The Sanatoga Post

Safer motorcycle riding is on the minds of volunteers at the Ringing Hill Fire Company

POTTSTOWN PA – Volunteers from Lower Pottsgrove’s Ringing Hill Fire Company teach children what to do when a fire alarm sounds. They teach fellow members about how to be better firefighters and emergency responders. Now the company is looking to use its property for yet another teaching role: motorcycle safety.

Ringing Hill has asked the township Zoning Hearing Board to grant a special usage exception in the R-1 residential zone where its fire hall located – 815 White Pine Ln., Pottstown PA – “to teach a Pennsylvania-approved motorcycle safety program,” according to an advertisement published Friday (Feb. 3, 2012) in The (Pottstown PA) Mercury newspaper, Lower Pottsgrove’s publication of record for legal notices.

The board is scheduled to meet Feb. 21 (2012; Tuesday) beginning at 6 p.m. in the municipal building, 2199 Buchert Rd., Sanatoga PA. The hearing is open to the public.

If its exception is granted, Ringing Hill would be the only approved provider of motorcycle safety programming within a 10-mile radius of Pottstown, according to the Pennsylvania Motorcycle Safety Program. Others closest to the greater Pottstown area are in Phoenixville, Wayne, Emmaus, Leesport and Cheyney, the last being 23 miles away.

The program is supervised by the California-based Motorcycle Safety Foundation and the state Department of Transportation.

The foundation’s Pennsylvania website explained the program “was established to teach riders of all skill levels the basic fundamentals needed in order to safely operate a motorcycle. The MSP was created from legislation in 1984 and began one year later. The Motorcycle Safety Program is free to all Pennsylvania license holders.”

Its 15-hour basic rider course “is designed to prepare (motorcycle operators) for entry into the complex world of traffic,” the website said. A second, more advanced 6-hour course “was developed to address the skills needed for low risk, enjoyable on-street motorcycling,” it added. A third and newest course is similar to the basic session, but is specifically geared toward increasingly popular three-wheeled ‘cycles.

A set of courses to be taught at Ringing Hill, where there is plenty of isolated parking lot space for such activity, is classified as an “educational purpose” for the hearing board’s consideration.

PROOF THAT BEAUTY SURROUNDS US – “Long drives don’t seem quite as long when you’re staring at this from the front seat,” photographer “melshellhammer” observed Wednesday (Dec. 28, 2011) as she took this photo of trees and the sun breaking through clouds while riding in a car on East High Street in Sanatoga. She used the free Instagram web app on an iPhone to snap, modify, and transmit the image and its geographic coordinates for the world to enjoy.

Photo by melshellhammer via Instagram

POTTSTOWN PA – Pottsgrove High School students will be off to Hershey PA during December, and across the Atlantic to Germany next June and July, under plans for high school trips approved last Tuesday (Nov. 8, 2011) and Oct. 25, respectively, by the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors.

Students affiliated with the high school’s DECA marketing club will be allowed to attend the High School DECA Winter Officer Leadership Conference at the Hershey Lodge and Convention Center from Dec. 2-4. The $450 cost for a DECA advisor to attend as the students’ teacher and chaperone is paid by the district, and the cost of the students’ attendance is paid for by Pennsylvania DECA, high school teacher Megan DeLena reported.

The high school student trip to Germany is planned for June 16-July 14, 2012. The estimated cost of $1,800 per student is paid by the students themselves. Details of the itinerary were not presented.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story erroneously stated that the amount paid by the district for DECA travel was “per student.” It also failed to mention the Pennsylvania DECA contribution. We thank teacher Megan DeLena for pointing out both to ensure greater accuracy.

Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ Nov. 8 meeting):

• Pottsgrove Personnel Decisions Affect 26 Positions
• School Board OKs Students To Hershey, Germany
• Pottsgrove Schools Ended Year With $550,000 Surplus
• Pottsgrove Students Show Board Learning Tech Tools
• Pottsgrove Committees Look At Sports And Facilities

Photo from Google Images

SANATOGA PA – What’s your group, school, organization or company got going on in coming weeks? If it’s a local activity open to the public, The Post Publications – The Sanatoga Post, The Limerick Post, The Pottstown Post, and The Main Street Post – want to help promote it … for free.

One of The Post’s most visited pages weekly is its community calendar. Post readers have come to rely on it to plan fun for their weekends and keep up with can’t-miss-stuff during the week, in part because we also link directly to 18 other community events calendars in Limerick, Pottstown, Boyertown and Douglassville PA. Feel free to send your notices of community events to us by e-mail to sanatoga@yahoo.com. We’ll make sure they get posted to the calendar.

