Chestnut Hill Local

Life-long Hill economist now banking on cartoons

By MARIE FOWLER

"I like to think of myself as Grandpa Moses, the Chestnut Hill primitive," smiles irrepressible septuagenarian artist Larry Murdoch, currently at work on a book of cartoons entitled Retirement's Biggest Surprise. "Like Grandma Moses, I've taken up art late in life. People dread retiring, think it's the end, but the biggest surprise is it's the beginning of a whole new life."

Murdoch knows from his own long experience as an economist at Philadelphia's Federal Reserve Bank. "It was hard to give up what I'd done for nearly 40 years. I had mixed emotions about retiring at 65, apprehensive about giving up all I was used to. At first, I didn't do much but the crosswords," he says, "then I had a big revelation. This wasn't an end but a beginning."

His eyes twinkle, as he pictures his colleagues back at the office, regimented...

To look at one of Martin Snyder's recently finished multiple time-lapse photographs, one might think that he traveled back in time or to a different dimension in order to capture the beautiful setting and posturing present in the scene. And in a sense, you would be right.

"There are a few things that I have that are 'musts'," Snyder said. "I demand that my work be photographic in nature. When someone looks at my work, I want them to say 'How did you take this picture?' I want them to believe it's a photograph."

On the other hand, Snyder's photographs are images that cannot be created in nature.

Snyder, 56, was born and raised in Germantown, but "most of my friends were from West Mt. Airy." The graduate of the 224 class of Central High School, who has lived...

Risa Benson learned to knit before she was old enough to go to school. Growing up in Chestnut Hill in a family with strong ties to Austria, she was expected to master needlework at an early age. "I had no idea it would eventually lead to a career as a clothing designer and fiber artist," she said.

Benson, who now lives in Mt. Airy, is among the 195 craft artists who will be showing and selling their work at the 28th annual Philadelphia Craft Show, Nov. 4-7, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Center City. Presented by the Women's Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the event is the premier exhibition of contemporary American craft in the nation. This is the seventh time since 1996 that Benson has been chosen as an exhibitor.

Benson studied painting at Rhode Island School of Design, but by the time she graduated she was a divorced single mother and needed a job to support herself and her child. She spent a decade in Colorado running a small craft business and teaching dance, but in 1983 she returned to Philadelphia. By then she was already designing women's clothing and producing original garments. Her early exposure to knitting proved important.

"I like to make garments that are soft and fit loosely on the body," she said, "and knitted fabric is ideal for this." Benson makes knitted shells, sweaters, scarves, jackets, coats and even pants. "Everything but underwear."

While her garments can be worn together as an ensemble, most are sold as separates. "One of the nice things about my designs is you can wear them in the daytime with a pair of jeans or as dress-up in the evening over a nice skirt or pants," Benson said.

Stories of adoption joy and pain at Hill Library

by ALICIA KIMMEL

"Adoption, Displacement, Abandonment, Love, Hope, Discouragement. Momma, how could you? And Momma, glad you did. Release and restoration all wrapped up in one word. There is nothing more hurtful, more joyful, than adoption." The complexity of emotion and frankness of true feeling wrapped up in this poem by Karen Cimorelli are just a small part of the in-depth look at life in the book Writing from the Heart: Voices of Adoption.

The book is a small compilation project undertaken by a workshop class with the same title. Taught by Betsy Self, a Korean adoptee, at the Mt. Airy Learning Tree (commonly known around the area as MALT), the class was meant to help adoptees and adoptive parents express their feelings about adoption through writing. The result, a richly expressive (albeit small) book, will be read by members of the class on Nov. 10 at 7 p.m. at the Chestnut Hill Free Library, 8812 Germantown Ave.

Betsy, a Korean adoptee herself, and Mt. Airy resident, began teaching the class at MALT because, she says, "I wanted ... a place where I could explore the issues close to my heart and spirit -- race, adoption and identity -- while encouraging others to delve into and accept our life experiences, our unique stories that, when spoken in truth, are universal."

Betsy feels that teaching a creative writing class involves not only...

Hook some good bargains at new Bonefish Grill

By LEN LEAR

I don't know how on earth they are going to fill most of their 215 seats on weeknights, but the new Bonefish Grill, which opened last month in a shopping center at 1015 Easton Rd. (Route 611, one half-mile south of the Turnpike's Willow Grove exit) in Willow Grove definitely offers excellent fresh seafood extrees for about half the price of comparable dinners at Striped Bass.

For example, for $14.50 you can get a beautiful piece of Atlantic salmon, seasoned and cooked over a wood-burning grill and served with a choice of lemon butter sauce, lime tomato garlic sauce, warm mango salsa or pan-Asian style. All entrees are also served with a house or Caesar salad, fresh vegetables and side dish like garlic mashed potatoes, potatoes au gratin or angel hair pasta with marinana sauce.

The most expensive menu entree, meat or seafood, is the Chilean sea bass at $19.50. I thought that might be fairly expensive until I went shopping a few days later in a gourmet food market in Lafayette Hill and noticed that a pound of Chilean sea bass, already cooked, was selling for $15! It made me wonder how Bonefish Grill can even make a profit on such an item. I guess they better sell a lot of cocktails.

Although I was not familiar with it before, Bonefish Grill is a chain, connected with Outback Steakhouse, with 52 restaurants, mostly in Ohio, Indiana and Alabama. The chain was started in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2000 by two veteran...

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