Two-Decade Dream: Grantville Volunteer Fire Company’s new building becomes a reality

Fire company president Wayne Isett

This article was first published on April 28, 2012, in The Patriot-News.

EAST HANOVER TWP — At the April 14 groundbreaking for Grantville Volunteer Fire Company’s new 15,000-square-foot building, the excitement in the air was as tangible as the dry spring heat that wafted over the gravel ground

No wonder — the dream to build a firehouse for the 200-member volunteer fire company has been nearly 20 years in the making.

“It’s been said that perseverance is not just running one long race, but many short races one after the other,” East Hanover Twp. supervisor George Rish said. “This fire company is an example of that.”

Consultant Paul McNamee of Paul McNamee Consultants agreed.

“You have a hard-working fire company. They’re one of the hardest-working clients I’ve ever had,” McNamee said.

Standing to the side of the crowd, fire company president Wayne Isett smiled calmly, introducing speakers and acknowledging guests. A 30-year member of the fire company, Isett and other senior members identified the company’s need for a new building back in the 1990s when they began outgrowing the current location on Jonestown Road, which had been constructed in 1973.

Read the complete article at pennlive.com.

Encore! Home School Productions have appointment with death

Encore! Home School Productions, an independent theater group composed of home schoolers from across Central PA, will perform Agatha Christie’s “Appointment with Death” at Trinity High School in Lower Allen Township from April 19-22. The group’s 2011 performance, “First Impressions,” earned them three Apollo Award nominations, defining the group’s perseverance as an acting group and team. Click here to read more on pennlive.com.

This article was first published in The Patriot-News on Friday, April 6, 2012.

Amber Emerson, Lewisberry (top left), discuss the plot with Austin Cassel, Hummelstown (left), and Forrest Davis, Palmyra (right), at Grace Chapel, Conewago township.

Friday Photo: A Plowman’s Perspective of Harrisburg Snow Removal

Third Street, Harrisburg, at 1:30 A.M.

This article first appeared in the January 2011 issue of TheBurg, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

It’s 11:35 PM on Wednesday, December 7, and I haven’t left home at this odd of a weekday hour since Black Friday. I bend over my steering wheel and crane my neck toward the sky: still no snow.  Front Street is as clear as a country road, a sleek damp ribbon studded with lampposts.  The black jogging path runs beside a silver Susquehanna.  It’s a picturesque scene, but the weather forecast has been clear: snow advisory for Central Pennsylvania from 7pm to 7am tomorrow.

When snow is on the forecast, most of us slide into a familiar routine: check the quantity of milk in the fridge, the level of gas in the tank. For most of us, the routine stops there, except for the occasional glance at the sky. This is not the case for Harrisburg’s Department of Public Works, for whom the words “snow day” have an entirely different meaning.

Tonight, four men—Dave Spiroff, Enola; Rodney Keller, Hummelstown; Randy Sauder, Harrisburg; and David Jordan, Susquehanna township—have just arrived for work.  I join them in a utility building on South 19^th Street which is backlit by fog and orange light. Director Ernie Hoch sips coffee and shakes my hand, and the men greet me with a nod. “This is my A team,” says Hoch, by way of an introduction.  “These are the guys that I call first.”

During heavy blizzards, up to 45 men, CDL licensed or otherwise, can be called upon by the department to help clear the city of snow, rotating over 12 hour shifts.  Most snow removal strategies are systematic, including prioritizing primary and secondary streets, and mapping out the city into 8 sections to focus the work. However, trying to determine where to push the snow, or struggling to fit a snowplow down Penn Street, can make for white-knuckle work.

“There’s always that one street that you’re driving down with your heart pumping Kool-Aid,” says Spiroff, who has worked with the city for 16 years.

Tonight, expectations are minimal. The one- and five-ton salt trucks have already been loaded, the goal being to salt ramps and bridges and to keep a close eye on the roads near the river, where it’s colder. The crew scatters, taking their places among the city, and Hoch and I duck into a pick-up truck and drive up Cameron Street.  We’ve barely driven five minutes before Hoch checks the weather on his phone. “I actually think the snow’s passed over us,” he says suddenly. There is no regret in his voice. “I’m not disappointed.  It’s better to be proactive. The streets will be clear by rush hour.”

