Category Archive 'Philadelphia'
07 Aug 2009

The Inquirer posted a photograph of the wrong house. That home’s owner contacted me by email today asking me to remove the copy I posted of the photo.
Stung by criticism on the Internet of their July 27th raid on the kennels of Wendy Willard’s Murder Hollow Basset pack, the confiscation of eleven basset hounds, and PSPCA’s refusal for ten days to provide information on the hounds’ whereabouts or fate to concerned friends, the Animal Care and Control organization began yesterday to defend itself, first (yesterday afternoon, by some coincidence, not very long after my phone conversation with PR officer Gail Luciani) releasing a seemingly conciliatory statement suggesting that PSPCA was “working with the hounds’ owner” and even thanking (!) the Basset community.
Murder Hollow Basset Hound Update
In response to complaints, Pennsylvania SPCA officers visited the location of Murder Hollow Kennels and left requests to be contacted. There was no response to these requests.
On a follow-up visit by a Pennsylvania SPCA officer and representatives from the Pennsylvania Department of Dog Law six days later, the owner was present but refused entry. Both Dog Law representatives and Pennsylvania SPCA officers returned later that evening with warrants to enter the property.
The dogs were found to be in unsanitary conditions, and the number of dogs present exceeded the City of Philadelphia limit of 12 animals allowed on a property.
In lieu of charges, Pennsylvania SPCA agents worked with the owner to reduce the number of dogs on the premises and allowed her time to clean and make improvements to the area in which the dogs were housed.
The owner surrendered some of the dogs and is working to clean and improve the kennels prior to a follow-up inspection. The Pennsylvania SPCA is encouraged by her efforts in providing and maintaining a more sanitary setting as well as veterinary care for the dogs that remain.
The dogs are safe in foster care with an independent, partner organization.
We appreciate the outpouring of support for these dogs from the Bassett community.
——————————————————————-

Murder Hollow hounds last year. They’ve never looked covered with feces, or riddled with parasites, any time I saw them.
Most of us did not know then that, slightly earlier, PSPCA had planted a much more colorful story with a sympathetic reporter at the Inquirer, which appeared yesterday morning.
Philadelphia resident Wendy Willard ran in tony rabbit and fox hunting circles. Her pack, formed in 1986, was listed among a select handful from Virginia hunt country and elsewhere in the prestigious Chronicle of the Horse, the bible of the horse and hound crowd. The kennel’s Bassets won awards at the Bryn Mawr Hound Show.
Last week the Pennsylvania SPCA raided her farmhouse in the Schuylkill Valley Nature Preserve and found 23 dogs covered in feces and riddled with parasites, said George Bengal, the PSPCA’s director of law enforcement.
“The kennel was a mess,” he said.
Humane agents first went to the house on July 21 in response to neighbor complaints about noise and odor, said Bengal. Finding no one home, they left cards asking the property owner to contact them. When no one responded, an agent and two state dog wardens returned on July 27. Willard refused them entry and as they left the property she threw stones at the officers’ vehicles, said Bengal.
They returned later that day with a search warrant and found dogs living in what Bengal described as unsanitary conditions and in need of veterinary care. Willard voluntarily surrendered 11 dogs and agreed to comply with certain conditions for keeping the rest, including inspections, he said.
“We could have charged her, but we didn’t yet,” said Bengal. “We could have seized the dogs, but she agreed to get medical care for the remaining dogs and spay or neuter eight of the 12 dogs” – the limit allowed under the city’s decades old animal ordinance.
Since there were fewer than 26 dogs on the property (the number required for a state kennel license) there were no citations issued by the state, said Chris Ryder, spokesman for the Department of Agriculture.
The dogs that were removed were placed with Basset hound rescue groups, the PSPCA said.
The PSPCA’s executive director Sue Cosby said they did not initially release any information about the incident because they thought they could resolve the issue amicably with the owner.
“The officer heading the case really went out of her way to work with the owner in an effort to have the kennels cleaned up and the dogs cared for rather than file charges and take all of the dogs,’” said Cosby in an email.
——————————————————————-
So if you believe the PSPCA, this is one of those cases of a disturbed and arrogant society woman who belligerently defies law enforcement officers and throws rocks at them, while keeping a kennel full of neglected, filthy, and disease-ridden basset hounds, which hounds nevertheless, despite their pitiable condition, qualify for inclusion as a listed pack under the strict standards of the National Beagle Club, compete successfully at pack trials, and win prizes at the prestigious and highly competitive Bryn Mawr Hound Show.
