Middletown Life Spring/Summer 2024 Edition

Flight in the marshlands: The birds of the Appoquinimink River

Page 54

Norton Nearly’s forest fascination

Mindshifting with Lauren Fonvielle

Jackson Hayes: From Middletown to Broadway

Complimentary Copy

Middletown Life Spring/Summer 2024

Letter from the Editor:

Middletown resident Jackson Hayes is well on his way to achieving his goal of becoming a star.

In this edition of Middletown Life, writer Ken Mammarella shines a spotlight on Hayes, a sixth grader at the Cab Calloway School of the Arts, who went from playing Young Simba across America to playing Little Michael in the Broadway production of MJ. The talented, young performer has big aspirations, and we’re pleased to share his story on the pages of Middletown Life.

We’re equally pleased that we get to share the story of Norton Nearly, who describes himself as a “man of the trees.” One of his four books is The Tree Mend Us Path, an essay collection that covers “a lot of time with trees” and meditation that helped him heal from a brain tumor.

In his story, “Tapping away at the ‘stuffing,’” writer Richard L. Gaw introduces readers to Lauren Fonvielle. Inspired by her own journey of healing, this Townsend resident now helps other women explore methods to heal themselves.

For the last eight years, from her direction of fully staged productions to her work as a teacher, Mary Leigh Filippone has introduced thousands of Appoquinimink High School students to the magic of live theatre. This past January, she took time to speak with Middletown Life about her life in the theatre, her work at the high school and one glorious dinner party she would love to host.

In this edition, we also highlight a number of capstone projects as Middletown area high school seniors prepare for careers.

We also feature a story about Birdie’s Links and Drinks, the new, cool place for fun in the area. Birdie’s is a new indoor entertainment center with eight simulator bays to practice golf techniques. There are also two 18-hole miniature golf courses, a play area with ten games, including cornhole, foosball, Subsoccer, ping pong, shuffleboard, darts, giant Jenga, giant Connect Four, Jet Pong and – for those who want ever more golf – PutterBall. This is all in addition to a full restaurant and bar.

The photo essay in this issue highlights the birds of the Appoquinimink River.

We hope you enjoy these stories as much as we enjoyed preparing them for you. We always welcome comments and suggestions for stories to highlight in the future. We’re already hard at work on planning for the next issue of Middletown Life, which will arrive in the summer of 2024.

Sincerely,

Avery Lieberman Eaton averyl@chestercounty.com Stone Lieberman stone@chestercounty.com Steve Hoffman, Editor editor@chestercounty.com

Cover Photo: Jim Coarse

Cover Design: Tricia Hoadley

|Middletown Recreation|

All photos by Ken Mammarella Jack Okonwicz, a member of the Appoquinimink High golf team, practices his swing at Birdie’s Links and Drink, a new golf-themed entertainment center in Middletown.

Birdie’s Links and Drinks: The new, cool place for fun

By Ken Mammarella Contributing Writer

The name “Birdie’s Links and Drinks” doesn’t adequately convey all the fun that everyone can have – and all the learning that golfers can gain.

Birdie’s is Middletown’s newest indoor entertainment center, with eight simulator bays to practice golf techniques and play other golf games.

There are also two 18-hole miniature golf courses, whose theming and audiovisual enhancements blow away the typical course that ends with a humongous mouth of a clown.

There’s a play area with ten games: cornhole, foosball, Subsoccer, ping pong, shuffleboard, darts, giant Jenga, giant Connect Four, Jet Pong and –for those who want ever more golf –PutterBall.

Birdie’s Links and Drinks also includes a full restaurant and bar area.

The place is named after the late Eileen Bird, known for her Southern hospitality and family gatherings on Lake Norman in North Carolina.

“It’s an homage to her,” said nephew Dylan Hannum, who owns Birdie’s with his brother David and their mother, Marge, who is Bird’s sister. “We want it to be a getaway where you can forget your problems, reconnect with family and friends and have a good time.”

Birth of a business

There’s one photo of Bird in the bar, plus a Southern element to the menu, such as hush puppies, Southern green beans, biscuits, the Creole remoulade for the shrimp and the tangy barbecue sauce that Dylan developed to blend “all the Southern barbecue traditions.” In addition, the bar menu includes Lake Norman lemonade, “sweet but strong, as she liked it,” David said.

The menu overall is classic American bar and bistro, with sections for burgers, pizzas, salads, mac ’n’ cheese and flatbreads, plus sandwiches, wings, chili, nachos, a few entrees and a few desserts.

Birdie’s has taken years to develop for the family, who also run a Fish Window Cleaning franchise. John Hannum is retired and helps out wherever he can, like a good father would.

About eight years ago, David started playing golf with friends and decided that the sport “bit me like a bug.” Dylan and Marge picked up the sport as well, and early during the pandemic they realized that outdoor driving ranges were conducive to social distancing and involved alreadyexisting bubbles of family members or close friends.

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Birdie’s is next to the Crooked Hammock Brewery and across Auto Park Drive from the Holiday Inn.

Birdie’s Links and Drinks

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However, a driving range requires 18 acres. Instead, they bought six acres, at 320 Auto Park Drive, just west of downtown Middletown built a 30,000-square-foot building – with a capacity of 504 – and opened in January.

What it all involves

Simulators allow golfers to play 30 to 40 courses from around the world, from Banff Springs to Wooden Sticks, with immersive video from hundreds of drones employed over six hours of tee times. Golfers swing into a high-tech net from the mat or off a specialized rubber tee that screws into the artificial turf. Statistical analysis comes up after each swing. Two curved bays sport enhanced features.

