I recently watched the movie version of the Judy Blume book, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. When the book came out, I was about the age of the main character, Margaret. I had just moved from the city to Gladwyne. I remember quite vividly it was like moving to a foreign country.
I remember everybody in seventh grade talking about the book. My mother wouldn’t let me read it, so of course I snuck / bought a copy. what I remember about the book most of the time is it kind of spoke to me because of the age. And also my being a new kid in a new community.
Moving to the Main Line wasn’t the easiest. Like Margaret, I had lived in the city so suburbia was truly alien to me at first. It was not that it was bad, it was beautiful but so different. You could open windows at night for one, and there were horses across the street, and down the road.
Making friends at almost 12 wasn’t as easy when you were a new kid trying to fit in with girls who were your grade but a year older and who have known each other since kindergarten.
Something that initially made it a little easier was that we lived close to a friend of my father’s from high school and he had a daughter my age. Because of her I did start to make friends but just like Judy Blume’s Margaret, I still struggled with my place in my new world. (And oh the parallels of my moving to Chester County in my late 40s and becoming a stepparent!)
Parts of the movie that were in the book so resonated once again included secret clubs of girls. I remember slumber parties where they tried to call up the spirit of Jim Croce on a ouija board.
And the whole bra thing. My sister who is 3 years younger than I is the one who decided we needed bras. I still remember my mother’s face when my then almost 9 year old sister announced we needed bras. Of course, neither of us actually did but much like the book/movie everyone around us had them.
And deodorant/antiperspirant. My friends used name brands back then like Secret. My mother came home with Tussy roll on. I hated that.
Sneaking to shave my legs the first time….and slicing the crap out of them. That was followed by a lecture from my father with how his mother never shave her legs. Of course that made me think of all those old Italian ladies his mother and my great aunts knew who tucked mint leaves under their arms in the summer and my 12 year old self wanted to die on the spot.
Ear piercing. I lost that battle. I actually got my ears pierced in the health center my freshman year of college. When I was 17.
When school started in 7th grade, I went from a room of not quite a dozen kids, to a huge public school junior high with a completely overwhelming amount of students. I went from a small school in the city to a huge school that was like a city in itself.
Settling in, the mean girls were the worst. Some I still see as pretty much the way they were then even if they are now 60. No, they aren’t still wearing their Candies with tight French jeans and crimping their hair, or at least I hope not. And I still remember exactly how miserable they were to me and others back then. Sometimes I have thought I should thank them because they helped make me able to stand up for myself.
I have seen some of the former mean girls over the years as they have passed. One thing that has always stuck with me is I thought they were ridiculous then, and to an extent, now. Some are actually almost mummified caricatures of their former 12 and 13 year old selves. File under karma baby, karma.
However do you know where the worst mean girls existed? St. John Vianney Sunday School in Gladwyne. There was a girl who was a year behind me that live the next street over who used to harass the crap out of me in Sunday school. And what was it over? Clothes my mother bought me that were similar to hers. Things like a jumper. A corduroy jumper.
One of my friends and I have spoken about these “Margaret years”. And while we all moved past those years, but some of the memories linger and pop up unexpectedly. And watching the movie did bring some of the memories back. Same era, age, situation…which is why I liked the book my mother didn’t want me to read back then.
Life for me changed for the better when I was able to get out of the Lower Merion School District Schools. When I went to Shipley, another world and path opened. And I was finally in a place where I felt I better belonged. Part of it was fairly simple in that I never thrived in large schools and that was OK.
I’m glad that book existed for us back then. It spoke to so many of us. Parents didn’t want us reading it because it was controversial to them and contemporary to us. That book was hard for our mothers who were literally born in a different world than the one they were raising us in.
So isn’t ironic today when we hear about people today trying to keep books contemporary to kids today from them? Only these people today scream and scream and scream. I’m glad our parents didn’t act like that. It was simpler: they said no, we snuck the Judy Blume books into our houses, and everyone survived. I don’t recall them being dissected and screamed about in PTA or school board meetings.
Maybe more should watch the movie adaptation of Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret. It still offers perspective. The years pass, the situations change, yet there is always commonality.
You see, much like with politics, with life in general past is prologue isn’t it? And that goes hand in hand with we can’t bury our history by pretending things didn’t happen because our history will repeat itself.
I will admit I don’t understand the religion of the Q. I have ordered a few things over the years like a garden hat or a plant I wanted to try. I have darkened the doors of your outlet store in Frazer once in a while, mostly out of curiosity. So I am not a devotee, merely familiar.
But let’s dish a minute, shall we?
That billboard is atrocious and you are still in West Chester and a lot of your on air folks live local so we know unless they live under a rock, people HATE this billboard yet here you are contributing to distracted driving and presenting a danger to nature and migrating birds? This billboard can be seen from space, not just at the intersection of Route 29 and route 30 in East Whiteland Township, Chester County
Then there is your outlet store. First of all, you make enough money that it should look nicer inside for both the customers and more importantly, your employees. The Goodwill store that used to be in the shopping center was better put together and looked nicer than your store..
But there is another problem with your outlet store. And the problem is you don’t do anything about the customers going shopping in your store that park on the sidewalk and in the fire lane. Your customers are not the only guilty ones, the others are the ones going to pick up their bottles at the liquor store.
So since you got your start, and Chester county, one, would hope you would have a little more respect for the residents where you have your outlet store. Some retailers around here have discovered that advertising on giant billboards are bad for business. You have a cult like following, so most likely you won’t have that problem, but there are the optics to be considered.
This is art history for me. The art history of my kid years. My friend Carolyn is selling her parents’ house in Philadelphia as her life is elsewhere. Both her late parents were heavily involved in the arts in Philadelphia. Her mother was “the quilt lady” of my childhood and I loved to watch her at the Head House Craft Fair. Recently, the lovely lady who was handling the disposition of things arrived with a box of treasures.
The first photo in this post is a wood block carving by Margery Niblock. I am thrilled this now lives with me. I think it’s so cool. Next is a poster from the Head House Crafts Fair.
The Head House Crafts Fair. It was such a wonderful event. Even though I was just a kid, i’ve never forgotten it. It’s kind of the thing I used to gauge I think subconsciously craft and community fairs. The artisans were amazing at this fair. And a lot of them were friends of my parents, and my mother is one of the key people who put it together after Margery Niblock said it would be a great idea. And my friend Carolyn’s mom was “the quilt lady.”