Those of us familiar with basset packs have a couple of basic problems with the eccentric-woman-neglected-animals story line.
Although Wendy Willard as Master, is sole owner and supreme authority over the Murder Hollow Bassets, no basset pack operates single-handedly and in isolation. There is a staff, in this case of no less than ten Whippers-in: First Whipper-in: Lidie Peace. Hon. Whippers-in: Ginny Hofmann, Judy Hohmann, Pat West, Mary Bentley, Roy Feldman, Becky Forry, Philip Hofmann Sr., Trey Norris, Pat Renner.
The Murder Hollow pack has, listed publicly, all together, eleven active hunt staff members, all obviously drawn from the same “tony rabbit and fox hunting circles,” referred to ironically by the Inquirer.
Now while it is not difficult to believe that one single aging woman alone might possibly, because of circumstances of health, emotional stability, or even poverty, come to neglect so grievously a kennel full of dogs, in this case, we are expected to believe that 11 residents of the most exclusive neighborhoods in Philadelphia, all active and enthusiastic members of the horse and hound community, have all participated in a systematic pattern of animal neglect, failing to clean kennels, to deal with parasites, to monitor hounds’ health or to provide veterinary care.
These would be the same people who, as photos like this one show, don green woolen jackets and wear ironed white stock ties to run through the tick-infested woods at Aldie on warm days. Yet the lazy scoundrels cannot be bothered to clean their kennels. They will spend money on travel to pack trials in other states or on hunt uniforms, but won’t pay for vets. Sure.
Allegations about unsanitary kennels are pretty easy to come up with. Hounds do defecate. Nobody polices every pile of dog poop from the kennel floor the minute it arrives 24/7.
Riddled with parasites? What does that mean, I wonder. Did they see one hound scratching, and infer fleas?
Crediting the PSPCA’s good faith on allegations of this kind requires knowing a bit more about the role, character, and standard operations of that organization. I was confused myself yesterday about how it was that what I thought to be only a private humanitarian organization kept talking about violations, as if it were a branch of the government. I did not understand. They are.
I’m going to take a look at the PSPCA, who they are, what they do, and how they do business in another post. Soon.
——————————————————————-
PBBurns, of Terrierman’s Daily Dose, took one look at NYM’s righthand column (Michelle Malkin, Charlton Heston, Islamaphobia, oh my!) and, naturally, decided I’m insane.
His observation that in blog coverage of stories one typically wants to compare a variety of news accounts is perfectly correct. However, in this case, I have a modest level of personal acquaintance with Wendy Willard and the Murder Hollow Bassets, as I’m member of the same “tony rabbit and fox hunting circles” myself. The incident came to my attention via reports circulated on hunting email lists, and repeated on the Border Collie board. The Inquirer story only appeared yesterday morning, and was not being found by Google the same day. I’ve done lots of Google searches. I’ve talked to people from basset circles who have tried to reclaim, visit, or obtain information about the confiscated hounds, and who are familiar with the detailed circumstances of the case. I also talked to the PSPCA people myself. Thank you for your advice, PB.
If I was not acquainted personally with basseting, or if I had first read that Inquirer story, I might not have thought very seriously about any of this myself, and simply shrugged and assumed that the PSPCA was telling the truth and acting properly myself.
Let me give you a tip on blogging, PB. One news story obviously supplied by one side to a pet reporter is not really a whole lot better than an informal account found in emails or bulletin boards. Evaluating either is likely require more than the testimony of a single source.
——————————————————————-
Original story
05 Aug 2009


Wendy Willard and the Murder Hollow Bassets at the National Beagle Club in Aldie, Virginia (photo: Karen L. Myers)
Following packs of beagles or bassets afoot in hunting club uniforms in pursuit of the cottontail rabbit is, like croquet, one of the recherchée passions of the old school gentry.
The Murder Hollow Bassets of Philadelphia (a private pack* founded in 1986) is one thirteen organized packs of basset hounds recognized by the National Beagle Club hunting in the United States.
In 2006-2007, Murder Hollow had 7 1/2 couple (15) AKC English-French cross basset hounds. They hunt on private land in Montgomery and Bucks Counties from September to March.