Golfers can also choose to hit balls into screens set up for various games, like darts and tic-tac-toe, first-person shooter video games and Angry Golf, an homage to the hit Angry Birds.

The miniature golf courses come from Blacklight Attractions, a St. Louis company that the family discovered

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The Pac-Man hole is the toughest in the two courses.

Birdie’s Links and Drinks

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at a trade show. One course follows a pirate theme through five rooms: in port, loading the ship, in Poseidon’s underwater kingdom, on a tropical isle and in the treasure room. The second course is a mashup of pop culture, including “The Simpsons,” “Jurassic Park” and “E.T.” The Pac-Man hole, with all those tiny, criss-crossing aisles between the bumpers, is the hardest.

Both courses run under a black light, which takes some time getting used to and also provides 3D effects for those wearing special glasses.

The business is evolving. The first addition is a golf pro, followed by golf leagues and tournaments. A cornhole league is a possibility, Dylan said, and they are developing party packages.

Before they opened to the public, they tested the course for safety, to ensure that it’s “100-percent child-proof,” David said, noting that a sword was removed because of that testing.

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Jeff Rostocki, who plays golf for the Delaware Military Academy, tries out a simulator.

Birdie’s Links and Drinks

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Some elements in the building help muffle the sound, including the vines hanging over the bar, the white “clouds” above the games area and slatted wooden panels throughout.

Birdie’s is open 9 a.m. daily and closes at 10 p.m. Sundays through Wednesdays and 11 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays. It’s free to enter Birdie’s and play the games in the restaurant-bar area.

The golf simulators run $55 to $75 an hour, depending on time of day, day of week and features. Peak pricing is after 5 p.m. weekdays and all day on weekends. After 8 every evening, the free game area is for adults only. All patrons under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.

Miniature golf is $12 for one course, or $20 for both.

Details: birdieslinks.com.

In a visit a few weeks after the place opened, patrons were enthusiastic. “Awesome,” reported Dorothy McBride, hosting a group of young people. Early online reviews were very favorable.

And Bogey King Golf, a blogger and vlogger from the MOT

area, recently posted an 11-minute video on YouTube that focused on the golf simulator but at least seven times concluded that Birdie’s is “cool,” “really cool” or “super cool.”

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Scotty Henry, Griffin Govatos and Chris Lenz are ready to start a hole in the retro miniature golf course, which combines various pop culture icons, like “E.T.”

Birdie’s Links and Drinks

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More local fun may be on tap inside a long-closed Kmart in Bear. A document filed in April 2023 with New Castle County calls for “an indoor trampoline facility, which shall also include laser tag, arcade games, bumper cars, virtual reality games and fast food.”

Trampolines and more fun along Route 40?

A sign on the Governors Square building, photographed by The News Journal in December, promises a Fun City, and media elsewhere show the company running 20 indoor entertainment centers along the East Coast. The attractions vary by location.

Brandon Saunders and River Rapone peek through the giant Connect Four, one of 10 free games in the restaurant-bar area.

Preparing students for the world

The Appoquinimink School District offers 24 career pathways in its high schools, culminating with an immersion experience in the senior year for students. Here are the profiles of some of these students and the work they are doing

By Ken Mammarella Contributing Writer

Spreading positivity and researching road design

Friends Jordan Earl and Grason Jess, both Odessa High School seniors, worked on separate capstones with criminal justice teacher Jill Kotowski.

Earl turned his commitment as a camp counselor for the Delaware CHANCE Foundation into a capstone project that spread positivity in the summer camp and after it ended.

One impactful relationship developed with a camper who was bullied and bullied others.

“I had a straight talk with him, and it was a heart-to-heart thing, because he felt way out of character than the other kids,” Earl said. “I said, ‘There are always going to be bullies in your life. There are always going to be people who want to put a name on you. You have to have a strong mindset and be able to push through it. When you believe in yourself, others around you will look up to you. And you have to uphold yourself to a higher standard because you have to be a leader.’”

Earl and this camper have kept in touch, with Earl praising the camper for getting good grades, staying out of trouble and making their school basketball team. The last achievement speaks deeply to Earl, a point guard on the Odessa basketball team.

He took part in the Governor’s Summer Fellowship Program, and as part of that, he was placed with the foundation, named for its key focuses: character, honor, attitude, nurturing, care and education.

The right mindset recurred when he was asked to elaborate on mental health when he participated in the SL24 Memorial Basketball Classic, which honors Sean Locke, who lost his battle to depression a few weeks before his 24th birthday.

All photos Courtesy of Appoquinimink School District

Capstone projects

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Earl, who plans to major in criminal justice, presented his capstone multiple times, sharing his concerns about how multiple issues affect the health, learning and behavior of children.

“We as a society and the leaders in society have to be better, wherever we go,” Earl said. “When we are in a place where we feel uncomfortable and in danger, we have to be better. We also have to offer a helping hand to those in need, because we don’t know what another person is going through and what troubles they face.”

Jess said he connected with Matt Lichtenstein, a family friend who works at the Delaware Department of Transportation, to “basically work as an intern” in DelDOT’s legal department. That internship boosted his goal of a career in environmental law (starting first by studying political science at Hofstra), and one highlight was being in the courtroom for a case involving a candidate’s road signs.

For his capstone, “I wanted to connect my presentation to what I learned so I researched pieces of infrastructure that reduce car accidents,” he said, concluding that longitudinal

rumble strips, roundabouts and highway divider medians are the most interesting.

