I haven’t written about this yet, but started now. I think I needed to sleep on it some more because I found this so profoundly upsetting and disturbing .
First up: a wrong place, wrong time. A woman in Berwyn murdered by an out of his mind lunatic….whom police had dealt with just a couple of hours before he shot this woman. This was a mom. She was a sister. She was a friend. she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time when someone decided to have a psychotic break. I hope they lock that guy up for a really long time.
According to the timeline laid out, Tredyffrin Police HAD Steven Jahn IN CUSTODAY earlier that evening and perhaps if they had kept a hold of him, this woman might still be alive?
It also speaks to the need for mental health evaluations to be added to requirements for carry permits etc.
I hate to refer to her as just “a woman” or “this woman” but out of respect for her family I am while they try to adjust to something anything but normal.
This woman is known to friends of mine. I have woken up thinking about her these past couple of days. This was about a quasi homeless man on a psychotic break and maybe some sort of substance abuse (who knows?) who murdered a woman who will never wake up again to see the sun rise or take joy in her family, smile at her kids, go for a walk, kiss her husband goodnight. This is a woman with kids and a husband who have to try to make sense of something utterly senseless.
And this piece of crap who shot her? Here is the police comnplaint thingy:
Now was Jahn truly homeless or unhoused? He went to Conestoga and supposedly grew up around Midland in Berwyn? People I spoke to indicated he had lived in Florida, New Jersey, and Maryland before coming back to PA in the beginning of the year? Someone said he had been at some place called the “French Creek Inn” which is some sort of no tell meets meets flop house in East Pikeland? Did anyone check that out? I never heard of that place and someone said it actually came up recently at an East Pikeland meeting?
Anyway, this guy was picked up with his guns at his cousin’s house on Conestoga Road? Look at him? Is that just a full mental break or something else as well? Why do I ask? Because I figured out WHY his name was familiar. 2013. Crazy car accident after hit and runs in East Goshen on North Chester Road. Like 3 hit and runs and his own car upended in the woods.
And next we go to the death of that poor State Trooper Corporal Timothy O’Connor. Fatally shot while performing a traffic stop by one Jesse Nathan Elks. This happened out in West Caln. Another guy who snapped who owned a gun. Elks then ate his own gun.
Timothy O’Connor leaves a wife, daughter, and other family like his beloved parents behind. I literally started crying at one simple comment on the Chester County District Attorney’s Office Facebook Page from his namesake father. All it said was “I love you son.”
So I can’t really find the social media of Jesse Elks but obviously they are out there somewhere because people are posting about it.
Screenshot
When you dig into Elks you find he fathered kids by two women, married one who later divorced him. He was living in a mobile home park in Honey Brook, not sure if it was the township or West Caln area. He seemed to me to be a POS with anger issues and a coward. He took the life of Timothy O’Connor and then killed himself depriving the State Troopers and O’Connor’s family of justice. At least the women who bore his children are free of him…and I hope his kids do okay through this as innocents in his act of murder.
So why did Jesse Elks have a gun?
Look I am not debating the right to own arms. I am asking when the f*ck are they going to add mental health evaluations to the ownership process? It’s the people with the guns doing the killing, so it’s a different conversation to the regular or more typical gun control conversation.
It’s like the fact that sometimes when people have these mental health breaks, law enforcement needs to confiscate weapons sooner, rather than later.
Corporal O’Connor and currently unnamed wife, mother, sister, friend both were taken to Paoli Hospital. What a terribly sad duty for those who work at Paoli. Two tragedies that were random acts of senseless violence. I hope they met on the way to heaven.
I am not particularly eloquent about these senseless acts and I so want to be because these two victims whose souls left their human form at Paoli Hospital deserve that….from all of us.
We live in an awful world right now that needs more happiness. Pray for these families and for these two people murdered through random acts of violence and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This could happen to anyone, and that is the most gut wrenching thought of all.
I close with what Timothy O’Connor’s mom posted. It was public. Mrs. O’Connor, I don’t know you either, but like the currently unnamed murder victim in Berwyn, we share people in common and I am just so damn sorry.
People, we need to strive for a better world. And heaven has two new angels way before they should have been there. And can we also put in a plug for Chester County officials to get a hospital back in the area of where the other two closed with a trauma center?
Today the bulldozers have arrived at 400 S. Leopard Road in Berwyn, Chester County and Easttown Township. We have been living this since the first fire in 2024. Charged with arson in one fire here is still Kathryn Calmus Frankel. She was charged in the new year with a dangerous fire in York County, PA. She was also charged with some sort of fire in Delaware County (Radnor Township.) I am uncertain as to which prison she is located in – I presume York County which is county of latest arson.
Frankel has not been tried in any of these cases as of yet, although I did notice this on the Delaware County, PA docket:
Is there a chance she pleads on all of these cases? Who knows. The media down here has not followed up and we haven’t heard anything out of the various District Attorneys’ offices about that have we?