I will be awake again by 6:30 and part of that rush hour traffic that will move swiftly through a bitter cold sunrise.  The students that I teach will be disappointed to have not had a delay, and I will secretly regret that I can’t sleep in, either.  However, it’s clear that this privilege of safe driving has everything to do with the four trucks that are out on the streets right now, circulating like quiet watchmen, tracing the city silently beneath a snowless sky.

Dads and daughters enjoy Londonderry township’s dance

The following is taken from an interview of participants at Londonderry township’s Fifth Annual Daddy-Daughter dance.  An abridged version appeared in The Patriot-News on Friday, October 28, 2011.

Daddy-daughter dance, Sunset Golf Course Clubhouse, October 2011

WHITE TIGHTS, BLACK TIES: Londonderry townhip fathers and daughters celebrated one another at the fifth annual Daddy-Daughter dance, a heartwarming evening of games, prizes, and music at the Sunset Golf Course Clubhouse on Friday, October 14.  “It’s hard to tell who appreciates the dance more, the daughters or the daughters,” says coordinator Beth Graham. Thirty-seven couples were in attendance for professional photographs, a food buffet, and the crowning of a king and queen.

MILES OF SMILES (clockwise from top): Richard Silks with granddaughters, Kylie, Alex, and Cheyenne of Cedar Manor

(1)
WHO: Richard Silks, Cedar Manor
GRANDDAUGHTERS: Alex, 5; Kylie, 9; Cheyenne, 12

He says…
-       GRANDDAUGHTERS’ BEST QUALITIES: “Alex makes her own cheers that she always has to share.  Kylie does jigsaw puzzles with me. Cheyenne is great at spending quality time.”
-       BEST PART OF THE EVENING: “The whole night.  It puts memories into my granddaughters’ lives, the kind you can never replace.”

PERFECT PAIR: Kailynn White, 7, with father Steve White, Elizabethtown

(2)
WHO: Kailynn White, 7
FATHER: Steve White, Elizabethtown
PARTICIPATION: “We’ve been coming for three years.”

She says…
-       BEST PART OF EVENING: “I love dancing with my friends.”
-       FAVORITE DRESS-UP ACCESSORY: “My high heels.”
-       DAD’S BEST ASSET: “He’s great because he loves me.”

FIRST DANCE: Jeff Poor with Ellie, 5, of Elizabethtown

(3)
WHO: Jeff Poor, Elizabethtown
DAUGHTER: Ellie, 5
PARTICIPATION: “It’s our first year, but we were crowned dance King and Queen!”

He says…
-       OVERALL IMPRESSION: “The dance is a neat way to get dads and daughters out together before the girls get too old.”
-       ELLIE’S GREATEST ASSET: “Her energy, her fresh outlook, her innocence.”

She says…
-       FAVORITE DRESS-UP ACCESSORY: “This dress.”
-       DAD’S FAVORITE FOOD: “He makes good bacon.”
-       BEST PART OF THE EVENING: “I won the contest.”

DOUBLE DIP: (from left) Andy and Rylee Hartwick, 6, of Middletown with Aaron and Paige Adelman, 7, of Londonderry township

(4)
WHO: Andy Hartwick, Middletown
DAUGHTER: Rylee Hartwick, 6

He says…
-       FAVORITE SHARED ACTIVITY: “We go fishing together.  She’s my girl.”

DANCE LIKE THIS: Lucy Rodgers, 10, and her father Simon of Harrisburg

(5)
WHO: Lucy Rogers, 10
DAD: Simon Rogers, Harrisburg
PARTICIPATION: “This is our third year coming to the dance.”

She says…
-       BEST PART OF EVENING: “The limbo.  I won two years in a row!”

