Something for Valentine’s Day

Yesterday, my daughter Jessica and I were out shopping for a gift for my wife, Sandi.  We visited several jewelry and gift shops in Jenkintown, and ended up here at This Little Gallery on West Ave, owned by an inspiring woman and life-long resident of Jenkintown named Trish Breslin-Miller. Trish wasn’t there, but we were treated so well.  Shopping here is a very special experience.  You walk in, and the music is really good.  Everything about the store makes you feel good.  Everything is made by American artists.  I took the photos above while we were here.

Sandi and I first met at Bicycle Therapy on South Street.  It was the morning of a Bicycle Club of Philadelphia Ride.  I’d been a member of BCP in the past and never seemed to make it to the club rides, but this morning Bob Ingersoll had said, “Why don’t you come along.”

I enjoyed talking with Sandi as we biked, even as this crazy ride took us over the 291 Bridge (the expressway-like bridge between the Schuylkill Expressway and the Airport).  She had a good attitude about it all, as she did when she later got a flat tire.  The next time we got together, it was just the two of us going on a bike ride from her apartment across from the 12th Street Gym, over the Ben Franklin Bridge, along the Cooper River to Cherry Hill, NJ.  We crossed back into Pennsylvania on the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge, and headed south into Center City (on the subway, I think).

1940 WPA walk map

So, tomorrow for Valentine’s Day dinner, we’re heading to the Valley Green Inn.  I proposed to Sandi along a hiking trail in the Wissahickon, upstream from Valley Green.  And then we headed to the Valley Green Inn for dinner.  I like parks and woods and Chestnut Hill (where we later lived before moving to Jenkintown).  And Sandi does too.