I am so sad that this quirky old house is becoming something we will maybe remember for a while and then forget as ashes to ashes dust to dust…and we know a McMansion shall replace part of our Chester County history, but two brutal fires have killed this piece of history.
This is yet another reason why this country needs better mental health services.
Here is one more photo and then to follow current dockets from 3 counties and a couple of prior posts.
Bye house. You were once beautiful, quirky, and loved even by strangers driving by.
So who knows what we are getting, but we are getting a storm. It is just one of those winters.
I do not have photos that are digital of the “Blizzard of 1996” or “The Blizzard of 1978.” But I remember both.
I was turning 14 the spring following the 1978 snow. I remember I built a snow igloo at the edge of my parents’ driveway. It was fun and I could fit inside….but we were not allowed to linger inside because my parents were worried what would happen if it collapsed. It had a bench made of snow inside.
The 1996 snow I also remember. Back then I had an English Springer Spaniel we had to dig a potty path for that was like shoulder high to me on either side. I remember everyone scrambling to find snow plow people, because that was a storm that snow plow guys didn’t show up for. I remember my parents’ then usual people saying “Sorry, just too much snow.“
During 1996 finding snow plow people became like a vision quest and no one wanted to share who they used for fear they would not get plowed out. The other thing about 1996 is I remember people scrambling to get snow away from houses when the thaw started because people were having their basements flood and basement windows cave in from snow. Friends of my parents had a total disaster on their hands because they were downhill from other properties and the snow melting and moving literally did blow lower level windows in. That surpassed the crazy snow of 1987 which no one talks about any longer.
Now 2010 I remember. First Snowmageddon and Snowpocalypse of February, 2010. I was living on the Main Line still and we had an indoor fundraiser planned for First Friday Main Line that first February Friday that we had to cancel. That was February 5, 2010.
I remember it was starting to snow when I went out to dinner with friends and a bad past relationship. We went to a restaurant called “Auspicious” on Cricket Ave in Ardmore. That was the night the first blizzard of 2010 began and also the night my entire life changed. We decided to have a snow night dinner in Ardmore with two other couples. It was a “How bad could it get so fast, let’s have dinner” thing.
It had started to snow when we went to Ardmore, and we stopped first at the state store for a bottle of wine. The restaurant was a BYOB. It’s weird what you remember, but I remember of all the weird things that former Eagles coach Dick Vermeil was in the Ardmore Wine & Spirits store doing a wine tasting of his vineyard’s wines. That was the first time I remember seeing him promoting his vineyard. I saw people I knew in the store, including people I had worked on the now-postponed event along with a woman who worked in my friend’s shop.
I remember dinner being nice, and going outside and the snow was coming down fast and furious. There was already a few inches on the ground when we exited the restaurant. What I remember next is the contrast of the quiet whooshy sound of falling snow and my ex flipping out on me in the parking lot because I had accidentally opened the car window of his car while he was cleaning snow off the car. (Mind you he drove a Mazda, not a Benz.)
“You will ruin the motors of my windows!” he screamed at me.
There was already like 5″ of snow on the ground if not more. Dinner was not that long, so it was amazing how fast snow was falling. I remember the lights of Lancaster Avenue blinking like it was past midnight (I do not believe it was even 9:30 PM), and the falling snow and cars sliding all over as we drove home. We kept fishtailing, and not a little, a lot.
February, 2010
As we drove home, my ex screamed at me most of the way home and I remember the combination of all of that being actually rather frightening. I also remember a passing thought of “I can’t do this anymore. If I get home safely, this is over.”
February, 2010
I got out of the car in my driveway, and as I shut the car door he took off. It was in that blizzard I was literally abandoned with his dying dog with me. It was sort of a Lifetime TV moment. Only it was my life and slightly surreal when it happened. It was an odd and hard thing to have happen, but what do you do? You change the locks and move on. And you honor the last few months of a very old dog’s life who was so truly sweet. Months later a friend said to me that God had done a lift out. She was so right. And the truth was, I was never super upset. What happened, happened for the betterment of my life.
Life goes on and you move forward. And lots of snow, once again, got dumped in the river.
Then came December, 2010. My brother in law died on December 22, 2010 of peritoneal mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer of the abdominal lining. He had been diagnosed barely 3 1/2 weeks earlier. My sister was suddenly a young widow with two kids.
In the midst of planning the funeral came the blizzard of December, 2010 that crippled New York City. I remember walking up Park Avenue on the Upper East Side the morning the snow stopped. Instead of being filled with multiple lanes of cars on both sides, Park Avenue was snow filled, not plowed and people like myself walked in the middle of a temporarily car and bus deserted New York City street. And it was quiet. New York City was so silent in the snow.
New York City, December, 2010
It was the craziest feeling being able to stroll in the middle of a snow clogged Park Avenue . The weird juxtaposition of knowing you were on one of the busiest streets of one of the most populated cities, yet there I was strolling like it was a country road. I remember looking up at all the snow-laden buildings that create that multi-billion dollar canyon of Park Avenue. The buildings are so large, and humans so small. It’s funny but for a moment I felt like that little child I once was being pulled on a sled by my mother.
