Shredding, and Whomping, For A Good Cause

This column originally appeared on June 22, 2008

The Downingtown Friends Meetinghouse has stood humbly but elegantly on Lancaster Avenue since 1806. Through its 200-plus years it has watched as horse-and-carriages went and motorized automobiles came, has heard graceful and joyful words of prayer spoken within its walls, and has gazed as grey-haired worshipers it recognized once as tow-headed babes sat in devoted silence.

Chances are, however, that the meetinghouse had never seen the likes of Kalico Jack, until Friday evening.

That would be Kalico Jack the fledgling rock band put together by three young but surprisingly accomplished musicians: Kieran Ferris, John Thayer and Nathaniel Vito.

The trio delighted a crowd of about 40 people who gathered in the driveway of the meetinghouse as they shredded and whomped and strummed through a set of about a dozen songs, from covers of cuts by Velvet Revolver and Blink-182 to a good number of originals, and one oldie, Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl.” The band members — friends and relatives of one another — chatted amiably with the crowd, wondering what songs they liked the most, recalling stories about past gigs, and describing how they came up with the title to their soon-to-be-chart-topping song, “Kiwi Blossom.”

And as much fun as the audience had seeing the band wail on in the shadow of the stately meetinghouse, the experience was made all the more enjoyable for its underlying purpose. The members of Kalico Jack had asked to put on the show to help raise money for an Iraqi exchange student who is trying to stay here in Chester County and out of the harm that almost surely awaits him if he were to return home to Baghdad.

The teenager, who lives with his host family in Chester Springs, came to the United States last fall for his junior year of high school through a U.S. State Department program that was designed to improve relations between Muslim countries and America. But after living here awhile, he learned that other Iraqi students who had participated in this program in past years found themselves and their families in grave danger upon returning home.

According to the teen’s host mother, “one young man was abducted and his family forced to pay a ransom, and he now lives in Spain without his family. Another young man’s brother was shot and killed. He now lives in Pennsylvania without his family.” The teen realized that it would be too dangerous to return to Iraq, and has applied for political asylum.

His plight came to the attention of the Downingtown Meeting, and its members agreed (“wildly,” according to one source) to support the young man in his quest to stay. Fundraisers like the Kalico Jack concert have been held, and the Downingtown members have ponied up to defray the costs of the teen’s attendance at Westtown School in the fall.

It says something frightening about our world that a young person who travels to another country to bridge a gap between two cultures could be subjected to violence and hatred for the simple act of traveling there. And it says something comforting that a small community like the Downingtown Friends Meeting could embrace that same young person and help him stay alive and well. As the Iraqi teen’s host mother said in her thanks to the meeting: “Your help has prevented one more casualty of war.”

If you would like to help, donations can be sent to Downingtown Friends Meeting, 800 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown, PA 19335. Let them know it’s for the Iraqi Student Program.

And by the way, it’s pronounced Ka-LEE-co Jack. Just so you know.

Naming Names in Chester County

This column originally appeared on Sunday, Oct. 14, 2007

Brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors, Democrats and Republicans, tall guys and short gals, please hear my words. We here in Chester County, most glorious county on Earth, most noble county in the Solar System, most awesomest county in the Known Universe, have a problem.

I noticed the problem on Saturday in Downingtown, on my way to the annual Downingtown Friends Fall Festival, the kind of event that is meant to provide absolute faith in the notion that all is well and good in the world, and that funnel cake with powdered sugar is just as nutritious as mother’s milk.

I noticed it not because I was stuck behind the annual Downingtown Halloween Parade, which was held on Saturday, which I personally believe is a perfect time for a Halloween parade, since it gives parents and kids the opportunity to spend even more money on their real Halloween costume, which they will wear in two weeks, on the official Halloween Day, which is actually two days before Halloween.

But who’s counting.

No, I had beat the parade traffic jam by a good 90 minutes and had quite enough time to wait a few minutes at the traffic light in Downingtown, where I am accustomed to seeing all manner of real estate signs pointing me to the latest grand opening of whatever subdivision is seeking to relieve me of a sum starting in “the high 900s,” as they say in the real estate biz.

And it hit me then. There, to my left, was a directional sign pointing me toward ... Round
Hill. And another, showing me which way to get to … Tall Trees.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we have run out of names to give our developments.

Time was that it seemed obvious that the builder of any new cul-de-sac or luxury housing project with a stone gate at the entrance could just dip his hand into the name basket and come up with some variation of the county’s historic/geographic/ancestoral/natural/ cultural background to name his latest masterpiece.

You know. Like Hummingbird Farm. Or Serpentine Acres. Or Fox Knoll. Or Brandywine Estates. Or Meadows at Summerhill. Or Deer Valley. Or Deer Run. Or Deer Pointe. Or Deere Ticke. (Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)

But like a shopper driving into downtown West Chester for the first time and condemned to circling the block for hours trying to find the perfect parking space, the ringmasters of Development Land have realized that all the good names have been taken.

After all, what self-respecting pharmaceutical marketing consultant specialist wants to spend $560,000 to buy a new McMansion in the Village of Cross Keys when the guy across the cubicle from him just spent $775,000 on a pied-a-terre at the Keys at Cross Village. Who wants to move to Beaver Creek Estate when you’re already living at Quail Hill Acres?

So we’re moving to generic place names like Round Hill and Tall Trees. It’s almost sad to know that the days of Brandywine Manor Farms and Brandywine Pointe and Brandywine Terrace are behind us.

So line up very soon, brothers and sisters, for the grand opening of Small Creek and Gentle Slope and Asphalt Driveway and Crumbling Curb Estates.

I hear the Halloween parties there start in July.

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.