He says…
-       FAVORITE EVENING MEMORY: “Just seeing Lucy smile.  It melts my heart.”
-       LUCY’S GREATEST ASSET: “Her self-assuredness.”

Friday Photo: Political Climate

Political Climate: A record-breaking snowstorm hit the northeast on Saturday, October 29, 2011, 11 days before Election Day--a day which, in contrast, is predicted to enjoy sunny skies and a high of 64 degrees.

 

 

Local band Colebrook Road aims to ‘draw people’

Colebrook Road (left to right): Joe McAnuty of Harrisburg, fiddle and vocals; Marcus Weaver of Elizabethtown, banjo and vocals; Wade Yankey of Harrisburg, mandolin; Jesse Eisebise of Lower Swatara Twp., guitar; and Mike Vitale of Millersville, bass and vocals.

The name Colebrook Road is both a bluegrass band — and a place. As a band, it’s a five-member musical powerhouse based in Harrisburg who has written Pennsylvania-inspired songs like “Dry Ground Blues” and “Delta Skunk” and has performed in various venues, including many across the mid-state. As a street, Colebrook Road runs across Central Pennsylvania through Dauphin, Lebanon, and Lancaster counties, and represents many members’ childhood, connection to the land, and life philosophy. I spoke to the band Colebrook Road in October about their connection to community in an article recently published in The Patriot-News.

Friday Photo: Kill Your Television

Uptown, Harrisburg, October 2011

I found these words on a street on which I’ve never walked before.  I do not know the street name, but what I know for sure it was north of Maclay, the unofficial dividing line between Harrisburg’s Old Uptown and “real” Uptown, between poverty and prosperity, between black and white.  When living on the farm in Shippensburg, I never understood how it was be possible that the contrast between city neighborhoods could be so stark, but the answer as I see it now is both complex and simple: differences in money and thus schools, differences in traditions and thus legacy, differences in opportunity and thus the lack of it, which both enrobe and result in the mistrust of a stereotype.

But here’s a fact that brings us together: in 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans over the age of 15 spent an average of 2 hours and 45 minutes watching television daily, making TV-watching the most third-most prominent activity in our lives.  (As the survey includes retirees and teenagers and charts daily activity, including weekends, sleeping tops the chart at 8 1/2 hours, and “work-related activities” only clocks in at 3 1/2 hours).  This means that watching television one of the most unifying activities across races, genders, and age.

There’s a problem in this equation–for all of us.  Norman Herr, Ph.D., author of the textbook The Sourcebook for Teaching Science publishes on his website that, by the time a child finishes elementary school, he has witnessed 8,000 murders via television, and will watch 400,000 violent acts by the time that he reaches 18.  He also writes that many of Americans are so “hooked” on watching television that the act, for some, fits the criteria for substance abuse (usually defined by answering “yes” to two or more of the following questions): 1) the substance is used as a sedative; 2) it is used indiscriminately; 3) the user feels a loss of control while partaking; (4) the user feels angry with himself for using too much; (5) he feels an inability to stop; and (6) he feels miserable when the substance is being withheld.

(Does “I accidentally stayed up until 2am watching Breaking Bad” sound familiar to anyone?)

It’s easy to laugh off these occurrences, but with these statistics in mind–along with well-popularized figures of increasing childhood obesity rates–it is no longer funny.  I originally read the message I found with the violent wording (“Kill,” not just “Turn off”) in a rough neighborhood as being fueled by one resident’s frustration about and awareness to the role that excessive television-watching plays in the cycle of poverty and abuse, but apparently, the message is for all of us–south of Maclay and otherwise.

‘Architecturally Speaking’ gives new perspective on old art

Steve Zeigler, September 2011

Drive past Steve Zeigler’s warehouse on Lexington Street in Susquehanna Township, and it’s likely you won’t notice anything besides a junkyard. Surrounded by a chain link fence, the warehouse faces an old coal shed whose storage bays spill with porcelain bathtubs, a blue park bench, a pile of metal grating.

Then you see the gates: enormous wrought iron towers with the high arches and plunging curves that evoke the entryway of a Victorian mansion.