Then we all have the memory of the ice storm of 2014. February. No power for close to 10 days. We didn’t move for days. By the time we were into the week mark without power it was a little like Little House on the Prairie around here. You take a lot of things for granted when you don’t have power.
Cheers went up when the Calvary (PECO) got to us to restore power in 2014. My husband decided during that storm I was too much of a “city girl.” I probably still am. But there were moments after that ice storm that were just breathtaking in the majesty of Mother Nature.
February, 2014
It appears to be another very snowy winter for this winter. I will admit that the thought of another big snow and ice storm is not my favorite idea for the weekend. Stay safe this weekend.
The woman shot dead by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis has been identified as Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who had just moved to the city.
She was a prize-winning poet and a hobby guitarist, who city leaders have said was there as a legal observer of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities.
But the Trump administration has called her a “domestic terrorist”….She had two children, who are now teenagers, with her first husband. Speaking to US media on condition that his name was not used, he said that Good was not an activist and that she was a devoted Christian who went to Northern Ireland on youth missions when she was younger.
She hosted a podcast with her second husband, Tim Macklin, who died in 2023. They had a son together, who is now six years old….Her third marriage was to Rebecca Good, with whom she moved to Minneapolis just last year, from Kansas City…. “On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns,” Rebecca Good said in a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday…..Several state leaders have said that Good was at the scene of an ICE raid in the south of Minneapolis as a legal observer – a volunteer who monitors police and security forces at protests and operations…..Good “weaponised her vehicle”, Noem told reporters, and then tried to run over one of the officers “in an attempt to kill or cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism”.
The ICE agent feared for his life, Noem said, and “fired defensive shots”….But the city’s mayor said the agent who shot Good had acted recklessly.
“Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly: that is bullshit,” Jacob Frey said. “This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed.”
So Renee Good was just a mom. She was also apparently a legal observer of protests, etc. She was literally a community volunteer. A volunteer. Let that sink in.
Why was she shot? Very good question. I don’t have any answers but I have to wonder is a woman who is a mom married to another woman driving a not brand new Honda Pilot with a big old lab looking dog in the backseat really a threat to national security?
Personally I am appalled. Carrying a weapon is a responsibility, and these ICE agents? I can’t wrap my head around these people who are behaving like thugs under the guise of law enforcement can you? Ok sure they have a job to do, but look at how they do it? Look at all these crazy incidents and how they are ratcheting up including to anything other than accidental death and aren’t you horrified? So do you not see parallels between this and World War II Europe?
This. Is. Not. O.k.
So the country has erupted into more protests. Now my feelings about protests have nothing to do with the ability to protest, it’s the way it has changed an evolved today because there are problems. And sometimes violence. It’s scary and hard. And whenever you hear about somebody going to a protest, you hold your breath until you know they’re all home safe and sound.
And the rhetoric being tossed everywhere from Washington DC after the unnecessary violent death of Renee Good is appallingly predictable, isn’t it? And again, it’s like political state propaganda.
Literally, it is turning into all Pravda on this bus. They are creating a narrative to defend the indefensible which is quite possibly murder, right? They are creating a narrative to suit their needs. And it’s not truthful and it’s horrible and somewhere in the back of my head because this woman was living an alternative lifestyle compared to what many of those people are comfortable with, did that have something to do with it?
It’s so hard to write about this. Because even if you’re trying to process it, someone’s going to take you to task and some of the comments have been downright crazy. And ugly. And these comments you see on social media are driven by the Washington D.C. rhetoric to fit the uncomfortable narrative of what actually happened.
This is not our country. And yet somehow it is becoming the new normal. It’s not acceptable normal. It’s a terrifying normal.
And then you wonder even for me as a blogger, trying to wrap my head around this, am I going to be punished somehow or attacked or threatened or harassed for writing this?
I just have one last comment and it’s a simple question: is this the country we want to live in?
It is time for the annual unveiling of the Declaration of Independence everywhere as July 4 is nigh.
Allow me:
In Congress, July 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
So here we are in 2025. It’s been a very long year and it’s only July 1.
We live in a fractious, infighting country, and I had to ask myself today an honest question. My question is simple: are we living up to what are forefathers fought, blood, and died for? Are we what they envisioned just months away from our Semiquincentennial?
I don’t think we are. And I think we are turning into an embarrassment on the world stage. Do people still hold us in high regard in other countries or are we people to be pitied or scorned?
Since when did our freedoms become subjective and don’t tell me they’re not because we all know they are. We are a country founded on the hard work of immigrants, with no respect for immigrants a lot of the time.
One of our more challenged rights are our First Amendment Rights. As a blogger, I’ve certainly experienced that over the years. And it is sad because people in this country have lost the ability to have conversations. You can’t respectfully disagree, you have to destroy the other person. We see this destruction attempted on social media every day. People will tell other people that I am a bully for standing up for myself or choosing not to interact with certain people and how is that being a bully? If you are of a different opinion compared to someone else, are you then supposed to be a doormat for their ire?