His research affected how he drives. “I started to pay more attention because I did all this research on roads,” he said. “When you’re driving, you pay attention to the road but not necessarily all the features of it.”

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Odessa High seniors Jordan Earl (left) and Grason Jess have been friends since middle school.

Capstone projects

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Excessive testing, building a website

Appoquinimink High senior Sarah Steeves was surprised by the amount of testing going on for the second-graders that she was observing at Bunker Hill Elementary School, and she was worried about its potential impact on them.

Steeves’ education and leadership capstone last fall was guided by teacher Lindsay Myers, and she is creating a digital capstone this spring with teacher Aileen Murphy that will develop a website.

One issue was anxiety: caring less and less about all the tests. Another was the focus of the tests: whether they helped instill knowledge that prepares the students for college or for life (or both).

“Anxiety exists in every age,” Steeves said, but mainly in elementary schools. She saw a lack of focus, misunderstandings and cheating during her time with the pupils, which ran for about 90 minutes three afternoons a week.

“Test anxiety is constant anxiety in test situations that can get serious enough that it can misrepresent comprehension of the material,” she wrote in her PowerPoint.

Her research on the effect of excessive testing led her to suggest three ways to improve the situation:

• Lesson plans that help with educational development, not just teaching to the test.

• Alternative assessments, such as observations, projects and group work.

• Advice in taking tests, including tips on sleep and nutrition.

Steeves, who plans to major in elementary education at the University of Delaware or West Chester University, is now working on her second capstone, to build a website for Sarah’s Stuffies, which are whimsical animals that she crochets.

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Appoquinimink High senior Sarah Steeves completed one capstone on excessive testing and is working on a second by building a website to sell Sarah’s Stuffies.

Capstone projects

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Studying the ‘warrior gene’

Middletown High senior Laila Alston used a virtual neuroscience internship at Johns Hopkins University and an in-person immersion program on neuroscience and law at Columbia University in New York last summer to further her chosen career in neuroscience. Teachers Debra Otto and Colleen Barrett mentored her allied health capstone.

She titled her presentation: “Malnourishment & Violent Criminal Behavior in Male Adolescents: The Warrior Gene.” That gene is technically known as MAO-A.

Alston said she was inspired to study malnourishment from hearing about the childhood of her parents, who grew up poor.

“A simple sandwich is two slices of bread, a slice of cheese and a couple slices of lunch meat,” she said. “For my parents, it was one slice of bread that they folded in half, a slice of cheese and pepper. They used pepper to mimic the taste of lunch meat because it was very expensive.

“A lot of my research was qualitative. There was some quantitative data, but that wasn’t really my target. I wanted to make an emotional appeal. There are some logical appeals to my research, but my focus was on making people aware of those who are in poverty so that they can donate

to food pantries and things of that nature.” That’s why she gave her presentation about five times.

“I saw on people’s faces that they were truly able to learn a new perspective and they want to learn more about the problems of adolescent males’ environment. This is a topic that I want to make a career out of, not specifically dealing with malnutrition but dealing with the environmental and genetic factors of adolescents in poverty and violent crimes.”

Middletown High senior Laila Alston advanced her studies in neuroscience with a virtual program by Johns Hopkins and an in-person program at Columbia University.

Photo by Richard L. Gaw

Mary Leigh Filippone, center, with the cast and crew of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

For the last eight years, from her direction of fully staged productions to her work as a teacher, Mary Leigh Filippone has introduced thousands of Appoquinimink High School students to the magic of live theatre. This past January, she paused from a rehearsal of the musical You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown at the school’s nearly 1,000-seat auditorium to speak with Middletown Life about her life in the theatre, her work at the high school and one glorious dinner party she would love to host.

With every theatre person there is a moment when he or she first becomes bitten by the proverbial bug, and it is almost always accompanied by a great story. What is your “introduction to theatre” story?

When I was growing up in Springfield, Pa., the first real exposure to theatre for me was when I was six years old, when my grandmother gave me a VHS tape of Peter Pan starring Mary Martin. I wore that tape out and watched it over and over, and it was the first time that I saw a full-blown musical. I grew up very close to Upper Darby Summer Stage, which is where I attended several children’s musicals, but this was something different. Soon, The Sound of Music became a part of my personality, and during the summer after fourth grade, my mother signed me up for a week-long summer theatre camp. I had been a competitive swimmer and when that first acting class was about to start, I was asked to make a decision, so I stopped swimming.

Talk about some of your early-stage performances and their influence on your development and appreciation for the stage. It’s not just about hopping on a stage and singing, dancing and acting. It’s also about learning the building blocks of an entire production, yes?

As I became more and more involved in theatre, I began to learn about all of the things that make a show happen in pieces. I started at that camp singing a scene from The Music Man and then one scene from The Sound of Music I was picking and sorting through musicals and becoming aware of the musical theatre canon, but when I was in the sixth grade I joined my first full production of Bye Bye, Birdie at the Young People’s Theatre Workshop at The

Players Club of Swarthmore.

Even though I was only in the sixth grade, I was cast in the adult chorus and I had four children who were all older than me, but that’s when I learned how a complete production is created in a real theatre with a backstage and a scene shop. I remained a part of that group through high school, and then I taught there at summer camps when I was in college. I stayed involved and after I graduated college, I joined the board of governors and then served two years as president of the community theatre.

Who were your early mentors and how did they serve as an influence?

