Peters Township High School golfer banks birdies for ALS cure
Homemade scalloped potatoes were hardly the only reason Arleen Kern was beloved by her family. A native of West Mifflin, Mrs. Kern led a vibrant and active lifestyle, spending as much time as possible with her son, Pat, and his children, Brendan and Delaney. Like many grandparents, she was a willing babysitter who was always just a phone call away if Brendan or Delaney ever needed anything.
“She was all about her family, her grandkids,” Mr. Kern said about his mother. “All she wanted to do was go see their events, support them, talk to them all the time. They affectionately called her ‘Tickle Grandma’ just because she liked tickling them and made them laugh and did all the right things.”
But in 2016, something was visibly wrong with “Tickle Grandma.” Her son noticed she had developed a stutter, which prompted family members to wonder if she had suffered a stroke.
Her condition deteriorated and several rounds of testing by medical personnel confirmed the unwanted; she had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
As those who follow Pittsburgh sports teams likely know, former Steelers offensive lineman and broadcaster Tunch Ilkin is living with ALS. The disease has prompted him to retire from broadcasting after more than two decades behind the microphone so he can focus on his treatment.
Mrs. Kern was diagnosed with progressive bulbar palsy ALS, which causes the paralysis of a person’s head, face and neck before spreading to the rest of the body. The disease has no cure.
For Mr. Kern, the news about his mother was devastating.
“It was really, really hard. It doesn’t take long,” he said. “All you have to do is Google that disease and realize that it’s a death sentence and just a matter of how long. Really, I mean just really brutal.”
Delaney was 11 years old at the time of her grandmother’s diagnosis. By Sept. 11, 2016, her grandmother had died at 77, taking away one of Delaney’s biggest cheerleaders in both school and sports before she was a teenager.
But as it turns out, Delaney’s grandmother is still driving her golf game, and it’s in part because of how her father got her into the sport.
Mr. Kern purchased his daughter a bag of plastic clubs for her to use as a young child.
She began to play competitively when she was 11 — around the time of her grandmother’s diagnosis. Mr. Kern, who fell in love with the game while attending Wake Forest University, believes he has “miraculously brainwashed” Delaney to enjoy golf.
“At first, it was about getting ice cream and seeing the turkeys and all the wildlife that’s running around,” Mr. Kern said. “But ultimately, [she] came to really love the game, which obviously made me pretty happy.”
Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn on June 19, when the river’s new title was celebrated by nearly 350 boats covering this same stretch of the upper river on the Shenango River Watchers Spring Paddle Fest.
Mr. Schilling knows the designation means even more tourists will come to this part of northwestern Pennsylvania, just about an hour-and-a-half drive north of Pittsburgh. Many will spend a night or two, as we did — we at a very modest motel in nearby Hermitage that allowed our cat, whom we did not try to take on the water (this time, but we made a note to look into cat life vests). We had some fun drinking and dining out there, including, after our paddle, a surprisingly good Vietnamese/Asian dinner at a restaurant called Mobogo as well as at Handel’s Homemade Ice Cream (twice). I savored a can of India pale ale from nearby Riverside Brewing Co. named, appropriately, Hazy River.
The Shenango River (its name is Iroquois for “the beautiful one”) starts in Crawford County and runs for 82 miles from Mercer County through Lawrence County, flowing through both Pymatuning Reservoir and Shenango Lake, on its way to joining the Mahoning to form the Beaver River. It wiggles through forest and farmland, as well as, in its lower stretches, past developed stretches that include the city of Sharon and factories new and old. That area’s legacy as a hot spot for heavy industry is the reason the DCNR and other state agencies still are maintaining a “DO NOT EAT” advisory for all fish species caught in the river between the Shenango Lake Dam and the river’s mouth in New Castle. The federal Environmental Protection Agency is studying the problem and working on remediating it.
