REFLECTIONS ON LIFE June 2017

REFLECTIONS ON LIFE

June 2017

REFLECTIONS ON HOME IN COLUMBIA

Welcome summer.  Spring 2017 is no longer.

A few additional living creatures have joined the menagerie surrounding our home: deer (eating any lilies or geraniums within reach), fox (always reminding me of the one I spotted from quite a distance on a walk in the Cotswolds), humming birds getting nectar from one feeder outside the window above our kitchen sink and another outside the window by the table where Lloyd and I eat most of our meals.  Several other avians have joined:  bluebirds, doves, and woodpeckers. Almost forgot the lightening bugs like the ones I once collected in a jar with holes punched in the lid when I was a kid, and yes, a few mosquitos.  Lingering in bed some mornings without moving even an inch, we can spot up to twenty different creatures simultaneously.

The seemingly ever-increasing number of squirrels continues to entertain us. I read in the Post this month of the death of the Smithsonian “squirrel expert,” Richard Thorington. His daughter spoke at a celebration of her father’s life at the National Museum of Natural History:  “Both Darwin and my father stated always that if you’re really going to be a scientist you have to start with observation, with watching things, with knowing what you’re seeing out there…. and if you don’t know, then really taking the time to write down what you’re seeing, rather than immediately deciding what’s going on.”  On first reading this article I immediately thought, “what a great piece for ‘Reflections on Home in Columbia’ this month and my squirrel watching.” Then I realized that, although that past-time is a significant element of my summer days, this quote of the squirrel expert’s daughter reaches far beyond not only that practice but other areas of knowledge oft considered completely unrelated - let’s say like public policy and politics.  It’s truly imperative for us living in the United States, or anywhere else on planet earth for that matter, particularly now, to pay close attention to what’s going on in our nation and world and discuss it with our friends, neighbors, and colleagues. I believe it would be wise for us to also heed Darwin’s words and take the time to really “know what we’re seeing out there” rather than immediately deciding what is.  Yet another reminder that simply everything is connected.  

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We have been relishing the annual Columbia Festival of the Arts this month.  It intermingled with the ongoing celebration of our new town’s 50^th anniversary.  Jim Rouse’s creation, Columbia, Maryland, was engulfed in beautiful music, dance, art, and films.

Lloyd and I each composed an essay in a recently published book edited by Columbia pioneer, Bob Tennenbaum, entitled “Columbia, Maryland – a Fifty-Year Retrospective on the Making of a Model City.” It was just released to coincide with Columbia’s 50^th birthday celebration.  This 400-page book loaded with historic full-color photos and maps, contains essays written by 64 well-known local authors, none of whom have been paid for their contribution.  It covers diverse topics such as the physical, economic, and social planning as well as continuing development of this, arguably the most successful new town in our nation, if not the world.  Lloyd’s chapter is entitled “The Politics of Early Columbia: 1965-1990.”  Mine is “Columbia’s Future and Jim Rouse’s Dream.”

With the generous $45,000 support of the Columbia Association, 400 copies have been published.  We believe you would value owning a copy.  Lloyd is the treasurer of this non-profit venture.  If you reply to this newsletter, he will reserve a copy for you.  We believe you will be happy that you did. The price is $45.  We know that sounds pricey, and we believe the publication is well worth it.

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The Little Patuxent Review (LPR) launched its Summer Edition in June including two essays about Jim Rouse’s new town by local author, Susan Thornton Hobby, and archivist, Barbara Kellner, as well as an interview about the Columbia Dream by Linda Joy Burke, another accomplished local author and poet.

 I continue to value serving on the board of this publication.  I learn so much from its members, many local writers themselves. Here is the link to sign up for the LPR Newsletter:

http://littlepatuxentreview.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=1531de12e3906f758136d0de4&id=6696e22770

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Harper’s Choice Village Center is sponsoring a celebration of the work of early Columbia artists, John Levering and Wes Yamaka, with an exhibit of their works.  Both of these creative and insightful artists have departed this earth.  Their magnificent art lives on with us.  Lloyd and I will be lending several of our pieces to the exhibit including the Levering painting “Sandpipers” which hung over the entrance to their shared gallery, “The Eye of the Camel” in the old stone building adjacent to Oakland Manor.  We also loaned some of our pottery created by Zelda Simon, including a beautiful soup tureen with a glaze pattern which she dubbed “Lloyd’s pattern” because he bought so many pieces from her.  This exhibit took place earlier in the month at the Columbia Center for the Arts in Long Reach.   Sometimes when an occasion like a birthday party or wedding crept up on me, I would phone Zelda, and she would leave an appropriate piece of pottery out on her front porch for me.  I would pick it up and leave a check for payment under one of her flowerpots. When the Eye of the Camel shut down, Zelda became the owner   of “Sandpipers”. A few months before her own impending death, she gave it to me as a gift. Needless to say, it and her pottery are priceless to me.

