All in Unscientific Surveys
Disruptions to vacation travel certainly aren’t the most momentous or profound changes wrought by the pandemic, but they’re one of the more insidious ways our sense of normalcy has been chipped away at. We are lucky enough to live in a town (a phrase that I seem to be uttering more and more) where, at least according to our latest survey, 100% of the people usually go away on vacation in the summer. This year, that’s down to 64% (with 8% still not sure).
It probably shouldn’t be surprising that in Swarthmore, tradition is a trump card. In voting for Swarthmore’s favorite tree, readers went with history, giving a plurality (28%) to the venerable white oak tree on the property of Drew and Nancy Forbes at 504 Walnut Lane. If you still haven’t seen it, the best view is from Hillborn Avenue.
I took special note of two (anonymous) comments to our latest survey, “How Long Do You Have to Have Lived in Swarthmore to Be Considered a Real Swarthmorean?” One person said, “I believe you are welcomed as a Swarthmorean as soon as you live here. However, there is a second milestone when neighbors start referring to your house with your last name not the previous owner’s. This can sometimes take 10 years!”
Anyone who has driven into town has surely noticed the sign declaring that Swarthmore is “Tree City USA.” Naïvely, I always assumed we were THE Tree City, but it turns out that there are more than 3,400 of them across the country, and 115 in Pennsylvania, that have met the exacting standards of the Arbor Day Foundation. We’ve decided to poll our readers to select Swarthmore’s Favorite Tree, as nominated by a panel of experts. We urge you to see as many of the candidate trees as you can before voting.
For this survey, we took a look at some of the issues of the past decades that filled the Letters to the Editor section of the Swarthmorean with the most passion and words. The survey showed consensus or near consensus on the most recent bones of contention.
Respondents to our most recent survey, about Joe Biden’s vice presidential pick, were internally divided.
We, collectively, are very lucky. The majority of Swarthmorean readers live in a beautiful town with plenty of space, and do not want for material things. And that’s reflected in the results of our latest survey, in which you were asked how you are doing, on a scale of 1 (worst) to 10 (best).
We are in this for the long haul. That, at least, is the general opinion of Swarthmorean readers. In Unscientific Survey No. 6, we asked how long you thought it would take before things returned to relative normal. Among those who responded, 73% thought it would take at least a year, and almost half of that group predicted 18 months or more.
Last week we asked for your recommendations on great ways to fill some of the expanses of time many of us seem to have looming in front of us. We’ve assembled some of the responses: the recommendation itself and, for context, how the recommender completed the sentence “You’ll like it if you like…”
What’s that old Petula Clark song? “When you’re alone and life is making you weary, you can always go…” To the ’Ville! At least that’s the way it’s sung in Swarthmore, where a plurality of respondents to Unscientific Survey No. 4 reported using that name for the central part of town.
You love it but you don’t use it. That’s one way to view the results of Unscientific Survey No. 3, about the Swarthmore Community Center. The SCC’s lease from Swarthmore College is ending as of August, and with the organization’s future uncertain, we asked you about your use of and thoughts about it.
My most admired person of the week is the lone soul who, in responding to our unscientific survey on Swarthmore College’s new Maxine Frank Singer ‘52 Hall (to be the home of the psychology, biology, and engineering departments), chose the option “Too soon to tell.” Everybody else had an opinion — despite the fact that the building isn’t even fully operational yet! And the opinions were on the whole — almost 66 percent — negative; the biggest single vote-getter was “I hate it.”
The pronunciation of “Swarthmore” — both the borough and the college — has long been a subject of disagreement and sometimes contention. There are those who pronounce both r’s in the word, and those, like SEPTA conductors, who drop the first one and say it “Swathmore.” We now have the survey results, and the R’s have it.
Thanks to the dozens of you who responded to The Swarthmorean’s online survey about short-term rentals in Swarthmore. It was exciting to see people interacting with the paper in real time, and to know that so many of you are eager to weigh in on issues affecting the town. We are presenting the results of the unscientific survey here, along with comments by those who gave us permission to publish them. Ultimately, 78 people participated.