So these are amazing gifts and mean a lot. It’s funny how decades have gone by, and I can still see, feel, and hear the sounds of this craft fair in the Head House Shambles in my head. I remember that Margery Niblock, and some of the other artists had their work hung on clotheslines quite literally. And you were just see them a little bit in the breeze. It was very cool. And there weren’t just crafts people and artists there. There were antique dealers with treasures for all pocketbooks, and there were workshops for kids that were really cool and not dumb downed stuff with Play-Doh. And there was all sorts of food, representing many different cultures.
People undoubtedly think that all of us Society Hill kids of this mid-60s to mid-70s era are a little nutty because it was kind of cool to be a kid there then. It was a more innocent an era for kids, for sure. It’s not like life was perfect and that there weren’t kids dealing with crazy family stuff because that’s any era at any time, but there were truly good and fun things like this crafts fair. Or going to Old Swedes (Gloria Dei) for Santa Lucia…and back then they used real candles.
Also in the gift box of memories were a whole slew of unframed Margery Niblock prints, and a couple of the prints were framed. And there was a poster of the craft fair and the marvelous poster of a slightly later vintage designed for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society in 1989. This was the year Margery also won a garden contest of theirs. A couple of years ago, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society discontinued their home gardeners gardening contests, which I think it’s a pretty poor decision, and it kind of has made me lose interest in them along with some other factors.
This was a beloved time capsule entrusted to me as the next steward of it. I accept that responsibility with a glad heart. It’s art and memories I love and the work of an artist that means something to me.
Another amazing thing included with what was gifted to me was a small quilt made by Carolyn‘s mother. It’s a pattern similar to what I was photographed watching her make that day all those decades ago.
Also included? An amazing piece of an old quilt framed. I am sure this was a quilt that Carolyn‘s mother discovered somewhere that was too old to repair so she took the corner of the quilt that had the signature on it and framed it….from 1843.
In a time when people just throw good art away, I am both lucky and grateful that one of the former league of original Society Hill- St. Peter’s kids. And the thing about art is it doesn’t have to be priceless, it just has to resonate with you. If you go to charity sales, or flea markets, there is a lot of art that needs adopting. Adopt a piece today!
Some may consider this post a giant word salad. To me it’s just a collection of things, I have been observing and thinking about for almost a couple of weeks now.
Social media is literally the most fascinating, sociological character study of human nature and behavior that exists.
People want you to only believe their opinion matters. Even if you disagree with someone, the art of conversation is quickly disappearing. Especially online because you’re looking at words on a screen. Sometimes you can get with the emotion behind the words are but a lot of times you can’t, and it can always be a different interpretation because it’s words on a page and people see things differently.
But it’s all how they translate those words, right? Because no human voice means lots of room for interpretation, right?
One example is billboards as an issue are heating up again in Chester County. And I had this crazy interaction with this woman recently who couldn’t just disagree with other people’s positions, she was pretty ignorant about the thoughts of others. And this is someone who is asking for people to help her out with a project of hers on social media that is a business of sorts and she’s very public about it. But she’s one of these people that has to have the last word even when she’s a guest somewhere. And hey, if that’s her jam, that’s fine. But it doesn’t mean that I have to listen.
And that’s one of those things that is so frustrating about social media. Sometimes you just have those who drown out all of the other voices in an online conversation. Or anytime anyone disagrees with you or you them, they tell you that you are a bad person. When did not being a mirror image of everyone else become bad? Different = bad? We are all sheeple on the social media bus?
Speaking of sheeple let’s address the oh they are tops in their field because a magazine says so. Does anyone remember the who’s who books and directories of years gone by? You may have been chosen, but you pay for the privilege / listing. Same thing today with magazines.
Companies cash in by calling physicians “Super Doctor,” “Best Doctor” or “Top Doctor” and then selling them opportunities to boast about the honor. Experts call the accolades a “scam.” Giving me one highlights the absurdity.
My eyes narrowed when the woman on the voice message told me to call about my “Top Doctor” award.
They needed to “make sure everything’s accurate” before they sent me my plaque, she said.
It was a titillating irony. I don’t have a medical degree, and I’m not a physician. But I am an investigative journalist who specializes in health care. So I leaned forward in my seat with some anticipation when I returned the call last year. I spoke to a cheerful saleswoman named Anne at a company on New York’s Long Island that hands out the Top Doctor Awards. For some reason, she believed I was a physician and, even better, worthy of one of their awards. Puzzled and amused, I took notes.
I asked how I had been selected. My peers had nominated me, she said buoyantly, and my patients had reviewed me. I must be a “leading physician,” she said.
At this point, of course, it’d be tempting to dismiss the call, and the award, as ridiculous. But I knew such awards are the perfect dovetail of doctors’ egos and patients’ desperate need to find a good physician. Many patients assume that the awards are backed by rigorous vetting and standards to ensure only the “best” doctors are recognized. Hospitals and physicians lend credibility to the facade by hanging the awards in their offices and promoting them on their websites.
And now, for reasons still unclear, Top Doctor Awards had chosen me — and I was almost perfectly the wrong person to pick. I’ve spent the last 13 years reporting on health care, a good chunk of it examining how our health care system measures the quality of doctors. Medicine is complex, and there’s no simple way of saying some doctors are better than others. Truly assessing the performance of doctors, from their diagnostic or surgical outcomes to the satisfaction of their patients, is challenging work. And yet, for-profit companies churn out lists of “Super” or “Top” or “Best” physicians all the time, displaying them in magazine ads, online listings or via shiny plaques or promotional videos the companies produce for an added fee.
Sorry not sorry, had to get that out there because these top categories like the who’s who listings. People are asked but they pay for the privilege so isn’t it really just like an ad or marketing buy? ( See this link HERE for example.)
Yep this post is indeed jumping around.
I’m also always amused with who decides to hate me as a blogger. I make no secret of this.
This week I had this woman do the proverbial slide into my DM‘s. It was to tell me that I was a terrible horrible person and I was also not the right kind of breast cancer survivor. She did this shaming thing one time before, and I had forgotten about her because the insipid always fade away. Then this chick surfaced again, and was obsessive this time to the point where she contacted a friend of mine at 1:20 AM. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised because she contacted me that same overnight timeframe at 2:20 AM, where unless you are bat or on an overnight shift you should be asleep, or at least not sending people messages.
And that seems to be a growing trend, which is equal parts pathetic and disturbing. If you don’t like something that someone says on social media, you can’t just let it go or comment back, that’s too normal. In fact, these people are seeking out friends of whomever they don’t like saying something or that person themselves and private messaging. This woman this week in particular is perpetually the flying monkey of others. But she also seems to have a lack of self-awareness that what they’re doing is pretty freaking strange.