I had – and have had – several influences, but among them, Rob Henry was my high school theatre teacher at Springfield High School and Claudia Carlsson, who ran the Young Peoples Theatre Workshop at the Players Club of Swarthmore. Through them, I learned a lot about what it means to be a theatre teacher and a theatre director. To be an educator now and look back and know that I was fortunate to have had several mentors in my life who mentored me and took care of me and helped my love of theatre grow, I feel very lucky to have had them in my life. I am still in contact with all of them to this day. When I began at Appoquinimink eight years ago, I went back to my high school theatre teacher and I asked him for advice on teaching stagecraft.

The truth is that while not every student you have taught and directed has – or will – go on to further study of theatre, his or her involvement in the stage arts often helps to shape the course of their educational and personal journeys. In what ways do you see theatre having an impact on a young person’s development?

There are so many tangible and intangible benefits of being involved in theatre arts in elementary, middle and high school, but the two that stand out to me the most are empathy and self-confidence. One of my favorite quotes is from the playwright Oscar Wilde, who said, “I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being.”

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Photo by Richard L. Gaw Mary Leigh Filippone has been teaching theatre at Appoquinimink High School for the last eight years.

Q & A with Mary Leigh Filippone

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Whether they are actors taking on roles that they can or cannot relate to or audience members watching stories about people who are like them or dissimilar to who they are and their experiences, they are learning to be open to the feelings, the experiences and the lives of other people. Theatre gives our students a space where they can hold each other up, and it allows them to take that shared feeling out into the world with them. Whether they are going on to study engineering in college or heading to Juilliard, an empathetic individual is an excellent citizen, and learning empathy is an immeasurable part of who they will become.

Talk about the moments when you first see the makings of a young person who possesses not just talent as an actor, but all of the intangibles needed to pursue a career in the theatre. What is that moment like for you, and what role do you take in his or her development in theatre?

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every component

a production.

Courtesy photo Students involved in theatre arts at Appoquinimink High School are introduced to

of

Q & A with Mary Leigh Filippone

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I see a lot of students who possess the skills and desire to continue their life in the theatre, and it’s interesting to see where and what they want to be. I try not to talk in class about ‘When you become a theatre major…’ or ‘When you become and actor…’ because our classes and productions are a mixed bag of varying skills and pursuits. Rather, I approach our process as if everyone needs to understand what it is like to work on a professional level, because it makes them approach this work with a sense of professionalism. They take it seriously and they develop an ownership to it.

What I do try to encourage is that if they love it and are passionate about it – whether they choose to pursue a life in the theatre arts or not – to create a space in their life for theatre and to keep it there. I have a student who graduated two years ago who is now at Juilliard, and I have six students who graduated last year who are now actively involved in theatre at the University of Delaware – as freshmen. I am hearing about all of the ways they are immersing themselves in theatre, even as engineering and psychology and criminal justice majors. That means that something

they felt and experienced here at Appoquinimink High School has stuck with them, and they realize that no matter what path they take, that theatre will remain a part of their core self.

What have been among your most treasured moments in theatre, whether as a performer, director, teacher or audience member?

I am often deeply moved during our students’ work during the rehearsal process. In last week’s musical theatre class, an 11th grader sang a solo piece that I had selected for her, and she just came prepared and confident. We stopped when it was over, and I asked, ‘Who is this 11th grade version of yourself who is standing before us, and who was that 9th grader I gave a solo to two years ago?’ As a 9th grader, she was so overwhelmed she could hardly breathe. Those kinds of moments knock me over.

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Courtesy photo

A recent production of The Wizard of Oz at Appoquinimink High School.

Q & A with Mary Leigh Filippone

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You’ve just been given the gift of having coffee or adult beverages with one person in theatre history. Who would it be and why? What would you ask him or her?

I would love to sit down with the theatre director Bartlett Sher, a resident director at Lincoln Center. He directs opera but he has also become well known for directing revivals of classic theatre from Lerner and Lowe and Rodgers and Hammerstein. He has a brilliant way of making what is often a decades-old show feel fresh and relevant and important, down to the set design and the aesthetics of the production. I constantly am looking to direct classic pieces of theatre, but I don’t want them to feel stale and I want to bring in audiences with the hope that they realize the importance of these shows. We did The Sound of Music here in 2018 and while it is a family-friendly musical, it is set on the landscape of World War II, and a family escaping from persecution. We did lean in beyond the fluff to address these issues, but it’s a conversation I would like to have with Bartlett because he is also unpacking these shows in the same way.

What is your favorite spot in Middletown?

It’s Sweet Melissa’s. It is fun to be running errands and be able to stop by and grab some muffins for tomorrow’s breakfast. My husband and I picked up our wedding cake there. It gives off such a hometown feel.

You throw a dinner party and can invite anyone –famous or not, living or not. Who would you want to see around that table?

I have both a heartwarming dinner party and a fun dinner party. I would invite my father to the heartwarming dinner party. He died when I was 30 years old, and he became sick when I was 22 and I would love to tell him about all of this great stuff that has been happening in my life.

For the fun dinner party, I would like to invite Brene Brown, Cicely Tyson, Rita Moreno, Kate Winslet, Viola Davis, Eva Peron and Augusto Boal, a Brazilian theatre practitioner, drama theorist and political activist.

What item can always be found in your refrigerator?

Half and half can always be found, because my husband and I have a daily ritual to sit together with our puppy and a cup of coffee each morning before work. Pickles are also always found in our refrigerator, but they are always Claussen and no other brand.

To learn more about the theatre arts at Appoquinimink High School, visit www.appohigh.org or visit it on Instagram at @ appohigh_theatre.

~ Richard L. Gaw

YOUR HOME, YOUR WAY, INSIDE & OUT

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From Middletown to

BROADWAY BROADWAY

Jackson Hayes went from touring America in The Lion King to performing in the musical MJ in New York

By Ken Mammarella Contributing Writer

Middletown resident Jackson Hayes is well on his way to his goal of being a star.

