a sure investment
Helping train our emerging leaders is always rewarding – both now and in the future! Day 2 of the intensive Pennsylvania Recreation and Park Society’s Leadership Academy included sessions on successful communications and creating collaborative relationships with key stakeholders, a working lunch, but also a few moments for a Class of 2024 selfie!
My son once critiqued a movie as just a series of people staring at things. And I think he was justified in that one. But in our recent first-time visit to Seattle, Washington, we found that staring at things is what we did most productively.
First, I had a professional purpose to the trip: the city was hosting Greater & Greener, a biennial international urban parks conference for urban planners, park innovators, and policymakers. (I missed the last forum two years ago, hosted in Philadelphia in my home state, because that’s the week I suffered a passing-out case of covid!)
So the prime point of view was first to learn from the expertise and vision of those around the globe who are doing remarkable work in harnessing the power of parks to create more sustainable, resilient, vibrant, and equitable cities. Its opening reception was held at Pier 62 Waterfront Park, and its closing reception at the Seattle landmark and National Register of Historic Place Gas Works Park at Lake Union. Enlightening and beautiful!
But of course, while we were there, we took in the peculiar, picturesque sights of the city—starting with the famous Space Needle, with views from the ground, our hotel window, and from its top—from its rotating glass floor.
We toured The Marketplace, with its crowded cacophony of fishy smells, offbeat wares, cafes, retail niches, and sideshows. We rode the city’s famous Monorail, built for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, sitting right up front next to the young driver who engaged us in conversation about its unique history. We walked the fascinating streets, marveling at the variety of transportation methods, its quaint nooks, and its gleaming modernity. We gaped at the Norwegian Bliss, a cruise ship of 22 decks (!) docked at the terminal on Pier 66.
We particularly enjoyed the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum featuring the career work of artist Dale Chihuly in eight galleries, a centerpiece Glasshouse, and a lush garden.
We very much found Seattle—with its uncommonly good weather during our stay—a particularly enticing city with a rich palette of intellectual, visual, cultural, and historic vistas. 5 stars.
The Council of State Executive Directors met this week in Park City, Utah. The annual gathering focuses on trends and best practices of association management, and mutual issues in the recreation and park profession.
But we are more than just colleagues. We are a gregarious, fun, engaging (and exhausting!) bunch who continually and passionately invests in each other. This is my greatest gang of professional associates and personal friends – my collective, got-your-back brain trust. I appreciate and love them all.
Everyone needs such a herd. Who’s in yours?
the history, lore, and how-to behind this sweet treat
If you’re a fan of maple syrup, you’ll love my little book about the history, lore, and how-to behind this unique North American treat. Learn the Natives’ stories, the methods of the colonists, and the modern innovations that make syruping a $1.4 billion global industry.
But if you’d like to try a little do-it-yourself sugaring in your backyard, this is also the source to help identify your maples, properly tap them, and boil off the sap to make your own home-grown sweetness. Recipes included!
And even if not, you’ll still want to get out and enjoy a maple festival near you, conducted by your friendly neighborhood naturalist.
Storey Publishing outdid itself in the highly attractive design of this perennial favorite, and I remain grateful to their fantastic editorial and production staff!
Of what use is knowledge unapplied?
If I learn all truth but do not allow it to change me,
I remain frozen in chosen ignorance.
Potential is realized only in becoming.
some reflection on jobs well done
One of the roles of my job is to host an annual statewide conference for the professional development and networking of our members. This year’s production took place last month in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where we were gratified to see our attendance reach our normal pre-covid levels (and distribute a staggering amount of chocolate!). As usual, the conference was the culmination of a year’s worth of planning and preparations, and resulted in a productive, but intense time of collegial sharing and learning. By its completion, I was completely “talked-out” and need some quiet, recuperative, alone time.
So after we’d packed up our materials to head home, I took a side trip by myself to The Hershey Story Museum on downtown’s Chocolate Avenue. (Yes—downtown Hershey’s streetlamps are fashioned like the iconic Hershey Kisses!) Fortunately, the museum wasn’t crowded at that time, and afforded me a couple of hours to leisurely stroll through the exhibits, communing, but not conversing.
Some years ago, I had read an excellent biography on Hershey, and learned a good bit about his life, and extrapolated some character- and business-building lessons for my own edification. See this Sweet Inspirations! blog post.
The Museum really does its founder well. Its interactive, engaging, fun, and modern exhibits depict the comprehensive story of Milton S. Hershey’s life and the history of his picturesque, namesake town.
As an 8-yr-old Cub Scout, I remember touring the original chocolate factory, and witnessing the actual transformation of cocoa into chocolate before my seeing, smelling and tasting senses! Alas, the days of tourists in the actual factory, however, are long-gone; although its modern accommodation is a Disney-esque ride through Hershey’s Chocolate World—complete with strolling Hershey bar characters, swooshing of liquid “chocolate,” and singing animatronic cows, before depositing you in a chock-filled candy and merchandise gift shop.)
The Museum was all I needed at that moment: Peaceful. Engaging. Reflective. Unhurried. I enjoyed viewing the machinery used at the original factory, the interactive displays, the stories of the early business failures and successes, and the images and artifacts from the founding of a bit of utopia in the fertile farmlands of 1903.