Attending so many arts events during this celebratory time in Columbia, while walking around town, I can see in my mind’s eye as clear as day Jim Rouse in his signature green sports coat.  We must and will keep his spirit alive.

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Lloyd and I have both been blessed with good health. We were each independently visited with ailments at the beginning of this year:  arthritis in his lower back, bursitis in my right hip.  It put quite a crimp in our daily walks.  During spring, we each responded well to our prescribed therapy and are now “back on the road again.”  Though in our case it’s “back on the sidewalk and pathway.”  Some drivers-by still beep their horns. Our plumber, who made a house call this week, said “I see you guys walking on Cedar Lane all the time.”  Yes.  It’s true, and we are so grateful for it.

REFLECTIONS ON ZACH

This week we attended one of the annual events commemorating Zach’s beautiful and deeply inspirational life, an annual golf tournament and luncheon at Turf Valley.  During the program following lunch, which highlighted the activities of the Zaching Against Cancer Foundation, formed by Zach himself along with family members, friends, and some of his coaches from high school sports, Lloyd and I were sitting at a table near the front of the room.  As several participants spoke of the inspiration Zach continues to spread among cancer patients, mostly kids and their families, and the help the Foundation is providing to so many of them, a very large photo of Zach was projected on the wall at the front of the room.  He was wearing his ever-present broad infectious smile and still had a full head of thick dark hair.  His big steady eyes gazed directly into those of each and every one of us in the audience looking at him.  It was the same smile that greeted me each morning of our annual family week at the beach when Zach would knock on our bedroom door at 6am to wake me for our daily walk along the beach.  We walked along the surf and watched the sun rise over the ocean’s edge, our conversation ranging from his first bout with brain surgery as a 10-year-old, inspirational sports figures (Muhammad Ali, Coach John Wooden, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar), to science, philosophy, spirituality, travel, good movies and food.

This August will be the fourth year when Zach will not be physically present with us at the beach.  We will be engulfed in his glorious spirit. Our seven grandkids are getting older – all in high school or college now. We continue to eat all our meals in the beach house, families taking turns at cooking dinner.  I believe everyone is aware of Zach’s clear and bright spiritual presence among us.

On Saturday, July 8, from 3 to 8pm, our orthopedist, Dr. Clark Brill, is sponsoring a musical benefit for Zach’s foundation. We would love you to come by and join us and bring a lawn chair. $20 per person with good food.  Hope to see you there. The address is 9487 Camel Driver Ct., Columbia

REFLECTIONS ON BALTIMORE, MY HOMETOWN

I took two books written by Baltimore-born-and-bred author, Ta-Nehisi Coates, with me for reading when Lloyd and I spent a week in June driving along the coast of Maine.  We decided to make reservations for the first three nights and “wing it” for the other four.  It worked out great!  What a beautiful state with such friendly people, although to me the lobster can’t rival Maryland’s blue crabs which my Dad hand-fed me while I sat on his knee at 4^th of July family gatherings

The books are titled  “The Beautiful Struggle” published in 2008, which I had read previously and “Between the World and Me” (a New York Times Bestseller for which Coates won the National Book Award) published in 2015. Coates is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, my favorite monthly magazine (The New Yorker is my favorite weekly.)  Coates personal story had a monumental impact on my understanding of the life of this young black man who grew up in Baltimore about 40 years after I did.  He is now among the most acclaimed current authors in our nation.

Some of his scenes in the Baltimore area are precisely important locations of my own childhood:  Edmondson Ave. where I attended Catholic elementary school and St. Bernadine’s Catholic church. (My older sister, Martha, walked me to school when I began first grade - there was no kindergarten.  Then she returned home and left on the same day for Pennsylvania to enter the order of nuns, Immaculate Heart of Mary, that taught at my school.  I did not know about her impending departure and didn’t see her again for two years until my mom and I went to visit her in Scranton, Pennsylvania.) Edmondson Village, a half mile from my home – one of the first large strip shopping centers in the country and the location where I went for ice cream, clothes, movies, and bowling.  Leakin Park – a beautiful large metropolitan park where I frequently played with friends and sometimes alone approximately from age 6 to 12.  Ta-Nehisi described this park in his day as “where the bodies were buried” (a not so veiled reference to the then rapidly growing serious street crime.

Recently the Enterprise Foundation, founded by Columbia’s own Jim Rouse, hosted a display in its Columbia office on Little Patuxent Parkway.  The Foundation works for economic justice in the housing policies in the county, state, and nation.  The display demonstrates graphically through maps how certain neighborhoods were “red-lined” to prevent racial integration.  My childhood neighborhood of Edmondson Village was a prime example of redlining after I had finished high school and moved out of the neighborhood.

