People of Conshohocken – Dave Patterson

People of Conshohocken – Dave Patterson

10-5-2017

by Brian Coll

This is part of our People of Conshohocken series…
We have close to 10,000 people in our borough, add in the residents of West Conshohocken, Plymouth, Whitemarsh and Lafayette Hill and we have a large community. Some of the people that will be featured will be well known in the area, some will have just moved into the area, some will have been here their entire lives. Some of them may be business owners, or people who walk around the area, or maybe work in the area. Maybe you know them, maybe you don’t. Everyone has a story. While we are only going to take their picture and maybe ask a question or two, we want to share these stories with you.

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      So, I have known Dave Patterson for about 5 years now, he wandered into our shop (Coll’s Custom Framing at 324 Fayette Street) with an idea for a project. He and his wife were working with the church at 6th and Fayette to create a café in honor of their late daughter Jillian. I have talked in the past about the café and a number of cool events it has hosted over the past 4 years since it has opened. IN fact the Newspaper Taxi’s are there this Saturday night if you like the Beatles these guys are great. Now, back to Dave, he stopped in a couple of days ago to talk about a new program that they are offering at Jillian’s Café, rental of the café. Ideally it would be a local business renting it maybe for a holiday get together during the week. I’m sure Dave can give you more info if you are interested in renting the café. Jillian’s Café is inside the Conshohocken United Methodist Church. There are some limitations involved, so it’s best if you reach out to them as you start planning your event. The rental fees will go back into the community in one way or another.

Now, really back to Dave….. Dave has lived here his entire adult life (which I was surprised to hear). If Dave looks familiar to you, you may have seen him running around Conshohocken and West Conshohocken. Another thing I was surprised to hear about Dave is this….. he ran in two Olympic Trials finishing as high as 13th in 1980. Did I say he ran in Olympic Trials…. did I say he ran marathons in the Olympic Trials? He did, how cool is that. So, I asked him how many miles has he ran in the Conshohockens….. you want to know the answer? About 150,000 miles….. he has ran about 150,000 miles through our community. Now that is something else. When I asked Dave what got him and his wife thinking about a Café in Jillian’s honor and how did they end up at Conshohocken United Methodist, he said it was due to the live nativity scene that they put on every Christmas season. I thought that was amazing.

Lately I have been asking people their favorite Conshohocken memory. Dave said it may not be his favorite memory, but it is the most striking…. the blowing up of the former bridge in the mid 80’s. He loves all the events that Conshohocken offers such as the mayor’s Special Events Car Show, the Soap Box Derby a number of 5 K’s that have been hosted here in recent years.

Dave, thanks for chatting. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for you running through the borough. See you soon at Jillian’s Café.