Photo Essay: Penn Wood School
January 11th, 2012Always fun to go back and visit the last grade school I attended. If it's not peering into classrooms and seeing wall charts teaching skills that adults take for granted – remember what life was like before you learned how to tell time – it's taking a walk around the school grounds and realizing how different the world is from a child's perspective.
Did we ever sit in chairs that small? Was the basketball hoop really that high?
Are beech trees that massive?
That's the upside.
The downside is seeing what has happened to one of the great treasures of Penn Wood School. That would be what everyone called The Field. It was a grassy field that had been carved out of the woods behind the school.
To get there, you had to walk down a terrifyingly steep hill – no running allowed – cross a stream that had a very sharp looking wooden bridge, do a dash to the end of the paved path, and then there it was. The Field.
You could run around like crazy during recess, run laps during gym class, or win one of those oh-so-stylish ribbons at the annual Charlie Brown Field Day. (I treasured my third place broad jump ribbon for years.) After school, it was a great place for hanging out with friends, and you could even take a little hike on the nature trail that a Boy Scout troop had built in the woods.
Such was life for kids in the late 1960s.
These days, the paved path is falling apart...
The bridge is covered with rotting leaves. And it feels shaky when you walk across it...
The Field is well on its way back to being The Woods. Looks like Penn Wood School has a tree planting project underway, but what's with all those junked doors? Someone remodel their house, then dump the old doors over at the school?
Come on, Penn Wood, it wouldn't take much to clean this place up. Just get a roll-off dumpster and some energetic people to tote all the junk away from The Field/Woods, and it's an attractive place again. Might even create some jobs.
The falling apart path? Well, that could be converted into a terraced hiking trail. Just find some railroad ties to create the edges of each terrace, fill 'em with dirt, and there you go. More jobs created and a new exercise trail for the Penn Wood kids. The bridge? Very fixable – even more jobs worth doing.
If the Penn Wood kids are too small or young to help, they could still learn from the renovation of their school grounds. Matter of fact, here's the outdoor classroom where the workers could brief the kids on what's going on that day, what their jobs are like, and how the kids can grow up to get one too...
And if any of the worker/teachers need a place to put their notes, well, here's a lectern that could be put back into service...
So there you have it. A jobs program at my old school.
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Photo Essay: Westtown School
January 6th, 2012When I was growing up, Westtown was that hippie-freak Quaker school at the end of the street. The long hair and love beads crowd were quite the contrast to the buttoned down, straight-laced kids in my neighborhood.
I can remember one of the moms making jokes about “Westtown's finest” whenever she saw students heading away from campus toward the bus stop. They were headed toward Philadelphia, and judging from their expressions, they couldn't wait to get there.
Then, as now, the Westtown campus was surrounded by farm fields and forests. It's not a hotbed of excitement for teenagers.
After I left home and went to the University of Michigan, I met a graduate student who'd gone to Westtown during the hippie-freak era. She regaled me with tales of her efforts to end the Vietnam War by doing door-knocking campaigns – in my neighborhood.
Apparently, her antiwar activities ran afoul of what she called the Quaker Vatican, and she was told to tone things down. Me? I was amazed that there was anything conservative on the Westtown campus, much less a Quaker Vatican. And, no, I don't recall her ever knocking on my family's front door.
Fast-forward to the present, and Westtown is now a pricey prep school – I've heard that the tuition is more than $20,000 a year. Not the sort of school that many of the neighbors can afford, but Westtown is beloved for the fact that it has kept much of its 600-acre campus free of development.
Part of the open space is leased to Pete's Produce Farm, which does quite a brisk business. Looks like Pete is growing some daikon radish...
Care for a hike? Plenty of trails to choose from, and some of them even offer challenges like trees to hurdle and obstacle courses to conquer...
Do be on the lookout for deer and hunters during the annual hunt...
And make sure to spend some time hiking around Westtown Lake...
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Construction Photography: Here We Go Again
January 5th, 2012Nothing like a backed-up septic tank to enliven an eastern Pennsylvania family's Christmas Eve. The family in question would be mine. And this story's almost a carbon copy of the one I blogged two years ago.
Once again, a call to Hickman Sanitation, and out comes owner Dave Hickman (below) with one of his employees. Let the pumping process begin...
This is one of those "dirty jobs, but someone has to do it" scenarios. But the Hickman Sanitation guys aren't grossed out by the task at hand. They just do it...
Here's a tip for tanker truck observers: When the upper bubble starts showing liquid, it's time to shut down the pump and empty the tank...
Which is done back at the Hickman Sanitation headquarters. Note my previous post – the tank contents are transferred into a much bigger truck, which makes regular runs to a regional waste disposal facility.
