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?
Historical Gladwyne Photo belonging to Lower Merion Historical Society.
Yasswyne? Really?
Gladwyne, is kind of a special to me. Circa 1975 was my introduction, and it was magical. Sledding on crazy hills off of Monk Road and Rose Glen. Free range kid wandering from the historic village through to the haunted feeling sanatorium buildings of the once “Gladwyne Colony”. Halloween and sleepovers and birthday parties with my friend whose dad went to high school together. The Gladwyne Library and its wonderful stacks and things like the plant sale. (And the cookbook fundraiser- I still have a copy!)
And the horses. Gladwyne then was still an equestrian hub. Sledding and carriaging with Mr. Gwinn. Leaning how to ride. Watching pony club. I didn’t belong to that I was not good enough.
The old village. It was just so nice. One of my friends was related literally to founding fathers of the village. Tree lined streets and marvelous old houses from so many eras. Whimsical Victorians. Charming Bungalows. And even 18th and early 19th century houses, mostly frame.
I realized this morning that the Gladwyne I stumbled upon as a kid was actually reminiscent of parts of Chester County I love so much. And to that end, sprucing up the village is not a bad idea, but this mass appropriation of buildings in the center as well as talks of tearing things down including one of the houses near the library I guess that was purchased? My opinion is a HELL NO.
It’s hell no to Peddlers Village-lite complete with all those absurd picnic tables scattered about the village that will not in my opinion be maintained long term. It’s hell no to making it a faux tourist attraction bringing lots of traffic to little streets with barely enough parking for residents.
Look I felt something was up in the fall, when I went digging into who supposedly was doing this, and that was not when any of us knew a big contributor to the destruction of the White House and the East Wing and the McMansioning of the people’s house.
I remember when I first started nosing around about this Gladwyne thing people on the Main Line were really odd with their reactions and I even had my comments taken down in places. And literally what I was sharing was who bought the place and was on the deed records with Montgomery County. That was before anyone even knew Yass was involved. But now I wonder what Gladwyne’s new commissioner knew and when?
And I remember when I figured out who these Bryn Mawr people were without knowing that anyone else was involved, I had reservations. Mostly because they just seemed like they were about themselves.
So they live over on Rock Creek Road and I knew a lot of people growing up and into adulthood that lived on that winding road and it had cool houses and beautiful trees and gardens, still does. So they restored their house and reinvented it and that’s their right but I remember looking at it thinking it’s really brown and it’s not quite here but I could appreciate some of the design elements.
But the Historic Village of Gladwyne, and it is a historic district, turned into some odd thing that it’s not? That’s not worth the renovation of the older buildings in my humble opinion thank goodness I don’t live there. 
But I had no idea the scope of this project until I saw the website and some of what the people who want to do this were posting:
To follow are four screenshots from their public website below. Go onto their website and read every word.
It’s Gladwyne Village as in the Village of because literally that’s what it is. Then I noticed that they magically weren’t doing a zoom of the meeting and when you don’t want to record a meeting that always set up red flags in my head. If you’ve got nothing to hide on a project, you put it out there for the world to see, including the meetings don’t you?
And now, it seems, historic Gladwyne has Jeff Yass.
The richest man in Pennsylvania, and his wife, Janine, have partnered with a younger husband-and-wife development/design team to both turn back the clock on Gladwyne village AND propel it into the next century.
The partnership spent millions over the last several months to buy or lease key properties in the heart of historic Gladwyne: the former Gladwyne Market, Gladwyne Village Shoppes (which house the beloved pharmacy and Homeroom luncheonette), Gladwyne Post Office, the former longtime OMG Salon building and, as of Dec. 31, a private home in the Village….The designated face of the partnership, Andre Golsorkhi revealed the quartet’s vision….At the outset, Golsorkhi (below) emphasized that his investor/development group is 100-percent local and, believe it or not, was NOT doing this to make money….The first resident who spoke felt blindsided….Another speaker feared the conformity of a Gladwyne Square. “It’s going to end up looking like Nantucket, she said. “This presentation makes me even more nervous about what you guys are doing …You’re saying Gladwyne needs branding… it’s gonna be a certain architecture that you think is important when you’re destroying a quirky Walter Durham house… I like communities that are organic and grow up in different ways. We have other buildings in Gladwyne that are just as important for the community that are not owned by Mr. Yass. I just wonder what the end game is. There’s always a price for this.”….Architect Ed Lewis (below), a 60-year Gladwyne resident told Golsorkhi that he “started the historic district in my living room with a meeting of neighbors concerned about overdevelopment.”
My photo
Read the entire Savvy article. It is very long and gives a lot of detail and thank you Caroline for what you do.
OK, I’m going to be 62 years old this year so why mince words? I think this plan is bullshit. This is about someone’s sanitizing and reinventing a place that first and foremost is a historic district.