Is this post all about me? No, it’s not but as a blogger I am opinion based so these are the things I think about. Today I am thinking about it in context with what we all see happening in this country.
I think about all these people that like to stand up and tell the next guy or gal that they are a better American than someone else. What makes them a better American what makes someone else a worse American? What makes someone judge, jury, and executioner on what it is to be American exactly?
When was it we were all supposed to be the same? Didn’t our forefathers fight for us to have freedoms and rights so we didn’t have to be exactly like the person standing next to us?
I’ve almost stopped watching and reading the news in a lot of cases because it’s not good. And I’m not going to change the world. I can only be myself. I’m not going to go march in protests not because I don’t think people should have the right to protest or shouldn’t protest, it’s just I don’t feel that in my bones. What I feel in my bones is a deep sadness and weariness to be an American.
I love the history of this country in all its imperfect glory. And today, I wonder what kids are actually being taught? Are they being taught the true history or the sanitized versions of our history that other people are more comfortable with and what is that saying regarding if you don’t reflect upon your history, you’re doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past?
In this country today, are we on the precipice of repeating some of the most heinous mistakes of our past?
OK, I had to go look the quote up and here it is:
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
~ George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905.
I know people who legally immigrated to this country who have left or or thinking of leaving. Like those of us who may be a few generations in or a couple of hundred years in to living here, they are disillusioned and sad.
We have shitty healthcare. Sometimes I wonder if we are living the robber barons of our past? Currently on HBO it is being romanticized in the series called The Gilded Age, but it was a time of strife and wide disparity between classes, inequality, racism, monopolies, unethical business practices, exploitation of workers. sexism and wow sounds like 2025? Captains of industry or feudal lords much?
(I guess this is where someone will roll up and say I’m either a communist or socialist and I am neither. I’m just being a student of history.)
I don’t pretend to have answers. I’m just kind of speaking my truth out here in the wilderness.
But when you celebrate the Fourth of July this year, try to remember why it exists and don’t be a bunch of asshats.
Be an American the way our forefathers intended us to be. Hoist the flag, and remember to bring it in if it rains.
Happy almost July 4th. Happy Independence Day as opposed to happy indentured servitude day.
EIGHT years and a press conference was at 3 PM. Here is the video from the presser:
I never thought this day would come. I have been writing about a woman I never met for 8 years. When I got the text from a reporter I know I started to cry. I know it might sound dumb because I did not know her, but when you write about someone for eight years, you start to feel like you knew her. Ironically yesterday I shared the post I wrote in February to mark the coming of the 8 year anniversary.
Today authorities swarmed the house she built in Malvern where her husband Allan Jay Gould still lived with her little boy, Andrew. I hope Andrew is Ok.
So Ravine Road in East Whiteland, which runs between W. King Rd. and Phoenixville Pike has been closed since March 23rd. The reason it’s closed is because of one of the lovely abandoned railroad structures that dot our land landscape in Chester County.
And every time there’s an issue with an underpass, an overpass or a bridge or a tunnel or anything having to do with what the railroad used to be, municipalities have to figure out what to do when there are problems. I do believe this is what East Whiteland is facing right now.
Engineers are assessing this overpass thing that was built in 1915. It periodically gets hit, periodically sheds pieces of crumbling concrete. There’s nothing running above it now as far as a train and ownership of course is always a question. It used to be part of the West Chester Railroad I do not believe that Immaculata owns it and I really don’t believe that East Whiteland owns it. I think it is straight up abandoned, but now because it’s straight up abandoned and falling apart, who takes care of it??
In my humble opinion, this is where the state and county could be of more assistance.
A couple people I know are digging into this for me. I don’t know if they’ll come up with any answers, but in the meantime, an East Whiteland Township road is closed.
This is not on any historic bridge inventory that I can find although technically it probably is because the dates to 1915. But is it anything special? Can we just take the top off of it so East Whiteland stops having structural issues? But if you take the top off of it, you have to cap the sides and deal with making sure water doesn’t undermine it right?
This bridge is a reinforced concrete slab overpass of short length. It has pipe railings. The date of construction is cast into the side of the superstructure. The superstructure rests on concrete abutments. It is part of the old West Chester Railroad, which is long-abandoned in this section, with this bridge being a rare reminder of what used to be. A preservation group still maintains a different section of this line.
On their 10 point scale of historic value, it’s a one as in 1. So most do not consider it much of a historic asset. I personally like this the least of the three underpasses you go through on this road. I’ve taken lots of photos over the years, but mostly I take photos of the ones down near Phoenixville Pike.
Two more underpasses on Ravine, but these are the ones I like closest to Phoenixville Pike
Now many moons ago, Immaculata had a train station on her campus. A few years ago, there was a study to try to recreate it. It’s not happening. I was told that back then by the outgoing general manager of SEPTA before Leslie Richards came in. (Of course, at the time no one believed me. But hello it’s 2025 and it didn’t go anywhere did it? Just more wasted study money.)