Speaking of strange recently, I heard from someone I literally have not heard from in a year. And it really was a not to say “hi” it was because they needed something from me. That’s actually hurtful. It make one feel like they are no longer an actual friend. Normally I’m happy to do things for people but when an entire year has gone by, it makes it a little difficult, or at least for me. And I realize life gets busy and time passes before you even know it, but still.…it hurts because it makes you feel like a use not a person. And I don’t even know if I’m articulating that properly.
I think it’s kind of a simple thing: when you make yourself available to people, who are your friends whenever they need somebody to talk to. You do it with a glad and open heart. After all, it’s a friend it’s someone you care about. And you don’t help your friends or listen to your friends because you’re keeping book. It’s not a tit for tat of I did this now you should do X. But it is a question of mutual consideration sometimes, I guess is the best way of putting it. It’s just one of those things in life that sometimes feels a little unfair. It’s not terminal to a friendship per se, but it makes you hit the reset button for a little while. And I think that’s OK.
But I think in general, the world’s gotten kind of scrambled in the past few years. I wish I could just say it was Covid, but I think it’s a lot of things rolled into a big ball of messy. I don’t think social media necessarily makes it better to you? I can’t really decide. I mean, it’s great that you can stay connected to people you wouldn’t normally be able to stay connected to easily, but then it’s the consideration of are we too connected? Are some of the mysteries of life just gone forever?
And the people still obsessed with the Main Line. They still don’t get that even though it’s the nouveau Main Line and not the old Main Line, they still kind of have to be invited into certain circles. And it’s painful to watch.
In other hands-down welcome to the occasional bizarro world this week was a conversation with a local police department, that was not my own. This very nice detective called to tell me that they were closing the investigation on me and I hadn’t done anything wrong. Of course, I didn’t actually know someone was investigating me.
Why you ask, would somebody be investigating me? Has to do with a public figure which is what is even crazier.
Why?
Because it seems a little crazy that you have someone who says they are a public figure, and behaves in the matter of a public figure, wanting to be an influencer or something, who called this police department when essentially they want people to look at them all of the time? They called this police department essentially because they didn’t like something I said, as a blogger about something things posted publicly. Again this is a person who operates as a self proclaimed, public figure. And then, of course, there is that pesky little thing called the First Amendment, right?
Part of this scenario involved pointing out what looked like another Facebook account with their posts on it. So I literally said either they got hacked/cloned or they created another profile with their stuff on it and why? Will I admit, I was slightly sarcastic about it? Yes, but that’s not a problem or illegal. It’s opinion/amusement. And if someone was truly impersonating them, say thank you for pointing it out. But no, I was accused of creating that odd public profile.
Obviously, I didn’t.
And think about it logically: if you were going to go out of your way to create a fake public profile on a public figure would you tell everyone? I hate to break it to this guy, but I create fan pages on saving farms and historic houses and historic sites. Not people.
So this person, a public figure, who self brands as a public figure, who posts pretty much public everything except perhaps changing the toilet paper roll, has come a wee bit unglued in my opinion. Also perfectly legal. They went on to tell this nice detective that I had been essentially bothering his family too? I don’t know his family, and people who know me, and who have known me as a blogger know that one of the things I don’t is talk about someone’s partners, spouses, or children. And again, this is a person who lives life out loud publicly on social media as a public figure, including photos of their minor aged children. Even a lot of the people in Bravo’s reality franchises don’t post things about their kids all of the time.
So now, as I end the week, people are discovering if they choose to like my blog’s social media on Facebook, this public figure blocks them? Has Facebook definitely become the battles of middle school lunch tables? You can know them on social media, but you can’t like my posts? Is this for real or is this a coincidence or just pretzel logic? And even if it is for real it’s not the real world we should be living in is it? People you do what you want. I don’t see social media as a popularity contest.
And these weird things don’t just happen to me although this week it feels like it. These things happen to lots of people out there. it’s the world we’re living in. So sometimes you just have to like ask yourself if we are better since the onset of social media or worse?
I don’t quite know where to go sometimes with what people post on social media. I am sure people feel the same about me at times. But I like to live in the real world, so when people question something I post, it’s often because it’s not their limited comfort level and/or it’s not happy enough and farting rainbows and unicorns and butterflies.
Another somewhat related segue…. like little things I miss. For example, don’t you miss the art of real letter writing, and even thank you notes? Do you remember growing up and being excited to get a letter? Or feeling touched that someone cared enough about something you did to send you a note or perhaps a thank you note? It’s like with the onset of social media, those things don’t happen anymore. And I’m sad because I still like stationary. I still use stationary.
Other things I miss is being able to have conversations with people and even if you are on the opposite sides of an issue, it’s still a great conversation and you walk away friends. Now it’s whoever gets all the toys wins, and you even see that reflected in our politics from the most local of races and issues through to Washington DC. It’s not and never will be a recipe for success IMHO.
It used to be that people did things they felt were meaningful because it was the right thing to do. Not because they wanted people to adore them on social media, and the reality is the quiet doers of this world are still out there, but they don’t post about it on social media.
I’m thinking all of us should do a social media detox once in a while. Just take a time out not because anything is wrong and we know we really won’t suffer from FOMO fear of missing out. Use that time to check in with your friends in real time. Take a walk work in the garden look up at the sky and admire life. Get fresh perspective. Cook something. Go shopping just because.
Too much? I don’t think so. How many of these GIANT ELECTRONIC OUTDOOR TV’s are supposed to light up our nights? We aren’t I-95. But now Outfront Advertising wants us to think so.
Yes, that is right, ANOTHER billboard application has been filed in East Whiteland Township. Another kill the trees for the Route 202 billboard. The application says 103 Feet East of Mill Lane.
To be clear, because I may not be being clear, this M-700 Application by Outfront Advertising AKA BILLBOARD COMPANY is to REMOVE and potentially unnaturally trim 150 year old sycamore trees not a brand new billboard per se. It FEELS like a new billboard because they are the successor owners to Catalyst. Catalyst had previously filed an M-700 with PennDOT after killing a slew of trees and then there was serious community uproar, and then before a decision was ultimately made if I recall correctly, the application was withdrawn and then the site flipped from Catalyst to Outfront.
This is next to a PARK and residents, as in real affected people. Like last time, it would be a heinous act with environmental, highway, and residential impacts. We are an area that floods now and badly with every heavy storm. Tree removal = more erosion and other impacts with stormwater impact. Overall environmentally this is bad and these are OUR heritage trees. Why do we have to lose more heritage trees in our communities for billboards? Scenic highways, would that be so bad? Less distractions, being more environmentally friendly?
East Whiteland Township is OPPOSED to this new application.