I have no problems with people restoring things, but this isn’t about restoring. This is about changing history. And it’s not really the history of the people who bought the buildings.
To these four individuals, this is about making money. It’s not necessarily so all realistic, and I am allowed to have that opinion.
Again, I have no problem with someone fixing up old buildings and creating an adaptive reuses. But when you start to want to add parking lots and a random nouveau village green with lots of picnic tables that never existed within the history or framework of this village, it stops being about preservation and switches to just being about profit, doesn’t it?
Now I will agree the Walter Durham buildings that comprise the pharmacy, etc. are awkward. I’m really familiar with them. My mother was a realtor with a real estate office that was in the lower level years ago and for all the years that I banked at PNC, my branch was Gladwyne because they were the nicest people. And Gladwyne Pharmacy was our first pharmacy out here when we moved here and I still used to use them here and there until I moved to Chester county because I wanted to support them because they were independent like Parvins in Bryn Mawr.
I also have to admit when the Union League club took over the Guard House, I wondered what the future held for Gladwyne because that was a big change. But I didn’t anticipate this. And I have to say that The Union League respects the village. They have done a fine job with the place, although I do miss the ability to just go in there on a Friday or Saturday because I don’t belong to the Union League. I have been there for dinner several times since it reopened as part of the club and I love it and why do I love it because it’s still retains what we knew as its history. Even down to some of the dishes that were signature to Albert Breuers.
Found this on Wikipedia and I can’t find my photos and I have tons of The Guard House somewhere 
I know change will happen, but the change doesn’t have to be this drastic and it shouldn’t be. These people have the money to restore what they bought in the village of Gladwyne without making it look like Disney or a more expensive Peddler’s Village with insufficient parking.
I did dig out some of my photos of Gladwyne and why is still so special to me. And a lot of that includes things like the Memorial Day Parade. or walking down the little streets in the village and hearing the ghosts of my childhood passed and it’s a simple as knowing who lived where and things we explored St. John Vianney was our parish. Our first vet was Gladwyne vet. And the library. That library is still my favorite library anywhere. I won a Martha Stewart cookbook years ago as an adult in a raffle, I used to bury myself in corners as a kid and read, and I loved the plant sale. And I have a copy of their cookbook they used as a fundraiser. They could’ve had more than one cookbook over time, but I have the original one. and at one point in time, one of their librarians was actually a princess.
Yes a princess. She died in 2005 and her name was Maria de Pasquale. She was a friend of my parents along with her husband, Joe, who was one of the famous DePasquale brothers of the Philadelphia Orchestra and my friend’s aunt. She was a descendent of Napoleon‘s first wife, Josephine and Czar Nicholas I. She was born Maria Madgelena, Duchess von Leuchtenberg in Nice, France, daughter of Duke Serge Nicolaievitch and Duchess Anna. She renounced her title somewhere around 1949 to marry Joe.
So yes, my childhood librarian was once a princess. And she was tough. You didn’t have your books over to you returned them on time. but she always had books to recommend, even to kids. She also spoke five languages. and I remember being in the library one time when her inner princess came out because she was annoyed with someone on the phone.
I found her fascinating. So these are the little things that make up the history of Gladwyne that creating some artificial version of a Nouveau Gladwyne will never capture.
Of course, I bet they don’t know about things like in the early 2000s when the pharmacist went to jail.
Or all the contretemps over the years with a now deceased member of a founding family of Gladwyne who at one time owned a lot of the things in the village. He’s long deceased now and could be so cranky.
Or the whole controversy over the Gladwyne lunch years ago or Barker Mill or Oddfellows.
Now, of course, the 19035 has become known in recent years as being the home of shall we say Main Line grifters, correct ? And the McMansion ridiculousness?
And we can’t forget about all of the controversy surrounding what will be the redevelopment I guess eventually of the Dorrance estate on Monk Road. Course I was also on that property as a kid and it’s nothing sort of spectacular even if the old apple orchard no longer exists.
And I remember when the estate on Waverley Road was sold to become Waverly Heights. And there were other surrounding properties that got fed into it and when I was a kid, there were lots of horses with swishy tails hoping for a pat at the fence or maybe an apple. The Junkin Estate.
The Gladwyne I grew up with was always a mixed bag originally it had been like mills and farmers and people with grand estates who owned lots of horses. It was very much like parts of Chester County, including Willistown.
Or my one friend‘s house across the street from St. John Vianney which was sold and bulldozed and it had the nicest pool. It was the best house. In its place? A McMansion so big I don’t even say you can. I don’t even know how you can say they have green space or a garden. Of course Lower Merion planning really didn’t say much about that. Did they? and that will be a definite hurdle here because that planning department is so pro-development, along with the fact that the new commissioners, including the one for Gladwyne have not been there long enough to understand the place. And that even includes River Road.
