This column originally appeared on March 23, 2008
Some time ago, I voiced the opinion that the municipality known as Chadds Ford had mistakenly been incorporated into the county known as Delaware, and that a change should be contemplated in which that township would be annexed by the county of Chester and thus placed in its proper geographic and cultural setting.
Leaving Chadds Ford in Delaware County struck me as close to a sin against nature as you could get without an actual disruption of the gene pool. Chadds Ford, after all, is home to the Wyeth family, scenic creeks, rolling hillsides and picturesque stone barns. Delaware County, as far as I can tell, is home to a number of meth labs.
But I must acknowledge that there is a corollary to this campaign of mine that became clear on a recent trip to the northwestern edges of Chester County.
This is what everyone should do at some point in their lives if they live here: circumnavigate the county. It could take you several Saturdays, depending on your stamina and what time you get up on weekend mornings, but it is worth the time. A trip around the boundaries of Chester County gives you the clearest picture of not only the beauty we enjoy here, but of the multiple types of communities within our borders. If you live in West Chester or Downingtown or Kennett Square or the suburbiplex known as Lionville, and you don't travel outside of a limited distance from those town centers, you can't grasp what a complex world Chester County is.
Or realize that just as Chadds Ford has more in common with life here than it does to Delaware County, then so too does West Sadsbury or West Caln or Honey Brook look more like the rural world across the border in Lancaster County than it does the corporate centers of Malvern or the shopping centers of Paoli.
You see it from the road: The sign that advertises “Hay, Straw, Pine Shavings, One Mile.” The sight of clothes freshly washed hanging on a clothes line beside an Amish farmhouse. The sight of a barn and a silo, with a shingle telling you that brown eggs are available, turn here. A sign pointing you the way to “Hides and Supplies.” A big black angus bull standing in someone's front yard. An odd congregation of white and grey seagulls flocking around a mule-team drawn plough. Working wind mills.
Wait, did that sign say “Hides”? HIDES? What in the name of suburban sprawl do they sell there?
So if I maintain that we should get Chadds Ford, then I'd obviously have to acknowledge that Lancaster gets Honey Brook. Fair's fair, after all.
And Lancaster can have it. I don't need any part of Honey Brook at all. Except the Berry Patch Campground off Broad Street in Cambridge. That's all I need. That, and the gas station that still sells “Regular” and “Super.” That's it, and that's all. The camp, the gas station, and the “Schoolhouse Bar and Grille” on Route 10 are all I need. OK? The camp, the gas station, the bar, and the cheddar cheese curds from September Farm, South Mill Road, Est. 2002. That's it in toto. The camp, the gas station, the bar, the cheese and the place that sells “Hides and Supplies” are all I need. The camp, the gas station, the bar, the cheese, the hides, and ...
This is going to be harder than I thought.
Showing posts with label Chadds Ford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chadds Ford. Show all posts
Monday, March 24, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Neither Plastic Nor Paper
This column originally appeared on Sunday, Feb. 10, 2008
When it comes to movements, social or political, I’m more of a leader than a follower.
That is why when I was in college, for example, I didn’t join in the popular “Don’t Eat Grapes” movement. (For those of you who have forgotten, or never knew, there was a time when grape pickers were trying to organize a union and the way you showed your allegiance to them was to swear off grapes. I can’t remember if the effort was successful or not.) At the time, I didn’t like eating grapes but just on principle I used to munch a few when I had a chance just to declare my non-conformity.
No, when it comes to movements, I like to create them on my own rather than fall in line with the crowd.
That’s why I formed the “Move Chadds Ford to Chester County” movement and the “Illuminate the Twin Bridges of Creek Road” movement and the “Build a Public Swimming Pool in My Neighborhood in West Chester” movement. These were movements that I could hold complete sway over with little effort, largely because the movements were made up of me and no one else.
But lately I’ve been drawn to a movement that seems to be gathering steam across not just the country, but the globe: a rejection of the plastic grocery bag.
You know, the so-called “undershirt bag” that looks like a man’s athletic t-shirt. The ubiquitous carry all shopping bag routinely dispensed in stores of all manner and stripe.