This was someone I had known since he had been an engineer fairly high up in septa. He had always been really helpful and responsive to community things. I met him when I had written about the Wayne train station and flooding off of the tracks and a big drainage pipe that had no grate on it- it is so big that kids and dogs could get into etc. He had read what I had written and in the end the Wayne train station in Radnor Township got some much needed stormwater management underneath the parking lot when they redid it. And then a simple yet effective grate was placed over a concrete drainage tube on the Pennsylvania Avenue side, which of course dissuaded dogs and kids.
And before COVID when I asked about a station again at Immaculata he told me that realistically, we weren’t going to see a train station revived at Immaculata because there was one in Malvern and it was already taking long enough to get past Malvern to the stations west of Malvern . Then there was the fact that Immaculata didn’t really want a train station with the public parking on their campus for that, because hello it poses a safety concern, doesn’t it? I thought maybe since they put the money into the study they would look at oh I don’t know putting a train station somewhere over around 3 Tun Rd., but nothing ever happened and then Covid happened.
Now this Ravine Road underpass/railroad bridge or whatever I believe, belongs to exactly no one. And what that means realistically is getting it dealt with is going to be a monumental pain in the ass for East Whiteland. I think it would behoove Chester County and the state to help them out with this.
So until it gets figured out the road is closed. You may not use Ravine Road in East Whiteland.
And as I have said multiple times before, not just in this post, there are structures like this all over our region and they need to be better documented. And I get really tired of the abandoned of it all when there are existing railroads which could help us with the costs of dealing with these things.
And having to do with the April Fool’s at all? There are so many gullible people. Where do you think I’m going?
A friend of mine posted that. I don’t know where that sign is located, but I think they should be in all parks, especially dog parks.
I’ve had dogs attacked while being on lead on a public sidewalk. I had a dog attacked on lead on the Haverford Nature Trail years ago.
I’ve had friends whose dogs have been attacked while on lead on sidewalks, in dog friendly parks, and in dog parks.
People seem to think that their dogs should be introduced everyone else’s dog. Not everybody wants to meet your dog and not everybody’s dog wants to meet your dog. Or dogs.
In both cases when my dogs were attacked, it required veterinary care. One time a dog got its throat bit open. That was the Haverford Nature Trail when my dog then was attacked by labrador retrievers off lead.
The second case was when my dog was attacked by an aggressive OFF lead golden retriever – yes aggressive – who was off lead while my dogs were on lead on a public sidewalk. In that case, my dog was attacked so hard that discs in his back were injured. I didn’t think he would walk again, and in order to walk again he required a lifetime of treatment.
At that time I had to push Lower Merion Township to actually fine the dog owner whose dog injured my dog. The man paid a meager $50 fine and then you saw him out with his dog again off lead less than a week later. At one point, I actually saw him on my road and I went outside and I literally screamed at the man because he never said he was sorry he never offered to pay a vet bill and he knew exactly whose dog he injured. I did not care that I screamed at this man. He was a jerk.
This week I noticed again yet someone else posting from Lower Merion Township about off lead dogs… and the lovely man who gave the same woman the finger as I’m sure she was completely terrified and upset about her dog being attacked. I hope her dog is OK. But I know how expensive those vet bills are personally.
I hope by now that someone has identified this man and that woman and that dog to the police and this woman whose dog was hurt. And that dog park is exactly where several people I have known over the years have had their animals attacked. One time it was a former neighbor whose dog had its entire stomach ripped open from underneath.
This is why I actually don’t go to dog parks. I really don’t also support dog parks because every time I’ve been near one all I saw were people who don’t pay attention to their animals and just let their animals do whatever, kind of like their children on the playground. No boundaries, no control.
But this one dog park at Mill Creek and the other at Rolling Hill needs to have somebody there from Lower Merion Township regularly to make sure those dogs stay in control. And for basics like to make sure the poop actually makes it to the trash cans, and to see that said trashcans get emptied. There are also complaints of people getting their cars broken into even if nothing is visible.
Like a lot of municipalities, Lower Merion is great at giving people parks, they just don’t necessarily maintain them well. And I think that goes for Radnor and Tredyffrin as well. But Lower Merion definitely takes the cake for park visitors with a misplaced sense of entitlement.
Here allow me to share some comments that are reviews for these two awfully dog parks in particular in Lower Merion, including the one where the woman’s dog was attacked a few days ago:
I don’t pretend to have the answers here. But I do think Lower Merion Township needs to deal with the problems in their dog friendly parks because they’ve been going on for years. And I hope that poor woman’s dog gets its vet bills paid, and that the poor dog isn’t permanently scarred emotionally as an animal for life, and the same for the dogs’s owner.
And as for the guy proudly displaying his middle finger? Karma will always come back for people like that. That’s just a classless jackass in his natural habitat.