But East Whiteland needs your help, especially but not limited to residents. If you travel this stretch of Route 202 regularly, PLEASE take the time to contact PennDOT and CC: Scott Lambert, Chair of the East Whiteland Township Supervisors. I will provide some lovely email address I have looked up in a moment, but you can also report your concern via their Customer Care Center: https://customercare.penndot.gov/eCCC/eCCC.nsf
YOU MUST BE POLITE AND PROFESSIONAL, NO PROFANITY PLEASE.
At the end I will embed the actual documents I received on a Right to Know. But now a word about billboards as an issue. EVERY SINGLE TIME the issue comes up, the knee jerk response is “get rid of all of the elected officials.”
It’s not that simple, people, and neither should any of you be when it comes to this.
And you know, as well as I do that things with development are not always so simplistic because of the municipalities planning code. Billboards also come in to play with that, because if Pennsylvania had a more strict or defined policy about billboards as a state, it would have a trickle down effect to local zoning, and Pennsylvania kind of looks the other way which is why I am FOR different State Representative representation here for example. State Representative Kristine Howard does not do much of anything and does not have a voice for her constituents. We now have Katie Muth as our State Senator and I don’t know enough about her to have an informed opinion. At this point other than from what I have seen, she does stand up for her constituency, depending upon the issue. Maybe she will show an interest in helping save communities against billboards, or one can only hope.
You all know how I feel about billboards. I’ve never made a secret of it and I’ve been parts of groups fighting billboards since billboards were first proposed around 2010 in Bryn Mawr on Lancaster Avenue.
When billboards first became an issue in East Whiteland, some of the community were all gung ho, and formed a no billboards group. But those people soon fizzled out and didn’t go to meetings they weren’t speaking up and it was just left to a few people. People are not consistent with participating where they live. And everybody has a different reason, but the thing is people have to pay attention to the meetings and the schedules and what’s being submitted and it’s all there as public information. With regard to township meetings you can also attend them on zoom from the comfort of your home. You don’t have to be in person anymore and if you can’t attend them on zoom, you can watch them after on YouTube but people have to participate. Consistently.
Part of the problem is that more residents need to get involved where they live — as in East Whiteland and elsewhere. We can’t blame government for our lack of participation where we live.
When these billboards first came up the threat of the expense of prolonged litigation was real (look at Haverford Township and Lower Merion for real world examples.) This was like the one billboard that the billboard guy really wanted, but he had proposed three, so it was either they were going to accept this one billboard and the other billboards would go away or there would’ve been three like this within a mile and a half to 2 miles. People will have to go back and look at the original submissions. (http://www.eastwhiteland.org/418/E-Whiteland-Outdoor-LLC-Off-Premises-Sig )
Now I will admit that I think they could have said no, but the township felt compromise was in everyone’s best interest. Of course we now know how obnoxious that sign is, so perhaps that sign can be revisited by PennDOT and East Whiteland?
Once again, I ask people to start bombarding state elected officials, including the freaking governor to update the Municipalities Planning Code to protect where we live. It requires them to enact an act of the state constitution to do this, and they’re all too damn lazy to do it and this has to be done in Harrisburg. We need a top down STATE law solution to SAVING our communities from billboard blight.
I just don’t want people throwing the baby out with the bathwater because not all elected officials are bad. And we need to come together on this issue for real. Again.
Here are the documents I have to share below. I am also sharing something from Scenic America. I don’t pretend to have the answers but please contact PennDOT. Time is of the essence. If you have media contacts, please impress upon them to cover this.
Saying NO to billboards IS possible. It doesn’t happen often enough, but it does happen. Phoenixville did it in 2012, remember? And a Chester County Judge upheld that decision in 2014. And special counsel to Phoenixville then is now a judge…Anthony Verwey. And Tredyffrin won their case this year saying NO to a billboard on Lancaster Avenue in Paoli.
Stronger together, people. Fighting billboards is not the purview of any political party. This is a non-partisan we live here but the billboard companies don’t live here kind of an issue. This is purely a We The People thing. Please stand up and be heard.
Together we can save 150 year old trees. Hopefully we can someday save our communities completely from billboard blight. But we can only do that as unified communities across Pennsylvania.
Today I have been fielding an absurd amount of comments about that. And in one case yes, I was rude about it because this whole issue within a real issue pisses me off. People have become so self absorbed in this world that they often don’t get that sometimes you just need to let people simmer down when they are pissy. I would say today some learned that about me.
Let me break it down for y’all:
Those public meetings post-Cavalcante were designed so people could express HOW they felt. I expressed how I feltpolitely, and what I said was said calmly without rancor. I felt some of our public servants and prison board members could have been more visible. I said that because we elected them, and seeing them there even if they weren’t speaking during that time would have bought residents comfort. Even if it was law enforcement out there protecting us, many of those folks were not locals, so to see the ones we elected and recognized just from a visibility standpoint is calming. It makes people feel better in the midst of chaos. It’s common freaking sense, and IMHO part of the job they signed up for.
For expressing my opinion, as well as others expressing theirs, a couple of commenters decided to chide in the form of “education”. Those people have since contacted me. One I am fine with, the other not so much. Perhaps my feelings will change, perhaps not. Sadly, the still don’t get it wasn’t their job to womansplain or defend the honor of the CCDC to anyone there speaking. That is the job of elected officials and the prison board. Further and to the point, as Americans we do have those in alienable rights which allow us to address government and politicians to express ourselves. And these folks did this at a public meeting which means I am well within my rights to express my feelings on the topic. Truthfully, this all would have been over yesterday had they just let me be after venting my spleen on the topic.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
~ First amendment/ Constitution of the United States
I do not pretend to be right all of the time, and even if it kills me I will own when I am not. But I was not wrong yesterday and we had the right to express ourselves freely in that forum if we were comfortable. I felt expressing what I said was important, and truthfully, I do not speak often at public meetings anymore. Which truthfully, many should be grateful for.
The overly politically correct world we live in mixed with all of the babble of misinformation we stumble across on a daily basis is almost depressing. I remember the good old days when we had magical things called conversations even at large in the community and even when we were on opposing sides of the conversation whatever it was. Now life has turned into this inexplicable race to be whomever gets all of the toys wins, and well people that is NOT working is it?
Sometimes I think people just like to suck all of the oxygen in the room in general. This has nothing to do with politics in particular. It’s just life. We can’t control those people, only ourselves, and well, I am a verbal person and sometimes I will indeed tell someone off. And that’s OK.
Life is hard enough without all of those who would tell us how to breathe every minute of the day.
