Entertainment, Culture and More

The spring 2025 Amish mud sale season is underway

By Steven Brodsky

… Community unity, volunteerism, and beneficence are at the core of Amish mud sales.

Mud sales generate funds for fire departments in Amish communities.

Photo by Steven Brodsky

Psalm 133:1: “BEHOLD, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!”

May the spring 2025 Amish mud sale season be highly successful!

This post appeared at: Conversations About Faith – delcoculturevultures.com.

Originally posted 3-7-25, Reposted and revised 4-14-25

Attention parents and guardians of children ages 9-12: registration is now open for the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania’s Barons & Builders summer day camps

By Steven Brodsky

The following news release was issued today, April 1, 2025, by the Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania:

Strasburg, Lancaster County, PA — Register your child today for the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania’s engaging and popular Barons & Builders summer day camps. Don’t wait! Spaces are limited.

Barons & Builders summer day campers develop new skills, make friends and have fun when they experience the Museum’s historic railroad equipment on special, behind-the-scenes guided tours, inside and outside the Museum, including the restoration shop and train yard. They also will visit the neighboring Choo Choo Barn, take a ride on the Strasburg Rail Road, build a LEGO model, meet special guests and more.

Registration is now available on Eventbrite for the Tuesday, July 8 to Friday, July 11 camp, for ages 9 and 10, and the Tuesday, July 22 to Friday, July 25 camp, for ages 11 and 12. Camps meet from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. each day. The cost per camper is $200.00 for non-members and $175.00 for current members of the Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. Members use discount code Members25 at checkout on Eventbrite.

The Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is home to a world-class collection of about 100 historic locomotives and railroad cars, a vast research library and archives, a working restoration shop, an immersive education center and programs, a Museum store and special events and exhibits.

A Smithsonian Affiliate, the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania is one of 24 historic sites and museums administered by the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission as part of the Pennsylvania Trails of History®, with the active support of the nonprofit Friends of the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. For more information, call (717) 687-8628 or visit RRMuseumPA.org.

Posted 4-1-25

A specific town

By Steven Brodsky

… a shore town, always comes to my mind when I hear Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town” on a classic rock station.

Uncountable other towns have come into the minds of people in many countries, ever since “The Boys Are Back In Town” was released in 1976.

Back in towns, in advance of vacation season, are the kind of characters featured in the song.

Back, as well, with the return here of this embed, will be memories that are part of lots of readers’ histories:

Posted 3-29-25

The liquefying of a song character’s emotional state on Christmas Eve

By Steven Brodsky

… parallels weather conditions after he meets an “old lover in the grocery store” in a Dan Fogelberg song that was released as a single in 1980.

You’ll hear this in the song’s final words: “The snow turned into rain.”

For many years, the song has prompted me to recall an old lover of my own; I can’t say that I’d like to have a chance encounter with her in a grocery store or anywhere else.

Pre-Christmas Eve revisits to the song have become a tradition for many of us, myself included.

The tradition continues.

Posted 12-18-24

The speaker in this poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay

By Steven Brodsky

Photo by Steven Brodsky

… expresses that she (the speaker) is very much moved by the beauty of an autumn day: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51862/gods-world.

Some of us have been cultivating attentiveness to what is taking place this autumn in the natural world.

Attentiveness can transform an ordinary autumn day into an especially beautiful day.

Posted 10-18-24

A peaceful and restorative moment in the wilds

By Steven Brodsky

Photo by Steven Brodsky

This post appeared in the Conversations About Nature section of this column.

Reposted 9-19-24

Thick-skinned

By Steven Brodsky

Thick bark
Photo by Steven Brodsky

I was five or six years old when an old woman sitting on a lawn chair outside of a tenement building asked me, “How would you like it if someone picked at your skin?”

She had seen me trying to pick a fleck of tree bark off of a thickly-barked tree near where she was sitting.

This took place decades ago.

The tree and the old woman are gone.

I miss the tree.

Not the old woman.

Evidence, perhaps, of having developed thick skin.

Posted 8-23-24

No shrinking violet

By Steven Brodsky

… nor wallflower pictured between fence posts:

Photo by Steven Brodsky

The “outgoing” rose brings to mind the experience of shyness and the experience of overcoming shyness.

Posted 7-17-24

A venue for quietude

By Steven Brodsky

Photo by Steven Brodsky

… Words are unnecessary.

Posted 7-12-24

Steven Brodsky hosted a radio show for 3 and a half years. The show focused on coverage of entertainment, the arts, and all manner of culture. He is widely known for his many live on air interviews with guests such as: Rodney Crowell, Charlie Louvin, Richie Havens, Eric Whitacre (composer, conductor), Solomon Burke, Janis Ian, Percy Sledge, Billy Joe Shaver, Jack LaLanne, Gene Shay, Bruce Morrow “Cousin Brucie,” Jerome “Little Anthony” Gourdine, Pat Cooper, Jett Williams (daughter of Hank Williams), Steve Forbert, Chris Smither, Lukas Nelson, Dr. Temple Grandin, Dan Fante, Harold Camping (Harold Camping was the radio broadcaster and Bible teacher who famously proclaimed that Judgment Day and the Rapture would take place on May 21, 2011. Harold Camping passed away on December 15, 2013.), Pulitzer Prize-winning authors, curators, historians, scientists, and newsmakers. He welcomes email.