They are an environmental nuisance. Made of fossil-fuel based polymers, the bags are non-biodegradable and virtually indestructible. They remain for centuries in landfills, and clog the waterways. Ducks and fish presumably die from trying to ingest them.
Lately, local governments in New York City and San Francisco have enacted legislation to seeks t o reduce their use. In Ireland, they are taxed. In China, the world's fastest-growing economy, they are banned and shoppers are encouraged people to use cloth ones instead."This issue is not going away,”said Allen Hershkowitz, director of the solid waste program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. (He’s my presumptive choice for leader of the movement, mostly because his last name sounds so unbelievably impressive.)
I was introduced to the situation when reading pieces in The New Yorker by Ian Frazier, a wonderful writer, who discussed his growing hatred of seeing bags in trees. He even invented a device for removing them, called and patented as the “bag snagger.” He wrote: “To me, a bag in a tree is like a flag of chaos, and when I remove it I'm capturing the flag of the other side. In the end it doesn't matter how ironic or serious or even effective on a larger scale bag snagging may be. Doing it demonstrates that even in the odd little overlooked wilderness the bags inhabit, people still can use their eyes and hands and brains, and still have dominion over the chaos of bags in trees.”
Now, when I see a bag in a tree I wish them ill, and vow never to carry another one out into the wild. I have a growing collection of cloth bags from a variety of stores, and my biggest worry seems to be using one franchise’s bag in another’s check out lane.
From now on, all my eggs will go in a non-plastic basket so to speak. Ditto the grapes.
When it comes to movements, social or political, I’m more of a leader than a follower.
That is why when I was in college, for example, I didn’t join in the popular “Don’t Eat Grapes” movement. (For those of you who have forgotten, or never knew, there was a time when grape pickers were trying to organize a union and the way you showed your allegiance to them was to swear off grapes. I can’t remember if the effort was successful or not.) At the time, I didn’t like eating grapes but just on principle I used to munch a few when I had a chance just to declare my non-conformity.
No, when it comes to movements, I like to create them on my own rather than fall in line with the crowd.
That’s why I formed the “Move Chadds Ford to Chester County” movement and the “Illuminate the Twin Bridges of Creek Road” movement and the “Build a Public Swimming Pool in My Neighborhood in West Chester” movement. These were movements that I could hold complete sway over with little effort, largely because the movements were made up of me and no one else.
But lately I’ve been drawn to a movement that seems to be gathering steam across not just the country, but the globe: a rejection of the plastic grocery bag.
You know, the so-called “undershirt bag” that looks like a man’s athletic t-shirt. The ubiquitous carry all shopping bag routinely dispensed in stores of all manner and stripe.
They are an environmental nuisance. Made of fossil-fuel based polymers, the bags are non-biodegradable and virtually indestructible. They remain for centuries in landfills, and clog the waterways. Ducks and fish presumably die from trying to ingest them.
Lately, local governments in New York City and San Francisco have enacted legislation to seeks t o reduce their use. In Ireland, they are taxed. In China, the world's fastest-growing economy, they are banned and shoppers are encouraged people to use cloth ones instead."This issue is not going away,”said Allen Hershkowitz, director of the solid waste program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. (He’s my presumptive choice for leader of the movement, mostly because his last name sounds so unbelievably impressive.)
I was introduced to the situation when reading pieces in The New Yorker by Ian Frazier, a wonderful writer, who discussed his growing hatred of seeing bags in trees. He even invented a device for removing them, called and patented as the “bag snagger.” He wrote: “To me, a bag in a tree is like a flag of chaos, and when I remove it I'm capturing the flag of the other side. In the end it doesn't matter how ironic or serious or even effective on a larger scale bag snagging may be. Doing it demonstrates that even in the odd little overlooked wilderness the bags inhabit, people still can use their eyes and hands and brains, and still have dominion over the chaos of bags in trees.”
Now, when I see a bag in a tree I wish them ill, and vow never to carry another one out into the wild. I have a growing collection of cloth bags from a variety of stores, and my biggest worry seems to be using one franchise’s bag in another’s check out lane.
From now on, all my eggs will go in a non-plastic basket so to speak. Ditto the grapes.
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