 In the Community
I Expected More From Ride the Ducks
Doug Goobney
This isn't going to be easy for me to say, but it's something I just can't hold inside any longer. Doing that will only increase the pain, that much I know. And it hurts enough as it is.
All right. Deep breath, Doug. Okay. Here goes.
On Saturday, I drove my family into Philadelphia from Phoenixville for an afternoon of wholesome family fun. I'd mapped a walking route that took us through Independence Hall, the Betsy Ross House, and the Constitution Center. But what I hadn't told Marcie and the kids was that I had a special treat up my sleeve: the day before, I'd gone online and bought tickets for Ride the Ducks.
As we left the Constitution Center, I pointed down 6th St. towards the idling Duck and said, "How about one more thing before we go home?" Marcie hugged me, and Max and Madison were beside themselves with excitement. So Was I. Ever since I'd first heard about it, Ride the Ducks held a fascination for me that I just can't articulate. For one thing, the lure of it was irresistible. After all, what could be better than sailing through the historic streets of Philadelphia in an amphibious WWII vehicle, plastic beak in mouth and family at my side, quacking happily at waving passersby?
Well, I found out that almost anything could be better. Because it was far less than I had hoped for. If I'm being honest with myself, I have to admit that it was one of the worst experiences of my entire life.
When we boarded, our Captain, who introduced himself as Eddie, gleefully shook my hand and issued us our beaks. I held it like a talisman–my years of Duck-related dreams were finally coming true. Within minutes, a long line of tourists–who I assumed were, like me, eager to be "edu-tained," piled in. As the packed watercraft took off, though, it was apparent that they had little interest in quacking at Independence Hall, the Philadelphia Mint, or Ben Franklin's Grave. Most of the parents stared disinterestedly at the sights with bored, glassy eyes. Their horrible children quacked in all the wrong places, creating a hellish, maddening cacophony. Captain Eddie's speakers were deafening, and being "en-tour-tained," as they called it on their website, was giving me a pounding headache. After a few blocks, it also became obvious that Eddie had a terrible sense of humor–and almost certainly stewed to the gills.
I fought valiantly to make my reality match up with my dreams, quacking away as we passed the Philadelphia Vietnam War Memorial, but I felt like a fool. Max began to cry as the boy behind him pooped his pants, and the combination of poop-smell, quacking, and Eddie's amplified idiocy began to drive me insane. To top it all off, as the bus sat in South Street's noisy gridlock, I found myself receiving the finger from mocking "punk rockers" and African-American youths. We were a rolling, quacking laughingstock.
The vehicle splashed into the Delaware, and far from being the triumphant experience I'd previously pictured, it served as a fittingly dispiriting coda: plopping like a turd into a river of brackish, polluted water. When we returned to solid ground, I was relieved to get out, eager to put the crushingly disappointing experience far behind me.
Marcie, the kids and I walked silently to the parking garage, and the drive back to Chester County was interrupted only by a few desultory quacks. In the end, what would have been a perfectly lovely day was ruined beyond all recognition by Ride the Ducks. How could I have been so wrong? |
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King of Prussia Preserves Green Space
June 24, 2007 –
In a rare show of environmentalism, King of Prussia officials yesterday dedicated a sprawling, eighty-square-foot parcel of grass as permanent green space. "With this vast preserve, we leave a legacy not only to our children, but our children's children," said Township Supervisor Scott Sibley at the King of Prussia Wildlife Refuge, located in the rear parking lot of a Rte. 202 strip mall. "Today, we are showing that, yes–King of Prussia does care."
 Jeffrey Featherston, of Ambler's Center for Sustainable Communities, was thrilled by the new park's creation. "With the development of the Valley Forge Golf Course, King of Prussia has already lost its last large tract of land," he said, sitting happily in the middle of the preserve. "But as you can see, there are some wonderful smaller tracts that can still be saved for future generations." Adrienne Holliday, of the Sierra Club's Pennsylvania chapter, agreed. "There will be literally three, maybe four species of insect that will flourish here, and birds will likely stop here as well," she said, hiking across the ten-foot-wide field. "For King of Prussia, this was an uncharacteristically farsighted move."
Joseph Bartlett, the Board of Supervisors' vice chairman, meanwhile, was far less enthusiastic. "If we want our residents to continue to enjoy low property taxes, King of Prussia must continue to grow commercially," he said. "I'm sure we could've attracted some sort of tenant to this site. Perhaps an Orange Julius stand." Sibley, though, seemed pleased by his unfamiliar role as a steward of the environment. "When people think of King of Prussia, they think of malls, traffic, bad planning," he admitted. "But I think this refuge will change people's minds about what's really important to us here in King of Prussia." |
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