Rick:

Hello, and welcome to Northwest Philly Neighbors.

I'm Rick Mohr, continuing my conversation with juggler and wirewalker Dave Gillies.

In part one, we heard how he evolved from teacher to juggler and then discovered a love for wirewalking over rivers.

Now in part two, he talks about his passion for walking tightwires in beautiful places around the world, including a wonderful story about Easter Island.

He also describes how they managed to rig a wire on the Susquehanna River with open water on one side, and how in Venice he found that his idea might be 500 years old.

Back home, he talks about living in a mansion on the circus school campus, why the circus arts community is so lively today, and finally how to stay balanced as the years advance.

Stay tuned.

Dave Gillies:

I remember my father worked for, he was an accountant, worked for a mushroom company.

We lived out near the mushroom country, out near Kennesquare, and he would have loads of the mushroom soil dumped in the barnyard, and then below that is the garden.

And we were told we had to carry the dirt in wheelbars down the hill to the garden.

But I thought, well, what if I make like a cable with a pulley and a bucket and fill it up and just let it go down by gravity?

And so I made this crazy pulley system that broke.

It was easier to do it by the wheelbarrow.

I always enjoyed figuring things out and making up something that might be a little connected to how things were done traditionally, but then it might be something different.

And it's been like that in a lot of things that I've done.

Right.

I mean, this morning, we put a tight wire on the roof of the Sprinter van.

We're going to be in a parade on October 30th, a Halloween parade.

Nobody we know of has ever walked on a tight wire on a moving van in a parade.

And our tight wire walker, Ronja, from the Netherlands that you saw walking across the Brandywine River in the video, she said one day, why don't we put the tight wire on the roof of the van and do it in the Fourth of July parade?

And I said, well, that would work.

You would do that?

I had never thought of doing it.

I came up with a way to rig it.

I enjoy the process of rigging.

That's one of my favorite things now, that rigging tight wires in different places, like all these wires out here that you see below the window.

I like the process of making them taut, making them fit the space, how we put the support wires on pulleys.

I use traditions that I'm aware of with circus rigging.

I use things from tree work.

But then I adapted and I have created some things that are unique and that other people have learned from and copy, and I like that process.

Rick:

And it all started with those pulleys and the manure.

Dave Gillies:

Yeah, yeah.

We had a commission from the city of Harrisburg to rig a wire over part of the Susquehanna River.

So we swagged a wire from the bridge abutment on the Walnut Street Bridge to the shore, and it's about 300 feet.

But on the other side of the wire is open water, so you can't put your brace line on that side.

I decided, well, let's have one continuous line that runs through pulleys, and then you just pull one end, and it'll tighten the whole thing.

I'd figured it out on a small scale, but then I didn't know how big it would scale up.

We ended up doing it a more traditional way, just line by line, because we didn't have time to do the pulley system.

But later, I worked it out here, which is what you see.

See how all these lines are on pulleys, that walk line is being pulled into a gentle crescent.

And then last year, we got a commission to be part of a festival in the Dolomites in Italy north of Venice.

And in order to get to the Dolomites from Philadelphia, you have to fly to Venice.

So I think, oh, no, I had to go to Venice.

So we went a week early.

Leonardo da Vinci was from Venice, and they have a museum dedicated to all of his contrivances, which I went to see.

And in there, there's a pulley system where he raises a beam with a series of pulleys that looks just like my Cavaletti system here.

Rick:

So exciting.

Dave Gillies:

Ah, hmm, that's an interesting pedigree to this system.

It goes back.

So what I've created is a little like Leonardo da Vinci's system, and it's a little like Buckminster Fuller's Tensegrity Sphere, where it doesn't look like anything until it goes together.

And then boing, it's this live leaf thing that all the tension is balanced.

The wire that went over the brandywine was a little like that.

It looks like it might be art.

I'm amused over hearing conversations of people who come to the museum, and they come and look at the river and wonder what that is, and they can see it from the, there's this marvelous part of the brandywine museum that they've added, where from different floors, you can look out these floor-to-ceiling windows at the river.

I was in the cafeteria there, and there was a couple standing at the window looking out at our work in progress over the river, and they were trying to figure out what it was, and the woman said, I think it's art, and the man said, no, I think it's a device to catch birds.

Rick:

And you were just being a quiet fly on the wall.