“I want to be a child star and an adult star,” said the 12-year-old performer, who describes himself on his Instagram as a “musical theater enthusiast who loves the stage, the camera, good lighting and his family.”

“I love Broadway, and I love musicals, and I still want to do those, but I also want to be in movies and TV shows,” Jackson, a sixth grader at the Cab Calloway School of the Arts, said in an interview.

Jackson began acting when he was 3, playing a Munchkin in a production of The Wiz at Howard High School in Wilmington, directed by his mother, Lori Hayes. He performed in several other productions in Delaware before being cast as Young Simba in the national touring company of The Lion King – which Forbes calls the “highest-grossing entertainment property in history” – and Little Michael in

the Broadway production of MJ, the jukebox musical about legend Michael Jackson.

And while he was performing in the top tier of live theater across the United States, into Mexico and on Broadway, Jackson also found time and energy to start writing a show called Night of Regret – he’s writing it with Jaxyn Damasco, one of the performers cast as Young Nala in The Lion King – and creating a music video to say farewell to his nine months on the road with The Lion King.

“Before I left [the] tour, I wanted to do something special with my Cubs,” he wrote on Instagram about the performers who share the roles of Young Simba and Young Nala. “After watching a video by the [University of Michigan] theater department and seeing [Six on Broadway], I knew what I wanted to do. My mom challenged me to actually see it all the way through. That meant write the lyrics (except for the Cubs’ intro, which they wrote), find a place to shoot the video, meet with the owners to get permission, edit the video, hold rehearsals, decide on the costumes and not to quit.”

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Emilio Madrid photo, courtesy of DKC/O&M Middletown resident Jackson Hayes is now playing Young Michael in MJ on Broadway.

Jackson Hayes

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Family and faith

Jackson feels he acquired his performance skills from his mother, who has enough flexibility in her career as an educational consultant to accompany him to 11 cities across North America for The Lion King and live in Greater New York while performing on Broadway. His contract runs through June 9.

“I have stage presence” when offstage, he said in the interview. “I’m just a dramatic person. Last night, I put on the spotlight, turned off all the lights in the house, and I put on karaoke on the TV.”

Jackson also credits his commitment to God.

“Most of the artists I like started in church, and so did I,” he wrote on Instagram. In another post, he combined faith and family. “Last night I did something that I prayed for. I got to perform with my cousin [Lauren Carr], who is the newest member of The Lion King family. I mean for real how many people can say they did that?”

He emphasized that point several times in the interview. “You’re on the right path,” God has told him. “Don’t fall off. Keep going.” And: “If you work with God, He is always going to find a way for you to succeed.”

“We’re people of faith, so we just pray,” Lori said. The family – dad Clifton, an administrator with the New Castle County Vocational Technical School District; Lori; Jackson; and his two brothers – attend the nondenominational Seeds of Greatness church in Middletown.

“Jackson’s dream is, again, to be on TV soon,” she said. “He really wants to have his own series. His ultimate dream is that he and Jaxyn, his best friend from The Lion King, want to stage their own production in New York.”

On stage and off

Complex arrangements and laws govern how minors perform in Equity productions and on Broadway. They’re why, in both musicals, he shares the part, and he posts his schedule on Instagram. Search for “justJacksonHayes,” an account set up when he started with The Lion King.

Jackson likes acting because “you can break away from your own life and expand someone else’s and see how their story comes out. Young Simba was very dramatic and brave, which I can connect to. A different thing is how he ran away.” And that he can’t connect to, even though he recalled once starting a half-hearted runaway to the Chickfil-A across the street from his old house.

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Jackson Hayes

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The tour gave Jackson and Lori the chance to explore other places.

“Whenever we get to a city, we ask the locals for places we should visit,” Jackson wrote on Instagram. “In Tulsa, we were told to visit the Center of the Universe. You stand in the center, and it sounds like you are singing in a microphone. Not sure how it works, but it was fun.” The cast also toured the White House together.

Some spots echoed the show. “Went to the zoo, and everywhere I looked I saw a stage,” he wrote last spring. “I mean, who can walk past the lion cage and not sing ‘I Just Can’t Wait to Be King?’”

Others were the show. “I just had to go to the Animal Kingdom to see the Festival of the Lion King,” he wrote last fall, after visiting Disney World. “You know when they asked for a volunteer, my hand went straight up. There’s just something about The Lion King. The safari was cool, as were the amazing Tron ride and the churros, he added in the interview.

Growth is the most important thing

Kerry Lacy Stöwhas, hair and makeup supervisor for The Lion King tour, gave Jackson important advice about developing skills while on tour. That included learning how to sew, from cast member Christopher McKenzie, and absorbing advice from Lori.

“My mom always has a lesson,” he wrote on Instagram. “She said, ‘Who you are on the stage matters, but who you are off stage matters most.’ ”

Last summer, when The Lion King tour hit Washington, he contemplated that growth on Instagram: “Full circle moment. When I was 8, I was supposed to perform MJ for my pastor’s celebration, but I got scared in front of the 1,200+ people in the audience. My pastor [Jerome L. Lewis] and [his wife, Lisa P. Lewis,] hugged me that day and made me feel better.

“I decided that day that I would never be afraid to perform. My church didn’t hold that performance against me.

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Disney photo by Matthew Murphy Jackson toured North America while playing Young Simba in The Lion King.

Jackson Hayes

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Instead they gave me more chances to work on my gift and encouraged me to do what I love.

