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Source: January 1988 Volume 26 Number 1, Pages 10–12


As We Were : An "Outsider's" View

Robert Warner

Page 10

During World War II, the Sunday driver -- that institution that had grown up as the United States found pleasure in the family automobile -- passed from the scene. War brought gasoline rationing, poor tires, and busy people who kept factories running day and night seven days a week.

To fill this void, Wilton W. Blancke, a Philadelphia resident, wrote "A Guide to Hikes Along the Philadelphia Main Line", a series of planned walks of about five miles each which started and ended at stations on our commuter railway, trolley, and bus lines. It was published in 1943 by The Peter Reilly Company in Philadelphia.

When I pulled this Guide from the book shelf, my intention was to retrace one of these walks, almost fifty years later. The Main Line of those days was quite different. From these hikes, I thought, many new residents of the area would be able to visualize the Main Line as it was in 1943 and earlier. Instead, in looking through the Guide, I found that in his introduction -- or "Pre-Amble", as he preferred to call it -- Mr. Bancke did a far better job of describing and preserving the Main Line back when it was a string of little villages along the route of the Paoli Local.

In these words, taken from his "Pre-Amble", Mr. Bancke tried to convince Philadelphians of the merits of his hikes.

Page 11

Top

PRE-AMBLE

How many Philadelphians really know their own suburbs? You will hear the beauty of suburban Philadelphia praised by New Englanders, by Westerners, and (yes, believe it or not) by New Yorkers. But by Philadelphians? Well, a suburb is not without honor save in its own city.

To give my much-maligned Philadelphians (some of whom do actually visit Independence Hall) their just due, be it said that most of them are vaguely aware that in certain directions from our city lies a greenly attractive hinterland. This impression has been gained by bowling along at a legally merry fifty miles an hour (or, in war time, at a patriotic thirty-five), in mad pursuit of the car in front. Even such a frenzied dash along the main arteries of motor travel cannot wholly obscure the beauties of our suburban landscape.

The motorist, however, cannot see the trees for the forests. He must be content with broadly panoramic and atmospheric impressions. Of intimate details he gets about as much as the two American ladies in Milan, who had only fifteen minutes to "do" the Cathedral before train time. Said one of the disciples of Baedecker to the other, "Now, you do the inside and I'll do the outside."

The byways of suburban Philadelphia are as full of intimate details as a cathedral. Therefore, as this happens to be written in war time and in the painful period of gas rationing in Eastern Pennsylvania, when the combination of a patriotic desire to keep fit and of the dictates of stern necessity has already begun to revive the lost art of locomotion by leg power, I shall perhaps be greeted not wholly with derision when I say that, in war or peace, for an intimate study of the landscape, there is but one proper mode of transportation -- walking.

This is especially true of the Main Line district (for it is of the Main Line that I sing!) where it is not in the highways, but in the byways, that one should seek for the true spirit of the country --a country that abounds in endless variety; a country that is in turn suburban, sylvan, bucolic; a country of charming vignettes that remind one inevitably, but not unpatriotically, of southwestern England, which has been described as one great garden. As well to go through an art exhiibit on skates as to attempt to learn this country from an automobile.

Through the years I have come to know this country intimately on foot; and I have displayed its charm to my wife and her two sisters, whose company on our walks has greatly enhanced the beauty of the landscape, and (to revive an obsolete German word) the Gemiitlichkeit of the occasion. My fondness for this country has prompted me to offer this pamphlet, in the hope that others may, perchance unexpectedly, discover a keen pleasure in walking, not over rough woodland paths perpetually shaded (and perhaps full of ticks), but on the open road, with the sunny, verdant landscape stretching to right and to left and ahead. But, as I have said, the district that I describe is rich in variety. You pass from a serene suburban land bordered by the estates of the wealthy to an open crest where a vista of rolling hills, perhaps dotted with farms and mansions, burst upon the eye. Entering in turn a shady stretch where towering trees arch overhead and a friendly brook gurgles alongside, you are soon greeted by fertile farmlands with peacefully browsing cattle. At times you seem to be miles from the centres of civilization.

Page 12

Rudyard Kipling caught the spirit of this country in his poem "Philadelphia" from Rewards and Fairies:

If you're off to Philadelphia this morning
And wish to prove the truth of what I say,:
'I pledge my word you'll find the pleasant land behind
Unaltered since Red Jacket rode that way.

Still the pine-woods scent the noon,
still the catbird sings his tune;
Still autumn sets the maple-forest blazing,
Still the grape-vine through the dusk
flings her soul-compelling musk;
Still the fire-flies in the corn make night amazing!

They are there, there, there with Earth immortal
(Citizens, I give you friendly warning),
The things that truly last when men and times have passed,
They are all in Pennsylvania this morning!

The hikes in this part of the Main Line were for the most part to the south of the railroad and Lancaster Pike. The author explained why this was so:

As you go westward from Wayne to Berwyn on Old Gulph [now Upper Gulph] Rd., the valley to the right (north) grows deeper and deeper. It is for this reason that I have avoided plotting any routes that lead northward from Old Gulph Rd. in this district. For here, by inversion of the old axiom, everything -- or everybody -- that goes down must come up. Try it for yourself and be convinced. Be it said that at certain points there are broad, rewarding vistas of the valley for miles. Many of these roads, especially behind Strafford and Berwyn, lead for about five miles and more to Valley Forge. But then you must come back--and up. Behind Paoli the dip into the north valley becomes exceedingly steep.

At the conclusion of his "Pre-Amble", Mr. Blancke also noted,

Your individual taste will dictate whether you prefer to walk in the budding springtime, in the lush summer, or in the tinted autumn -- or in all three. Or in winter, for that matter. Wear comfortable clothes and above all (or rather, below all!) comfortable shoes. Three pairs a year ought to permit plenty of hiking. And now, en route!

 
 

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