From a window overlooking the St. Jones

Our son David and his wife Carolyn were in Philadelphia over the weekend to attend the wedding of our granddaughter Becky Clifton to Lance Hansen. Circumstances prevented us from going, but by all accounts from family members who were there it was a wonderful occasion. The bride was beautiful and the bridegroom handsome. We were very sorry to miss it.

A call later from son David about the wedding has both a Maine and Delaware connection, though, which I thought I’d mention.

After flying to Philadelphia, David and Carolyn took a train to downtown Philadelphia and the next day returned to the airport on the same train line.

At one point David recognized a man getting on the train as U.S. Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware and got up to greet him, identifying himself as “one of the Dover Floods.” The senator apparently recognized the name. David introduced Carolyn to him. Coons was traveling alone and was in Philadelphia for some kind of meeting.

As David told me, people in Maine, which has a population of 1.3 million, tend to think their state is something like a small town because of the relatively few residents. Therefore they think that unexpectedly running into someone you know elsewhere in the state is a likely happening.

“But it’s not like Delaware,” David said, “where there really is a sense of being in a state with a small community atmosphere.”

So David felt at ease in the pleasant experience of introducing himself to Sen. Coons.

*****

Thanks to the hospitality of Superior Court Judge Rob Young, we had the opportunity last week to see the inside of the brand new courthouse, which opened in July on the Dover site of the former Kent County office building.

It’s very impressive inside and out and I am sure will be dispensing justice for generations to come.

From one of the windows facing north we could see the emerging Dover Public Library building, which is scheduled for completion next September. It will be a great source of pride for Dover, Kent County and the state as well.

There is still time to participate as a member of the community contributing to the library’s cost. In my view, it is a contribution that will be remembered with pride for many years to come.

*****

Flemish artist Peter Brueghel the Elder, in 1560, painted a town square scene, which he titled “Children at Play.” It depicts about 50 children engaged a variety of games and is often referred to as an important source of what people did in the 16th Century.

In looking at the various games in progress I could recognize some that have endured until modern times, or at least as modern as life was when I was a boy. That’s well into the last century, of course.

It also occurred to me that these children were all outside playing these games. There were not contests in progress between teams, however. It looked like what we might call “pick up” games today.

It also made me think of how much game activity among young people today does refer to team play. And the games played inside are likely to be solitary games with all kinds of electronic toys.

Kinds of play change with the years.

*****

An annual seasonal activity in Kent County which merits public support is the Kent Ecumenical Food and Crisis Fund Annual Fall Food Drive.

When residents shop in food stores they are being asked to select from a list of items to deposit in a box provided for donations as they leave.

Especially sought are peanut butter, powdered milk in quart envelopes, soups, canned fruit, cereals, Spam/corned beef, spaghetti sauce, tuna fish and instant potatoes.

Also welcome are money donations in checks made payable to Kent Ecumenical Food and Crisis Fund and sent to P.O. Box  913, Dover DE 19903.

*****

Lack of my staying alert in writing last week’s column caused me to forget the Kent County Economic Summit: Building a Better Community, a conference today at the Terry Campus Conference Center.

This should have been mentioned when I referred to a similar conference which has been held for many years at the Georgetown Campus of Delaware Technical Community College.

*****

Ed Hynes, in a follow-up to last week’s joke about the bicyclist who seemed to be trying to pass a couple of cars which were drag racing, told me about the joke by a well known Irish comedian which goes like this:

Murphy was out riding on his new motorcycle when he spotted his friend Kelly. “Hop on” he said to Kelly, “and “I’ll give you a ride.”

Kelly got on, sitting behind Murphy. After they had gone a short distance, Kelly asked Murphy to stop. “This jacket I’m wearing doesn’t protect my throat,” he said. “It’s too cold riding like this.”

“I can fix that,” Murphy said. “Put your jacket on backwards. That will cover up our neck.”

So that’s what Kelly did.

They were soon riding faster over a rough road when Murphy looked behind him. No Kelly. He had fallen off. So Murphy turned around and a short distance down the road saw three or four men standing beside someone lying on the roadway. He recognized that it was Kelly.

“Is he all right?” Murphy called out.

“We don’t know,” one of the men replied. “He hasn’t said a word since we turned his head around straight!”

Ginny Miller, who celebrated her 91st birthday with friends on Monday, said she still laughs when she thinks of the bicyclist ringing his bell and trying to get the speeding cars to stop.