I would like to share something else briefly. It’s a follow-up on the Hood Mansion in Montgomery County (Limerick Township.) I wrote about her the other day here:
Now I would like to share an update from my friend Tyler Schumacher who has an update after the meeting this week – there are 120 days left to save the Hood Mansion and that area from mega warehouses –
I’d like to thank everyone who has supported me in this trying time with the Hood Mansion.
Many of you who know me well, understand the importance this building has to me.
I feel as though the Hood Mansion story is so heartwarming, yet so plagued with tragedy throughout its lifetime. I will admit this is long, but worth a read if you have the time.
John McClellan immigrated to this country at just 21 years old, raised 13 children, and made a name for himself selling wholesale grocery.
Fearing for his children’s health during the summer in Philadelphia when yellow fever was an issue, he bought this property and erected a mansion he designed himself, based off a home he admired as a young boy in Ireland. His family enjoyed many lovely summers there, and they were especially proud of their son, Washington Hood. A captain in the US army corps of engineers, and well accomplished.
Tragedy struck when Washington contracted a disease during his journeys, ultimately passing away from it at a young age. Heartbroken, John and his Wife interred him at the family crypt, located just near the mansion they loved and called home and erected a monument in his honor. John passed away less than a decade later, being interred with his son in the family crypt.
When all was set and done, 15 of the Hoods resided together in the family crypt within viewing distance of the home they all loved and cherished. The home passed through generations of Hoods until it ultimately had to be sold during the 30s when the Great Depression hit the nation. Luckily, one of the Hood daughters married into a wealthy family who purchased it.
Meanwhile, the Hoods still slept peacefully in their family crypt surrounded by those they loved and the place they cherished.
Tragedy strikes yet again, when a group of teenagers break into the crypt in the mid 30s, and take their beloved son Washington’s skull and use it as a prank on a local resident. Mysteriously, those teenagers passed in a freak car accident not long after.
Fast forward to the 1960s, and the entire crypt is desecrated. Grave robbers break in and steal anything of value left on the Hoods, topple the monument to Washington Hood, and scatter the bones around the crypt. Luckily, the caretakers of the mansion at that time moved what they could behind the home they cherished and reinterred them for safety.
Fast forward to modern day, and the Hoods are yet again to be destroyed in grand fashion as a developer has come in to destroy what is left of their legacy, and their love of family, and replace it with warehouses and a retaining pond.
Someone has to stand up for them, for their home, and for their legacy. They certainly can’t do it – and I’ll be dammed if I let it happen without giving it my every last bit of effort.
If you read this far – thank you. And thank you for supporting my work, and me for many years.
Things like the Hood Mansion matter. Don’t let her get lost to bad development like Happy Days Farm in Exton will be. Hood Mansion is suffering the way Lionville Station Farm is, and Downingtown Area School District has the ability to change the fate of Lionville Station Farm and haven’t. I hope the negative election issue the DASD has created for themselves will be worth it.
This weekend we are being visited by a storm called Ophelia. She might be a real charmer. At a minimum she is messing with our weekend. The weather is already starting to change. I will close with Ophelia by the Lumineers.
I will freely admit I am a bit salty about Farmer in the Westtown Dell’s latest post. The message is clear even if that is not actually her intent: if you aren’t with her, you’re against her. So is it you can only worship, you CANNOT raise or voice concerns about how things look (you know like the mowing issues), and you can’t say anything else? If you do, is there a shade of shade of inference none too subtly that anyone who has anything other than glowing praise and accolades is a racist?
Come on, really?
See this Instagram post from 2 days ago:
From Farmer Jawn Instagram (Public Post) 3 Days ago
So yes I wrote a post about the way the place formerly known as Pete’s Produce looked. And this was after an email blast to her followers came out. And by her I am referring to Westtown’s New Farmer in the Dell, Ms. Barfield.
That email hit a bad chord in me. I felt as if those of us expressing concern were being chided for expressing valid concerns about how everything looked. Lady, it’s called communication and that is not necessarily one and the same as an Instagram post is it?
So I wrote about it and how I felt. It’s my right is it not? I was not being racist. But I had people saying I was and messages that were vile.
So let’s back up (again.) When they first announced Ms. Barfield was the new farmer, I was welcoming with a couple of basic questions – essentially concerning the Pete’s workers who had worked that farm for in some cases, years, and would she be hiring any of them. Here verbatim is what I said at the time (December 9, 2022) :
I welcome a new farmer to continue the tradition of Pete on this land. BUT with Pete, retiring, a lot of his workers are now unemployed, so I hope since so many of them worked so hard for him for so many years that this new farmer will adopt some of his workers as hers. What I am hearing Westtown School is that might not be so?
Truthfully, I thought it was kind of cool initially when she was chosen because she was a female farmer. I did not object to the switch to organic farming, but I will still repeat what I initially said because I know organic farmers: it is a BIG process. Going organic and getting organic certification is a lot of hoops, and expensive. I also noted it doesn’t happen overnight.
These are a sampling of the 250 comments on the Instagram post that I found distasteful:
BUT I have a huge problem with the way I feel those of us out here who are essentially being told we are racists because we asked what was going on over there and can anyone understand this? That is wrong. I am not a racist and I have read through all of the 277 comments (or that was how many at last count.) Just because someone is not your race and says “hey I don’t like something happening” that is not racist. People aren’t saying because she is a black farmer or even a female farmer that she is bad or can’t do the job. They are also NOT saying she shouldn’t own farm land. Out here specifically people were referring to how run down parts of the property looked because the freaking weeds weren’t cut along the sides of the road leading into the market area. Sometimes things are just about what people say. Sometime it’s not more or bad or wrong.
People did try to have a conversation about this on this Instagram post. Like one lady said and I quote:
I find what bothers me the most is that conventional farmers such as Pete and others are made to sound as if they are horrible stewards of the earth. I wish you the best but please respect all farming practices. There’s nothing unhealthy about the soil on that farm.
One of the replies this person received was horrible. She was told she had white logic essentially and what the offensive same hell does she mean? Just like the subsequent comment to someone else asking about “your species”? I am sorry was this person an alien?
And then there are the locals who feel they have to literally suck up and say that they are so sorry everyone is so negative and change doesn’t come easily and please forgive everyone for the negativity. The negativity is primarily coming from the supporters of Farmer Jawn. And yes, I agree change doesn’t come easily. But it’s all about how the change is presented.
Let’s review: when Westtown first announced the new farmer of that land people were excited. The land would stay farmed and not become a crop of cheap plastic mushroom houses. Then it was nothing really, including the weeds which didn’t get cut for months. That made people wonder and worry, myself included. I was not racist on my comments and am not a racist but yeah I am damn straight going to react to words like raggedy. And when I have never made the race or sex of this farmer (or any other farmer) an issue, why is she saying that is why people are asking questions?