Dave Gillies:

Just a fly on the wall, yeah.

Then I did go over and introduce myself and said, would you like to know more about it?

And I told them what it was.

I invited them to come back to the show for the show.

The Brunei and River Museum has us there for a week.

It's like our own private Jacob's Pillow.

Instead of being about dance, it's about wire walking.

They give us a house.

So I have my team come and we spend a whole week creating a program for the museum that we do.

They have a promotion where it's free and they have extra entertainment to try to get people to come to the museum who might not normally come.

Rick:

And if people wanted to catch that next year, look at the Brandywine Museum website.

Dave Gillies:

Yes, the Brandywine Museum website.

It will be in the beginning of June.

Long wire is a specialty within a specialty.

Walking tight wire is a circus skill that's specialized.

But in the States, most wire walkers, they do dance wire.

They work on a 20-foot-long wire.

On a spring, they dance and do interesting, beautiful moves on it.

And then there's the well-known Willendas, who are daredevils, and they do their famous pyramids.

But their wire is 20 feet long.

They're only going from one side of the circus ring to the other side.

They take about eight steps and they're done.

Rick:

It's very taut.

Dave Gillies:

It's very, it's board-tight, as they say.

It's like walking on a board.

Because the balance is so precarious with their seven-person pyramids or their eight-person pyramid that collapsed this past year.

And they were injured.

And Nick and his sister just did the Times Square walk.

And it was her first time back on the wire after the injury.

I think Nick was able to catch the wire and hold on, didn't get injured.

Rick:

So long wire is different from that.

Dave Gillies:

Long wire is different.

And most circus schools don't have the space.

Rick:

Yeah.

Dave Gillies:

To do long wire, especially with a balance pole, which is 24 feet long, that would be the only thing you could rig in the circus school.

Rick:

Yeah.

Dave Gillies:

Because everything else is straight up and down.

And you could have 8 or 10 or 15 rigging points like we have there in the sanctuary, because it's all vertical.

There's a school in Brussels that has access to a freight depot, which was used transferring freight from the canal to the railroad and vice versa.

And it's a big train shed.

They have long wires, and they give one week workshops there that culminate with a walk over the canal, which is 30 feet over the water.

Rick:

So what's different about being on a long wire?

Dave Gillies:

Well, it feels different.

It's usually outside.

So you have the sun and wind and weather to contend with.

And what's different for me is that I try to find a place that is a beautiful place, a nice landscape, and put the wire there like a sculpture in relation to the river or to the landscape.

Or most recently, I'm interested in putting it in relation to the tide.

I found a place in the Dominican Republic on the border with Haiti where the mountains come down to the ocean and then out into the ocean.

So there are rocks on one side that I can rig my brace lines on.

And I put the walk line on a palm tree and the rocks out in the ocean.

And then as the tide comes in and out, it changes my relationship to the water.

So I like doing that.

That's just for fun.

Long wire walking for me is mostly an expensive hobby.

Instead of buying a racehorse or a sailboat or something, I look for interesting places of natural beauty to rig tightwires.

I'm happy to be able to do this and to share it with other people who have this crazy passion and for people who will actually commission us to do a particular installation.

I have some places in mind that I want to convince that they really need a tightwire installation.

I won't mention them yet until we do it, but I heard an interview with Philippe Petit three years ago and he was being interviewed, I guess, as a result of the movie that was made about his tower walk.

There were two movies.

One was the actual documentary that had him in it and whatever footage was available from his original tower walk.

Rick:

The Twin Towers.

Dave Gillies:

Then Zemeckis did a movie with an actor portraying Philippe Petit.

He was being interviewed on New Jersey Public Television about the movie and the reporter asked him what projects he had in mind for the future.

I was shocked when I heard him say he planned to rig a wire on Easter Island in Rapa Nui.

Why was I shocked?

That's my plan.

I've been planning to do that for two years before I heard this interview.

I hadn't even told any of my colleagues.

I had a cover story.

I'm going to Chile to improve my Spanish, but I'm going to Chile because they claim Easter Island and I was going to go there and see how I could rig a tie wire.

I thought, why does Philippe Petit think of rigging a tie wire on Easter Island of all places?

That's my plan.

I figured I've got to now come out in the open and let people know because I can't do it by myself.

I need help.

