How Earl's Phone Changed the World

This appeared on Sunday, June 3, 2007


Roger Lerch, perhaps my favorite teacher, told us students in his Modern European History course at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, Ohio, back in September 1974, that the world had changed more in the past 150 years than it had in the previous 2,000.

And at the time, he hadn‘t even ordered a sandwich at Wawa without ever having to actually speak a single, solitary word.

The memory of Mr. Lerch, and of his remark, came to me upon the visit to the Daily Local News of Molly Morrison, the president of the Natural Lands Trust and former head chef and chief bottle washer on the fifth floor of the Chester County Courthouse, the aerie of the commissioners and their staff.

I hadn‘t seen Molly in a long while, and she hadn‘t been to the Daily Local News offices in a decade or more. So with others in the room, our reunion led to a series of memories about past tribulations between the newspaper, me, Molly and, of course, Commissioner Extrordinaire Earl M. Baker, Molly‘s original patron.

The story we both remembered and liked the best was the saga of Earl‘s car phone.

The year being 1984 or so, mobile telephones were something new to the landscape. And Earl, being a man who craved communication of any kind, (He once told me the sentence he least liked reading in the newspaper was: ”Baker could not be reached for comment.“) decided he needed one. So he got the county to ante up.

For us in the press, it seemed the story of a lifetime. A phone for his car? Who did Earl think he was — the president of the United States?

So we took the ball and ran with it. Story after story, day after day. Who else in government had car phones? Who did Earl talk to on the thing? What were the Chester County taxpayers shelling out for him to jabber whilst cruising down the Schuylkill? We even got a cartoonist to draw a picture of a Princess Phone on wheels, with Earl‘s photo superimposed on the dial.

The phone itself was — so I have heard — enormous, bigger than a small dog and about as easy to manipulate.

And today? Governments hand out taxpayer-funded cell phones like politicians used to hand out lollypops. If the Daily Local News were to opine on the nonessential nature of government-paid cell phones, readers would look at us like we were publishing from the planet Neptune, not Lionville.

So I thought about how times had changed, and how technology has sped up so incredibly that something which was shockingly unnecessary 20 years ago is today considered hopelessly out of date — like Earl‘s massive car phone.

The next day, I found myself standing in line at the Wawa wanting to order a sandwich, and being completely ignored by the deli staff. I noticed a screen or two near the counter and realized that ordering now had to be done by means of a touch menu. Within a few moments I had my salami with provolone paid for and in a bag and out the door.

But I had not spoken a single, solitary word to anyone involved in the process, nor did they expect me to.

And that, Mr. Lerch, makes me yearn just a little for the days before the world changed.

A Way To Name That Creek!

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.

Coconut Soda, and Other Mysteries

This appeared on Sunday, May 20, 2007


They say the difference between young people and old 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, 10 tops, 15 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.“

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.

Name That House!

This appeared on Sunday, May 13, 2007

The news came last week that the Scott family had decided to sell its Radnor estate, known far and wide as Ardrossan, which got me to thinking about the practice of giving names to houses.

I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, in a historic neighborhood called Clifton. Although my family lived in a modest bungalow, we didn’t live too far away from sprawling Victorian mansions that had been built in the late 19th century by the millionaires who, I guess, pretty much ran Cincinnati at the time.

Walking past them on thousands of occasions, however, I never saw signs outside proclaiming their names — even though I now understand that at least one of my grade-school classmates lived in something called the McAlpin Bridal Cottage.

But around Chester County, people seem ready to slap a name on just about any place of residence, no matter how modest or new or nondescript. I‘m not here to say that it‘s the fixed-land asset equivalent of a vanity license plate, but you can draw your own conclusions.

I recently noticed while driving through the tweed, cheese and horse dung territory of West Vincent and Upper Uwchlan how easy it is to brand your home. You can easily find Pickering Place and Wind‘s End Ranch or Millbank. There‘s a gated property with a sparkling pond that is all too proud to refer to itself as Goosewalk, although the last time I walked around a pond that had been visited by Canada geese the experience was not one I found pleasant. Goose guano central, if you catch the way I‘m drifting.

I ran across one named set of homes on a side road in Chester Springs, the first called Break Neck and its neighbor named Wind Crest. This, of course, led to private speculation that if the son of the Break Neck clan married the daughter from the Wind Crest family, they would have to name their house Break Wind.

Sorry.

I started noticing house names all over the county, from Wind Rise and Bamboo Bend in West Bradford to Greystone Hall and Mayfield in West Goshen and West Chester. The last two, I should not have to mention, are given to monumental estates that scream the need for a name — the first to describe the Jerrehian Estate off Phoenixville Pike and the latter to identify the ”summer cottage“ that Irish immigrant Williams Ebbs built for himself and his family — the only summer cottage I‘ve ever encountered that had four 18-foot-tall Roman columns on its front porch.

For a moment, I thought that a rule of thumb for a house that truly deserved a name would be, in fact, the presence of at least two Roman columns, or barring that, a set of stone pillars at the front gate. But that, I learned, would fail to meet the test of a place like North Church Street‘s Broadlawn, which has, well, simply put, a broad lawn, or its neighbor, Narrow Lawn, which has, well, you figure it out.

Truth be told, if I ever owned a home and thought of giving it a moniker, I‘d have to reach back to my childhood fascination with A.A. Milne. After all, the House at Pooh Corner was named ”Tresspassers Will,“ and there‘s no finer name than that.

My old blog is still available

I have switched to a new blog, but my old posts are still available by clicking here: http://michaelpcolumns.blogspot.com/