Here’s what we added Thursday (Oct. 20, 2011):

• Halloween Haunted House (Sanatoga PA), 10/21-22/2011
• Run For Courage Fund-Raiser (Royersford PA), 10/22/2011
• Pumpkin Run Car Cruise (Boyertown PA), 10/22/2011
• Community Movie (Royersford PA), 10/22/2011
• Ham And Oyster Supper (Collegeville PA), 10/22/2011
• Pippin [The Musical] (Pottstown PA), 10/22-23-27-28-29-30/2011
• Tournament Of Bands SE PA Championship (Royersford PA), 10/23/2011
• Sacred And Secular Jazz Celebration (Pottstown PA), 10/23/2011
• Business Card Exchange (Limerick PA), 10/25/2011
• Leadership And Management Seminar (Pottstown PA), 10/27/2011
• Halloween Safe House (Sanatoga PA), 10/27/2011
• Drug Take-Back Day (Various Locations), 10/29/2011
• Power Networking Luncheon (Limerick PA), 11/2/2011
• Earned Income Tax Law Basics (Pottstown PA), 11/3/2011
• Chamber Membership Breakfast (Pottstown PA), 11/10/2011

See the entire calendar and Upcoming Events page, here.

WASHINGTON DC – A girl no older than 5, emboldened by her parents, ran from the audience Saturday (Aug. 13, 2011) at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and confronted the day’s guest speaker there with an innocent smile and a burning question. “In space,” the youngster asked U.S. astronaut Dr. Anna Lee Fisher, “how do you go pee-pee?”

“Well, I knew someone was going to ask!,” said Fisher, who laughed along with the crowd. “And it’s a very important question,” one, she explained, with two very different answers: diapers, and suction. “We practice with both a lot,” Fisher noted, “because in space you don’t want to make a mistake.”

U.S. astronaut Anna Lee Fisher talked Saturday in Washington DC

A physician by training, Fisher was the featured attraction during an event-filled day at the museum, which showcased an exhibition on American innovation in its historic building on F Street NW in the nation’s capital. She spoke for a half-hour about her career and eight-day shuttle experiences during 1984, and her later work with the International Space Station, and then answered audience questions.

She never hesitated with what could have been an embarrassing inquiry by her young admirer.

On the launch pad, Fisher said, while waiting in a space shuttle for hours before lift-off, is where specially made flight diapers prove their worth. Mothers, she claimed, can thank scientists of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for that modern convenience of child-raising.

“They made them with super-absorbent stuff for us first,” the astronaut proudly boasted, because after that length of time, no matter how empty a bladder may have been, “by then you just gotta go!”

Once in space, though, the diapers are abandoned. Then NASA – which has an abbreviation for everything, Fisher said – relies on sanitary plumbing known as the WMS, or Waste Management System. “It involves a vacuum. I’ll let your imagination take it from there,” she said, still smiling.

Although space shuttle flights have ended, Fisher said she remains involved in programs with both the space station and the shuttle’s successor. One of her most recent assignments, she reported, was to participate in a panel taste-testing new meals to be added to the space station menu. They included sushi, for the station’s Japanese partners, and Russian dishes too.

Her verdict? “They’re pretty good.”

Editor’s Note: When The Post takes a road trip, its readers go too. “Travels With The Post” is a series that reports on places and activities beyond our usual coverage area, but most often within a drive of three hours or less.

Other Travels With The Post:

• In Space, A Whole New Meaning For ‘Potty Training’
• Masonry Details Matter In Downtown Columbia PA
• State’s Annual ‘Fun On The Farm’ Show Opens Saturday
• Above The Boardwalk, Life Never Seen In Sanatoga
• Postcard Road Trip: Chester PA Old Court House
• Postcard Road Trip: Wyomissing PA Public Library
• Sweet Treats Franchise On Rebound
• On The Road: Area Residents Take On New York
• Garage Sale Bargains For 50 Miles
• On Independence Day, An Unlikely Lifeguard

By Beth Scherer
of the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society,
for The Sanatoga Post

SANATOGA PA – School is out, it’s summer, and that means it’s vacation time! Maybe you’ll pack up the SUV and head down to the shore, or up to the Poconos.  In today’s economy, maybe you’ll just enjoy a “stay-cation” in Lower Pottsgrove with some out-of-town visitors. Did you know that, in years past, those hot-weather guests could of chosen lodging in one of at least four hotels here in the township?

They might have found a room at:

The Sanatoga Inn, now Cutillo's

• The Crooked Hill Tavern, later known as The Sanatoga Inn,  and then Cutillo’s Restaurant. It was opened in about 1770 by the Bosserts. It was a favorite stopping place for large six-horse and mule teams on the route from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.