I had a friend of a friend who was from Chile, and I contacted my Chilean friend and said, do you have any connection to Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, as the people who live there call it?

And he says, yes.

One of his best friends is a native Rapa Nui, a man who runs tours for a hotel, and my friend runs tours to Antarctica.

And he said, let me call my friend.

I'll ask him.

So like 20 minutes later, he's on the phone via Skype to his friend and Rapa Nui.

He said, oh, sure, have your friend come.

He can use my farm.

It overlooks some of the moai.

And I lend him my pickup truck.

And do you have sledgehammer?

Yes, I've got sledgehammer.

So I go to Rapa Nui with just enough to wriggle wire on the farm where I had permission, because it's owned by an individual there.

And I set up a wire and I get video of it.

I'm the first person to ever walk a tie wire on Easter Island.

And I beat Philippe Petit, who hasn't gotten permission yet.

But I wanted to come back with my crew and a team.

So I talked to the mayor who said, oh, you have to talk to the governor.

He said, oh, you have to talk to the Council of Elders.

And I talked to all these people.

Where I went back, I spent about three weeks there talking to people, trying to get permission.

Everybody's saying, oh, that's a pretty good idea, but you'll have to talk to it.

And I talked to them and it moves at an island pace.

They're not in a hurry.

Finally, I get permission from everybody involved.

And I come back in two months with my team.

And they've more or less forgotten about the whole thing.

And had to start over.

And finally, they said, you know, Axl Rose did a concert here and he paid us so-and-so.

And Kevin Kastner did a movie here and he paid us.

I said, but I'm not Axl Rose, I'm not Kevin Kastner.

We're just some people who think this is mysterious and wonderful and we want to rig wires here.

And they wanted to charge me.

And I said, well, how about I do a show for the village and teach the children wire walking?

They thought that was a splendid idea.

They said, how much is your show?

I said, it's the same amount you were going to charge me for rigging.

So we had a deal and we did the show for the village and we got permission to rig near the sacred sites, kind of overlooking them.

We had to be respectful and driving stakes into the ground.

But we got our video and did our walk there.

So we still were the only people to ever rig and walk a tight wire on Easter Island.

Rick:

And it's partly due to who you are that you can connect with those people.

And maybe Philly Petit is not as good at that angle.

Dave Gillies:

Well, if you start doing something, things fall into place.

I'm in an Airbnb in Santiago and I tell the people what I'm doing.

And they say, that's amazing.

You know, our cousin lives there.

Why don't you talk to him?

And people want to help.

And it seems like the universe just wanted this thing to happen.

And then I meet somebody involved with circus in Chile.

There's a wonderful woman named Pilar, whose husband is from Rapa Nui.

And she had taken a circus there, but they didn't have tight wire.

Rick:

So why do you need a sledgehammer?

Dave Gillies:

To drive the stakes into the ground, for anchor plates.

Rick:

How long are the stakes?

Dave Gillies:

Well, like three feet.

Rick:

Okay.

Was it rocky?

Dave Gillies:

Yes.

Rick:

So how did you manage that?

Dave Gillies:

Eventually you get the stake into the ground.

Rick:

You just kind of wiggle it and try a different angle.

Dave Gillies:

But Rapa Nui is like a rolling meadows that used to be covered with trees.

But as you probably know, in past centuries, the native people there cut down all their trees.

It's like a cautionary tale for the rest of the planet, what not to do.

But we're driving the stakes into the ground.

It's quiet.

It's in the middle of nowhere.

So the sound carries.

And a man on a horse comes tearing up and swearing at us in Spanish.

What are you doing?

My late wife is Spanish.

I speak a little Spanish.

I explained to them we're bringing it.

We got permission.

And he says, I didn't give you permission.

You're not allowed to do this.

And I said, do you have a family?

Do you have kids?

Why don't you bring your kids?

We'll show them how to walk in the tight wire.

And he said, were you on the radio this morning?

We had done a radio interview talking about what we were doing.

He heard the radio interview.

And all of a sudden, he's our friend.

And it was OK.

It was crazy.

It was like we were in the wrong movie.

This guy on a horse comes tearing up.

You can't do this.

Rick:

That's pretty subtle concepts to convey in Spanish.

I think you did pretty well.

Dave Gillies:

There was a lot of gestures and smiling involved.

And our friend, the Chilean, was with us.

He was fluent in Rapa Nui.