“Fast forward to last night and I had the chance to perform in front of them and 1,000s of others at the historic Kennedy Center in the #1 musical in the world with no fear.

“I used to be embarrassed about what happened, but my mom told me to take my power back.

“This was my full circle Simba moment. I know who I am, and I’m just getting started.”

Emilio Madrid photo, courtesy of DKC/O&M “Most of the artists I like started in church, and so did I,” Jackson wrote on Instagram.

Norton Nearly’s forest fascination

By Ken Mammarella Contributing Writer

Norton Nearly talks to trees. And sometimes they talk back.

Some conversations have occurred in the oval-shaped grove that he and his wife, Kimberly, planted at the back of their split level in Townsend, on a quiet acre where they have lived since 1988. Others have been with a 350-yearold white oak at St. Anne’s cemetery in Middletown.

Some of his formative memories involve “whittling a stick into oblivion.” One of his four books is The Tree Mend Us Path, an essay collection that covers “a lot of time with trees” and meditation that helped him heal from a brain tumor. A current hobby is crafting what he calls “forest art,” including walking sticks, staffs, wands, wood spirits, doors, fairy homes, amulets, talismans, games and incense burner, made of wood, other natural materials and vintage accoutrements that he adds.

Nearly’s name is an homage to his grandmothers, whose maiden names were Norton and Nierle. He was 24 when he started to use this pseudonym to disassociate his creative endeavors and his sylvan spirit from the corporate careers that paid the bills.

He expounded on those ideas in an interview.

“When I create things, I’m not like a lot of artists who say ‘I’m going to do a painting of this,’” he said. “I don’t think that way. The stick and I work together in the creation. I try to get a feeling of what is right to do with it, and not just what I want to do with it.”

Ancestry and curiosity

Nearly grew up near Scranton, Pennsylvania.

“My life has not been easy, to be truthful,” he said, citing Perthes’ disease (a rare condition that “prohibited me from doing anything but lying on my stomach or back for about two years”), the death of his mother when he was 15, addiction when he was younger and “a lot of residual pain that I try to suppress.”

“He is a man of the trees, having wandered the woods for over 50 years,” he writes on NortonNearly.com. “Each piece of wood has its own personality, meaning, properties and uses that want to be released. Each wood has specific properties and esoteric uses. Norton leverages this in his creations.”

He has already planned his death: cremation (no desire to “waste more land on my lifeless body”); a celebration of life to provide closure for his wife and daughter, Katie; and ascension to heaven, which he hopes is a “place of ultimate peace.” Nearly was brought up Roman Catholic and attended Jesuit schools. He has attended Methodist services (his wife’s faith) and Baptist services and read up on Buddhism and Hinduism.

“I don’t know what I am now,” he said. “I hold onto a lot of my Christian beliefs, and if someone asked me what religion I am, I would say Christo-Druidic, which is sort of my own made-up religion. I guess I like to pray in the trees.”

His father moved to Delaware for work, and he followed

Courtesy of Norton Nearly

when he was hired as a warehouse supervisor in the same firm. Later jobs included working as a mail carrier and at a truck-driving school and publishing a magazine focused on the outdoors, but most of his career (28 years) was spent in the banking industry.

In his free time, he explores the great outdoors (camping in “remote forests and deep hollows,” backpacking, kayaking, rafting and biking), and he explores the inside story of his heritage.

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Nearly’s current business cards list forest artist, poet, adventurer, Order of Bards Ovates & Druids bard, storyteller, naturalist, Celtic/Norse mythology and spirituality.

Ken Mammarella photo

For 20 years, Townsend resident Norton Nearly has been crafting and selling items out of wood. He’s been thinking about wood a lot longer.

Norton Nearly

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Forest art and the trees

“Norton comes from a creative family whose heritage is steeped in Celtic, Germanic and Norse traditions,” he writes. His paternal ancestors were ship carvers and storytellers from County Sligo, Ireland. His maternal ancestors were explorers and wanderers, with at least one wood carver and furniture maker. They settled in Germany’s Black Forest, home to many of the Brothers Grimm tales as well as elves, dwarves and witches.

That ancestry led Nearly to study Celtic, Germanic and Norse mythology, spirituality, symbology and writing systems.

Ken Mammarella photo

“The stick and I work together in the creation,” Nearly said, and these irregular pieces of bark told him that they should become wood spirits.

Ken Mammarella photo

Nearly has studied ancient European writing systems called Ogam and the Elder Futhark. Most of these blocks display Ogam.

“It all started to gel,” he said. “Everything I was interested in – the Irish history, the nature aspects, the walking sticks – all started to come together. I got very excited because it was like it was meant to be.” The result: items “made more seriously and reverently, using ancient symbols.”

Nearly likes so many trees, and his favorites are oak and sassafras. Oak is known for its strong wood and acorns that nurture so many creatures, including humans.

“It’s the primary tree for Druids, and they saw it as the father of the trees,” he said.

Sassafras is known for its tea and how it sports three types of leaves.

“The number three is very magical and very important in Celtic mythology and is probably the most important number across all spiritualities, including Christianity, with the trinity,” he said. “And the wood is beautiful. If you get a really good piece, the under-bark is a brilliant red, and it makes a heck of a wand or walking stick.”

Nearly started with walking sticks and branched out to wands, at the suggestion of his wife. The wands were first for children but evolved into spiritual versions with his

greater grasp of faith.

Much of the wood is sourced locally “in an environmentally friendly manner, from downed trees, struggling trees, pruning, thinning and deadfall,” he writes. “Nature is Norton’s church, so he strives to do no harm to the natural world in the acquisition of materials.”

