And it‘s is a lucky creek, too, because it has a name. Just like the Big Elk or the Octoraro or the Red Clay or the White Clay or the Crum or the Ridley or the Radley French Pickering Bucktoe or Marsh, you can talk about it like it‘s a person in the room.
The Orphan Creeks don‘t have that same luck, and I say it‘s time to correct that. I say the next time one of the candidates for county commissioner knocks on your door, you bring up the Orphan Creeks to them.
See what they say.
If you call up Google maps on the Internet and type in Downingtown, Pa., with a little trial and error you can see a satellite image of the creek that runs behind the Downingtown Friends Meetinghouse.
Not to be a wiseacre about it, but it‘s a friendly creek — big enough not to be a mere drainage ditch but small enough for children to splash around in on a hot summer day while their parents do whatever it is adults do after Quaker meeting is over, without them getting in deep trouble. Or hot water, if you will.
But here‘s the rub. So far as I can tell, it does not have a name. It is a tributary of the East Branch of the Brandywine Creek, so it has a purpose in life. It makes a contribution to the greater good, to the larger whole, and yet it is left nameless — at least on printed maps.
And it is not alone. Looking at the latest edition of Franklin Maps‘ atlas for Chester and Delaware counties, I found countless examples of identifiable bodies of water that have no identity ascribed to them. (Well, countless only in the respect that I really didn‘t feel like counting them.) There they are, drawn onto the map like small blue veins stringing along the countryside of West Whiteland or East Nantmeal or whichever Coventry you care to examine, and they are as nameless as Clint Eastwood‘s character in "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly."
They are the Orphan Creeks of Chester County.
Now, I am certain that everyone reading this has their own favorite creek in Chester County, although I‘m going to bet that a good 65 percent immediately go with the Brandywine, east or west branch, as their personal favorite. Fine. If you want to go with the obvious choice — if you want to root for the Yankees or the Cowboys or one of the easy winners — I‘m not going to denegrate you. What some people lack in creative selectivity I‘m sure they make up for in other ways, like an acute passion for dusting or dishwashing.
Me, I go Valley Creek. Not the Valley Creek in Valley Forge, mind you, but the East Bradford-West Whiteland Valley Creek. If the Brandywine Creek is the Pennsylvania Turnpike of Chester County creeks — flat, straight, wide, well-trafficked, boring — then Valley Creek is San Francisco‘s Lombard Street.
It curves and weaves and twists its way through the woods, emerging here and disappearing there, only to turn up crossing your path just a few yards up the road when you least expect it. It‘s clean and swift and bubbly and full of trout, enviable characteristics for any creek.
And it‘s is a lucky creek, too, because it has a name. Just like the Big Elk or the Octoraro or the Red Clay or the White Clay or the Crum or the Ridley or the Radley French Pickering Bucktoe or Marsh, you can talk about it like it‘s a person in the room.
The Orphan Creeks don‘t have that same luck, and I say it‘s time to correct that. I say the next time one of the candidates for county commissioner knocks on your door, you bring up the Orphan Creeks to them.
See what they say.
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