They speak their own Rapa Nui language, but they also speak Spanish.

I had a fluent translator with me who wasn't only my Spanish.

Though I have managed to get permission to rig in places in Panama, there was this perfect place to rig on the beach because there was this giant tree that had been washed up onto the beach and was embedded in the ground.

It had roots that I looked at and saw anchor points.

So anchor point in my truck is the other anchor point.

I want to rig here, but it's part of a restaurant.

And the guy didn't want me to drive the truck with all of my gear onto the beach.

So I had to explain to him in my Spanish why I needed to do this.

And I managed, I managed to get him to say okay.

Rick:

So we're sitting here in the library of the beautiful manor house of the former St.

Madeline Sophie Church, which is now the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts.

How did that all come about?

Dave Gillies:

This was the fourth church that I was involved with negotiations with my friends, the Kennedys.

When Greg, who has just come off a tour with Cirque du Soleil, I think he was with them for four, five, six years, I used to hire Greg when he was a teenager to work for the Give and Take Jugglers.

And he's a tremendous technician.

And he would show up in dungarees and a t-shirt for a job.

And I had to explain, no, Greg, you had to dress better.

Then he's working for Cirque du Soleil and has his own personal costume designer.

I think how funny it is that this kid used to need advice on costuming.

But the Kennedys have been good friends for many years.

And they used to have the circus school in their backyard under a tree.

And then they took out a floor of their Germantown house so that they could make a rigging point.

So they had like one rigging point in the middle of what was formerly a bedroom.

Then they moved to a space that we rented together.

And there were more rigging points, and I had a place to train.

And at a certain point, they decided they wanted a bigger space.

They rented a big space over on Green and Rittenhouse as their business grew.

And then they outgrew that space, and they were renting it and decided they wanted to own a space and thought about a church, because a lot of churches were coming onto the market.

So we looked at a church, which is now the Walder School.

I was living in a twin.

That church had a nice parsonage.

It was an individual house.

And I said, well, I'll go in on it, and I'll buy the house, and you buy the church, and that will help the deal to work a little better.

And I'll have a nice house to live in, and maybe rent some rooms to circus people, and I'll have parking, because I like the neighborhood on Morris Street, but there's no parking.

I thought, oh, I'll have parking, and I'll have more room, and I'll be with my friends who are doing this interesting thing that involves some of the things that I do.

But then the deal didn't work out.

They had actually promised it to the Waldorf School, and it went in that direction.

The people who own that, they did a wonderful job restoring it.

It's just beautifully done.

But then we moved to church number two, also in Germantown, and that deal didn't work out.

And we looked at a third church, and each one was like a little bigger and a little more expensive.

And I said, okay, you know, I'll put my resources into this because I'll get the house to live in.

So that would make it worthwhile.

And church number three didn't work out.

And then this church comes onto the market.

They wanted like nearly 2 million for it, 1.7.

But it's in very good shape.

But it has this parsonage that's enormous.

It's a mansion.

It's a 9,000-foot stone house.

And this is way more than I ever wanted.

I felt like the frog in the boiling water.

How did I get into this boiling water?

It just crept up on me.

Rick:

I didn't realize.

Dave Gillies:

I kind of emotionally and financially committed myself to going along with this project so my friends could have their dream of having a circus school in the church.

I thought, well, this is way more than I want.

At this point in my life, I should be simplifying my life, not complicating it.

So I made a list of all the advantages and disadvantages of moving into this huge mansion.

I mean, all the disadvantages are the upkeep and heating and taxes and renovation and restoring, you know, 50 years of neglect.

As the resources of the church diminished, that's why they ended up selling it.

But I mean, they did what they could, but their resources were declining.

So they didn't do the repairs that should have been done.

So it needed a bit of work.

But it's a beautiful place.

And on the positive side is, I'll be involved with my friends in the circus school and doing things that interest me with people I like.

And I'll have some separation so I can continue my own company with the performing.

And I thought, OK, I'm going to move into a 9,000 square foot mansion.

But it wasn't originally a rectory.

This belonged to the family of a shoe polish baron, this family that made a fortune selling shoe polish in 1885, back when there were no unions.

They paid their workers a pittance.

There was no income tax.

So all the robber barons that built all these beautiful homes in Newport, Rhode Island, all same era, when factory owners kept everything, no income tax, paid their workers nothing.