A final note for people out there who like to take their animals to these parks or who just like to walk their animals around in general and don’t think twice about going up to a stray dog: ask before you approach. Don’t assume it’s ok. I have a friend who has a dog that is reactive to other dogs when on lead, and people do this all of the time when she’s walking her dog. She asks them to not approach her and this one dog with their dogs, and they just ignore her. It’s the same with people who don’t instruct their children to ask before they approach a strange animal. These people need to just stop.
OK, that’s all I have to say about stupid human tricks today. Thanks for stopping by. 
Today is the winter solstice. Also called Midwinter; the Shortest Day; the Longest Night. It started at 4:21 AM. In a blink it was gone.
Although the winter solstice itself literally lasts only a moment, the term also refers to the day on which it occurs.
“With the turning of the wheel of time, let us keep our patience and rejoice in the winter solstice.”
~ Unknown
Since the dawn of time, winter solstice has been a significant time of year in many cultures and has been marked by festivals and rites.
Why? Some ancient monuments such as Newgrange, Stonehenge, and Cahokia Woodhenge are aligned with the sunrise or sunset on the winter solstice.
This all goes back to the new Stone Age or the Neolithic period. I find it fascinating and it’s amazing given the world in which we live that this is something that has lasted. And while this is sort of the shortest day of the year, it also marks the time when the days start lengthening again.
Winter Solstice embodies a moment of transition — a shift from darkness to light. The lengthening days following this pivotal point signify the gradual resurgence of warmth and vitality, breathing life back into the dormant landscapes.
Today is also the holiday of Yule. Celebrations include baking, so I will be doing more Christmas baking today. Yule originated in Scandinavia as a Norse festival called “Jol.” It was later absorbed into the Christian holiday of Christmas.
Many people will have a candle lit, so people find their way home and back into the light on the shortest day of the year.
By the time the winter solstice arrives each year, the sun sits at the lowest position in the sky it can.
So a fun quirky result is your shadow literally becomes longer and longer as winter solstice approaches. So, if you go outside at noon on the day of the winter solstice, your shadow will be the longest it will be all year.
In today’s messy Stepford world a lot of people have problems with the winter solstice because of its pagan roots. And I don’t know why they’re afraid of it. It is in almost every culture out there. Winter solstice, yes, has pagan traditions which in part focus on a spiritual connection with nature.
“Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.” ~Henry David Thoreau
I am neither pagan or wiccan, but I respect this day. There are plenty of things that have gone before us that maybe we don’t necessarily understand but it doesn’t mean we have to fear them either. They are just kind of part of the fabric of life.
I woke up today to unsolicited hate mail because you can’t be be different and on social media even personally. But this woman’s ire was solely due to enforcing rules of a social media group over something that didn’t include her at all. Quite literally I don’t even know the woman and she just inserted herself. The irony is this is a woman who in real life is not just a teacher, but she’s a special ed teacher in a Chester County elementary school. Reeceville. That kind of blows my mind because teachers know how hard it is to accomplish things some days because of the world in which we live. Yet here you have somebody who is supposed to be guiding impressionable young students who can’t even control her own behavior.
“This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year’s threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath.”
~ Margaret Atwood
And then there were all the people that felt the need to lambast me and comments to this site yesterday over my defending the neighbors who are having issues with the Pickleball at Upper Main Line YMCA in Easttown. These neighbors have all been pretty nice and I’ve been putting up with this and trying to work with this why for like a couple years it seems and they finally just had enough and here we have this newish sport that is supposed to be so friendly and happy and all these miserable people sending even me messages, including one local who was found out rather quickly, for imitating another friend of mine. I will note the person who was being imitated did the footwork and I’m actually amazed at how easy it was for him to find out who it was.
And once again, no one has ever said don’t have pickleball at that location. The neighbors would just like to be treated fairly and respected.
It used to be they disliked me online as a blogger because I wasn’t a mom Disney blogger or a mommy blogger. Then they hated me because I’m not exactly a lifestyle blogger talking about trends and getting free stuff. And I have nodesire to be an influencer and there are so many people that would die for such an honor.
So now I think it’s back to most simply put I am not someone who can be placed in a convenient, non/threatening cubbyhole.
It has been a year of people lashing out about everything. And I’m not just talking about my own personal experience as a blogger or just as a woman, I’m talking about life in general.
“People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.”
~Anton Chekhov
It has been a crazy, nasty year.
I think some people have absolutely zero boundaries after Covid and I think it even predates Covid. It’s been with the onset of social media.
So enjoy your winter solstice day and do something nice for friends or family. And you don’t have to like every opinion I put out there. You don’t have to like every opinion that anyone puts out there you can scroll past.
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”
Well I know this has been brewing a while but wowza. I feel sorry for the neighbors. I don’t play pickleball, so it means nothing to me. I have friends who play and love it. However I do know that it is unusually noisy.
I did a little nosing around and found out this has been going on for a while (as in more than a year? Maybe two years almost?) AND if you listen to the entire meeting somewhere a neighbor says pickleball courts were built without permits? I did a screen record of the meeting because Easttown has their meeting on You Tube but unlisted so that makes me think they could disappear so….