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Nature Photography: Solids and Liquids
January 4th, 2012A Christmas holiday visit to family in Pennsylvania reveals a timeless truth about the Keystone State's winter weather: It varies.
On one day, it's cool enough for a jacket. Perfect weather for my mother to stroll around the neighborhood with Buddy the Labrador Retriever...
Looks like Buddy's found another interesting scent. This one merits very close inspection. Which means that the four-legged detective is on the job...
Eastern Pennsylvania normally gets around 40 inches of rain each year. The 2011 total? More than five feet, which included a late summer drenching courtesy of Tropical Storm Irene. In late December, the ground's still saturated, and watch out for the low spots...
When the cold comes, and it always does, the water turns to ice, entrapping everything within it...
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Nature Photography: Dormant Plants in Winter
January 28th, 2011Like much of the rest of the eastern United States, Pennsylvania just got walloped by another big snowstorm.
According to family reports, thick hats, heavy jackets, waterproof boots, snow shovels and plows are now the height of fashion. And will be for some time.
Although my Westtown, Pennsylvania family and friends may find it hard to remember their locale without 18 inches of snow, I offer the following photos as proof that there is a multi-colored environment buried under it. All of them were taken late last month...
Tip: You can view more nature photography in my portfolio.
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Nature Photography: Goose Farm
January 24th, 2011One of the most memorable features of a southeastern Pennsylvania winter is that it's highly variable. You can be deep in snow and shivering in sub-freezing temperatures, and then the weather warms up to the point where the hats and jackets are unnecessary.
Such was my recent trip to the Land of Winter Variability. Not a sign of snow when I arrived. But a few days later, totally different scenery...
Shortly thereafter, the weather warmed up and melted a good bit of the snow.
In honor of this occasion, I took a walk over to a nearby farm. It's quite the hot spot for non-migrating Canada geese. (Or should they be called Pennsylvania geese?)
Once these birds sense that a photographer is approaching, up they go...
Tip: If you should happen to be mingling with geese, watch your step. Why? Because geese are prolific. They leave plenty of squishy souvenirs on the ground.
So, unless your hoofs stay outside the house...
You'll need to do a thorough cleanup before going back inside...
Tip: You can view more nature photography in my portfolio.
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Nature Photography: After the Blizzard
January 20th, 2011My recent trip to southeastern Pennsylvania featured no-problem air travel and foul weather that didn't materialize until after I was on the ground.
What the weather forecasters billed as a blizzard turned out to be underwhelming. We didn't even get half a foot of snow.
After the weather cleared, it was time to go exploring. I began this adventure by going back to school. This is a back entrance to Penn Wood School, which I attended for grades four through six....
I wasn't the most attentive of students, what with the school being in the woods, and the woods offering many interesting things to sketch. Penn Wood School proved to be a very inspiring venue for a budding visual artist.
Decades later, the Penn Wood School grounds still inspire me...
Being the curious big-kid that I am, I had to make more than one trip to Penn Wood. Couldn't let that plein air go to waste...
Tip: You can view more nature photography in my portfolio.
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Travel Photography: Blizzard Arrives
January 7th, 2011Eastern Pennsylvania's Christmas weekend blizzard came in with a vengeance. The bitterly cold winds and driving snow got my attention in a hurry. I had to go outside and investigate.
First lesson: Avoid looking north into the wind, because it bites. Hard...
This was a lesson that our family's super-smart border collie mix took to heart in a hurry. Sandy wasn't happy heading north, and the southerly direction was only slightly less amusing...
Second lesson: During a snowstorm, you pretty much have the outdoor world to yourself. Not much traffic coming in or out of this driveway...
Then came the snowplow. On this trip, it wasn't plowing. Instead, it was coming around to brine the roads...
As blizzards go, this one was a bit of a letdown. Snow accumulation totaled less than six inches. However, Philadelphia and New York really got hammered.
Tip: You can view more travel photography in my portfolio.
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Travel Photography: Before the Blizzard
January 5th, 2011I just got back from visiting family in eastern Pennsylvania. Arrived there just ahead of a blizzard that was racing up from the South. The following photos show the calm before the storm.
The approaching blizzard wasn't about to affect the behavior of these affectionate trees...
But the decorated for Christmas sled would soon get a coating of snow...
And the still-flowing Chester Creek would freeze...
Tip: You can view more travel photography in my portfolio.
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Abstract Photography: Snowy Parking Space
January 20th, 2010Take a West Chester, Pennsylvania parking lot, add a two-foot snowstorm, and what do you get? A parking space gone abstract...
Tip: You can view more abstract photography in my portfolio.
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