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Bonner Park
Recalling the anxious, despairing, fragile weirdness that was Summer 2020.
“If I have a care in the world, I have a gift to bring.”
Indigo Girls, “Hammer and a Nail”
It was a sunny Sunday at the end of May, and we needed to feel some nature. Since the pandemic crisis hit, the problem has been finding a park not crammed with like-minded people. Maybe if we headed west of town where the countryside opens out fast, we would find ample space to keep our distance.
Fifteen minutes from West Chester, we turned onto Cannery road aiming for the ChesLen Preserve, the largest privately owned open space in Chester County. The parking lots were full, though. People everywhere. We kept driving.
We wound our way down the hill into the Brandywine valley, where Cannery road ends, meeting Embreeville road. At the T, confronting us was a massive handmade TRUMP sign — the name in all caps, made of brick set in a concrete wall at least four feet high. You could not un-see it. Is there any trademark that packs so much bluster into a one syllable wide, white-meat turkey belly? It taunts you, dares you to just try and wash it out of your mind.
Alarmed and disgusted, we raced away to Unionville.