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Ken Mammarella photo Nearly sells his wares at annual festivals (mostly Renaissance and Celtic, with this photo from the Arden Fair) and all year at Purple Sage in Middletown and Find Your Harmony near Newark.

Norton Nearly

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Why? What?

He offered this example: “There’s an old tree that’s been down near Townsend, on the ground ever since I met it, and that’s probably 10 years ago. I always do this sort of

thing: ‘Are you OK if I take a piece of your wood for my creative purposes?’ I get a feeling in my head, and I seldom get a ‘no,’ but with this particular tree, I always get a feeling that it doesn’t want me to take any of it.”

When he takes the wood, he likes to symbolically leave something, like a pebble or a penny, that says “thank you for providing.”

“We’ve both long had a love of being out in the trees, and we made sure our daughter did, too,” Kimberly said, adding that she now enjoys “the thrill of stick-hunting” when accompanying Norton on trips to gather raw material. Their home features a lot of wood, including antique chairs and his creations.

“It fits with his personality, and we feel the energy,” she said.

Nearly sells his wares at various fairs and festivals, including the Delaware Renaissance Faire in Townsend, and all year at Purple Sage in Middletown and Find Your Harmony near Newark.

Ken Mammarella photo

Doors are sized for fairy or gnome homes.

Norton Nearly

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Courtesy

Nearly described this wood spirit this way: “Cormac after my fourth-greatgrandfather. Cottonwood from a recent trip to Colorado. Pearl eyes. “Dream” in Ogam.

“I have purchased a walking stick, and I have several of his wands, tree spirits, pendants,” said Teri Jannuzzio, owner of Find Your Harmony. “Just like crystals, wood has amazing energies! Some of his creations were bought because of their beauty, others because of their energy.”

“Norton seeks the answer to the simple question, ‘Why,’” he writes. “Why is all this swirling around us, and where do we fit into it? We have many names for where answers may be found – God, goddess, spirit, energy, source, creator, guide and others. Norton sees a connection in everything with humans deeply a part of it all. Nature and our beloved trees are

critical aspects of this oneness.”

When asked what he thinks the answer is to “Why,” he responded: “I think the first answer is ‘what.’ What I believe with that is that we are all connected, everything from the trees, the rocks, the people. What’s important to me is that connection. … The ‘why’ is a tougher question. I don’t know exactly why we’re here, but hopefully it’s to help others. But that seems like a second step. So I’m still seeking the ‘why.’”

of Norton Nearly

Ken Mammarella photo He delved into his Irish ancestry to create leather goat-skin boards and wooden pieces for a classic game called brandubh.

|Middletown Life Photo Essay|

FLIGHT IN THE

MARSHLANDS:

Photos by Jim Coarse | Text by Richard L. Gaw

THE BIRDS OF THE APPOQUINIMINK RIVER

For nearly 16 miles, the Appoquinimink River meanders through farmlands and wetlands and saltmarshes in southern Chester County – through Odessa, Townsend and Middletown to the mouth of the Delaware Bay -and along its terrain are small lakes and ponds that have become familiar to us: Wiggins Mill Pond, Noxontown Pond, Silver Lake, Shallcross Lake, Hangmans Run and Drawyer’s Creek.

Throughout the expanse of its more than 58,000 where two of our world’s most precious gifts converge in harmony: nature and wildlife. From the most ardent avian enthusiasts to those who merely catch a passing glimpse, more than 100 different species of birds have been spotted – and recorded – over the past several years.

-

nimink River is a daily showcase of the herons, egrets, bitterns and the sand hill cranes that live along its tidal basins, but like the work of our greatest artists, the canvas of this waterway reveals more with every visit: cliff swallows, boat-tailed grackles, laughing gulls, marsh wrens, American black ducks and yes, the majestic and soaring bald eagle is also frequently seen.

Over the next several years, protecting valuable natural resources like the Appoquinimink River will serve as a crucial step in preserving the bird populations that thrive there. Through its Division of Watershed Stewardship, the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) uses a comprehensive array of watershed-based programs to ensure proper stewardship of Delaware’s natural resources, from its shoreline to its navigable waterways.

To learn more about birds along the Appoquinimink River and throughout Delaware, visit www. delawarebirdingtrail.com. To learn about DNREC’s Appoquinimink River Watershed research, visit www.dnrec/delaware.gov.

Inspired by her own journey of healing, Townsend resident Lauren Fonvielle now helps other women explore methods to heal themselves

Tapping away at the ‘stuffing’

By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer

The 2017 letter that was addressed to the Townsend home of Lauren & Jeremy Fonvielle was from the commander in Jeremy’s Navy Reserves unit, and with it came information from Fleet & Family Readiness about how a family can best prepare when a loved one is deployed.

The letter stated that Jeremy, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, a Lieutenant Commander and the married father of two small children, was being sent to Bahrain in the Persian Gulf for the next 13 months.

Throughout the course of their marriage, Lauren Fonvielle had adjusted to Jeremy’s previous deployments, but this was different. There were children involved now, but suddenly and without warning, she was thrust into the role of a single parent, juggling the responsibilities of raising a young son and a daughter, maintaining her home and sustaining her career as a copywriter and freelance marketer.

Combined with his deployment and a months-long stint recuperating from an ACL injury, Jeremy would be away from his family for 22 months.

“I started having panic attacks,” Lauren said. “I remember one time I woke up and I was in a panic that seemed to come out of nowhere. I wanted to go into my five-year-old daughter’s room and wake her up so that I wouldn’t be alone, and a moment later, she was at my door and climbed into my bed, and we held hands. Just holding her hand, and matching her breathing with mine, I was able to fall back asleep.”