The best section for recreation is the 23-mile Upper Shenango River Water Trail between Pymatuning and Shenango River lakes, along which the Shenango River Trail can be found for hiking, as well as a tow path where horses once pulled canal boats along the Erie Extension Canal between the Ohio River and Lake Erie.
The River of the Year designation, awarded by the DCNR with Pennsylvania Organization for Watersheds and Rivers, was as much for folks who continue to fight to improve the river for recreation such as the Shenango River Watchers, which received a $10,000 grant to hold other celebratory events this year, including a Fall Paddle Fest on Oct. 9.
“I think if you ask every paddler who frequents the river, they’re going to tell you a different favorite section,” says Brandi Baros, the River Watchers volunteer president and an avid paddler. She has had a bald eagle swoop so close to her on the river that she could feel the wind from its wings.
Other nominated waterways included Buffalo Creek and Loyalhanna Creek, as well as Tunkhannock Creek and the Lehigh River, but the Shenango got the most of the 16,494 public votes.
The Hermitage-based Shenango River Watchers, which has cleaned up more than 1.5 million pounds of trash since it started in 2001, has as its motto “We all live downstream” and has as its mascot the kingfisher.
It seemed like the same one of those bluish water birds accompanied us on our paddle, staying just ahead of us and occasionally flitting low over the river before alighting with a chatter in one of the trees that line most of this part of the river. The upper part is narrow and shallow enough to seem more like a creek, with constant twists and turns, which is what my son loved about it. We marveled as a big blue heron flapped low overhead. Higher, an osprey sailed past.
My wife appreciated that there are no scary rapids to negotiate, and she enjoyed musing about the cottages and camps along the way, marked with signs of deliverance ranging from “JESUS” to “Paddle faster: I hear banjo music.”
The river is remarkable for the amount of fallen trees, which the River Watchers carefully clear so paddlers may pass. Just above the U.S. Route 322 bridge we passed under, on our July 3 journey, an American flag suspended from one of the many branches we paddled under, some of them so low that we had to bend down in our kayaks.
Near there, we paddled harder to pass a group of revelers floating down on inner tubes, with their beverage-filled coolers, from Pymantuning Rentals, another outfitter in Jamestown. We leapfrogged other groups of paddlers but had plenty of time when we seemed to have the river to ourselves. And I was grateful that one of the guys in another party came to my aid and pushed me off a log on which I’d grounded. Working to get and keep my bow pointed upriver so I didn’t capsize reminded me of the power of the swift current, but otherwise, we never were at risk of winding up in the water, unless we’d decided, as one girl did, to try out one of the rope swings along the route.
The Shenango is so shaded that we didn’t really feel hot until we’d reached the end of our trip at Riverside Park, about four hours after we started.
We had a blast, thanks in part to super comfortable boats with adjustable seat backs and padded seats.
So, apparently, did Charlie the dachshund, whose owner/motor lifted him from his hatch just before we stepped on land, too. He didn’t look tired at all.
Carried Away Outfitters runs its river trips out of Greenville, where it has a store downtown; it also has a location near Pymatuning State Park from which it runs lake trips. The rate for the 8-mile Shenango River trip is $40 for a single kayak (with life jacket and paddle and shuttle). Our shuttle driver didn’t have any with him the day we went, but the company offers reusable bags for paddlers to fill with trash and return for discounts on future trips. Learn more at https://carriedawayoutfitters.
Learn more about Shenango River Watchers at its upcoming events, including trail work days, at http:// shenangoriverwatchers.org. An online map for the Upper Shenango River Water Trail is located at https:// pfbc.pa.gov/watertrails/ shenango/shenangoRiver. and the group has a paper map, as well.
Learn more about the Pennsylvania River of the Year at http://pariveroftheyear.org.
And for more on Mercer County attractions, including Sept. 18’s WaterFire Sharon (www.waterfiresharonpa. for which more than 50 flaming braziers float in the river, visit www.visitmercercountypa. Learn about Lawrence County’s charms, including takeouts along its part of the river, at www. visitlawrencecounty.com.