The sort of people who go in for basseting are typically well-educated, upper middle-class animal lovers of a preparatory school sort of background. In other words, the very last sort of people imaginable to be dog abusers or law breakers.
But neither gentility nor middle-aged respectability was sufficient to protect the Murder Hollow’s Master Wendy Willard from a full scale raid by Philadelphia police, nor did it prevent 13 hounds from being taken from their kennels and turned over to a private animal rights organization hostile to hunting.
This incident has so far attracted no blog or media coverage, but was mentioned on a fox hunting list yesterday, and reported today on the Border Collie Bulletin Board.
The local SPCA raided Wendy’s Willard’s kennel where she keeps her Murder Hollow Bassets on Monday night. They arrived with seven trucks and two police cars & informed her that one of her neighbours had complained about noise.
Neither the neighbour nor the SPCA had previously complained to her, yet she has been there for 22 years.
As it turns out, Philadelphia County had recently passed an ordinance where no more than 12 animals may be kept on any property. The Murder Hollow kennels contained 23 bassets, less than the requirement to obtain a (US) Department of Agriculture kennel licence, but the kennel is just inside the city limits.
Under this law, the local SPCA have managed to acquire the power to seize people’s dogs without warning, by force and by night, and then to take them away to an unknown destination without any accountability.
The police took 12 hounds and delivered them to an SPCA animal rescue “shelter” in Philadelphia. From there the hounds were dispersed amongst other “shelters”.
Basset packs in the area have contacted a Mr. Little who runs the SPCA shelter, seeking to place the hounds before they are put down or neutered (thereby destroying 20 years of Murder Hollow’s breeding programme). After a week, Mr. Little has failed to respond to any of these contacts.
So far, the only response from Mr. Little has been a statement to the effect that that the hounds tested positive for Lyme’s disease but were asymptomatic and are now being treated for Lyme’s and a skin condition. On the face of it, his organisation seems to be trying to rack up a bill for these animals, though one is not sure whether this is to deter Mrs Willard trying to recover her hounds or because his rescue operation has a right to recover its costs from an errant kennel owner. In this context it is relevant to point out that most of those who keep dogs & hounds in south central or south east Pennsylvania will have hounds that test positive to some degree for Lyme’s.
This whole episode seems a totally disproportionate & inappropriate way to deal with a middle-aged woman with no criminal record, who just happens to keep a pack of hunting bassets. It would surely have been appropriate to notify the owner of the new ordinance before conducting such a raid.
To further complicate matters, some of the hounds taken were on loan from another pack in Tennessee (presumably the Upper Bay Bassets of Strawberry Plains, Tennessee) and, despite the Tennessee owner (Eugene and/or Richard Askins)’s pleas, the PSPCA will not tell her where to find her hounds.
- A private pack, unlike a subscription pack, has no membership dues and holds no fund raising events. Subscription packs are incorporated entities. The master of a private pack owns the hounds personally, and simply pays for food, veterinary care, kennel upkeep, transportation, and all other expenses directly out of his (or her) own pocket.
—————————————————————-
UPDATE, August 6:
Mr. James Scharnberg, Master of the Skycastle French Hounds, writes:
Please contact by phone and e-mail the following officers of the PSPCA (Pennsylvania Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals), headquartered at 350 E. Erie Ave., Phila., PA 19134, to ask about the location of and about adopting the 11 Bassets that were seized from Ms. Wendy Willard, master of a nationally registered Basset pack in Philadelphia County, on Monday night, 27 July:
Ms. Harrise Yaron, Chairman of the Board, PSPCA E-mail: hyaron@aol.com
Ms. Susan Cosby, CEO of PSPCA Erie Ave Shelter E-mail: scosby@pspca.org
TN: 215-426-6300, Ext. 214
Mr. Ray Little, Director of Adoptions and Foster Care/Rescue Groups
E-mail: rlittle@pspca.org TN: 215-426-6304, Ext. 251 Cell: 215-816-5301
Fax: 215-426-4517
Ms. Gail Luciani, Chief Public Relations Officer, PSPCA E-mail: gluciani@pspca.org
TN: 215-426-6300, Ext. 213 Cell: 215-901-9706
Ms. Willard was raided by the PSPCA and police due to a first time noise complaint, and told that unless she released 11 of her 23 hounds to them they would seize them all, under a new 12-dog-limit city ordinance. Since that night, despite countless calls and e-mails to the PSPCA, they have refused to reveal the fate or location of the hounds, or let a large number of licensed local basset hound packs and individuals, and several veterinarians, in the five county area take in the hounds. We have been told only that they have been “sent to rescue” to an independent care facility, and that they are under no obligation to tell us anything.
