Our 66th Pastorius Park Concert

A special thank you to volunteer Neil Scheinin, who is stepping down as co-chair after five seasons. His hard work and dedication to the Pastorius Park Concerts will be much missed!

Thank you to all our hard working PPC volunteers: Steve (MC) Pearson, Adam Kaluzshner, Aidan Robinson, Art Howe, Barbara Bloom, Bob (Stage Guru) Rossman, Denise Chapline, Gerald Tracy, Gillian Chapline, Jay (King of the Hedge) Valinis, Kathy Gannon, Kathy O'Boyle, Laura Lucas, Larry McEwen, Lisa Howe, Madeleine Nist, Maria Vecchioli, Mark Keintz, Mike (The Iceman) Chomentowski, Pat Coyle, Rachel Benyola, Sam Earle, Steve (Sharp Shooter) Feistel, Tiffany Giangiulio and Tom Cullen.

It takes a village, and without our PPC volunteers who put the stage up at the start of the season, set up before each concert, sell concessions, collect donations, clear away after each concert and take the stage down at season end, our concert series would not happen.

Thanks also to Noreen Spota and Celeste Hardester from the Chestnut Hill Community Association for their support, Philadelphia Parks and Recreation, and the Friends of Pastorius Park who did such a wonderful job of clearing up the Park in the wake of all the winter storm damage. Thank you to our friends at Springside Chestnut Hill Academy who made us so very welcome on those rainy and sometimes not so rainy nights!

Thank you to our sponsors who generously supported our concert series: Chestnut Hill Community Fund, Chestnut Hill Hospital and Philadelphia Parks and Recreation. Many thanks also to the local businesses who supported us: Bone Appetite, Chestnut Hill News Stand, Mango, McNallys Tavern, Nolan Painting, Trolley Car Diner, Valley Green Bank and Weavers Way Co Op. We appreciate your support providing vital funds to support the Pastorius Park Concerts!

We hope you all enjoyed our 66th Pastorius Park Concert Season. Here's looking forward to 2015, our 67th Season in Pastorius Park, and hoping for better weather! Its never too soon to think about volunteering. If you'd like to help with next years Concerts please contact me at pastoriusparkconcerts@gmail.com.

Thanks again!

Julie Byrne

Co-organizer

Pastorius Park Concerts

Board of Directors, Chestnut Hill Community Association

Publicity needed for Irish Center

Thank you for printing my article in the Local (“Beloved Irish Center in Mt. Airy in danger of closing,” Aug. 7). It came out really well, and I think the edits on it read very well. Actually improved it. My editor, Jane Duffin, at the Irish Edition is always telling me to try to keep the word count down. I’m new to journalism. I was an English major and academic — a very wordy lot of folks.

By the way, the timing for the Irish Center was perfect. An article came out in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Aug. 7, the same day as yours, and a story ran on NBC News, also on Aug. 7.

All the publicity will help to get the word out to a larger audience. The fund-raising campaign is off to a great start! For everyone at the Irish Center, a great big thank you.

Marita J. Krivda

East Oak Lane

Good deeds are ‘as easy as pie’

(Ed. Note: In our July 17 issue there was an article about Patricia Gallagher, who picks up day-old bouquets of flowers every day and delivers them to hospitals and nursing homes in the area to lift the spirits of patients.)

Two of my Trader Joe’s locations did not have flowers yesterday to donate to me. Oh, no! Thirty ladies were waiting expectantly for flowers at a nursing home in Philadelphia. The sales associate sensed my disappointment and said, ”We have 30 pies that were pulled off the shelf. They are a day before expiration. Would you like them? We had set them aside for a food pantry that usually picks them up, but I think this is a good will ambassador kind of emergency donation.”

Wow! Sounds like an “as easy as pie” idea to me! So I put the box of pies, cakes, brownies, pineapple juice in cans and a variety of treats on the seat of my car and went on my way.

The toll collector on the Pennsylvania turnpike commented, “Wow, you have a lot of pies!” “What kind would you like?” I asked her. “Cherry or rhubarb?” She was shocked and selected the rhubarb pie.

And then the random acts of pie-ing began for me. First pie to the toll collector, six pies to the men working at a construction site, one to the editor of the local newspaper where I stopped to buy a newspaper and lots of treats to the ladies at the nursing home in Philadelphia. The kitchen manager said he would cut them up for a snack for all of the residents.

Maybe I have a new calling to be the Pie Lady rather than the Flower Lady.

Patricia Gallagher

“The Flower/Pie Lady”

Chalfont

Article humorous, thought-provoking

I really enjoyed your article on Craig Shoemaker (“Book is a U-turn for famed standup comic,” July 31), especially your "stronger than bus station chili," your "no one-trick pony" and your final quote, "I've done more pilots than any flight attendant."

But the description of the genesis of his book being an exchange of a Facebook correspondence and your review of the grief he suffered as a youth being the source of so much of his comedy was "thought provoking."

Ron Petrou

Mt. Airy