The Ringing Hill Hotel

• The Ringing Hill Hotel. It was located on what is now called Orlando Road, but was known then as “Swamp Road.”During the late 1800s it was described as a “good specimen of the country tavern.”

• The Pleasant View Hotel. Located on the northwest corner of East High Street and Pleasant View Road, where the former Rite Aid Pharmacy now stands, it was a private residence up until the late 1800s. That’s when David Ganger opened it as a hotel.  It became a regular meeting place for the Lower Pottsgrove School Board.  This building also housed the former Sanatoga post office during its final years before being torn down. Postal services today are offered across the street and a bit west down the block, at the Sanatoga Thriftway supermarket.

The Pleasant View Hotel

• The Long View Hotel. This last area hotel sat at the bottom of Sanatoga Park. A resort facility, it was owned by Civil War heroine and Sanatoga resident Annie Wittenmyer, and usually was filled to capacity during summer months. Fire destroyed it in 1905.

The Long View Hotel

Editor’s note: The Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society was formed in 1985 to share the heritage of Lower Pottsgrove Township with its residents. It meets on the second Wednesday of every month at its museum and offices in the former Sanatoga Chapel, 2341 E. High St., Sanatoga PA. Author and society member Beth Scherer writes about Lower Pottsgrove history monthly for The Post.

Related articles in this series:

• Need A Local Hotel? There Once Were Four, Right Here
• What’s Changed Most In ‘Grove Grads? Their Schools
• Shantz’s Mound Presence Made Sanatoga ‘Pheverous’
• Stars Danced In Lower Pottsgrove Long Before TV Show
• Never Heard Of Sanatoga’s Longview Hotel? Here’s Why

Photos from the Historical Society

Banging away at the rocks

POTTSTOWN PA – It’s good for a diversion during an afternoon picnic beneath the pavilion off White Pine Lane in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township. It’s good for school field trips and geologists’ outings. It’s good as a vacation stop for visitors to the area. And, of course, it’s fun for all.

“It” is the famous field of “Ringing Rocks” on the township’s northwest side, in Ringing Rocks Park just behind the Ringing Hill Fire Company. The rocks ring, or sound like a bell, when they’re struck with a hammer or similar object. They’ve captured the attention and imagination of area residents and guests for decades.

Lower Pottsgrove‘s not the only place where the rocks ring, a video enthusiast who calls himself  Gunners762 noted two weeks ago (June 10, 2011) in a web post. Others “include the Stony Garden (in Haycock, Bucks County PA), the Devil’s Race Course (in Franklin County PA), and others in the South Mountain region,” he wrote at YouTube, the popular Internet video-sharing website.

But probably none sound as melodic (at least to local ears) as our own boulder collection. To let others know what the experience is like, Gunners762 produced and uploaded a more than 3-minute movie he titled “Mysterious Ringing Rocks.”

• Watch the video, above, or see it at the YouTube user account of Gunners762.

A few will need this.

POTTSTOWN PA – Education never goes out of style, and travel is fun. Put them together and, in the Pottsgrove School District, it generates an itinerary a travel agent might envy.

Beginning this July, and continuing through the following 12 months, 12 different student excursions have been authorized by the district Board of School Directors. That’s two fewer than the current school year. For all but one, noted below, all expenses are paid by participating students, Superintendent Dr. Bradley Landis reported.

Several are to sports-related camps. Three involve the district chapters of Delta Epsilon Chi (DECA), an international association of students interested in marketing careers. A few more exotic locales offer cultural value.

Authorization of such travel is an exercise that appears annually on the board’s agenda. It unanimously and without comment approved these future jaunts during its meeting last Tuesday (May 10, 2011) at Pottsgrove High School, Kauffman Road, Pottstown PA. The destinations, listed in bold type and in dated order, are:

• Gettysburg PA, July 30-Aug. 3, 2011. Boys Soccer camp at Gettysburg College; cost $350 per person.
• Preston Park PA, Aug. 21-26, 2011. Football camp at Camp Wayne; cost $225 per person.
• Elverson PA, Aug. 24-26, 2011. Boys and girls cross-country camp at French Creek State Park; cost $30 per person.
• Altoona PA, Nov. 10-12, 2011. Middle School student government to PASC state conference, cost $110 per person.
• Philadelphia PA, Nov. 18-20, 2011. DECA Southern and North Atlantic Regional Conference, $300 per person.
• Hershey PA, Feb. 22-24, 2012. DECA state career trip; cost $250 per person.
• Italy and Greece, March 27-April 5, 2012. Cost $3,022 per person.
• Wallops Island VA, April 22-25, 2012. Advanced Biology Trip; cost $375 per person.
• Salt Lake City UT, April 22-May 2, 2012. DECA International Trip, about $1,000 per student, paid for by the district. As in the past, this particular trip involves a limited number (4) of students and is being treated the same as an athletic team traveling to competition in another state.
• Orlando FL, May 29-June 2, 2012. Senior class trip; cost $1,099 per person.
• Kutztown PA, July 14-17, 2012. Girls basketball camp at Kutztown University; cost $240 per person.
• Latin America, 2012 dates to be determined. High school trip; estimated at $3,000 per person.