—————————————————————-
SECOND UPDATE, August 6, 1:45 P.M.:
I spoke on the telephone with Ray Little and Gail Luciani, identifying myself as a blogger from Virginia covering the Murder Hollow Basset situation.
Mr. Little was completely unwilling to discuss the bassets. He told me he was not involved in this matter, referred me to Ms. Luciani, and got off the line as quickly as possible.
I was able to reach Ms. Luciani after several attempts. She declined to provide any substantive answers, telling me the case of Ms. Willard’s basset hounds was “under investigation.”
I asked what could they possibly be investigating for over a week in connection with a minor technical violation of a new ordinance unknown to the dogs’ owner. Ms. Luciani promised that information would be provided at the PSPCA web-page at some indeterminate future time. She specifically refused to identify how long it would be before they were prepared to publish that promised information, or what information would be forthcoming.
Ms. Luciani repeatedly said the hounds were “in rescue,” relying consistently on stony-faced invocations of official jargon as a means of avoiding responsive meaningful answers to legitimate questions concerning the hounds’ current condition and location or the PSPCA’s intentions and refusal to communicate with the hounds’ owners, outside veterinarians, and concerned friends of Wendy Willard and the Murder Hollow Bassets. She seemed a bit upset, when I demanded to know whether she was a dog owner herself, and asked how she thought her dogs would react if taken forcibly from her and confined in strange surroundings in a small cage.
Attempts to appeal to Ms. Luciani’s humanity were, nonetheless, not productive. She rapidly composed herself and resumed stonewalling, finally excusing herself rapidly to deal, doubtless similarly, with other callers.
These days, a mass-murdering terrorist can invoke habeas corpus or like Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber, force the government to modify the conditions of his confinement. There is no habeas corpus though for animals that fall into the clutches of self-appointed guardian organizations like the PSPCA.
————————————————————Some Corrections, 8/11:
Three bassets seized by PSPCA had come from the Sandanona Hare Hounds. One was a stud fee puppy, one a drafted hound given to the Murder Hollow pack, the third was a retired basset given to Wendy Willard to live in retirement as a pet. Sandanona hounds are given with a contract retaining ownership, and requiring their return to Sandanona if they cannot be cared for, specifically in order to prevent them ever winding up in an animal shelter’s cages.
Some hounds from Upper Bay were at Murder Hollow, but the Upper Bay Hounds were not surrendered.
Ms. Willard evidently erroneously accepted PSPCA Officer Loller’s assurances that Mrs. Parks of Sandanona would be permitted to reclaim her hounds.
————————————
A truculent and self-congratulatory individual named Patrick Burns, who blogs over at Terrierman’s Daily Dose, has a nasty habit of bashing other sportsmen in order to make himself feel good.
Burns came hurrying to PSPCA’s defense not long after this posting appeared, gleefully accepting the PSPCA version of events as definitively establishing that those Murder Hollow basset hounds were neglected and abused, Wendy Willard was a confirmed violator of the law, and a crazy old lady whose hounds should be taken away from her. I am a paranoid right-wing blogger irresponsibly misreporting all this, according to Burns.
The original anonymously posted account of the raid above said: As it turns out, Philadelphia County had recently passed an ordinance where no more than 12 animals may be kept on any property.
Burns is correct that the anonymous poster was mistaken. The Philadelphia Code § 10-103(8) which says:
Maximum Number of Dogs and Cats Allowed. No residential dwelling unit shall keep a total of more than twelve (12) adult dogs or cats combined, of which no more than four (4) may be unneutered, unless the Department of Public Health has been notified and granted a waiver.
This section of the Philadelphia Code was added in 1986, and amended in 1992.
Wendy Willard might have been in violation of that limit. I will discuss why I say “might” in another new post.

photo: Elizabeth W. Harpham
30 May 2009


Billy-club wielding Black Panthers outside Philadelphia polling station
The 2008 Presidential election featured brazen acts of voting fraud and voter intimidation in favor of the democrat party candidates. The Obama Administration’s Department of Justice just sent a message to its supporters assuring them crimes committed in support of democrats will not be punished.
