Swarthmorean Summer Travel Series
By Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon
Three weeks ago, I was invited to accompany the Speaker and a bipartisan delegation to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, three countries that are the birthplace of most migrants seeking refuge at our southern border. I jumped at the chance.
We changed our Cape Cod vacation plans because of corn. Yes, corn. Corn on the cob. Summer’s superstar. August is high season for corn in Pennsylvania. New England may think that it’s high season for corn there, too. But Cape Cod corn can’t hold a candle to fresh corn from the farms of Pennsylvania. If we were to go up for an extended visit in August, I would miss my summer’s quota of corn on the cob.
Swarthmorean Summer Travel Series
By Kathryn Taylor
Updates from Swarthmore Presbyterian Nursery Day School and The School in Rose Valley.
Former Strath Haven (Class of 2014) track star Allie Wilson is shifting her running career into high gear as a new member of one of the elite U.S. training programs, the Atlanta Track Club.
Artists, musicians, and athletes from the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District invite you and your family to join them for the third Annual Celebration of the Arts, an evening of music, art, food, and fun at the Wallingford Swim and Racquet Club on Wednesday, August 28, from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m.
The Scott Arboretum book club “Nature’s Narratives” resumes at Scott Arboretum in a session on Wednesday, September 11, from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Candice Signor-Brown has been named head coach of the Swarthmore College women’s basketball program, replacing Renee DeVarney, who stepped down as coach after 14 seasons. Signor-Brown comes to Swarthmore after coaching at Vassar College for the past 10 seasons and amassing a 159-106 record there.
Missouri native Dalton Ridenhour loves all forms of jazz, but especially ragtime and stride piano traditions. Ridenhour, the featured performer at Sunday’s Tri-State Jazz Society concert at Community Arts Center, is a New York-based pianist who plays with a bunch of different bands, including Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks, Goodbye Picasso, and Mona’s Hot Four. He is well known to aficionados of early jazz is a sensitive and gifted player.
Swarthmorean Summer Travel Series
By Elizabeth Vogdes
“No photos,” said the signs posted everywhere at the Antiques Roadshow. As an avid photographer, I felt as if I had just sat down for a long-anticipated feast only to be told that eating was forbidden. But the atmosphere was so festive that I could almost forget my deprivation on this beautiful June day.
I mentioned in last week’s column that we’ve passed the midpoint between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox, and that there would soon be evidence of fall bird migration. And while I’ve read reports of warblers migrating through Cape May already, I haven’t seen any such evidence locally. Birds often migrate South by riding cold fronts down from Canada. With cooler weather predicted for next week, keep an eye peeled for greater bird variety.
Over the summer months, some go to the shore; others go to the mountains. My husband Kevin Babcock went to the emergency room.
“There’s a definite trend of people returning to Swarthmore … So many people come back,” said Swarthmore native and longtime area real estate professional Perri Evanson, an Associate Broker with Berkshire Hathaway Home Services Fox & Roach Realtors in Media. Evanson transitioned to a successful career in real estate, serving Swarthmore and the surrounding area, which she has pursued for the last 25 years.
On Tuesday, August 6, the volunteer treasurer of the South Media Fire Company was charged with theft of more than $50,000 from the organization over the past 18 months. Terrea Faith Stubbs, herself a South Media resident, faces seven felony charges including theft, forgery, and receiving stolen property.
On July 30, the Rotary Club of Swarthmore made a grant of $1,000 to the Foundation for Delaware County, helping establish a fund known as “Growing with Families.” The fund will benefit participants in the Delaware County Women, Infants, and Children Program (WIC), the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) program and the Healthy Start project, now managed by the foundation.
At its July 25 meeting, the Board of Commissioners of Nether Providence Township unanimously adopted a resolution seeking to end gerrymandering in Pennsylvania. Their resolution supports legislation calling for nonpartisan redistricting reform.
Next week, Hedgerow Theatre opens its production of Dracula, the Bloody Truth, a comic reassessment of the vampire legend told by novelist Bram Stoker. What if Stoker‘s Dracula was not fiction at all, but fact, asks playwright John Nicholson? The play explores the possibilities in a month-long run, with several previews preceding opening night, Friday, August 16, and continuing through September 15.
For four weeks this June and July, I called the University of Pittsburgh home as I participated in the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for Global and International Studies. At this free, residential summer program, I was among 50 students, all rising juniors and seniors from high schools across Pennsylvania.
Out of curiosity, I drove down Engle Street to take a peek at the brewery with the intent of driving by and polishing off a hoagie in the car at the waterfront when I saw a couple cars parked on the side of Larimer Beer Company, and the lights on inside. I tried the door and it opened.
As the Rolling Stones jumped into “Jumping Jack Flash” near the end of their Philadelphia show last Tuesday, I flashed to one thought: this is why I’m here. That riff is what hooked me on the Stones. Keith Richards’s 11 note riff made that song, I bought the single, I got the Stones. More than 50 years later, remembering wearing out the record on a mono record player, I basked in that guitar riff as it washed around me in the delirium of stadium rock, part group ecstasy, part mind-altering acoustical slapback from the concrete bowl.
Media Fellowship House celebrates its 75th anniversary with a gala event Friday, September 6, at the Springfield Country Club. The special guest and keynote speaker is Bill Whitaker, a proud Delaware County native and a reporter for CBS 60 Minutes.