Baltimore was formative in my life:  its streetcars and later buses, its market and shopping centers, its parks.  My Mom was born in 1904 in a row house on Barry Street very near the Baltimore harbor.  When she was in her 70’s, my age now, she would pack a lunch and take the bus to Baltimore, pre-Harbor Place.  She would sit by the docks amidst memories of her childhood. Although I have never met him, (I intend to some day) Ta-Nehisi’s writing speaks to me not only through the pages of his books.  They speak to me also through crystal clear memories of my childhood.

REFLECTIONS ON PUBLIC POLICY IN OUR COUNTY, STATE, AND NATION

Howard County

Baltimore Sun Editorial   June 26, 2017

A transparent standard

Our View:  Howard County’s acting superintendent has an excellent plan for handling public information requests – put it all in public view

As a member of the Maryland House of Delegates representing Howard County, I sponsored a bill, which passed into law and held our then Board of Education to comply with the state’s open government laws.  Now it does my heart good to read of Acting Superintendent Maratirano’s proposal – both practical and idealistic.  Hopefully our local school board will show the wisdom to keep him on in a permanent capacity.

MARYLAND

The Washington Post   June 14, 2017

Frosh picks his most high-profile fight yet

“Somebody’s got to do something.”

The Baltimore Sun   June 4, 2017

Maryland’s ‘precious consensus’ survives

Dan Rodrick’s:  “Still, there’s a bright side to the decision to pull out of the Paris accord in the form of immediate pledges to live up to the agreement.  The pledges came from political leaders in cities and states that already have made progress on carbon emissions and renewable energy.  The pledges came from corporations and academia, too.

Among the environmental achievements listed by Rodrick’s is “the state’s adoption of the California standards for motor vehicles setting limits for ozone-depleting emissions stricter than those the federal government requires”

In one of my last years serving in the Maryland legislature, I was the lead sponsor of this bill.

UNITED STATES

News stories about two fearless women – a generation apart

“Katherine Graham’s legacy:  Fearlessness”

The Washington Post   June 16, 2017   (editorial)

This month we commemorate the 100^th birthday of the former publisher of The Washington Post. “We hold on to Mrs. Graham’s courage of her convictions as we continue pursuing the kind of accountability journalism for which The Post has long been known….She was a shrewd business executive in an industry where few women of her generation were able to rise…but what we will remember most about Mrs. Graham is that she was fearless.  In times like these, that might be her most important lesson of all.”

“Making America scared again won’t make us safer”   (0p-ed)

By Sally Q. Yates

The Washington Post   June 25, 2017

With about half a century between her and Katherine Graham, Sally Yates, served 28 years in the U.S. Justice Department, culminating as acting attorney general for a brief time this year. “While there is always room to debate the most effective approach to criminal justice, that debate should be based on facts, not fear.  It’s time to move past the campaign-style rhetoric of being “tough” or “soft” on crime.  Justice and the safety of our communities depend on it.”

Katherine Graham and Sally Yates:  two intelligent, courageous, dedicated, and fearless women to whom we owe deep gratitude

REFLECTIONS ON OUR PLANET BEYOND THE UNITED STATES

NIGERIA

“Displaced Nigerians sought aid from a fraying refugee-protection system"

The Washington Post    June 29, 2017

After reading this horrific article, I sat very still, closed my eyes, and focused on being able to even begin to comprehend such suffering.  I failed.

PAKISTAN

Sweltering month magnifies Pakistanis’ struggles

Power shortages

The Washington Post June 29, 2017

“Intense heat during Ramadan arouses frustrations over country’s chronic water and power shortages”

Another horrific living condition.  I vow to make a conscious effort to be filled with gratitude each and every time I turn on one of the numerous faucets in our townhouse, which is not particularly large by Howard County standards, and clear, clean water flows forth.

REFLECTIONS ON OUR UNIVERSE

From the familiar vantage point of our bedroom bedside window we have been following Jupiter in the clear night skies.  The spinning of planet earth on its axis creates an appearance from our bedroom as if Jupiter were moving to the west.

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As we go about enjoying summer both at home and on day trips, we hear so much talk in anticipation of the solar eclipse, which will take place on August 21. The following article from the Washington Post explains that “Solar eclipses are thrilling to scientists because these events reveal even the innermost part of the sun’s corona in brilliant detail.”  I’m light years away from being a scientist, and I, too, am definitely thrilled in anticipation.  Lloyd does qualify as a scientist, and he is equally thrilled.  Below is one of the many articles that have been written on the subject.

Washington Post June 6, 2017

Scientists are gearing up to take the longest-ever video of a solar eclipse

“When the moon passes in front of the sun, the world goes still.  The wind dies down.  The temperature drops.  Birds are silenced mid-song.”

Go to the NASA website for a map of the eclipse’s path above the United States.

https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/

Enjoy and be in awe of our universe!

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 “Pools of sorrow, waves of joy

Are drifting through my open mind

Possessing and caressing me

Across the Universe

~Lennon and McCartney

Be well and love life.

~Liz

NOTE:  I started these “Reflections on Life” in February, 2015.  You may read the previous entries in the blog: http://lizbobocolumbia.blogspot.com/