Again, I know, change happens, but here it shouldn’t be so drastic. It should truly be keeping the history in mind and the current plans in my opinion do not.
I saw this earlier today and literally started to cry. This is my friend Lisa’s business. I started out as a customer years ago when I met Lisa at one of the first Clover Markets in Ardmore all of those years ago. Literally we met in 2010 and became friends, I am not jut a customer. And I am a happy customer.
Lisa the owner is a wonderful warm hearted person who would give someone a hand up if they needed help. She has a rare generosity of spirit that someone or several someones has decimated. I think there should be a special place in hell for people like that.
Even Martha Stewart has been to her store. She has a great eye and a wonderful mix of new, vintage, and antiques. And this is a very historic property and fabulous adaptive reuse.
In case people can’t read her message via my screenshot, here it is in her words:
Dear Friends.
I am sorry. I need to close the store for a bit. I have tried so HARD the last couple of months to try to keep it together. In almost 30 yrs of doing what I ABSOLUTELY LOVE to save, we had a very bad robbery. They pulled in the back driveway with a van, and uhaul. I don’t understand how, but they managed to override the system. They had at it. The basement, attics, backyard, shop, and my office. Let alone a constant supply out of my vehicle, and trailer. I believe this was over time, LOADS of vtg xmas, art work, costume, jewerly, primatives, salvage, garden, paper, glass, minitures, mirrors etc.. many collections and memories in boxes.
I IMMEDIATELY shut our social media down, and was trying to work through the trauma. It HURTS so bad. I watched it go through auctions, area consignments shops, in the antique shops as well as marketplace. I feel so LOST, betrayed, and mentally EXHAUSTED. We work so HARD at being a small business, let alone save 2 old houses over 200 yrs old. It is so SAD we live in this kind of world.
Take pictures, do inventory it will save u in the long run. Don’t keep keys out, let alone how you store your valuables. Keep your guard up. DON’T think it WON’T happen to you.
I CAN’T THANK my family and friends, state police ENOUGH for helping me work through this. Esp. my husband Spencer. Quite tough loosing the bits and pieces of your life’s work. I know the man upstairs has a plan. I TRUST him. I look forward to being, and feeling our happy place again. “Three floors, have fun. ”
I thought it was bad enough when the losers stole her hydrangeas outside a few years ago. But this? This is like someone raped her. This is her business, livelihood, dreams, hopes, hard work.
This is the kind of crap stuff that is a joy sucker. What she sells can’t be magically replaced like it is an Amazon warehouse.
What I am asking of readers, especially fellow antique and vintage dealers is keep an eye out. Be wary of too good to be true and unknowns wanting to peddle things like she describes. If you are a dealer be aware, this could happen to you.
Lisa will rebuild and we will all support her. I firmly believe there is a special place in hell for people who do things like this to wonderful people and small businesses.
Police say Kathryn Frankel is accused of starting a fire using a heat gun in a home on Ogontz Street. They also say she has a previous arson arrest out of Chester County from 2024, also with a heat gun.
Details of the arson
Police said Frankel was living in the basement of the home on Ogontz Street when the fire started just after midnight on Jan. 1.
The fire department was dispatched for a reported basement fire, and upon arrival, they saw people trapped inside. Several residents had to be rescued, with some jumping from the second floor, and one person was hospitalized for smoke inhalation.
A firefighter was also hurt.
According to charging documents, witnesses told officers Frankel was acting suspiciously before the fire and tried to stop others from going into the basement.
Police say they found a pile of burning clothes and blankets on the floor, as well as seven burned aerosol cans and a can of lighter fluid.
Frankel admitted to being in the basement and using a heat gun in the area shortly before the fire started, according to the charging documents. Kathryn Frankel is charged with arson and recklessly endangering another person.
Look I am sorry she is so mentally ill. But she is not safe out on the street. Someone is going to die. Once again, she could have died, and this time others got hurt.
She needs to NOT be out on the street. This is not the first fire. She is not safe, she may never be safe with this hobby of hers, correct?
Below are the dockets. Imagine if the wheels of justice had moved a little faster? Maybe those people in York wouldn’t have been displaced. I hate to say lock anyone up, but she is a danger to herself and others. She went from high style on the Main Line to a basement apartment in York County, PA.
Yes, it’s a dead Rite Aide but if West Goshen has their way TONIGHT they will push to change the zoning and make it a car wash??? Allow me to quote West Goshen Sunshine and Hello West Chester verbatim (I do not think they will mind):
A Sunshine Report heads-up: West Goshen Board of Supervisors will hear a Zoning amendment tied to the former Rite Aid site on Phoenixville Pike at tonight’s annual organizational meeting.
The amendment, if approved, would permit a car wash to open at 1307 Phoenixville Pike. Under the Township’s current Zoning Ordinance, car washes are only permitted by Conditional Use in the C-5 General Highway Commercial Zoning District. This section of Phoenixville Pike is part of the C-1 Neighborhood Commercial Zoning District.