Newsflash, Ms. Barfield, people asked questions and had understandable concerns considering how well tended the land had been by the last steward of the land even if he wasn’t organic. I will note he wasn’t exactly a straight Round Up farmer, either. He was just a conventional farmer, not organic. But for what it is worth conventional farmers I know do employ a lot of organic practices even if they do not have the organic official status because of the expense of becoming certified organic. This farmer could have played this straight and allayed fears people had. But she really has not in my opinion. And that is why I am finding this Instagram you did offensive to those of us who live here.
And that is the thing of it: you are the new steward of the land but you are unknown except for your social media out here in the community you are entering into. And you have kind of been putting this combative vibe out there. It’s not warranted. Life is difficult enough at times without that. Just because I am white doesn’t make me a bad person does it? So why would you assume I judged you by the color of your skin? I didn’t. And I won’t.
Ms. Barfield. I do not have a problem with either your mission or your vision. I do still wonder if the Westtown land will be too much and too expensive for you long term, but that isn’t wishing you ill or implying you can’t do it. I am not slamming you as a female farmer of any creed or color. What I have a problem with is anyone implying folks have a racial angle if they ask questions about your Westtown farming. That will not engender good will in the community you wish to be a part of.
Farming like gardening is kind of like life, especially when you are cultivating. Because lady, people require cultivation too. I was planning to show up and support you when you announced your August 18th opening. I was happy to hear this. But then came your Raggedyness post on Instagram and those comments. Now, I will get there when I get there.
My business in particular doesn’t matter a hill of beans, and I know that, but what I am saying that may resonate, is that if we had questions or reservations at all, are we really actually welcome as potential customers?
A customer wants to feel welcomed. That’s a pretty simple tenet of customer service.
Ms. Barfield, FarmerJawn, I wish you the best, but I am never one who will mince words when something strikes me as wrong or unfair.
There are things that we experience in our lives that we don’t wish on other people because it’s just hard. And it’s sad and it’s a lot of emotions. One of those things I am talking about is hospice.
We lost a family member this week after a very fast dance with terminal cancer. My father in law. The diagnosis took everyone by surprise. And the thing about hospice is you don’t know is if it is going to be fast or is it going to be slow and you have to prepare for both.
The hospice was done in our home. And to be honest, I am still processing how it felt. It’s hard. Your house takes on an unnatural stillness you’re trying to keep everything calm and peaceful for the person on hospice.
People have said to me things like I’m so brave for doing this and what was the other thing? Oh, that I was doing God’s work for having someone here on hospice. I don’t think I deserve those accolades. Hospice was really emotionally difficult for me, right or wrong. Also right or wrong I was terrified through most of it. It’s super stressful.
You are faced with a person who was once completely full of life, fading away, inch by inch hour by hour minute by minute. Watching it is almost indescribable at times. It’s part of the natural cycle of life, but death doesn’t actually come softly. Death let’s itself be known and steals someone from you even if they have lived a long and good life and you are going to miss them.
I am really not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but hospice is complicated, especially emotionally. And you hate seeing anyone in pain. And that’s the hospice patient and the other family members around you. This is why before I go any further in this post, I want to thank the hospice people we had. They were nothing short of amazing. And that’s every nurse, the social worker, and the people delivering and picking up the hospice equipment. The nurses were Amy and Christie and Ashley. The triage nurses on the phone included. Brandy, Kathy, Charlene, and Christa. Betsy was the social worker. And Beth who set it all up.
Who did we use? AseraCare in Eagleview in Exton. We ended up choosing them just by chance. We had called a couple of different people, including Penn Hospice. Everyone we spoke with was lovely, but it was just the timing which had us land with AseraCare in the end.
Hospice workers and hospice nurses I really believe do God’s work on earth. I am in awe of what they do, and have nothing but mad respect and admiration. These women who helped us, helped make it make sense. This was really hard, and I had so many doubts that I could even do this in my own house, because I was just scared. At first, it’s just like having a long-term houseguest, but then the hospital bed gets delivered and it gets very real, very fast.
And then it’s over. It’s a whirlwind, and when it ends the world gets very still, and then peaceful again. And you start to sleep again. Because having someone on hospice in your house is like almost having a new baby, you don’t really sleep because your ears are always open for sounds. It gives a whole new meaning to sleeping with one eye open. Now we also deal with loss. Loss and the complexity of emotions when you lose someone.
In the middle of all this all going on, you still have regular life all around you. For me as a blogger, people continued to message me all hours and leave comments, continued to ask if I could help on things and I accommodated people as best I could. But when you are trying to do regular every day life combined with something somewhat extraordinary and unusual, like hospice, you sit back and you take stock. Among other things , you are just tired.
I find I am increasingly intolerant with the way people act on social media. Everything is an argument, everything is a challenge, and it flows over into the real world. No one can have a conversation anymore. I realize I’ve talked about this before but it really hit home during this time.
After pondering during this time in my family’s life , I have decided I’m doing a little simplifying. Instead of being worried about the feelings of others, even though I know quite realistically I am not responsible for the feelings of others, I’ve decided it’s time to put myself first. I am just not going to be the whipping girl for those who don’t like my opinion any longer. Whether it’s overt or passive aggressive, I just am done. It’s human nature that you don’t want to disappoint people, but I’ve decided I can’t take that on as a mantle. It’s not my responsibility.
People can either be polite, even if they don’t agree with me, or they can simply not be in my space. This is why there are a few of you this week have found yourself on the outside. I have just decided life is simply tooshort. No one is ever forcing anyone to read Chester County Ramblings or be in a Facebook group I run. I have never expected everyone to agree with everything I write because that’s not humanly possible we’re all individuals. But I’m done with the behavior which I don’t feel is acceptable. You might think it’s fine. It might be fine someplace else, but perhaps not so fine with me. And how I feel actually matters.
So that’s it for me. Our world is a study in life and death. As humans, we don’t have time for BS.
I can’t even with Chester County right now. It’s CRAZY. As in crazy train crazy.
Where to start?
Ok the first thing was the husband or partner of Caln Commissioner Lorraine Tindaro named Michael Bedrick who is all in with Chester County Democrats going to jail for child porn? And when I wrote about it I felt like Lorraine Tindaro was a victim of sorts in all of this because I am fairly certain she’s over 70 and his actions have quite literally blown up her life.
Also to add to that because it IS Caln is this was the same guy cited for some property condition issues wasn’t he?