Inflation has hit the travel business too, most likely in the increased costs of fuel. Of local and regional trips that repeat from last year, per-person costs rose by between $5 and $15 per person. Some longer distance trips have risen substantially more.

Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ May 10 meeting):

• Pottsgrove 2012 Travels Include Italy, Latin America
• School Board OKs Personnel Items Affecting 25 Positions
• Does Pottsgrove Have An Administrative Cut-In-Waiting?
• Red And Yellow Items Left On Pottsgrove Budget Table
• Pottsgrove OKs 2.8% Tax Hike In Tentative Budget
• Teachers’ Contract Extension On Pottsgrove Agenda

By Beth Scherer
of the Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society,
for The Sanatoga Post

The first piece of fire apparatus purchased in Sanatoga during 1908 cost $796.

SANATOGA PA – If a kitchen fire suddenly broke out at Cutillo’s Restaurant, at the corner of East High Street and Sanatoga Road, the Sanatoga Fire Company would likely respond within minutes of getting a call. Maybe the Ringing Hill Fire Company would be summoned to assist. And thanks to a quick response by volunteers and modern apparatus from both, it’s a good bet Cutillo’s would be saved with little damage.

But what if there were no fire companies to rely on?

That was the fate of the now-gone Longview Hotel, which burned to the ground as a result of a destructive fire in 1905. The Longview might still be located down South Sanatoga Road from Cutillo’s, near the entrance to what once was the fabled Sanatoga Park but, sadly, no fire company had been organized in the area closer than the one in Pottstown.

Consequently, 1905 became the year in which Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township residents recognized their need for a fire company of their own. Three years later, in January 1908, what is now known as the Sanatoga Fire Company was incorporated. It was about 32 members strong at the time.

By comparison, Ringing Hill's first fire truck, bought 50 years later, cost $25,000.

As the township grew a second fire company – Ringing Hill – was also deemed necessary. In January 1956, 23 men met at the Ringing Rocks Park Roller Skating Rink, not to skate but to form The Ringing Hill Fire Company.

The Sanatoga and Ringing Hill companies marked their 103rd and 55th anniversaries, respectively, last month (January 2011).

Editor’s note: The Lower Pottsgrove Historical Society was formed in 1985 to share the heritage of Lower Pottsgrove Township with its residents. It meets on the second Wednesday of every month at it museum and offices in the former Sanatoga Chapel, 2341 E. High St., Sanatoga PA. Society membership is open to the public.

Photos from the Historical Society

One of the abandoned homes at Frick's Locks.

LIMERICK PA – Several of the oldest buildings in Chester County, the homes of Frick’s Locks village, will be stabilized, rehabilitated and protected under an agreement recently reached between East Coventry (PA) Township and Exelon Nuclear, which operates the Limerick Generating Station (LGS), according to an announcement issued last week (Feb. 15, 2011) by Exelon spokesman Joseph Szafran.

Exelon said it will spend close to $2.5 million to repair historic structures within the village, and plans to donate land and buildings with an estimated value of $1 million to East Coventry. The township Board of Supervisors approved the agreement, but not unanimously.

In addition, a portion of Frick’s Locks will be leased to East Coventry with an option to later accept the leased parcel as a donation. Exelon and the township plan to open the village for periodic tours and public access.

The partnership was guided by a local steering committee that included representatives from the township, its historical commission, the county, the state historic preservation agency, Schuylkill River Heritage Area, Exelon, and the office of state Senator Andy Dinniman. “This is a wonderful example of what can be accomplished when private industry and public officials work together to preserve and improve our community,” Dinniman said.

Frick’s Locks was founded more than 250 years ago. During the 19th century, it was a key stop along both the Schuylkill Canal and Pennsylvania Railroad. Several structures in the village date from the 1850s. In 2003, the village was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The village is “a wonderful local historical and cultural resource,” said LGS Site Vice President Bill Maguire.

Photo by Beth Studt