The request is being advanced in connection with a proposed redevelopment by Spotless Car Wash Brands. The site is owned by Peter Kathopoulis, of 92 Victory Investments of Upper Darby, PA.
The meeting is scheduled for 5:00 p.m. at the West Goshen Township building. Approval of this zoning amendment could expand where car washes are allowed township-wide.
No meeting minutes for real for real so trying to sneak it in much West Goshen? There was a blip in November with this but then NOTHING. Can’t find any old minutes or plans and that is anti sunshine (for a change) and sleazy.
I am REALLY familiar with this intersection. Why? Because PECO or AQUA or PENNDOT has had W. King Road Closed for so long between Ship and Boot, I go through there once a week on average. It’s a busy, difficult intersection with others near by that West Goshen because when you cross over it goes towards Fern Hill and the hospital stuff and Greystone development. A spit away is West Whiteland Township and I don’t know any residents who knew about this there!
And let’s talk environmental impacts from car wash runoff?
Oh and look at their traffic study and other comparables …. Maryland AND Virginia??? OH COME ON.
It’s hardly into the new year and already it’s kind of depressing. It’s 4 January, and our president essentially performed an act of war without congressional approval. In the wee hours, as in early Saturday morning, the US struck Venezuela and removed the president and his wife to New York. Maduro is in New York because U.S. special forces captured him in this raid in Caracas and they have brought him and his wife to face federal charges dating from 2020, including drug trafficking , weapons charges, and “narco-terrorism.”
This article in an online journal called “The Conversation” is well worth reading on this:
It might be too much to ask all of the armchair warriors and foreign diplomacy and constitutional and congressional scholars on Facebook to actually READ something versus just jumping on the Internet tar and feather bandwagon.
I felt obligated to shut down comments on posts on my blog’s Facebook page. I do that to bring the temperature down because it is the correct and responsible thing to do. I am not practicing censorship because it’s MY page. If people don’t like that, that is on them. It’s not their personal platform which maybe is something they don’t get. It’s only censorship if they can’t ever speak their opinion at all. What I am saying is they need to take their flame war elsewhere.
When I post something without the ability for people to leave comments, it means keep your cray cray to yourself and your page. Do not private message me. I have been receiving rather vile as well as idiotic private messages.
And FYI The Monroe Doctrine, proclaimed by President James Monroe in 1823, was NOT necessarily designed for this Venezuela’s it all. It’s also not the Roosevelt Corollary (as in Teddy’s era) or Cold War as used by Kennedy and then Reagan. This is most definitely yes still a controversial aspect of US foreign policy and should not be part of the toys used by a greedy grabby never served in the military man baby.
Donroe or Monroe, I am not debating it or having my private messages polluted with nonsense- by all means people discuss it on their own personal Facebook pages but I do not have to ride the crazy train.
A friend of mine quipped that the Epstein files must be pretty bad and intelligent beings do need to question the timing, yes? But even if Maduro being removed is possibly a good thing for the Venezualan people are there other motivations at play here including but not limited to oil and mineral rights?
The 4th day of a new year we need to contemplate where we are going. It’s frightening in my opinion. And it’s frightening what people don’t want to see and that includes our elected officials in Washington D.C.
So now this afternoon there are protests supposedly happening about Venezuela? Protests are getting to be like fireworks. So many and does that make their value dissipate?
A friend of mine wrote today:
As a daughter of a Vietnam Vet who I lost in 2025 after his post-war life battle from Agent Orange…this is a horrible time to have 13 & 18 year old boys. I wish my dad was here to tell me it will be ok.
Another wrote:
I just explained to my boys what a military draft means.
Someone else I know said:
I had a ton of people calling me a Trump apologist when I said no war in Gaza and now people are calling me a liberal for saying no war in Venezuela. Some of us actually are anti-war and pro-rule of law!
There have been people who had arguments against my opinion which weren’t quite polite but not overly rude that I didn’t remove (or them) but it was about obviously I was never part of an EMS or lost a family member to drugs. No I fortunately never lost a family member to drugs, but lost a friend and two women I know have had drugs make them widows. I have had plenty of friends who have been on EMS crews for years and NOT one has spoken up all drug overdoses are stamped “Made in Venezuela.”
I think we live in a very different world today, so much so I honestly don’t trust that peaceful protests will remain as such. Sadly, No Kings in West Chester proved me right.
I will never say that people shouldn’t stand up for what they feel at the core of their being, but we live in a world that doesn’t necessarily respect that, at least in this country.
Dachau 2026
And then there are the tones of World War II Europe that seem to hum in the background. I have a friend in Poland now on a trip who sent me two photos that stopped me cold.