To Lauren, the twin practices of yoga and meditation had been infrequent – less a practice and more of an occasional dabble – but as she sought to distance herself from the stress of her husband’s deployment, she began to visit Serenity Yoga in Middletown. Going to the mat gave her time to heal and process her thoughts to the rhythmic movement of her body. She was also surrounded by colleagues who were exploring their inner selves through various energy healing modalities like Reiki, sound healing and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).

‘Tapping’

Commonly referred to as “tapping,” EFT is a technique that utilizes the body’s energy meridian points -- the top of the head, eyebrows, side of the eyes, under the eyes, under the nose, the chin crease, the collar bone, as well as under the arms -- by tapping on them lightly with the fingertips, while simultaneously acknowledging the emotions experienced in the moment. Through practice, it increases positive energy flow, and reduces the stress hormone known as cortisol, leading to a feeling of calmness.

At the end of one yoga session, Lauren spotted a flyer on the studio wall announcing yoga teacher training sessions, and in 2018, Lauren was certified in yoga instruction, Reiki and EFT, and soon began introducing these forms of energy work to her work clients -- self-driven, entrepreneurial women who owned small businesses – who often shared

Photo by Alissa Messeroff Lauren Fonvielle of Mindshift with Lauren.

Lauren Fonvielle

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their vulnerability and fears with Lauren. When they shared their stories, the stories sounded very similar to hers.

“Like many people, when there are intense emotions, we don’t enjoy feeling those emotions,” she said. “We don’t want to feel sad; we don’t want to be scared, and so we distract ourselves. Sometimes, that means focusing on our kids, or throwing ourselves into our work, or even throwing ourselves onto the couch and eating potato chips – anything to not feel the feelings.

“Over time, however, all that ‘stuffing’ is going to get to a point where it is going to have to come out because there is no more room to store it. Because my EFT practice was becoming such a powerful experience for me, I wanted to shout about it from the rooftops, and share it with other women who were experiencing the same forms of anxiety.”

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In addition to private and group sessions, Lauren shares her skills as an EFT practitioner and coach at public events.

Lauren Fonvielle

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In 2019, Lauren’s work shifted from helping entrepreneurs with their marketing efforts to helping them reduce anxiety, overcome limiting beliefs, and create breakthroughs both professionally and personally. Freelancing came to an end, which was followed by the official launch of Mindshift with Lauren.

‘This is where the inner work needs to begin’

Too often, we are paralyzed not by outer forces beyond our control, but by the pounding and unrelenting volume of our inner voice. We are unable to make decisions, and when we are forced to make these decisions, we question whether they will be good enough. While we are fully aware that our anxiety is dominating our life, we choose to internalize it in a holding place that slowly corrodes our confidence and leads to chronic pain, self-made negative prophecies and outcomes, fear of judgment and many, many sleepless nights.

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Lauren is also a guest on podcast broadcasts.

Lauren Fonvielle

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In short, we begin to enter another portal, entirely of our own invention.

“We all have experiences in our lives, and these experiences have emotions attached to them, and when we don’t have the tools to be able to process these emotions, it leads to stuffing them down and suppressing them,” Lauren said. “This is where the inner work needs to begin.”

As an Integrative Energy Practitioner specializing in EFT, Lauren offers both private and group coaching sessions and classes – offered both virtually and in person – that encourage women to get to the root of their physical and emotional pain and begin to heal from the inside out. Through the modalities of tapping, Reiki, sound healing and meditation, she and her clients work together to acknowledge – and slowly begin to release – the fear and trauma in order to find their way back to feeling safe and at ease in their bodies.

“All negative emotions are felt through a disruption of the body’s energy, and physical pain and disease are intricately connected to negative emotions,” Lauren wrote on her website. “Health problems create feedback – physical symptoms cause emotional distress, and unresolved emotional problems manifest themselves through physical symptoms, so the body’s health must be approached as a whole.

“The body, like everything in the universe, is composed of energy. Restore balance to the body’s energy, and you will mend the negative emotions and physical symptoms that stem from the energy disruption. Tapping restores the body’s energy balance, and negative emotions are conquered.”

Success stories

Since launching her business, Lauren has witnessed many success stories of women who have transformed their lives by listening, learning from and reacting to the voice within them.

“There was one client who came to me who was dealing with a lot of anxiety and stress and feeling overwhelmed,” she said. “She was unhappy at her job as an accountant and felt unheard at work. Working together, we began to peel back those layers of her life experiences and get to the root of why she felt she couldn’t speak up and share her

concerns. Much of her fear went back to her childhood, and the need to stay small, quiet, and invisible in order to remain safe.

“When we were able to shine a light on that, it created some big shifts for her. Ultimately, she ended up leaving her job, wrote a book and went into doing energy work herself.”

Currently, Lauren is in training to become an EFT Trainer, and later this year her role will expand to include training others to become EFT practitioners, while at the same time conducting more public appearances and workshops.

“I love helping people,” she said. “I love getting to see them transform. I love the ‘ah-ha’ moments, and there are times as a practitioner that I feel or see the dots connecting a little before my clients do, and when they make that connection it is an amazing feeling and experience to witness.

“I don’t refer to myself as a ‘healer,’ but rather a guide on their healing journey, because it has been the women I have worked with who are doing the real work. They are their own healers.”

To learn more about Lauren Fonvielle and Mindshift with Lauren, www.MindshiftwithLauren.com.