July 26, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Local Life

Local dog trainer is clearly the leader of the pack
by KRISTIN PAZULSKI

Diane teaches proper response to commands as another canine client looks on. (Photo by Kristin Pazulski)

On a chilly morning, before the heat of a summer day sets in, Germantown dog trainer Diane Collins pulls up to the Blue Bell  entrance of Fairmount Park, off Walnut Lane, with Attah (her Shiloh Shepherd), Carmella (husky and German Shepherd mix) and Lucca (German Shepherd). Lucca and Carmella live with the same owners and are being trained by Collins because they were fighting each other, even sending each other to the vet for stitches.

The walk, which happens a few times a week, is part of Collins’ training program. The dogs are allowed to roam off the trail during the walk, but Collins keeps a close eye.

Mt. Airy ‘bookie’ creates ‘Great Hebraica’ exhibit
by VICTORIA M. INDIVERO

The custom of using a wooden case to hold a Torah scroll is still preserved in some Sephardic communities  This case is believed to be from Iraq, probably early 20th century. (Photo by Rick Echelmeyer)

“Books are sort of like people; they have their lives afterwards, they move from one owner to another, sometimes from one country to another, and often you can see physically in the book how it’s actually moved, how people read it and so on. They are these incredible windows into human experience and history, they’re not just words on a page.” These are the words of David Stern, as he sits in his office surrounded by shelves overflowing with books.

Stern is a bibliophile. With a doctorate in Comparative Literature from Harvard University, Stern teaches in the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania. Throughout his career at Penn, Stern has cultivated his interest in the history of books, which is showcased in the exhibit that he created, “Chosen: Philadelphia’s Great Hebraica.”

The exhibit, now on display at the Rosenbach Museum, was a “labor of love” for Stern. He worked on the exhibit during his own time over the past two years, in addition to his academic workload as Ruth Meltzer Professor of Classical Hebrew at Penn. His dedication and love for the work is obvious by the enthusiasm he exudes as he walks you through the exhibit space.

Since when did lying become so commonplace?
By JENNIFER NAGEL

Where did the truth go? I know it’s not exactly glamorous or exciting, but it seems like no one bothers to tell it. I wonder sometimes if this is a new trend — that people dodge the truth when it’s uncomfortable and have only begun to do so very recently — or if people have always lied to me and I’m just now intelligent enough to put the pieces together.

Grandmom survived the Titanic
‘Botanical’ brings beauty of flowers to Flourtown
by PAT STOKES

Long-time Chestnut Hill resident Mark Petteruti arranges flowers in his shop, Botanical Expressions, at 1510 Bethlehem Pike in Flourtown, just a few doors beyond the traffic light at Bysher Avenue.

While it may be stretching a point, for purposes of this column I’d like to think that “a walk down the garden path” could be called a botanical expression. Indeed the rear route to the Flourtown flower shop of that name (Botanical Expressions) will lead you along a sweet wood-and-pebble path bordered by so many flowers that for the moment you’ll feel you really are in a garden. At the end, walk right, to the entrance at 1510 Bethlehem Pike, just a few doors beyond the traffic light at Bysher Avenue. (See specific parking details at the end of this column.)

‘The planet doesn’t need another house’
Visiting actors now acting to save the environment
by LEN LEAR

Julie Dingman Evans, 38 (from left), Mark Dixon, 32, and Ben Evans, 37, have left their jobs and homes to travel to all 50 states in the next year promoting environmental consciousness and protection.

Meghan Carey, a singer-songwriter, earlier this month had three most unusual overnight visitors at her home on Shawnee Street in Chestnut Hill. All three are professional actors who until very recently were living and working in New York, where one of them, Julie Dingman Evans, had met and befriended Meghan.

Julie, 38; her husband of three years, Ben Evans, 37, and Mark Dixon, 32, who had met Ben when both were students at Stanford University in the 1990s, did not come to Chestnut Hill to sightsee, vacation, take an acting job or buy a leaf-blower at Kilian’s. They came here as one of the first stops on a year-long eco-expedition through all 50 states in the country.