Auschwitz 2026
Do you know the meaning of the verbiage over the gates? It is “Hard Work is Freedom.”
These first concentration camps were at first prisons for the intellectuals, professors, journalists, etc. Poland has done a great job of preserving Auschwitz. The buildings there were carefully constructed and made of stone and bricks. So they still stand. That’s where Mengele conducted his eugenics experiments. Down the road from Auschwitz are other places like Birkenau, which was put up quickly essentially just to kill people. Only the chimneys remain.
Why do people choose not to remember and even respect the ghosts of World Wars past? When people stopped paying attention to World War I, World War II happened. If we continue to ignore the lessons of the past or try to rewrite history, the past could actually repeat itself.
I am not being an alarmist or conspiracy theorist. The markers exist and if we aren’t careful as a society and country, things our parents and grandparents never wanted us to experience may be come our new normal.
Now who will read this post? When it’s lots of words, that is debatable. We live in a world where people don’t read or research a thing. They read it on Facebook or TikTok so it must be true.
Look I wish we didn’t have to look at history, but we must. If we don’t look at history, even ugly inconvenient, horrible history we may be doomed to repeat it.
I am still tired of how people do not respect that sometimes there is no dialogue to be had when people merely want a break from the social media nonsense of others. We live in a world where everyone seems to think whomever gets all the toys, wins. That is unrealistic and unsustainable.
I think I am growing less patient with the craziness and hysteria on social media. People are such sheeple. And they have zero respect for boundaries of anyone.
Today’s world is a study of past is prologue as well as past is present. I don’t know that that’s a good thing.
The word of the year should be grateful. Not the misused, overused version of faux Christianism found on social media, but the feeling at the core of your being inside your truth.
Well it’s New Year’s Eve. Tomorrow 2026 arrives. What will the new year bring I wonder?
Will it bring new online abuse from people who seem to think I am personally responsible for the information disseminated by local police departments or newspapers or TV news?
Yeah that was one of the recent things. I literally shared a police report. It was one of several. The attacks were astounding. It was a DUI.
They don’t complain to the local police department, but they all came at me.
I’m a monster, I’m evil, etc etc. I mean come on, did I personally cause the DUI?
I wasn’t posting it for entertainment. I shared it along with other incidents posted from West Whiteland Police Department that day and this was the ONLY post people attacked me over.
Why?
I hypothesize because they know her. Well maybe instead of making MORE people look at the DUI notice posted by West Whiteland PD and shared by not just me, maybe they should help their friend? You can’t ignore the issue. It’s awkward but ignoring is a form of enabling is it not?
Anyway, when I wrote about this mommy DUI thing back then I was attacked left and right. Even by one of their relatives. It didn’t seem to get through to them that I was not the only person talking about this and the innumerable media reports – these cases hit every regional and local paper and every TV station.
When I wrote about this topic years ago, I said that I feared an epidemic of these DUI mommies was brewing. I asked back then what has gone wrong and how do families not know if someone is having issues? Do that many people really in this day and age routinely drive around comfortably numb? And who exactly let them get behind the wheel of a car? But if we are honest, by varying degrees this is not a new issue. It’s just not one discussed in public as much as whispered down the lane.
Once again, I want to try to show these women compassion, including the recent one. But it happened. I personally did not cause it. I did not mock the woman. I shared something from the social media of a local police force. That’s all.
People were quick to point out that I wasn’t perfect and should not share such things that it was “inappropriate.” I never, ever have said or pretended to be perfect, but DUIs related to drugs and alcohol are something that can not only change lives but end them. Or irrevocably change them. And not just the people having the problem.
I lost a friend in my 20s to an overdose. I lost another friend in my 20s to a drunk driving accident that made her an instant quadriplegic with a traumatic brain injury that literally reduced her to about a 14 year old’s comprehension and also she remembered no friends she made as a young adult. I think about the quadriplegic friend a lot. She was a true bright light. She was remarkable and so bright and nice. A red headed Bette Davis. Her family made it hard for all of us to see her after a while, and she didn’t remember most of us. I don’t even know if she is still alive or where she and her family are.
The overdose friend? We were sad, but was it unexpected? Sadly no and people couldn’t believe how often he had cheated death in the past. I was his last call before he overdosed that fateful February day now decades ago. He had called my office about something so utterly nuts and I hung up on him. I was at work, had no choice and by that point his behavior had so been spiraling so much it was terrifying, and I don’t say that lightly. I had known him since I was 12. A mutual friend told me the news, and what he said very quietly to me was he was sad but also relieved.
I had another friend who was a friend for many years. But they couldn’t get past their DUIs and related things that after two stints I knew of being a guest of certain county establishments, I let go of a pretty long friendship. I couldn’t smile and be supportive of someone who didn’t seem to own what they did and it all started to feel disingenuous and enabling. That same feeling has kept me at arm’s length from another person, in my life essentially most of my life. So far they are working a program and I am proud of them, but I am waiting to see how long it lasts this time. I am not being cruel, I just can’t do it.
