Village Green/Town²

The piece to read today can be found here: Sun Kills Columbia Flier Newspaper , Len Lazarick, Maryland Reporter You can safely assume that this week’s  F ³ stands for something else entirely. Anyone who has been reading the Flier from week to week cannot be surprised at this outcome. Its demise still felt like a blow or a betrayal. Columbia is the second largest metropolitan area in the state of Maryland and we now have no newspaper. Realists will remind me that local news has been dying for quite some time. I have been writing about it here. That doesn’t ameliorate the sense of loss.  That young upstart - - the New American City - - chronicled its beginnings and its early years in its own local paper. No longer a young upstart, Columbia now has no one to be that beacon. I don’t mean to say that we are somehow so exceptional that we deserve to have an excellent local paper more than all the other communities across the US that have lost theirs.  We are not alone in our l...

   Last Saturday evening found me making my way via GPS to Marriotts Ridge High School to see Howard County Summer Theater’s production of   Hello, Dolly! My journey provided a needed reminder that there are parts of Howard County I rarely visit and that, frankly, feel like the middle of nowhere to me, especially after dark.  I certainly could do a better job at exploring the unfamiliar.  This year marks Howard County Summer Theater’s 47th season as a summer theater group in the Columbia/HoCo community.I have been to see their shows exactly twice: both times to see friend Dave Bittner in a leading role. This time he’s playing Horace Vandergelder in the musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker. I’m a big fan of Wilder’s original play and tend to think it didn’t need a musical version. But clearly Hello, Dolly!   has been making its way in the world successfully for quite some time without benefit of my opinion. If you like musical theater and h...

  Annapolis to host wreath-laying to honor five-year remembrance of Capital Gazette shooting victims, Brooks DuBose, Capital Gazette As mass shootings continue, more than 150 since Capital Gazette attack, victims’ families see deaths as call for action , Luke Parker, Capital Gazette Five years after the Capital Gazette murders, we’ve scattered. Remembering brings us together. Rick Hutzell, Baltimore Banner 5 years after Capital Gazette shooting, survivors and families begin to heal, but scars remain: ‘Moving with the pain’ , Alex Mann, Baltimore Sun Journalists Matter: Faces of the Capital Gazette, a Photo Exhibit of the Lives Impacted, Paul Gillespie Today there will be a ceremony in Annapolis to mark the fifth anniversary of the slaughter of five journalists at The Capital Gazette. The ceremony will take place at the memorial erected by the city after the mass shooting that took the lives of Gerald Fischman, Rob Hiaasen, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith, and Wendi Winters. There wi...

  Have you seen the news? The Howard Hughes Corporation has announced the names of three new streets for the Lakefront neighborhood, referred to as Lakefront North, in Downtown Columbia. The names are inspired by the work of the late Lucille Clifton, who was Maryland Poet Laureate from 1979-1985 and a Columbia resident. Lucille Clifton, photo credit Mark Lennihan/AP The announcement was made at an event last week at The 3rd, which I was sadly unable to attend. (Really. I had an actual prior commitment - - rare, I know.) The new streets names will be: Rustling Sky Way, Singing Stone Terrace and Distant Star Lane, which come from Clifton’s poetry. They certainly have that authentic Columbia street name feel, don’t they? I do hope no one ever gets lost looking for Rustling Sky and ends up on Rustling Leaf.  If they do if will be the most Columbia thing ever. I have a confession to make. I was not aware that Lucille Clifton was a poet. As a teacher of young children, this is the L...

  June 26, 2015. Eight years ago. The Supreme Court handed down the decision which would make same-sex marriage legal throughout the United States. It was a day to celebrate and it’s still worth celebrating. It’s also true (and alarming) that this decision wouldn’t happen today under the current Supreme Court.  Last night I went with my family to a HoCo Pride event held at Color Burst Park in the Merriweather District. It was the first time we had been there and I ought to be able to give you some kind of decent description but I can’t.  It was so, so hot that my brain went into survival mode. My apologies. I can say that drinking fountains or those cool, newfangled contraptions that allow one to refill their water bottles would have been welcome.  HoCo Pride  is the group which organizes and puts on Howard County’s LGBTQ+ celebration in October at Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods. Yes, Pride is usually celebrated in June but, as someone who loathes the heat...

