The Wahoo

The Wahoo

Andrew Bunting
In the Garden

Last Friday, the volunteer Friends of Little Crum Creek Park convened for work. Our goal was removing invasive plants such as Norway maple, Acer platanoides; Amur honeysuckle, Lonicera maackii; and the burning bush, Euonymus alatus. We were discussing some good native alternatives to these plants when I thought of a counterpart to the burning bush: Euonymus atropurpureus, the Eastern wahoo. Unlike burning bush, which has choked out most of the understory in parts of Eastern forests, this shrub is not invasive.

Shopping for Good: The Alternative Christmas Shop

Shopping for Good: The Alternative Christmas Shop

Rachel Pastan

The Alternative Christmas Shop, a project of the Swarthmore Presbyterian Church, offers the opportunity to purchase “gifts” that are actually (tax-deductible) donations in the gift recipient’s name, supporting any one of 23 local, national, or global charities, all of which have been vetted by the shop’s organizing committee.

Santa Visits the Village

Santa Visits the Village

Swarthmorean Staff

As many readers know, Santa has been coming to our village on Christmas Eve since the 1890s – no matter how deep the snow or bitter the winds. This year, however, Santa has been following the COVID-19 pandemic closely from the North Pole, and knows that everyone, including Santa’s family, elves, and reindeer, needs to adjust how Santa’s visits will be handled this year.

NBA’s Derrick Jones and the Clueless Reporter

NBA’s Derrick Jones and the Clueless Reporter

Stefan Roots
Sports, Chester Matters

I came across a plain ole ridiculous article on Chester’s reigning NBA Slam Dunk Champion, Derrick Jones, of the NBA Portland Trail Blazers — formerly of the Miami Heat and Phoenix Suns, from NBC Sports Northwest. I was going to let it slide until I spent some time with an 11th-grade Philly high school football player this weekend. We talked sports, and life, and somehow I remembered this crazy article about Derrick Jones. I showed it to him as a lesson on how you have to own your own story and watch what you say to reporters, because they don’t always do their homework.

Run Home for the Holidays

Run Home for the Holidays

Swarthmorean Staff

Swarthmore’s annual Home for the Holidays 5K will be virtual this year. This will be a no-frills charity run with no T-shirts or medals awarded. But participants are still encouraged to wear seasonally appropriate costumes. And since it is a virtual event, you can complete it any time between December 12 and 19.

Staying Afloat: Local Businesses Lean on the Community to Survive the Pandemic

Staying Afloat: Local Businesses Lean on the Community to Survive the Pandemic

Guest User
Local Business

In light of the pandemic, Swarthmore’s annual Home for the Holidays event has been significantly pared down from what the community has come to expect. In place of the traditional horse-drawn carriage rides, visit from Santa Claus, and dreidel games, there will be a handful of holiday activities that people can do on their own. Since the day of seasonal festivities is usually a big shopping day in the borough, the cancellation is worrisome for some retailers.

Beyond Thankful

Rachel Pastan
Editorial

Built on a myth about how this country came to be, Thanksgiving might be the best occasion of all to remember the inequities that have shaped the world and our place in it. After giving thanks for what we have, perhaps we can ask ourselves what we might do to reshape it.

Unscientific Survey: Initials

Unscientific Survey: Initials

Ben Yagoda
Unscientific Surveys, Survey

The signs at the borough limits say “Tree City, USA,” but there should really be something there about education as well. Not only are we home to Swarthmore College, but our residents have schooling on their minds. That’s the clear finding of our latest Unscientific Survey, which asked if readers knew what a group of commonly used local initials stood for. The top five most recognizable were all schools or educational bodies.

Board Approves Winter Sports

Board Approves Winter Sports

Rachel Pastan
WSSD School Board

School buildings will stay open, and winter sports practices will begin on November 30. At a nearly four-hour meeting on Monday night, members of the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District school board voted unanimously to maintain the hybrid model of instruction. Superintendent Lisa Palmer reported that the district has not seen linked transmission of COVID-19 in the schools, that contact tracing continues, and that the district can still adequately staff its buildings.

Teachers Find New Ways to Connect With Kids, Each Other

Teachers Find New Ways to Connect With Kids, Each Other

Rachel Pastan
WSSD School Board

COVID-19 has upended strategies teachers rely on to connect with kids and teach their subjects. In the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District, teachers have had to switch gears several times, going all-virtual last spring, then preparing over the summer for in-person school, only to learn that school would stay virtual after all. Then, in October, most teachers went back to school buildings, teaching cohorts of students in a hybrid of in-person and virtual instruction.

Something to Watch: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’

Something to Watch: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’

Rachel Pastan

I grew up watching reruns of the original “Star Trek” with my older brothers. Back then, I took refuge from the chaos of childhood in the brightly lit moral universe of the Federation. I started watching “Discovery” last year, after — in what seemed to me a wonderful bit of serendipity — both former Georgia congressional representative Stacey Abrams and my own brother recommended it. I need that brightly lit morality now.

Council Moves Forward With Preliminary Tax Plan

Council Moves Forward With Preliminary Tax Plan

Guest User
Borough Council

Taxes and the 2021 budget were the centerpiece of Swarthmore Borough Council’s November 9 legislative session, as they had been at the previous week’s work session. Members wrestled with raising taxes to cover community priorities in a year when many residents are economically struggling because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Council must commit to a tax rate at its December 7 meeting.

College Grounds to Remain Closed

College Grounds to Remain Closed

Swarthmorean Staff
Swarthmore College

Even with few students living in the dorms for the next few months, the college grounds will remain closed. In a letter to the Swarthmore College community, President Val Smith explained the decision, citing the current surge in COVID-19 cases across the region as well as projections of even higher positivity rates to come.

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