I understand people are human and mistakes happen. However, if you don’t like police departments posting DUIs as deterrents to others, talk to them, not me.
People it has been a year as a blogger. Early in 2025 someone literally gaslit me with lies and innuendos and someone else acted upon it. Yes really, the screenshots exist and were quite helpful when the phone harassment started. Calls were recorded and the caller was warned even with local police listening to two calls live. Caller didn’t care but the Chester County District Attorney did and it was legitimately enough to go to court.
The person who harassed me was in the end given a gift by my decision that the District Attorney’s Office, local police, and a judge agreed to. The 8 counts against them would have stuck on their own, but as we were building the case, I decided this person had been a fool, but their family should not be punished for their stupidly acting upon factually inaccurate gaslighting that resulted in my being threatened and harassed.
Appropriate punishment was meted out, and at the time the judge made the point of telling the defendant they were receiving a gift and that I had actually not done anything wrong and did they understand that. The judge also asked them WHY and they responded that they had seen something on Facebook that pissed them off, all the while admitting they did not know me at all nor I them. I will never forget the look on the judge’s face when that response was uttered. The person was told that they were to never bother me in the future, nor their friends or acquaintances, including the social media variety.
So in case any of you were wondering why I so defended my friend in a particular municipality who is being treated abysmally, this is why. I literally have lived this, so I know the difference of what is actually harassment and so on.
This year has been a theater of the absurd with people and their comments and even threats with so many on social media. Not just the political who-haa on both sides, but anything and everything. They want to tell you what they can and cannot say, but it’s not like they want to research things in their community or in their own small worlds. They just want unicorns farting rainbows or whatever their jam is. They don’t understand they can have their bubble, but their bubble is not necessarily anyone else’s world.
2025 has been the year of nasty. I firmly believe many are emulating what they see happening in Washington DC and on reality shows. I mean have you noticed how so many people can’t actually have conversations? I am not talking about on social media platforms, but IRL as they say, or in real life.
Speaking of IRL, during December I took photos of the exterior of Christmas festive homes in historic North Wayne. I also took photos of a historic home, once shabby but acceptable, now dangerously overgrown and so in need of love. I literally said the house could be fabulous. What happened next was less so.
Women who did not live in or near Wayne interpreted my photos as attacking the homeowner. I do not know the homeowner and was not speaking about them, just the unkempt appearance of a truly historic home in a historic district. I literally removed a few from my page. Then one charmer, who resides in West Goshen apparently, didn’t like that I had also shut down comments on the post. She had not been removed, but her comments made me decide I did not wish to babysit the post, so I restricted further comments. Well madam, decided to take the whole enchilada of her upset to her own timeline and tag me.
That was game over. I removed her. I just don’t want to deal with it. And when people just sort of attack you for no reason literally out of nowhere not knowing what you’re talking about you kind of reach a point where you’ve had enough. This woman who is a stranger to me doesn’t have to like me. She also doesn’t have to like what I write, but I don’t have to listen to it, so I chose not to.
That is an online lesson from 2025. I don’t have to take abuse. I have been doing this a long time. People don’t get that I don’t have to and often simply do not want to speak with them and that is ok. As a blogger and writer, I am not a de facto public figure. No matter what the great unwashed feel. And no, I do not consider myself better or anything else other than if I don’t wish to interact, I do not have to. They take it personally, it’s not. It just is.
So this post has been a ramble and the year a bit of a wild ride. Thank you to those who read, and to my armchair critics, simply put you do you and I will do me…just not together.
There have also been many bright private moments with total strangers saying thank you for helping them find something as little as an obituary of a friend of theirs. I don’t discount those people, but those are simple and kind moments between them and I.
A friend wrote on their socials this evening:
Life has taught me I am not always in control. Life is full of experiences, lessons, heartbreak, and pain. But, it has also shown me love, beauty, possibility, and new beginnings. Embrace it all. It makes us who we are, and after every storm comes a clear sky. Happy New Year!
Another friend wrote:
Let the instability of the year that was strengthen your dedication to what comes next
I don’t have anything particularly profound to add. I am grateful for my life here in Chester County and for my friends and family. That’s enough.
For years, we have watched the former faculty housing for Church Farm teachers deteriorate. No that’s not the fault of the school, the land was sold decades ago at this point.
I have followed it here on my blog and so have many in the community. The land has been for sale and vacant forever and we knew this development was coming.
The development is 55 and over so it won’t be putting kids in the school district. It’ll be like a Hershey’s Mill in West Whiteland. However it’s rather dense, and it is yet another reason why in my opinion, whatever happens at the Exton Square Mall needs to have less density. It’s so much development not too far apart.