“I’m not sure where they came from,” says Zeigler thoughtfully. “But I would like to use them over the warehouse entrance.”

This is the storage warehouse of Architecturally Speaking, a business that finds, makes, and sells repurposed industrial art for the home or garden.  Selling mostly from a stand at the Antique Marketplace in Lemoyne, Zeigler—a full-time landscaper, Dauphin County native, and the owner, artist, and picker of Architecturally Speaking—has been salvaging and selling his goods art for over 5 years.

At Zeigler’s business, every item has a use—and a story.

“This is a freezer door from the old Weaver’s on Derry Street,” Zeigler says, tugging at a massive wooden frame with a steel lock and peeling turquoise paint.  “I’d like to see this as a wall decoration.”

Nearby, next to a functioning coal stove, sits a length of wrought iron railing from a Pittsburg cemetery.  There’s a zinc façade from Sixth and Maclay Street, Harrisburg and street signs from New York City.  Zeigler even has the arched transom window from the boarding house that formerly stood on the now-vacant lot on the corner of Second and State Street, Harrisburg; the address is still printed in yellow on the glass.

“Other people throw things like this away, but not me,” says Zeigler.

Old park bench and iron work

Many of Zeigler’s finds are for sale “as is,” but Zeigler also sees the pieces as inspiration to create new art: organ pipe fences, clutch gear mirrors, heating-grate flagstones. Wooden desk drawers become shadow boxes, carefully filled with other found objects—like an old photograph of a Harrisburg flood paired with antiques that could have been found inside the homes. Patterned tin, like that which covers the ceilings of old buildings, is sanded, repainted, and stretched over a frame like a canvas.  A birdhouse is built out of old wood from a blacksmith’s shop behind Penn National Racetrack and then fitted with metal from a roof of a car.

Edgy, funky, yet consistently practical, this art pays homage to the beauty of the architecture from which the materials came.

“I can just look at an object and find another purpose for it,” Zeigler says.  “It’s fun.  I love it.”

Clutch Gear Mirror

The larger trend toward “industrial” art can be seen in popularity of exposed ductwork, brick walls, and the use of antiques as décor in restaurants, bars, and businesses across the mid-state.  The bell hung in the Midtown Scholar, Harrisburg, is from Manchester, England. In La Piazza of Linglestown, an Italian restaurant housed in a former church, customers wait for their tables by sitting on one of Zeigler’s found church pews.

Zeigler’s picking runs take him as far as New York City, Baltimore, and Virginia; and his art has been sold to customers along the East Coast. Creative and meticulous—he loves working especially with textures, especially metal—Zeigler views his own art not a challenge, not only for him but his viewers as well.

“The name ‘Architecturally Speaking’ asks people to take a different perspective on what’s around them,” he says.

Architecturally Speaking
(717) 903-6329
Steviezeee@hotmail.com

Sales: Antique Marketplace, 415 Bosler Avenue, Lemoyne
Warehouse: 4410 Lexington Street, Harrisburg (by appointment)

This article first appeared in TheBurg, September 2011.

Part 2, Local Literacy: Students meet reading project goal

Harrisburg, August 2011

In July, about 60 students at the Hansel and Gretel Early Development Center in Susquehanna Township were offered a challenge that sounded like a training schedule: read a collective 50,000 minutes in six weeks and win.

The students, ages 4-12, weren’t daunted. They faced the summer reading project head on and overwhelmed the goal, reading 56,169 minutes — in 900 collective hours, a total that was revealed the week of Aug. 19.

“There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that they could do it,” said Katie Weaver of West Hanover Twp., who helped organize the program with her mother, Cathy Hutchins, and her stepfather, Hutch.

The project was a joint effort among parents, teachers and students, designed to …

A version of this article first appeared in The Patriot-News on Friday, September 9.  Click here to read more.