See? I am not making this up. So he’s in prison, what happens to Lorraine with all of this craziness? I am not advocating for her, don’t know her, but I think she deserves compassion. However, I am also not saying I think she should necessarily stay a commissioner in Caln, either. If I had been hit by the Mack Truck of life like she has been recently, I don’t quite see how she will be able to do her job as a commissioner in Caln but hey, just my opinion.
However, oddly enough, that wasn’t the part of my opinion on this that upset certain folks. It was saying have compassion since her husband or partner’s decisions and choices just blew up her life at a time when most are just wanting to contemplate retirement, etc. And oy vey, some of the comments I got from one person. Yes, I did finally tell that person to STFU before I removed them and all the comments and blocked them. Which is my right and not against the law even on Facebook. Their comments went TOO FAR. They were making people uncomfortable. But then there were the boundary issues of it all where someone gave them my personal email address and after their messaging on Facebook was ignored, and yes they went there. Sigh. Calgon take me away.
Did I tell them to STFU? Yes I did and maybe they did not like that, maybe saying that was not nice but also not illegal. Also no Papal ring to kiss. And if I choose not to engage vis-à-vis what I felt to be an unwanted contact via messenger and just quietly blocked them there, how do they think a creepy AF email to my personal email address which I did not provide them with would be received? Kisses and flowers?
And if we are going all Chesco D for DEMOCRAT when it comes to the Chester County Democrat Committee is it still practicing Democrap behavior this year? Remember the spring primary and their candidategate? Here let’s refresh:
That was a fun post, right? I somehow don’t think Charlotte Valyo thought so. I bet her knickers were in a twist when her email to a local paper got leaked? And then there was the who ridiculousness kerfuffle of oh a blogger published that they must also be corporate espionage types who hack email, right? Except the truth of the matter is the Chester County Democratic Committee much like their GOP counterparts are like a leaky boat. People aren’t happy and others overshare, yes?
So Charoltte, dear dear Charlotte launches a very GOP eve- before- election- trick. It backfired and gave her optics that were deservedly terrible for pulling a bitch trick because at a minimum she and her cronies are TERRIFIED of independent candidates and try to squash then at every turn so everyone runs lockstep behind mommy and her clucking political chickens, right? Well guess what? Her case and her minions known as the filing five seem to have ended this case that was going to do so much?
So Charlotte darling, what’s next? Are you all besties once again with failed judicial candidate State Rep Kristine Howard? Did you investigate her filings then too? Was she squeaky clean? Can I get out the popcorn anytime soon because you KNOW someone will primary her don’t you? And Charlotte, has anyone read the comments under this post:
Charlotte someone remembers you from your days on the board of the Phoenixville Country Club or something? Something to do with an issue described as a “bail out” from Schuylkilll Township? Seems very dirty laundryish but is there anything to the comments left? Part of this one stuck out when they said:
Past is prologue. On either count, strong oversight and judgment doesn’t appear to be a well honed skill.
Now this Phoenixville Country Club thing is not my story to tell. But it sure gives one pause yes?
And from the county level politically ridiculous we move along to Roostergate 2 in Willistown. Now there’s some fun. Hate mail a plenty. Messages, text messages, emails, messages to this blog. One of my favorites was this to the purchased manor born who told me to go back to Delco or something. I am not from Delco, but amusingly the poisonous pen pal was. It was such a bye post menopausal girlmoment. And for those who like to say there is nothing about roosters in Willistown, well there was something and then mysteriously it was not signed even though the prior Roostergate, Roostergate 1 should have made it common sense clucking or something. And Roostergate 1 indicated some judge described rooster rules, but whatever. Just keep getting roosters and siccing people on me for my opinion. Nevermind the poor neighbors, right? Talk to the hand, people. I love chickens, don’t like roosters.
Roostergate I found that umm yeah the rooster was a nuisance ….
noun. nui·sance ˈnüs-ᵊns, ˈnyüs- : something (as an act, object, or practice) that invades or interferes with another’s rights or interests (as the use or enjoyment of property) by being offensive, annoying, dangerous, obstructive, or unhealthful. — attractive nuisance.
Oh and Willistown does actually have a noisy bird thing in their codes and the meeting the other night indicates this issue is not just in one place in Willistown:
So then we move from this bit of crazy train over to West Whiteland a couple of meetings ago:
So that is obviously a dicey neighbor situation. And painting profanities on a fence to upset a neighbor? That’s crazy town no matter how you are provoked.
This apparently was over fence boundaries? But the strife that was between the neighbors made you wonder back on May 10th, where were the police? I mean they keep the peace, right? It’s not always a “civil matter” is it? These people seem to live in between both Uwchlan and West Whiteland so there’s that. Betwixt and between two municipalities.
This was crazy train enough and then last Friday there were rumors of another neighbor on neighbor incident over there and someone got stabbed and was in the hospital? yet NOTHING until media reports yesterday?
AND STABBED? In that neighborhood? I don’t know anyone over there but friends in both townships say it’s a nice regular neighborhood which has the drawback mostly of kind of being in two townships. So then nothing is said by Uwchlan who responded although there is a court docket:
So this is hanging out there and one guy neighbor is in the ICU at a local hospital and the other guy neighbor is in jail? This is not normal this is crazy town and two families are blown up over this and two townships….yet it took until the media started asking questions for Uwchlan Township Police to issue a statement? WHYYYYYY? And I have to ask, could this have been prevented?
UWCHLAN — An apparent ongoing dispute between two neighbors in the Exton area turned bloody last week as a resident of a suburban cul-de-sac was arrested and charged with stabbing another man during a street-side confrontation.
Uwchlan police were called to the North Valley Hills neighborhood on Thursday for the report of a physical fight between neighbors that resulted in the victim being stabbed with a folding knife. The victim was taken to the hospital, where he is reportedly still recovering from his wounds.
Charged was Glenn Phillips, a 53-year-old security consultant and resident of Rennard Drive, located not far from Downingtown East High School off Biddle Drive. He was taken into custody on Friday and is currently being held on $250,000 cash bail at the Chester County Prison.
Phillips is facing charges of the attempted murder of Charles Oswald, a first-degree felony; aggravated assault and assault with a deadly weapon, also felonies; simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and possession of an instrument of crime. He is scheduled to have a preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Paige Simmons of Uwchlan on June 26.
Defense attorney Ryan Hyde of the law firm of Hyde Tebay of Uwchlan, who is representing Phillips, said his client intended to fight the charges and claim self-defense.
“It is a very difficult situation, and we are looking forward to our day in court to exonerate Mr. Phillips,” Hyde said Tuesday in a telephone interview.
