Is it October already?

A few things. Hello all, I'm writing to you to what amounts to my living room, (since I really don't have one in my 1 man cell, er, I mean studio apartment in the Greentree building) other wise known as the Starbucks across the street. First, welcome everyone to the fall season, here in beautiful West Chester, as if on some pre agreed upon signal, some of the leaves on some of the trees begin to wimp out on life, turn yeller, and make their suicide leap to the ground. Like lemmings I's tells ya these leaves are...

Second, my scooter crossed over the 1000 mile mark of trouble free service. I took this very clever picture at the northern gate entrance to Everhardt park as it crossed 1000, as if to give the casual viewer the idea that through fortuitous circumstance and fate that it just happened to cross 1000 ever so randomly at that particular location, but of course the truth is that I circled the park several times during the last mile, 999.0 to make sure I ended up there when the numbers rolled over. Sorry for perpetrating such a heinous fraud upon my loyal readers, but, well, whatever!

Third, as if this humble blogger cannot be given an even bigger head, I got quite the compliment from Godfather of West Chester Blogging, WCJIM, otherwise known as West Chester University professor and city councilman Dr. Jim Jones. I like to call him Dr. Jones, because it sounds so Indiana Jones-ish. Anyway, to read his post about myself and other local area bloggers, click here.

Finally, with the fall weather upon us, it can only mean one thing. ROTORFEST. Now I've always been, and will continue to be, a fixed wing man, but I do have a fond memory of flying in a Bell 47 up and down Cocoa Beach for 4th of July, 1975, and then several years later in a UH-1P as a Civil Air Patrol Cadet at McDill AFB, 1983, and most recently last year flying side by side with my brother Joe right before he went to Afghanistan in a Hughes 500. So suffice to say, it's difficult for me to imagine under what circumstances I'd miss a chance to check out ROTORFEST when it comes to town. This year it was Lana's turn to ride in a Helicopter, and surprise, surprise, she enjoyed it. She managed to get some great shots of West Chester off in the distance, and those miserable McMansions that are a sadly ubiquitous in the suburbs, no offence to my readers who are rocking the McMansion lifestyle, more power to you, no seriously, you use up a disproportionate amount of power! :)

So, with October off to a high and mighty start, I find myself looking forward to the last 3 months of the year, what with the Halloween parade, Veterans Day Parade, and Christmas Parade all on the horizon. The twitter-verse is all a twitter with talk of a Guerrilla Drive-In float in the Halloween parade, and you just know that's going to be fun! Also, the Phillies are also in the playoffs, so let's hope they make it all the way to the fall classic, but let's hope we avoid last year's celebration in the borough, what with the flipped cars and the fires and whatnot...

West Chester Old Fashioned Christmas

Editor's note-This is not a scene from the 1983 movie "A Christmas Story", this "moment" actually happened tonight!

When I first moved to West Chester, I remember sitting in my apartment at night and my TV being drowned out by the surprising sounds of Marching Bands under my window. I've gotten much better at the whole advanced noticed thing, so this year, my 3rd year here, I was much better prepared to watch and of course now, blog about this year's Christmas festivities.

The thing about this place, (and I've mentioned it before) is the diversity, right? In addition to the previously aforementioned marching bands, there were the school dance ensembles, cub scouts, classic car clubs, classic FARM TRACTOR clubs, and what I thought was really cool, a group of Chinese traditional dressed drummers from Falun Dong, (I'm pretty sure it was Dong, not Gong, the spiritual practitioners that for some reason the Chinese Communist Government beats up on a lot, but also the Russian Club from West Chester University featuring Ded Moroz (Russian Santa Claus) and his Grand daughter Snegurochka,

and finally the Bolivian Folkloric Dance group Caporales San Simon
Then as if all the holiday good feelings from the parade weren't enough, I went to the Chester County Historical Society's Auditorium to listen to the Pennsylvania Academy of Performing Arts Chamber Choir sing some traditional Christmas Carols in English, German, Latin and Russian. I remember as a kid, my mom got the entire family tickets to see Handel's Messiah at the Bob Carr Performing Arts Center in Orlando. We didn't last 20 minutes. God bless my Mom for trying to class up a pack of wild boys, but when you are 11 or 12 years old, you can't possibly appreciate let alone hold still for anything artsy fartsy. I tell you what a difference 30 years makes. This group of talented singers really could fill the room with that classic angelic sound, and if I wasn't so macho a guy, that and I'm emotionally damaged, I would have wept.

The best thing about the parade is the feelings of nostalgia it evokes, and the funny thing is, it's not like I ever experienced anything like it before. Unless you count watching A Charlie Brown Christmas and A Christmas Story on TV, suburban Central Florida doesn't lend itself towards making any great memories about Christmas time. No parades that I could walk to at night in 30 degree weather, no hot apple cider, no trees who only weeks before had been multi colored hues of red, orange, yellow and brown.

If I ever leave West Chester, I got a feeling I'll have some pretty good memories of my time here.

PS, if anyone was going to see Santa arrive by Helicopter at the American Helicopter Museum, let me know if it happens, according to the email I got from the FAA, a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) is in effect for 30 miles around Philadelphia, seems President Bush is in town for the Army-Navy game, so General Aviation is pretty much grounded. And on that note, GO ARMY, BEAT NAVY! (If I cared about a bunch of future officers hitting each other)