Like other industrialists of his era, Milton Hershey envisioned his company town as a model enclave, removed from the influences of the big city. But he brought a more beneficent corporate paternalism to his project than many of his contemporaries. A sign above his desk read, “Business is a Matter of Human Service,” which he apparently took to heart.
Spending lavishly on the town, he provided well-equipped houses for workers to buy, free education through a junior college, and even an amusement park and a zoo. I learned from the museum, that he encouraged his workers to start their own businesses, even if they competed against him. One H.B. Reese, who worked in the Hershey dairy farm, took him up on the idea, and independently created and sold Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups from just down the street, using Hershey chocolate in his confections. Forty years later in 1963, his sons amicably sold the business to The Hershey Company.
Before I left the museum for my long drive home, I enjoyed a well-made Reuben sandwich from the in-house Lisa’s Café, savoring the peaceful atmosphere surrounding several jobs well-done.
another heartwarming episode of “Life as I Remember it Ought to Have Been”
Today is another day of cancelled school while the populace waits for its hopeful interrupting snowfall. In anticipation, the streets have already been sprayed with snow-melting solution, the public works guys are counting overtime hours, and it’s a great excuse for a surprise holiday.
Remote workers: you got nothing.
But back in MY day, an accumulating snow, much less a forecast of it, was no reason for changing the day’s plans.
(Disclaimer: my bachelor’s degree is in forecast meteorology; and this is no bash against my brother and sister prognosticators!)
But as I was saying, back in MY day, things were different.
I have a vivid memory from a particular wintry day back in the early 60s, when Good Ol’ Bus 4 ambled up our unnamed road to our farm in rural Moore Township, Pennsylvania. Cold. Windy. Snow covering the yard, feeding troughs, fields, road and everything. Me, bundled in my red coat with the hood up and tied tight round my face with a threaded shoestring, wearing tall, black rubber boots, each with a half-dozen railroad-track latches, and clutching my metal Donald Duck lunchbox with matching thermos inside, I stood dutifully next to our mailbox held aloft by a red, white and blue painted plank figure of Uncle Sam.
The bus arrived just as expected, I giant-stepped into the maw of the yellow beast, and it trundled its load of captive minors toward another day’s sentence in jail (which today might be called “The Learning Facility.”)
But in just another two hundred feet or so, the bus lodged itself in a blustering snowdrift that had dammed the roadway between our barns. “Schlegel,” the bus driver, gave it the old college try to plow his way through, but today the game appeared to be already decided with the low score of Stubborn Snowdrift: 1, Good Ol’ Bus 4: 0.
I quickly and opportunistically offered to hop off and go back to the house and tell my parents. But Schlegel wouldn’t have it. With an order to his charges to “Stay on the bus!” he abandoned us to trudge back to the house. Inside, my parents allowed him to use the party-line telephone to call the school (what were they thinking!?) and let them know we were stuck in the snowbank between a pair of barns isolated in the backcountry wintry wastes.
Eventually, Schlegel returned and resumed his seat at the front of the bus, and closed the bifold door. And there we all sat in the damp cold on the hard bench seats. And waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And then, in the distance, appeared an growing yellow smudge amid the swirling snow: Rescue!
Another bus crawled toward us from the other side of the world, turned itself around, backed up to “Our Drift,” and invitingly opened its door to the frigid wilderness.
With Schlegel stomping a path through the monstrous frozen whitecap, each of us snow-hopped across to Mean Ol’ Bus 6, retook our seats, and resumed the long, cold trek to No Excuses Consolidated Elementary School.
I couldn’t possibly tell you what I learned that day in class, but the memory of that singular adventure is a permanent fixture of what happened back in MY day!
Note: I sure wish that my dad had hustled outside with his Argus and taken a Kodachrome of that stuck school bus, but he stayed inside while all us kiddos built character. Instead, I offer these photos from another winter’s day when the Township’s bulldozer eventually got us plowed out—after we had run out of food, and my dad had skied into town to fetch some groceries.
Primo perks at an exceptional national conference
Meaningful meetups:
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent and keynote speaker Dr.Sanjay Gupta spoke on Lessons From the Pandemic and How to Prepare for the Next One, and about the healthiest people in the world, the indigenous Tsimane of the Bolivian rainforest, who take 17,000 steps a day and never sit down.
Dr. Temple Grandin, the world-renown designer of cattle handling systems, professor, best-selling author, and accomplished authority with autism, spoke on Inclusion for All Types of Minds and Bodies in Parks and Recreation. We spoke briefly about Asperger’s Syndrome while she autographed two of her books for me.
After six months of virtual interactive meetings, my mentee and I finally met in person over lunch. Despite holding the senior position in the relationship, I’ve learned a great deal from my new colleague and friend.
Outstanding observations:
Phoenix is a good-looking city, surrounded by the barren teeth of spectacular mountains, and boasts a first-class convention center.
Yes, but it’s a dry heat. I quickly learned to walk on the shady side of the street. But scooting across town in a suit after dark in a 98° scorch was ridiculous.
I was invited to pose with some Pennsylvania peers who were recognized among The Best of the Best. And for the second time in my career, I accepted an award for something I didn’t earn. Standing in for the actual winner is an easy gig!
Best takeaway:
It’s a fantastic privilege to learn and network with thousands of the best in the business!