And even if the mall developer and his attorney, don’t like my opinion, I’m allowed to have it.
Anyway, it’s New Year’s Eve 2025 and the development has begun. 
I wish this was less density here because I do not know where all these developers think we are going to put and care for all these additional people? We don’t even have a hospitals to care for our residents now. (Of course this is also why I think that the Exton Square Mall would be the perfect site for a new hospital but developers won’t make enough money on a new hospital will they? What do they care about us getting sick? )
So again, it’s not like this wasn’t approved or we didn’t know it was coming. It’s been very much out there. But it is quite jarring to see the land stripped bare bit by bit as this development begins.
On New Year’s Eve I’m going to make my last play of the year for lawmakers and Harrisburg to get off their asses and do a comprehensive update of the municipalities planning code. There hasn’t been one since it arrived circa 1969 and as I have said innumerable times before, that’s what gave us Chesterbrook.
I’m going to share some of my old photos taken over years past for many years, and a little video compilation.
First the photos:
These were at one time really nice little houses. They could’ve remained nice little houses as starter homes or step down homes for people downsizing.
I have been in love with North Wayne, PA for years. It’s an amazing and historic area, and ironically was a quasi planned development in the late19th century. The North Wayne Historic District is actually a national historic district. Most houses were built between1881 and 1925, and include notable examples of Shingle Style, Queen Anne and Colonial Revival architecture. Among the famous area architects who contributed to this were the Quaker Price brothers (William and Frank, who also did a lot of Rose Tree in Media.)
Allow me to share something I wrote many years ago in 2011:
Allow me to quote myself but click on the above link for photos I took years ago as well:
I first became a fan of North Wayne when I was a kid. The fanciful Victorian architecture in particular had me at hello, just like Cape May, NJ.
North Wayne has grand Victorian homes with sweeping porches and smaller homes of a more fanciful bungalow style. Many of these homes have been lovingly restored. You see Queen Anne, Second Empire, Tudor, shingle style, stick style, craftsman, and colonial revival homes dot the streets neatly laid out on a grid pattern.
Like many other towns on the Main Line, Wayne popped as the Pennsylvania Railroad developed and connected Philadelphia to points west–Harrisburg and Pittsburgh. The Main Line itself received its now famous name as a result of this train line.
Wayne as we see it today can be ironically described as an early planned development. Streets were orderly and on a grid. Houses were large, but convenient to downtown Philadelphia. They embraced the Victorian sensibilities and importance of hearth and home, yet were so modern. Steam heat, the train, public water and sewer, electricity, indoor plumbing, paved roads. There were even swimming pools–like the famous Wayne Natatorium.
The Wayne Natatorium, which was recognized in the fall of 2010 with a historical marker from the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, was located in North Wayne on what we know today as Willow Avenue. Among the largest open-air, in-ground swimming pools in the United States, and some still argue the world, this Victorian folly existed between 1895 and 1903. It was 500 feet by 100 feet and played host to national swim meets during its existence. And in the winter, when this fresh water pool froze over? There was ice-skating and winter carnivals held under colorful lights.
The area in which the Wayne Natatorium sits is in North Wayne, but outside the boundaries of the historic district. The historic district in North Wayne only extends so far, and doesn’t encompass a lot of the more modest streets with working class roots that abut the Wayne train station, and I think that is a mistake. For example, if it hadn’t been for vigilant neighbors who live on some of the streets NOT in the historic district, 236 North Aberdeen Ave. might have been lost a couple of years ago to ill-fitting new development.
What was so special about 236 North Aberdeen Ave.? It was the home of builder Jonathan Lengel. Lengel was a builder who brought a lot of the whimsical architectural visions of such greats as David Knickerbocker Boyd. Lengel was responsible for the construction on some very interesting Radnor landmarks.
North Wayne not only boasts the homes out of the imagination of David Knickerbocker Boyd but also among others, the Price brothers–William and Frank Price, Philadelphia Quakers who were originally protégées of Frank Furness before venturing out on their own starting in 1881…..Radnor residents, take the time to become more active with your local Radnor Historical Society and get to know your local streets. They are delightful and charming, offering a real sense of community. Get out of your cars and walk these streets if you haven’t in a while. You’ll be glad you did.
Yes, I mentioned the Wayne Natatorium. I raised the money, found the non-profit sponsor and got the PA Historical Marker approved years ago in 2010. And guess what? Didn’t live there. I just loved the quirky history. See next link to learn about the Wayne Natatorium.
Both organizations continue to do their thing, although I wish they would be less insular and more active.
One house that got torn down just outside the historic district of North Wayne a few years ago was the one built by Jonathan Lengel for his own family on N. Aberdeen. I had helped stop the demolition a bunch of years ago, but Radnor Township didn’t give a damn a few years ago and down it came. I wrote about it:
Here are some photos I took of North Wayne from around 2007:
Oh and what else did I do back in the day for North Wayne? Well I got stormwater improvements out of Septa and some safety issues addressed with a giant drainage pipe that frequently flooded out parts of Pennsylvania Avenue.