This house was built by selling shoe polish.

Mason, Haywood Mason, bought the house and they ended up selling it to the Crane family, which was iron and steel, the Crane building down on South American Street, same family.

They owned it until the Depression.

I didn't know whether they lost their fortune in the Depression, but in 1933 they sold it to the Catholic Church.

Then Greg and Shane and I bought it from the Church.

I'm the fourth owner of this property.

I kind of backed into it.

If this had been Church number one at the beginning, I would have said, no, this is way more than what I want to take on.

Rick:

Well, and most people live in group housemate situations in their youth and not so much as they get older.

Dave Gillies:

That's right.

Rick:

How has that been for you?

Dave Gillies:

It's been mixed.

My housemates are all artists, performers.

I mean, it's like any ensemble.

You have egos, you have talents, you have friction, you work things out.

Your life in an ensemble has challenges and rewards.

But the house is big enough that everybody can have their own space.

You can be on your own when you want to and then be with other people also.

Overall, it's been very positive.

Rick:

Well, and you're in this international community of circus enthusiasts.

Dave Gillies:

Circus is like music.

It's international and it connects people in profound ways because of a shared passion for something.

And like music, it's not totally related to age or size or strength.

It's just you do this thing and you're good at it, so then you have a rapport with other people who share the same skills and the same passion.

Rick:

Yes.

Well, and there's been such an expansion of interest in the last 10, 20 years.

Dave Gillies:

There has.

There's been a change.

A lot of people will point to a ringling going out of business, but I think they look at it backwards.

The important thing about ringling is that they lasted as long as they lasted.

They were around for how long?

I didn't know, about 100 years or so.

It's kind of like the Roman Empire.

It's not that it fell.

They lasted for 400 years.

That's the amazing thing.

Everything comes to an end eventually.

So circus has changed since the elephant and big cat acts and flying trapeze.

Elephants are expensive to maintain.

It wasn't exactly that Ringling was imposed on by animal rights people.

That was a factor.

But mainly elephants eat a lot.

Ringling didn't really want to continue with maintaining elephants.

Rick:

Hanging a piece of fabric from a high ceiling is a bit easier.

Dave Gillies:

Cirque du Soleil was showing another path.

They didn't start in Montreal.

They were copying the French model from Fratellini, Andy Fratellini's school in Paris.

There are a number of circuses in France that were doing what the guys who were doing street performing in Montreal ended up founding Cirque du Soleil.

I was street performing in Newmarket at the same time.

They were street performing in Montreal, and they ended up becoming very wealthy.

Well, I live in a mansion, so I didn't do that bad.

But Pickle Family out in San Francisco, Paul Binder with Big Apple, we were all kind of starting at the same time and knew about each other and were going in slightly different directions.

Rick:

Well, and from my point of view, it's that there are these accessible performance media, like the scarves and the ropes and the not-flying trapeze, and people see it and say, that looks cool and I could maybe do that.

And so there's so many young people drawn to it in a public way, whereas before it seemed like it was a much more kind of private thing to work on.

Dave Gillies:

So you're making the point that the high-end, fancy Cirque du Soleil show is somehow more accessible and it inspires people to try to do it more than the traditional...

Rick:

Maybe.

Dave Gillies:

That's interesting.

Rick:

I'm more specifically thinking about the class, the things that you can learn over there in the church.

Doing fancy things, climbing, tumbling things on scarves and ropes is not something that I saw before 20 years ago and they seem more accessible.

Dave Gillies:

That's interesting.

There's a lot to that.

I guess in the traditional Barnum, Ringling act, people go to be amazed and they don't come away thinking they want to be a lion tamer or a flying chapeze artist or a sword swallower.

They go to be amazed.

I mean, as part of the culture at the time, there weren't as many choices for entertainment during the heyday of the traditional circus.

The circus comes to town.

That's the big thing.

What else was there in between?

Not as much.

The Barn Dance?

I don't know.

What else was there?

Rick:

But Cirque du Soleil focused more on the beauty and the experience.

Dave Gillies:

Yeah.

But I never thought of the Cirque du Soleil as somehow being more accessible.

But that might be true, because it does inspire people to want to do that.

Instead of going to the gym and just running on a treadmill, to take classes at a circus school and learn something that's more fun and prettier and a little cooler.