I found the Upper Main Line Y response ineffective. I am told that the Brandywine Y (which I guess owns them now?) has or has had similar issues? I remember a big issue when they wanted to put pickleball in Lionville a year or so ago.
So things about the meeting that made me laugh out loud: kind of asking Eattown to pay for or pay towards noise mitigation with some special fencing? Umm I am still wondering HOW they built the courts without permits?
Back to the meeting. The residents were well spoken and polite. Many of the Upper Main Line YMCA (“UMLY”) supporters and patrons…less so.
One person, can’t recall her name, was as rude and dismissive as could be…and is the apparent chair of the Willistown Planning Commission? Well we all know how Willistown residents get so wonder how she would be feeling if it was next door to her ?
Some of the patrons of UMLY were pleasant-ish and polite, as I mentioned. But so many of the others? Asshats with a misplaced sense of entitlement. I did not hear any neighbor say take away the pickleball courts, only that the noise HAS to be dealt with. Some of the most immediate neighbors, like on Longcourse Lane (a great street, incidentally) are showing by my research as being in Tredyffrin. So accomplishing anything is harder because UMLY is in Easttown.
Here is where UMLY is on the zoning map. Notice the R-1 AKA Residential:
Here is the another attachment – a land use table- I found in e code 360 on zoning:
So again, not a zoning professional. Not an attorney. But I can read. And I have to ask if UMLY is playing a game they can win? And yes I suggested a land use lawyer to a friend to pass along to the residents. Ask the residents in Narberth and even Willistown who have used this man and they will tell you worth every penny.
I added the lighting component of the zoning code because that is also a consideration. Hypothetically, lights might be on later than needed in part to liability concerns. However, I also have to ask WHY those courts are not locked up at the close of every day and even seasonally when it’s too cold to play pickleball or tennis for example? I am asking because residents said at this meeting where pickleball was continuing AFTER operating hours at UMLY? And I will note at present in Radnor an elite private girls school is being rude to neighbors with super daylight bright lights at night shining into windows of neighbors. They lock their courts but say they have to keep lights on and they are not down shielded so I have been told you can wake up at 1 AM and it’s like noon. That is light pollution and that also has serious environmental impacts. It affects bird migration and other things.
Residents are entitled to a reasonable expectation of quiet enjoyment, and people might like playing pickleball at UMLY but the residents do indeed have to be considered. And they are not being considered. Neighbors have apparently been trying to deal with this for a couple of years? These neighbors are far nicer than UMLY deserves. Personally I would have given them six months.
UMLY needs to be told a cautionary tale: the tale of Dink City Pickleball that opened for a brief time at Valley Forge Military & College….and closed because the neighbors in Tredyffrin had enough of the noise rather quickly.
Dink City Pickleball was forced to close due to a violation of the township’s R1 (residential) zoning code. The business received a notice of violation in July 2023, giving them 30 days to appeal or cease operations. No appeal was filed, and the business announced that August 14, 2023 would be its last day.
Finding the holy grail – a place to play pickle – just got easier, Main Line.
Two enterprising locals just opened what they say is the largest pickleball facility in the northeast: Dink City Pickleball at Valley Forge Military Academy & College.
And unlike YMCAs, country clubs, and Malvern’s new Bounce Pickleball, you pay only for your reserved court time. No need for a membership….With the tagline “community at play,” Dink City is more than cushioned courts, painted lines and regulation nets.
“It’s all the social things around pickleball that we offer – that’s the differentiator,” Norton tells SAVVY.
Think food trucks, corn hole and music on weekends, plus lessons, clinics, leagues, tournaments, pro shop, private events and birthday parties….“I love getting out on the court and getting a good sweat on,” says Norton who’s played pickle for nine years. “But just as much as that, I like hanging out with friends and family afterwards, maybe having a beverage or a taco or something from a food truck. That enhances the experience for everybody.”
The courts have lights for evening play and will be available year-round. “There are some hard core pickle-ballers out there who will play in the cold,” Norton says. “It’s like paddle – once you get moving, you warm up a bit.”…The two decided to cash in on the craze but make it community-oriented rather than an exclusive club. A real estate broker connected them to Valley Forge Military, which has been seeking new revenue streams to offset falling enrollment. (Since 2010, VFMAC has sold 20 acres to Eastern College, five acres to Bentley Homes, and most recently, 23 acres to developer Rockwell Custom for a new senior living complex.)
“The quickest win,” the partners say, was repurposing the lightly-used tennis courts on Radnor Road in the Tredyffrin section of campus. They loved the “heart of Wayne” location – a stone’s throw from St. David’s Golf Club and close to multiple schools, campuses and country clubs.
And if all goes well, outdoor courts in Wayne could just be the beginning for Dink City. VFMAC is in early talks to turn its equestrian center into a sports complex that might include Dink’s first indoor courts. Craft and Norton are also looking at properties in and around Philly and Maryland – although they haven’t yet quit their day jobs.