Call the police.  If you want to know when to call the police, you should definitely go to NextDoor. They will tell you to call the police for any old thing. Correction: if you want justification for calling the police, that is.  Someone’s walking down the street who looks odd to you? Call the police.  Neighbor’s party too loud? Call the police.  Someone’s dog pees on your flower pots? Call the police. So, what is it this time, you ask? Kids shouldn't be out after 9 p.m.  Call the police.  Yikes. Here’s the context: a post expressing frustration and annoyance: Kid decided to bang on my garage or the next door neighbors door at 9:45 pm last night… Okay, that’s annoying - - and possibly frightening? - - but is that a good reason to call the police? How did we get from a personal experience related by a frustrated neighbor to this response to her complaint? Kids shouldn't be out after 9 p.m.  Call the police.  Another poster took issue with this, s...

  Some corrections today. “ In HoCo Holler: CARY HoCo and the Pride Prom ” I gave credit to CARY HoCo for the County’s first ever Pride Prom. Today’s HoCo Holler! goes out to CARY HoCo for advocating for, organizing, planning, and putting on Howard County’s first ever Pride Prom for LGBTQ+ youth in the Howard County schools. Upon reading the Sun’s coverage of the event I realized I had gotten it wrong. I thought I was right, and I was kinda, sorta right. But I was wrong nonetheless. ‘I can look around and see kids like me’: Howard County school system hosts inaugural ‘Pride Prom’ , Ethan Ehrenhaft, Baltimore Sun The Pride Prom was an initiative of the Howard County School System, under the leadership of Danielle DuPuis, HCPSS’s first LGBTQIA+ initiatives specialist. DuPuis worked with CARY HoCo and the Howard County Office of Human Rights and Equity to make the Pride Prom happen.  My apologies to DuPuis for not completing the kind of double-checking I should have done to get m...

  Welcome to this week’s Free Form Friday! Let’s talk about shrubs. No, not this. Photo from Wiktionary  This. Photo from Wikipedia I recently attended a social event where someone ordered a mocktail which contained, amongst its ingredients, a peach shrub. Or some kind of shrub, I can’t remember. This revelation caused immediate hilarity around the table.  “Shrub? A shrub is a bush!” I didn’t laugh, mind you. I knew what a shrub was from reading old cookbooks. I tried to explain but that made people laugh even more. People took out their phones to look it up, of course. This was Google’s immediate response to me: Odd - - poetic even - - but not too helpful. You’ll find a quick explanation of the basics here: What is a Shrub? (The Drinks, Not The Plant)  Taylor Sacco, Mad River Distillers Before refrigeration, people relied on differing ways of preserving fruits and vegetables so they would keep, especially over the winter non-growing season. A shrub was produced by ...

  This weekend marks the return of WOCAX: Women of Color Art Expo at The 3rd. I went last year, mostly to see photographs by Candace Dodson Reed, but found myself lingering over all kinds of art on display there. It was definitely worth the trip. I’m happy to see they intend to make it an annual event. The weekend begins with a VIP Reception. It looks like tickets are still available for this fundraising event.  From the Facebook event page: Join us for an invite-only, first look at our Women of Color Art Expo featuring curated art from local women of color artists. Attendees will be treated to music from the Walker Redds Project as well as sumptuous bites from The 3rd's in-house chef, Chef Jamila and wine tasting from Boyd Cru Wines, the first Black family owned winery in Maryland. Whether you are an art lover or novice, our VIP reception is an opportunity to meet local creators and celebrate the power of art and art entrepreners in our community. Tickets: $100/pp Here’s the ...

  I’m going to be honest with you. I woke up this morning feeling stupid.  I suppose I should be grateful that I don’t wake up like this every morning.  To clarify: there are so many things I should be writing about that feel like they are beyond my scope. I feel as though I should be smarter to do them justice. I hate that. I need three of me: one for ideas, one for research, and one to convince myself I can really do it. That last one is probably a full time job.  Today I’m going to give you a sampling of the stories that have been piling up in my “to do file.” See anything you like? Let me know.  I ran into someone at a party the other evening who shook hands with me, smiled, and said, “I don’t read your blog anymore.” I couldn’t tell if it was an apology or a jab. I laughed and said it wasn’t a requirement. Just because I was committed to writing every day didn’t mean they had to read it. And then they said something like, “but you keep writing?” with a lift...