Washington Times:
Justice Department political appointees overruled career lawyers and ended a civil complaint accusing three members of the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of wielding a nightstick and intimidating voters at a Philadelphia polling place last Election Day, according to documents and interviews.
The incident – which gained national attention when it was captured on videotape and distributed on YouTube – had prompted the government to sue the men, saying they violated the 1965 Voting Rights Act by scaring would-be voters with the weapon, racial slurs and military-style uniforms.
Career lawyers pursued the case for months, including obtaining an affidavit from a prominent 1960s civil rights activist who witnessed the confrontation and described it as “the most blatant form of voter intimidation” that he had seen, even during the voting rights crisis in Mississippi a half-century ago.
The lawyers also had ascertained that one of the three men had gained access to the polling place by securing a credential as a Democratic poll watcher, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Washington Times.
The career Justice lawyers were on the verge of securing sanctions against the men earlier this month when their superiors ordered them to reverse course, according to interviews and documents. The court had already entered a default judgment against the men on April 20.
A Justice Department spokesman on Thursday confirmed that the agency had dropped the case, dismissing two of the men from the lawsuit with no penalty and winning an order against the third man that simply prohibits him from bringing a weapon to a polling place in future elections.
————————————————————-
Original 1:21 video
————————————————————-
The same Washington Times ran the following editorial.
Imagine if Ku Klux Klan members had stood menacingly in military uniforms, with nightsticks, in front of a polling place. Add to it that they had hurled racial threats and insults at voters who tried to enter.
Now suppose that the government, backed by a nationally televised video of the event, had won a court case against the Klansmen except for the perfunctory filing of a single, simple document – but that an incoming Republican administration had moved to voluntarily dismiss the already-won case.
Surely that would have been front-page news, with a number of firings at the Justice Department.
The flip side of this scenario is occurring right now. The culprits weren’t Klansmen; they belonged to the New Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. One of the defendants, Jerry Jackson, is an elected member of Philadelphia’s 14th Ward Democratic Committee and was a credentialed poll watcher for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party when the violations occurred. Rather conveniently, the Obama administration has asked that the cases against Mr. Jackson, two other defendants and the party be dropped.
The Voting Rights Act is very clear. It prohibits any “attempt to intimidate, threaten or coerce” any voter or those aiding voters.
The explanation for moving to dismiss the case is shocking. According to the Department of Justice: “These same Defendants have made no appearance and have filed no pleadings with the Court. Nor have they otherwise raised any other defenses to this action. Therefore, the United States has the right … to dismiss voluntarily this action against the Defendants.” In other words, because the defendants haven’t tried to defend themselves, the Justice Department won’t punish them.
By that logic, if a murderer doesn’t respond to the charges, he should be let free. That’s crazy.
05 Nov 2008
CNN’s Brian Todd. in Philadelphia, interviews a local resident in Overbrook Park, who came back and voted “a coupla times.” “I think that’s against the law, but it’s OK.” says Todd.
0:40 video
17 Oct 2008
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the City of Brotherly Love has joined Indianapolis (677,401 Registered out of 644,197 eligible) in the “more registered voters than residents” category, courtesy of ACORN.
Republicans also have questioned the validity of thousands of new registrations, in Pennsylvania and across the country, collected by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform, known as ACORN.
A senior Philadelphia election official said yesterday that the city had discovered about 1,200 possibly fraudulent voter registrations – almost all of them submitted by ACORN - and had turned them over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for criminal investigation. ...
In Philadelphia, the number of registrants, 1.1 million, actually exceeds the census count of the eligible population. The city has identified 58,000 “duplicate” registrations, and the actual number of eligible voters on the rolls is probably closer to a million, said the election board’s Bob Lee.
24 Dec 2007

Al Knight on the left’s political crusade against the Boy Scouts.
Some topics are best left both out of sight and out of mind. The American Civil Liberties Union’s war on the Boy Scouts is not one of them.
The ACLU, in a rational world, might well have been expected to champion the First Amendment rights of an organization like the Boy Scouts. After all, the First Amendment to the Constitution (so dear to the ACLU) protects both speech and the right to associate.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 upheld the right of the Boy Scouts to select members and leaders without regard to state laws that bar discrimination based on sexual orientation.