And you can do it.

Rick:

Hmm.

Dave Gillies:

I'm going to talk about that more with my colleagues.

Maybe they've already thought that, but I just never thought about it in exactly the way that you phrased it.

But I think that's true.

I mean, it certainly agrees with the way that I have approached juggling and wire walking.

I mean, it goes back to my evangelist, my evangelist grandfather.

You like juggling?

I'll show you how to do it.

You can be a juggler too.

You want to do the tight wire?

Yeah, you can do the tight wire.

Here's how you do it.

Start here.

Yeah, it's interactive, immersive.

Rick:

Yeah.

Another element of it is, I was sitting watching my son and talking to another parent who said, we drive an hour to get here, but my daughter was in gymnastics.

The ultimate result of gymnastics is competition.

That's what gymnastics is about.

And this is not about that.

This is about a community and a performance.

Dave Gillies:

Yeah, that's one thing that I have always loved about juggling and continue to love about circus in general and wire walking in particular.

Everybody is very aware of how good the other person is, but that awareness is not the same as competitiveness.

So you might then want that person who's good to show you, to coach you, to work with you, but it's not competitive, like you're going to get judged and scored, and there's only one winner who gets the medal.

I mean, that's what's nice about the circus school.

They teach people how to do things, and you're competing against yourself.

You get better than you were before, and you're happy that you're better than you were last week.

Well, that's one reason why I like being part of the circus school, because it does that.

I'm happy to contribute what I can contribute to making it work, because I like that process.

Rick:

Right, it's a humanistic art form, as opposed to a capitalist competitive art form.

Dave Gillies:

It has a curious relationship to the former function of the church, which focused on the afterlife.

Now we're in the same space.

We still reach the community.

We have a community of people devoted to what we're doing.

The coaches are like the priests, and the congregation are the students.

But we're focused on reaching our potential, becoming better now.

We're not becoming better in some afterworld.

We're getting better now, and focusing on our humanity and potential.

Rick:

I mean, I think the best churches always had that as well, that aspiring to...

Dave Gillies:

Yes, to be fair.

Yes, I think so.

And the day-to-day reality of a church is community, too.

It's fellowship with people.

I grew up going to Sunday School my whole life until I went away to college, and became worldly, like my Uncle Bill, fulfilling my parents' worst fears.

But until then, every church service, it starts with listing who needs to be thought about, who had an accident, who's sick, who you should go and visit, and who you should pray for.

I mean, it's very much focused on community.

The best parts of the church are like the best parts of what we do.

That overlaps, doesn't it?

Yes.

Rick:

So is there anything else floating around for you that we didn't cover?

Dave Gillies:

Well, with what I'm so fond of right now with the tight wire, one part about that that is very poignant relates to my sister who lives in Australia who has discovered that she has Parkinson's, which means that her balance is declining.

So it has this really curious relationship to me that every day I'm getting better at balance.

I train on the wire and my balance is getting better.

It started where it was and then I improve it.

And my sister's balance is declining, but she works at it and by working at it, she can slow down the decline.

And even without Parkinson's, with just managing to not die and how the years accumulate, balance is something that diminishes.

But you can improve it by focusing on it.

Stand on one leg.

Just see if you can stand on one leg for five seconds, then ten, then twenty, then stand on the other leg.

Then try with your eyes closed.

To be able to get better at balance at any age is good.

I mean, I like to say I have a one-year contract as a 76er.

I am almost through my one-year contract.

Then I have to come up with some other way to be 77.

But I have more balance now than I had four years ago.

And if I wasn't working on the tightwire every day, that wouldn't be true.

I am still in touch with my college roommate from Westchester.

He walks around like he is an old man.

I am the same age.

I walk on the tightwire.

I think it is possible for anybody.

You just have to do it.

Keep doing it.

Use it or lose it.

Rick:

Well, Dave, thank you so much for sharing your stories.

Great pleasure.

Dave Gillies:

You are welcome.

Rick:

For more about Dave Gillies and his troupe, the Funicular Circus, see the show notes or go to our website, nwphillypodcast.net, where you can also suggest a guest when you run across someone in Northwest Philly with good stories to tell.

If you like the show, please leave a rating or a review and tell a friend about it.

I'm Rick Mohr.

Thanks for listening.

See you next time for more stories from Northwest Philly Neighbors.