  So your kid goes away to college and learns things. Better than that, they want to share what they’ve learned. That’s how my husband and I ended up at a place on Route 40 called The Hub last summer. And yesterday brought a text to meet up at another place we had never been: Opie’s. Opie’s is on Edmondson Avenue in Catonsville and their website proudly proclaims that they were established in 1984. For those of us who feel that 1984 was just yesterday (wasn’t it?) it may take a moment to appreciate how long ago that was. Opies Soft Serve & Snowballs is widely known in the area and you may very well have been there already. It was an entirely new experience for me but it felt like a bit of time travel, too. I could have been back in my own childhood as I enjoyed an icy cold treat while sitting at a shaded table on the generous lawn behind Opie’s. At the table next to ours a very happy dog was enjoying a small cup of something cool and delicious. I had a root beer snowball with ...

 BOOM. Everybody’s talking about it. Or, at least, everyone who heard it. Last night there was a loud BOOM heard by folks in the Harpers Choice area. Some reported it came from near the hospital.  Did you hear it? You can see discussion about this on Facebook, NextDoor, and Reddit. I spotted a mention on Twitter, as well. Apparently this was not the first occurrence of the Late Night BOOM. There has been at least one other. Naturally it has been suggested that this might be fireworks but the witnesses who have heard it seem unconvinced.  It’s one deep, loud, single BOOM. “Like a transformer exploding,” mentioned one person.  Yes, this has been reported to the police and no, they haven’t provided an answer as of yet. If you hear it, what did it sound like to you? In 2015 an  explosion caused by a gas leak in a Columbia neighborhood created the kind of BOOM that alarms neighbors, and in 2017 a BOOM turned out to be an earthquake in Sykesville. More recently, in ...

  Which one of these contestants will be the Next Town Center Board Member? The post from Columbia Town Center Community Association is serious. My question is not. Something about the photo put me in mind of a promotional advert for a television reality show.  On the surface, they’re all about Rouse’s vision for the New American City, but once we get them behind closed doors… You get the picture.  I’m going out on a limb here (not really) and assuming this is not a photo of people who live in Town Center. It’s a stock photo. There are plenty of reasons to choose to pick out a stock photo and you can learn about that by pursuing a basic Google search. Basically, you can pay to use stock photos from a large and varied collection, invest in custom photography, or use something you already have on file.  Why use a photo at all? Is it necessary for communicating the message? Technically, no. But a photograph catches the eye. It makes you look. Social media sites like Fa...

  I realized last night that I haven’t said a thing about Lakefest, which is going on this weekend. I guess I feel that Lakefest, put on by the Columbia Festival of the Arts, has a pretty good publicity network getting the word around without my help. Still, it’s a really wonderful, quintessentially Columbia weekend and if you have a desire to have that old-time Columbia experience you should definitely check it out. I do want to draw your attention to what’s happening on Sunday for Juneteenth. The 3rd, in collaboration with Columbia Festival of the Arts and The Howard County Library System, has a whole day of Juneteenth Freedom Day activities planned. From the event page: Come and celebrate Juneteenth with The 3rd! It's Lakefest weekend down at the lakefront so we're doing what we do best...collaborating! So here's what you can expect: - Pop Up Cookout (featuring vegan options) by Chef Jamila from 12pm-5pm. Know what you want?Go ahead and pre-order here: https://www.clover...

  What does a Father look like? When I was little and kids got together to play House, no one wanted to be The Dad because all he did was go to work and then come back later. That was all their life experience allowed. When I was very little, I remember being angry with my father for going to work in the summer.   I thought, if it was summer vacation, everyone would stay home.  I thought he must actively not want to be with us.  I guess I honestly didn’t know what a dad was for. He went to work, sometimes for several days at a time. He came home, he ate, he slept, he read detective novels. Occasionally he drove the car on family vacations. If he was taking a nap you did not wake him up. How different that was from the life of Mother. A father was a thing apart. There weren’t a lot of involved or fully fleshed-out fathers on cartoon shows or television shows that we watched back in the day. George Jetson? Fred Flintstone? Popular culture reflected the attitude that th...

  What’s one thing missing from Columbia? I looked at the question on a local Facebook page and did not hesitate. Appealing, convenient, effective public transit! And then, a sadly typical response: as long as it stays within the county. I pressed on. I say the more connected we are, the better! The response was even more clear than the first time: not Baltimore, not DC. You know - - crime. What do you say to that? Nah, completely disagree. Columbia/HoCo is far from the only affluent place in the US where you will find whites adamantly opposing public transit that would connect cities with suburbs. Take a look at this piece about Atlanta: “ What does a traffic jam in Atlanta have to do with segregation? Quite a lot.” , Kevin M. Cruse, New York Times, The 1619 Project As the new suburbs ballooned in size, traffic along the poorly placed highways became worse and worse. The obvious solution was mass transit — buses, light rail and trains that would more efficiently link the suburbs a...