Reader Submission: Tires, multiple pairs of flip-flops collected in Friends of Pennypack Park clean-up

There are lots of pretty places in the park, and everybody has their favorite.

Among the top of many people’s list is Pennypack on the Delaware, just south of Rhawn Street and State Road.  It could be argued that it’s not as trashy as other parts of the park. Granted, it’s also not as accessible on foot, therefore, lacking the beer party ambiance of the wooded areas. It also helps (doesn’t help depending upon how you look at it) that it lies behind Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility.

Nevertheless, 30 of your friends and neighbors (92 volunteer hours) managed to divest the area of 42 bags of trash and one of the longest lists of “other stuff” we’ve had in quite some time. The list included four different descriptions of flip flops and more than 10 different descriptions of balls.  The areas denuded of trash include the access road entrance to the POD, along the fence behind CFCF (still more fun to be on the park side of that fence), and along the river from the mouth of the Pennypack to the meadow at the end of the access road.

Those enjoying the excellent weather and bucolic atmosphere while still actually doing volunteer work were:

Seven weekenders with Jim McCarthy from CLIP (nice work on the entrance and around the front)

a community volunteer

new comers Brian Leonard and Russ Booth (we enjoyed having you)

Roland Williams (thanks for the history lessons and bird IDs)

Alan Ostrow, Betty Landolfi, Audrey Walmsley and Linda Davies (it wouldn’t be a good cleanup without you guys)

Louise Kopena (and her “Who’s laughing now?” shoes)

the mother and daughter team of Lorry and Sarah Benson

the Brothers Darmohray from Father Judge:  Nick, Vince and Justin

Sheila Grossman (nice to see you again)

Jim Ryan (thanks for taking the reports)

our “we can’t thank you enough for taking two long drives through the park” Gator Crew:  Kevin Sweetra, Joyce Ferrero, Bill Henderson and Jim Smyth

the always smiling Norma Rudolph

the keeper of the huge trash list:  Florence Brodman

and she who never met a debris pile she couldn’t fall into, literally, Nance Kerns

After all is said and done, we can’t forget to thank those on the Parks and Rec trash truck because after we’re done, the last thing we want is the wind, water and critters – both human and cute and furry –  to undo our hard work. Thanks for making it all just go away.

Now for the trash list, and what a list it is -59 items representing a cross-section of the trash at the POD. Thus we begin:

42 bags of trash, one-half of a bag of cans (sorry T&T), one penny, part of a shopping cart, one whole shopping cart in the Delaware River – very far from mint condition, though it strolled the aisles of Sam’s Club, an ancient artifact in the guise of a metal milk crate, a tape measure, a tupperware bowl, a flower pot, a green dust pan (surprisingly its alternate use when not adding to a trash pile is cleaning up after one), a blue comb (not trashed by a short-haired critter), 12 wooden tree stakes, a gas canister (remember we were by the river, just downstream from the Baxter Water Treatment Plant – not something we were fond of finding), a Spiderman soft-sided Lunch Box (try explaining this to your parents:  my lunch box that I claimed I lost in school was found washed up on the banks of the Delaware.  If you’re going to play hooky remember that the river always tattles), just in time for those too early holiday displays — last year’s plastic Christmas ball, a wooden stake (just in time to defeat the Halloween vampires), an unopened container of baby wipes (to wipe your hands off afterwards), three bags of tree limbs (trash is trash; make your own compost pile or take your yard waste to State and Ashburner on Saturdays), the ubiquitous green plastic resin chair, a paint tray holder, a blue trash crate, multiple parts from a car frame, part of a car jack, two truck tires with rims (good for an advanced park workout), four car tires without rims (good for a beginner’s park workout), a big piece of wood, six more pieces of wood, an iron rod, a pair of jockey shorts, a Croc shoe, four kinds of flip flops, a Bear Necessity bear hard plastic toy, a Disney pink cupcake with mouse ears toy, a child’s beach shove (well, we were at the river, close enough), a Waterblaster water gun, two baby dolls and a frisbee.

And the piece de resistance: 14 different kinds of balls (clean your mind, not that kind):  two baseballs, a wiffleball, a ball-type toy, a red rubber ball, two golf balls, one softball, two plastic balls, an oversized tennis ball, four soccer balls, a small plastic basketball, a small plastic tennis ball, a mid-sized rubber ball, a big superball, and finally, a regular sized superball

We want to thank our volunteers for contributing details of their finds, otherwise the interesting stuff would just go into a trash bag never to be heard from or written about.  Justin Darmohray kept all of the interesting finds he and his brothers came across in a bucket so they wouldn’t forget to tell us about them.  A lot of the interesting stuff was picked up elsewhere by the Delaware and redeposited along the park’s shores.  Not included were the too-numerous floatable plastic bottles. Not to be forgotten are the diligence and patience of Florence in logging all of this down and legibly to boot.

If you want to find interesting things that people have left behind in the park so that these articles keep sparkling, then come out to our next cleanup at Sandy Run (Ryan and Sandyford Roads next to Austin Meehan M.S.) on Saturday, Oct. 27 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., weather permitting (check the park phone 215 – 934 – PARK to be sure).  Wear long pants and closed-foot shoes. We will bring the gloves, grabbers, water, pretzels, and oatmeal cookies.

Submitted by the Friends of Pennypack Park