In a statement, Oswald’s wife, Marnie Oswald, said her husband was still in serious condition at Paoli Hospital on Tuesday. He has a collapsed lung, a tube in his chest, and internal bleeding, she said. “We’re not out of the woods yet.”
The dispute between the two men apparently concerns competing claims — about a fence ….The Phillips live in Uwchlan, while Oswald’s home on Biddle Drive is in West Whiteland. The township line divides their properties.
Details of the incident are included in the affidavit written by Uwchlan Sgt. Stephen Saraceni does not describe what the confrontation the two men had last week concerned, only to say that there was a “physical fight.”
Saraceni wrote that he responded to a call for a stabbing at about 5:45 p.m. on June 15 at the intersection of Rennard Drive and Biddle Drive. There, he saw Oswald standing next to his white Transit work van with no shirt on. He had a large amount of blood on his neck and chest area, and the officer saw a large cut on the right side of his neck.
Saraceni also saw Phillips sitting on a curb across the street from his home in the 400 block of Rennard Drive. Close to him was a large pool of blood in the roadway, the officer wrote. He was able to determine that there had been an altercation between the men and noted in the report that “Phillips stabbed and slashed Oswald with a folding knife, causing significant injury, namely two stab wounds to his torso and back and a slash to the right side of his neck.”…The violence of the attack is out of the ordinary for Uwchlan, where serious crime is low, even though it is among the county’s most populated municipalities….
Problems between the neighbors go back several months, according to both sides.
At a May 10 meeting of the West Whiteland Board of Supervisors, Phillips’ wife, Angela Phillips, appeared to discuss the ongoing property dispute between her family and Oswald, over the fence, which encroached on her yard. She said numerous attempts in 2023 to get the fence removed from her property, including directives from the township, had failed, and Oswald was threatening legal action.
“I’ve tried everything to work this out,” she told the supervisors. She said Oswald had harassed her and her family over the months. “Please, please help me regain my property rights,” she said, her voice audibly shaking.
Supervisor Brian Dunn expressed sympathy for Phillips’ situation and said the township was hoping to help resolve the dispute. “We are doing everything in our power to get the fence removed,” he said. “Eventually it’s going to be moved.”
Marnie Oswald said in an interview Tuesday, however, that the fence had been moved in the past few weeks, and claimed it had encroached on the Phillips property by only a few inches. Now, however, she said she was dealing with the trauma of a serious attack on her 44-year-old husband allegedly committed by her backyard neighbor.
“I am terrified for my life right now,” she said.
There was a fairly large TV news report on NBC 10 yesterday also. Deanna Durante had the story:
Ok so I heard through local chatter that some are giving West Whiteland Supervisor Brian Dunn a hard time…for trying to do his West Whiteland Supervisor job fairly and for being kind to an upset woman at a public meeting in May? That’s what men who are grownups try to do: the right thing. Brian is a stand up guy. If I had to hazard a guess, this whole sequence of events is distressing to everyone. It is profoundly disturbing the way this escalated and there are no winners here. This is big time crazy train time. And listen to the news report on this. This whole neighborhood sounds like they were ALL living through this Hatfields vs. McCoys in Exton even if they weren’t involved. Now two families are kind of destroyed.
No winners here, none at all.
And finally, the ultimate crazy train for the week occurred on Sunday freaking afternoon on a quiet street in West Vincent. Not to be crass, but human freaking BBQ. That’s right, a burning dead body was dumped on Eagle Farm Road.
I have been getting LOTS of messages to the blog’s Facebook page about this. I know nothing more than anyone else. This is as creepy as F. But this is a dumped body. As in dumped and left . And this body was dumped in an area where you wouldn’t necessarily have security cameras abundantly present. So did no one see, or did someone drive by when some kind of vehicle would have had to pull over to dump a body, start a fire?
People. This is a case of if you SAW something, SAY something. Even if you don’t think it is important, you never know. Do I think the public is at risk over there? No my dears, your greatest risk in West Vincent is perpetual dumb ass politics and bad manager choices at least every other manager, right? You have a good police department and they care.
Do I think it would be NICE if the media covered this to get this out there more to the public regionally so this craziness can be case solved? YES. And no I don’t think this was a local person, this was an elsewhere dump. So maybe people who live on either side of the crime scene if you have trail cameras or security cameras start checking your footage for cars etc you don’t recognize or were driving oddly? You never know…
And then there is the AJ Blosenski of it all. I finally got our street cleared of the backlog of missed trash pickups and had a nice chat with two corporate overlord folks at Waste Connections. That was the accomplishment that pleased me yesterday. but now AJ Blosenski and Waste Connections need to do that for everyone.
But as for the rest of it? Swirling humanity and the crazy train stopping too long in Chester County? Enough already. It is freaking exhausting.
Just like the people who seem to think contacting me whenever about whatever and being utterly obnoxious a lot of the time is too much talk to the hand. I don’t suffer fools gladly, so fools, please stay in your lane. Everyone has opinions, I am but one person so why do you care so much?
And then a question I ask sincerely: Why is it wrong to show compassion for people at times?
We have had three pretty awful things happen lately: a stabbing that was the end result of a neighbor dispute that went on for far too long; a local politician’s spouse/partner went to jail for child porn which blew up lives and friendships because of collateral damage; a body BBQ due to a dumped burning murder victim in West Vincent Township in a quiet area with lots of kids.
Look at this local craziness as a microcosm of the larger picture of what is happening in our country. When does it stop? When (for example) do the political parties put down their pitchforks and meet in the middle for the benefit of ALL Americans? When did violence become the answer to everything? When did we stop feeling consistently safe in our own neighborhoods?
There is no simplistic answer to crime. But there is a simplistic answer to the bullshit and crazy behavior we see every day on social media that spills over into the real world and people actually think the behavior is OK? This behavior is NOT O.K. That is your simplistic answer.
People, breathe. Just freaking breathe. Enough stupid human tricks for a while.
I have spent two mind numbing hours messaging Amazon customer service in third world countries.
You see someone sent me that book in the photo at the opening of the post. only as is the case with Amazon there was no gift message. So I was contacting them to find out who sent me the book so I could say thank you.
But Amazon’s “security protocols” won’t allow them to tell you who has your addresses and sent an unsolicited item, probably a gift but in today’s world, how do you know unless you know who sent it? And how are you supposed to know who sent it if they won’t tell you?
Supposedly they will contact who sent it and ask them to contact me. I am not, however, holding my breath.
Amazon’s customer service sucks. So does a security protocol which doesn’t make allowances as far as making people feel safe as far as being the recipient of a mystery package. How’s that for smart brevity?