Yeah and then a few weeks later, it was sayonara Dink City, again I refer to Savvy Main Line:
IN A PiCKLE IN RADNOR. Just two months after they cut the ribbon on a popular new 16-court pickleball facility at Valley Forge Military Academy, Dink City Pickleball is closing.
The trouble began with a “handful of complaints” about noise from neighbors, according to Tredyffrin Zoning Officer Erin McPherson. When she investigated, she found the commercial business was operating in violation of the township’s R1 (residential) zoning code. She sent a notice of violation on July 14, giving Dink City 30 days to appeal for zoning relief or cease operations. No appeal was filed, she says, and today Dink City announced that Monday Aug. 14 will be its last day.
“This is not the end,” wrote owners Bryson Craft and Robbie Norton in an email. “Dink City will be back better and stronger than ever.”
The partners – both young local fathers and pickleball enthusiasts – had leased four lightly used tennis courts from Valley Forge Military Academy and invested big $$ converting them into a state-of-the-art pickleball center with leagues, clinics, “Dink and Drinks” nights, summer camps and more. (See our story in the June SAVVY – link in profile and scroll down.)
“We tried to resolve the issue with the township but they wouldn’t accept our proposals,” co-owner Craft tells SAVVY.
Dink City will refund Open Play memberships and any account balances as of Aug. 15
Pickleball noise is a real problem. There is even a group on Facebook devoted to it – all areas of US and Canada:
IMPULSIVE/IMPACT SOUNDS: By definition, an impact sound is simply the solid collision between two objects, such as hammering, dropped objects, a door slamming shut, metal-to-metal impacts, etc. Impulse sound is defined as the product of a force and duration with which the force is applied. More specifically, impulse is the time integral of force from an initial time to the final time, the force being time dependent and equal to zero before the initial time and after the final time (ANSI S1.1–2013). – ……. The measurement of impulse noise is becoming increasingly common within the industrial hygiene field. Issues for measuring impulse noise issues include dynamic range, frequency range, anti-aliasing, microphone/preamplifier/power supply, sampling rates, etc.. Whether an SLM, dosimeter, or computer-based recording system is used, good impulse noise measurements are not trivial to make. The limits of the microphones may be reached. The influence of nonlinear acoustics can dramatically affect the measurements. – Taken from The Noise Manual, 6th Edition.
Like many pickleball players, when I hear (another) story about how noisy pickleball is, I simply roll my eyes and spew a few snarky remarks about how some people just can’t let others have any fun.
So, you can imagine my response when I discovered there was a Facebook Group called the “Pickleball Noise Relief Group.”
My eyes rolled back, my lips curled, and I prepared to write something blasting a bunch of Karens for wanting to shut down pickleball.However, after a few conversations with the group’s leader, Nalini Lasiewicz, and actually listening to what they had to say, I realized that automatically labeling them as a pickleball hate group that just wanted to ruin our sport was completely off base.
And my preconceived notions about people complaining about pickleball noise couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Basically, I was … I am wrong. And so are many of us who think that pickleball doesn’t actually have a noise problem.
Because for these people and many others who are too afraid to speak up, it’s a serious problem that’s causing them health and mental issues.
Pickleball players: it’s time we admit that there is a pickleball noise problem.
Meet Nalini Lasiewicz
Nalini Lasiewicz is a resident of a Los Angeles suburb who first got involved with pickleball noise issues during the COVID lockdown….Nalini says this exact scenario has played out countless times since she became an administrator of the Facebook Group created by Rob Mastroianni, a Cape Cod resident who had to sell his family home due to the noise becoming too much to deal with.
The group is dedicated to finding and supporting others across the country in similar situations. For many, it’s a platform that allows them to find ways to regain the peace they’ve lost in their neighborhoods.
Look, NO ONE IS SAYING NO PICKLEBALL. But UMLY needs to do right by the neighbors. And that doesn’t mean Easttown Township and taxpayers should be paying for noise mitigation. And If Tredyffrin shut it down at Valley Forge Military Academy and College, zoning is not so different from municipality to municipality given that the Municipalities Planning Code of the Commonwealth of PA guides it all, correct?
I have no horse in this race, but I have been watching pickleball issues out of curiosity for a while. So Easttown and Tredyffrin residents near UMLY, I hear you and I am not hearing anything other than wanting your environment back. You aren’t being unreasonable. But UMLY and Upper Main Line Y? They are. And still I ask…how did they build pickleball courts without permits if that is indeed true?
Easttown Township needs to deal with this and not play kick the can. Tredyffrin Township could step into help residents if the supervisors can stop contemplating their collective navels long enough, yes? Expectation of quiet enjoyment? It’s a real thing. So pickleballers? This is a real issue. It’s not the noise you all are hearing, it’s what the residents are hearing and that is NOT the same thing.
Pay attention to the Model Noise Ordinance video I embedded here. They talk about the expensive anti-noise fences/barriers. They are discussing how it doesn’t work….
Ok Christmas is not going to decorate itself around here. Have a good night.
