By Constance Garcia-Barrio
Taking out a couple of grandkids can cost upwards of $50. Add the price of lunch and you’re pushing $75.
But Philadelphia has unique destinations that won’t break your budget.
 Here are some:
Bartram gardened here
Bartram’s Garden, 54th St. and Lindbergh Blvd., is the oldest surviving botanic garden in North America. John Bartram’s guests included, among others, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.
Bartram’s homestead, begun in 1728, was built with stones he quarried himself. In a guided tour of the house, you’ll see 18th century cooking implements. You can stroll through a flower garden or a riverside meadow on this 45-acre site. You can spread a picnic lunch on a blanket and enjoy the view of the Schuylkill River.
The grounds are open to the public 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., from Monday-Friday (except on city-observed holidays); and Saturdays and Sundays, from noon to 4. Admission to the garden is free.
Guided tours of the House are $5 for adults ($4 for those 62 and over, and students) and free for children under 12. 215-729-5281 or http://www.bartramsgarden.org
Where Founding Fathers prayed
Some 18th century bigwigs who knew John Bartram worshipped at Christ Church, on 2nd St. above Market. A costumed storyteller portrays an enslaved African in colonial Philadelphia. Her free performances, designed for all ages, give an eyewitness feel to key pre-Revolutionary events.
A guided tour and reenactment at Christ Church Burial Ground, 5th and Arch Sts., complement the church performance. The interpretive drama takes places Tuesdays and Thursdays through Sept. 30 at 1:30 p.m. at the burial ground, weather permitting. The cost is $2 for adults, $1 for students.
The church performance is at 2:30 p.m. 215-922-1695, ext. 32, or www.christchurchphila.org.
Medical memorabilia
Budding physicians may like the Mütter Museum at the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, 19 S. 22nd St. Its collection contains 20,000 anatomical and pathological specimens, medical instruments and memorabilia of famous physicians.
That hardly provides the juicy details. One exhibit includes a collection of objects swallowed and removed, in some cases without surgery. And there’s the Soap Woman, a nineteenth-century Yellow Fever victim. She was buried in soil whose chemicals turned her into soap.
Admission is $12; for those 6-17 and 65 and over, it’s $8. The museum is open Monday to Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Friday, from 10 a.m. to
9 p.m.; and Saturday, from 10 a.m. to
5 p.m. 215-563-3737 or http://www.muttermuseum.org
The bughouse
The Insectarium, 8046 Frankford Ave., thrills bug-loving kids. The second floor includes mounted specimens, from iridescent butterflies to a stink bug whose back seems to show a human face.
On the third floor, you can see live centipedes, tarantulas and Ecuadorian bird-eating spiders. Kids can also visit the pet-a-bug corner or crawl through a bungee-cord spider web.
An insect cooking class is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 13, at 1 p.m. The chef may serve up grilled bugs or cookies made with insects. The class and samples come free with the $7 admission. 215-335-9500.
By Mary Ann Pinkney
 This is in honor of all grandparents, especially those who are parents the second time around.
People are living longer, and in their golden years, more and more grandparents are raising children.
Every few minutes, a child is sent to live with a grandparent because of a breakdown in their family due to early death, sickness, addiction or parents in prison or the military. Under those circumstances, the grandparent has to step in and be the anchor.
Children are blessed to have unselfish grandparents to take care of them and to not let them go into a foster home. Some grandparents even quit their jobs to take care of grandchildren.
It is rewarding for grandparents to see their grandchildren thrive because of the nurturing they are providing. There is a bond between grandparents and grandchildren that bridges the gap between generations. Grandparents bring wisdom, maturity and experience; grandchildren keep grandparents young.
Thank you, grandparents, for your love and help, Happy Grandparents Day (Sept. 7) to all grandparents, especially those who are raising grandchildren.
Grandson responding
to other demands,
and the end is near
By Henry Klein
I just re-discovered this essay, which I wrote but didn’t publish 17 years ago when my first grandson, Bryan, was 6. It may still resonate with readers now in that stage.
I am beginning to mourn for the “loss” of my grandson, Bryan. No, he is not gone yet. But he is slipping away, day after day, and the end is near.
The end of our six-year love affair began to unravel when his father signed him up for T-ball. The league, which plays on Saturday mornings, had already taken away the Friday nights when Bryan used to sleep over at our apartment so we could get an early Saturday start when the Franklin Institute or Art Museum opened.
And so, Saturday mornings are gone already. Next year, he will probably graduate to Little League, which will rob me of more of Bryan’s precious time. And Bryan will enter first grade — with student plays and rehearsals, chorus, soccer and other time-stealing activities.
Already I have had to postpone our annual expedition to the summer launching of our sailboat — sailing across Barnegat Bay together from its winter storage on the mainland marina to its summer slip on Long Beach Island. Bryan’s T-ball team needed him for that Saturday game.
No more free rides
Well, I needed him, too! He knew how to uncleat our docking lines and hand me the screwdriver and steer the course between two buoys while I ate my lunch onboard.
The Zoo and Franklin Institute will miss Bryan, too. And so will all the refreshment stands. To the Children’s Librarian at the Logan Square Free Library: We won’t be re-arranging your shelves anymore. Put all those fire and truck books back where they belong.
The Paoli Local conductors will miss us, although they winked and gave him a free ride past their official age cut-off. No longer will SEPTA bus drivers see this grandfather and child run from bus to bus on a citywide junket.
A word to the yuppies in Rittenhouse Square, whose princes and princesses play with their FAO Schwartz mega-toys because their grandparents live a thousand miles away: you’ll no longer have to share them with Bryan, whose only toy is an old soccer ball.
This is the end of my learning period. Bryan taught me to construct a fire engine with Tinkertoys — and where to look under the furniture for the missing pieces. He showed me the wondrous shelves of the video rental store.
Weekends will be lonelier
And so, as other people — his young friends and teachers — crowd me out, I will gradually lose Bryan. My weekends will be lonelier and I even may have time to read and write essays like this. I shall sail again with only my First Mate, who can’t uncleat a mooring line as fast as Bryan could.
But wait! Bryan’s younger brother, Kevin, is just beginning to steer our sailboat with two hands on the tiller. And then there’s Erica, their new sister. Perhaps we’ll go through this cycle again. But it won’t be the same. Bryan was the eye-opener to grandfatherhood.
There will never again be a time like the first one.
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