Part 1, Local Literacy: Council seeks to unite, inspire adult learners

Lemoyne, August 2011

It’s mid-afternoon on a Friday, and a group is gathered at a pavilion at the Memorial Park, Lemoyne. One young man flips burgers by a grill.  A woman arrives with her husband, carrying a bowl of macaroni salad.  A third man begins reading the clues of a crossword puzzle out loud, and the members of the pavilion chime in with potential answers. This is not a family gathering, however—at least, not really.

This is the Central Pennsylvania Literacy Council’s Annual Corn Fest, held this year on August 12.

“We’re like a family,” says board president, MaryAnna Borke of Rutherford.

The literacy council, a collaborative partner of the Tri-County OIC Adult Learning Center based in Harrisburg, is an organization that provides individualized instruction in reading and math for adult learners.  Presently, the CPLC hosts 34 volunteers and tutors and 28 learners who study at the council between 1-8 hours a week.  About half of the adult learners hail from countries outside the U.S.  The remaining half are learners who may have simply struggled in school as teenagers and are now redefining their education. But all of them are bound together by the rule that defines the Lemoyne-based center—say hello to everyone, no exceptions, each time you enter—as well as the desire to better their lives.

The Corn Fest, a summer picnic featuring corn-on-the-cob, is one of two annual CPLC gatherings for volunteers, learners, and families.  The Council was founded in the 1970s as a response to census data, which had been released by county for the first time.  With these numbers, “we saw there was a huge number of people within our area who didn’t know how to read,” explains Carole Sawchuck, director. “We realized it was just normal people who needed reading skills.  It was the neighbor down the street.”

Running on the slogan, “individualized instruction for all,” the CPLC advertises itself as being open 24/7 and designed for learners whose needs can’t be met in a traditional classroom.  “People who work odd hours aren’t able to show up for a class three days a week,” says Borke. The CPLC maintains an “open entrance, open exit” policy, meaning the learner’s experience will last as long as he or she is available.  Each learner also receives a battery of placement exams and is paired directly with a personal tutor.

In addition to providing tutoring in reading and math, the CPLC also offers help in other disciplines, such as word attack skills, phonetics, writing, keyboarding, computer usage, preparation for citizenship exams, practice in written driver’s license exams, and prep for the GED.

Occasionally, a learner just needs help negotiating a job application, a medical bill, or a car insurance claim.

Sawchuck explains that as little as 12% of people who are eligible for state services receive them, a fact which depends partially on an individual’s lack of reading skills.  “If you can’t read, you can’t understand your society: the rules that govern you, and the rules that don’t,” she says.  “People can tell you anything, but you have to read in order to confirm.  That’s what we’re here for.”

Working with the CPLC also can increase a learner’s verbal communication skills, as was the case for Patrick Scott of Susquehanna township.  Scott remembers the first time he answered the phone at the CPLC—an act most volunteers are required to do to build telephone skills—as a milestone.  “I was nervous and I stumbled over my words,” Scott says. “The person on the other end asked, ‘Is this your first time?’ and then told me it was okay.”  Scott has since volunteered with the CPLC for almost 14 years.

Ralph Owens of Penbrook explains that the CPLC, combined with his faith, has given him a new outlook on his life. “My whole character changed.  I got a lot of encouragement, got to be around a lot of different people, and now, I’m no longer afraid,” Owens says.  At age 56, Owens has been working with the CPLC for five years and is now a member of the board of directors.  He is working toward his GED and hopes to work with the elderly and the mentally disabled.

Operating at an annual budget of $12,000 is a challenge, admits Sawchuck, as is the constant need for volunteers.  The CPLC is currently seeking tutors with specialized skills in reading, math, and phonetic awareness, and who have a solid grasp of the English language, good communication skills, and the willingness to be patient.

“Often the learners come without dreams, and they don’t see themselves as moving ahead,” says Borke.  “But we want to help learners realize their own potential.”

CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA LITERACY COUNCIL

225 Bosler Avenue (rear)
Lemoyne, PA
(717) 763-7522
centralpaliteracycouncil@comcast.net

A version of this article first appeared in The Patriot-News on Friday, September 9, 2011.