How did I do that? The lead engineer for Septa at the time was a super nice man named Jeff Knueppel. (Yes, the one guy in recent past who was eventually the general manager of Septa before the wheels fell off and people like former politician or perennial politician Leslie Richards came to be there.) Jeff Knueppel was a great General Manager and accessible to the public. But I digress.
Anyway, I had written an editorial for Main Line Media News when Tom Murray was the editor, and Jeff Knueppel read it and contacted me. At the time, Wayne train station and their parking lot was getting a makeover. Jeff Knueppel said the budget had room for added stormwater infrastructure underneath the parking lot, and they did some stuff with the embankment facing Pennsylvania Avenue and put a grate over the giant pipe to keep dogs, cats, and kids out of it (which had been a problem.) Next photo is what this looked like before Septa added the grate cover thing and did improvements.
So this was something I did with my writing and activism because it was the right thing to do.
I used to belong to the Radnor Historical Society because I loved North Wayne so much. (I am thinking of rejoining, actually.)
Anyway…. before Christmas I was over there and I took photos of some of the houses on Poplar Avenue because it is one of my favorite streets back in North Wayne. In an other life, I almost lived in North Wayne, a couple of streets removed from there.
Now I hadn’t posted most of these photos yet because I had not gone through them and was editing a lot of December photos and still am from volunteer non-profit photo taking amounting to a few hundred photos. When I started going through the photos from Wayne, I shared one particular house on my blog’s Facebook page:
The ONLY thing I said of the above house is “this house in North Wayne could be fabulous….”
Nothing else. It’s one of my favorites and is one that I have watched for YEARS. For years it has gone through phases where it was tidier and repairs were happening but over the past couple of years in particular it has devolved into this. Here are photos going back to 2007 where you could see the house, 2012 when there was gardening going on, and 2017 when it started to slide into the condition you see today in 2025. These photos incidentally are from Google:
This house was fabulous and could be again if the decay is stopped. It was built around 1905-1906 by Jonathan Lengel whom I mentioned earlier in this post. Here is a screen shot from Radnor Historical Society of Poplar:
So yeah…I posted about this house because it is one of the quirky houses of Wayne I think are so cool. But of course the moral judgement squad of a lack of reading comprehension on Facebook jumped on my back:
So yeah, I love the judgmental who can’t read. Literally ALL I said was the house could be fabulous. The Judgey Judgersons came from West Goshen, Downingtown, Malvern, and I don’t know where else…but none from near this house in North Wayne. As a matter of fact a woman who grew up across from there left a comment saying the house was once fabulous.
All of these people completely missed what the post was about and decided I was targeting whomever lives there. I mean HUH? I was talking about the house, no clue who lives there or what is going on. All I said is the house could be fabulous.
But if we are going to talk about the deterioration, it is happening. Like I said, I have been watching this house from the early 2000s. For a while it looked like repairs were happening, and gardening was happening so it was a shock when I went down this block this holiday season and saw it. This is a neighborhood of old house proud and other houses disappeared for McMansions literally have appeared across the street and down.
I was not doing anything other that taking photos on a public street. I wasn’t peering in windows although with this down on her luck North Wayne house the windows aren’t clear on the second floor. I saw it when I was taking photos and chose not to take that photo. But if the inside indeed resembles the outside then whomever knows the owner maybe should help them?
I am sick of people who lack basic reading comprehension and interpolate whatever is on their mind, not mine, as my actual thoughts or reason for writing about something. This happens with almost everything and it’s old. I am not going to stop writing and people did this when I started writing about Loch Aerie before she was restored, and even more recently the Joseph Price House in Exton.
Get. Over. Yourselves.
No one has to read what I write, and no one has to comment on my blog’s Facebook page or here. And if you don’t even know what it is you are bitching about, it’s even more pathetic.
I am talking old houses here, in an area I find immensely special in spite of the crazy municipality it is in. And Jonathan Lengel? The guy who built the house I spoke of having the ability to be fabulous? In the area he was also responsible for The Saturday Club, Waldheim mansion – (VFMA’s Sullivan Hall, torn down in 2001), Walmarthon estate (Now still there minus historic log cabin), and Waynewood Hotel – (Still standing AKA Wayne Hotel.)
Check out the history in North Wayne and better yet check out the Radnor Historical Society at Finley House. The Finley House is open Tuesdays and Saturdays from 2-4 p.m. 113 West Beechtree Lane, Wayne PA. They also have amazing photo archives. (https://radnorhistory.org/archive/photos/)
I take photos. A majority involves old and often historic houses.
Ciao haters. Go look at some cool old houses and enrich your sense of why they are important.