That ruling hasn’t stopped the ACLU. It has simply shifted tactics away from the courts and focused its energies on local and often mean-spirited campaigns to deny the Scouts places to meet and the ability to raise funds.
Sadly, the campaign appears to be working. Earlier this year, the Philadelphia City Council caved to pressure from the ACLU and gay and lesbian groups to end a 75-year-old, $1-a-year lease on the Boy Scouts headquarters. The lease was originally granted to run “in perpetuity.”
But now, the Scouts will have to pay almost $200,000 a year in rent. Not only that, but the city’s Cradle of Liberty Boy Scout Council, after years of resistance, gave in to pressure and essentially agreed to the demands of gay and lesbian groups. And more bad news: The left-leaning Pew Charitable Trusts and the United Way in Philadelphia have stopped funding the Boy Scouts.
The youth of Philadelphia need the Boy Scouts as much as ever, but the City Council is too cowardly to stand up to the unreasonable and vindictive demands of special interest groups.
These campaigns against the Scouts can no longer be disguised as efforts to end discrimination. They have only one purpose: to punish an organization that has performed countless good turns for a century.
At this point, it is unclear what can be done to convince the American public that actions like those taken by the Philadelphia City Council pose a risk to the nation and to the common good. Today, the Boy Scouts may be the target, but tomorrow the same shabby tactics could be aimed at the Rotary Club or any other private civic group.
After all, what this country really needs is an active self-affirming homosexual presence in an organization for boys.
26 Sep 2007


The Wall Street Journal reports a heart-warming story of the proverbial blade of grass succeeding in growing up right through the urban asphalt of a Philadelphia combat zone neighborhood. Naturally, the combined forces of government and economic progress are threatening to eliminate it.
Philadelphia—In a gritty, inner-city neighborhood here, a group of teenagers, older men and a few women gathered one Saturday recently—to parade their horses.
More than 60 horses are squeezed into a row of rickety brick stables and a dusty vacant lot here on West Fletcher Street in the rough neighborhood of Strawberry Mansion. They are among the last major remnants of a decades-old tradition in Philadelphia of inner-city riding, on horses kept in yards and odd corners of the city. ...
The horsemen that weekend were also worrying about their future. For decades, Fletcher Street and most of the city’s horsemen were largely ignored by officials. Stables came and went over the years, but there has always been vacant land to claim or another stable to squeeze into.
Now, inner-city development is creating competition for property. Stables around town have been condemned and torn down.
The city has not announced specific plans for Fletcher Street. But the local city councilman, Darrell Clarke, says he wants to see houses replace the stables. Mr. Clarke grew up in the neighborhood and knows several of the older horsemen from his childhood. But, he says, “It’s not an ideal place for them. They are in the middle of a residential block.”
Most horsemen are unprotected. Half the block is owned by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority, an agency charged with developing underused property, with a special emphasis on affordable housing. The city aims to finish a major renewal project just to the south of Fletcher Street by 2010.
Neighbors have complained of the noise and smell, and city animal-control officials have fingered Fletcher Street as a “problem area”—a finding the horsemen dispute. Mr. Clarke and other city officials say they believe the horsemen are doing something good for the community but cannot protect them.
“To be candid, it is not a priority,” says Joyce Wilkerson, chief of staff for Mayor John F. Street. Ms. Wilkerson, who keeps a horse of her own in a stable in nearby Fairmount Park, says, “I look at a city that has an operating deficit, a school system with problems,” and too much crime. “I don’t think you take a sport like horses and make it a priority.”
Comments like those have made the horsemen anxious. “There’s a pushout coming,” says Devon Teagle, a 43-year-old former jockey, as horsemen around him nod. “I don’t know when, but it’s coming.” If the stables weren’t here, says Mr. Gough , a retired welder, “I’d just be home twiddling my thumbs.” He comes to Fletcher Street every day to be with old friends.
Read the whole thing.
slideshow
2:20 video
Temple article
There’s an old saying that there is nothing better for the inside of a boy than the outside of a horse. You’d think the City of Philadelphia would take a more positive interest in promoting a traditional local activity which brings the community together, and which attracts young people and offers a positive alternative to substance abuse and crime.
All the contact information (for donation purposes) I’ve been able to find is:
Strawberry Mansion Equestrian Center
2600 Block Fletcher Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
email link
Your are browsing
the Archives of Never Yet Melted in the 'Philadelphia' Category.
|