Village Green/Town²

It’s been a while. How about another foray into the world of Other People’s Tweets? Today’s episode starts with this question: 72% of all adults live within 20 miles from where they grew up.  How far do you live from home? I’m 14 miles away from where I grew up. Person A: I live 29 miles away from my childhood home, but honestly Western Howard County is basically a completely different country compared to Baltimore. The dude I married is less than 10 miles away from his childhood home, though. And we cannot go a single place without him running into someone he knows. Person B: Heck, I knew some girls from Columbia, and they were total space aliens to me! Person A: I spent my entire 20s in deep reprogramming. Person B: As well you should! Life is not like Howard County! Person C: I grew up in Silver Spring and ended up going to UMBC and living in Baltimore County and yeah... Columbia is like its own little weird pocket in the universe. Can’t explain it lmao. Hmmm... If I didn’t know...

  May 5, 2011 (Columbia Patch) It's May! Time for all the good folks to gather at the Village Green--if only we knew where that was... Welcome to The Village Green. According to Wikipedia, a village green “… is traditionally at a central location and provides an open-air meeting place for the people of a village, for example at times of celebration, or for public ceremonies.”   I am envisioning this space, where I will be sharing my ideas, as a village green of sorts—a place where we have the “customary right to indulge in lawful sports and pastimes.” Almost daily I read news of Columbia’s villages: calling for participation, creating new visions, or struggling to reach consensus amidst polarizing differences. Just as often I cannot make up my mind whether to be encouraged or frustrated by it all.  So, this will be a place to sort it out with input from you, my fellow villagers.   In a related entry, town squares are described: “Most town squares are hardscapes suita...

I have written more than a few Teacher Appreciation Week blog posts. This year the thought of it seems ludicrous. Teachers have endured the worst year of their professional careers while being lambasted on social media at the same time. They have worked longer and harder while being called selfish and lazy. So now it’s Teacher Appreciation Week. Thanks a lot. Have a donut. Not so fast, folks. I’m talking to those of you who have made teachers’ lives miserable during the pandemic. You don’t get to send in some muffins and go on your merry way, no sir. Maybe this year we should have Teacher Apology Week. It’s about time that teachers got the apologies they most certainly have coming to them. I’m sorry I said you don’t care about kids. I’m sorry I said you wanted distance learning because it was “less work”. I’m sorry I belittled your union representation. I’m sorry I interrupted your hybrid learning lesson to argue and complain. I’m sorry I treated your health concerns as inconsequential...

Today Lakey Boyd begins her tenure as the President and CEO of the Columbia Association. She is the sixth person to serve in that role. I went digging around on the Internet last night to look for a listing of the past presidents and when they served, but I must not have been looking in the right place. From what I can piece together, it looks like this: Padraic Kennedy 1972-1998 Deborah O. McCarty 1998-? (Charles Rhodehamel, acting) Maggie Brown 2001-2009 Phil Nelson  2009 -2014 (Susan M. Crabbe, acting) Milton Matthews 2014-2021 There’s also a few “acting presidents” in there. One thing that surprised me was the name Deborah McCarty. I moved to Columbia in 1999 and have no recollection of her. And then I remembered that I was getting married, expecting a baby, and coping with a newborn and a teenager during that time period. This was not a time in my life when I was up-to-date on local current events. At any rate, this article by Angela Paik in the Washington Post is vintage Col...

  Columbia/HoCo offers a variety of ways to keep fit, from walking the trails, bike riding, swimming, working out at CA facilities or Lifetime Fitness, and many more. One thing I had never heard of until recently is a workout that centers around swinging kettlebells. What’s a kettlebell? Well, they look like this:  I found this photo in an article entitled “Kettlebells: what they are and why you should train with them.” Now, you may already know all about kettlebells and how they can be used for strength training but I didn’t until my friend Carol started posting about it on Facebook. I must say she’s been pretty enthusiastic. The place where she works out, called The 39 Minute Workout , has an annual tradition of fundraising for the Casey Cares Foundation.  Casey Cares supports programs for critically ill children and their parents. So how do they raise funds? By swinging kettlebells, of course! It just so happens that today is the 7th annual Kettlebell Swing a thon...

If you are up for a little adventure today and noodling around in Ellicott City is your sort of thing, may I recommend the Stone House Collective? My husband headed out of the house last weekend, enticed by a photograph of guitars. No surprise there. What was a surprise was their location: Main Street in Old Ellicott City.  “They must be new,” I said. “That sounds like it might be a good blog post. Will you take some pictures for me?” He rolled his eyes. But he took some pictures.  As you can see, Stone House Collective is far more than a guitar store. They opened on March 6th of this year at 8129 Main Street and describe themselves as “a three-story boutique for art, photography, antique, vintage, and artisan-made goods.” The top floor is where my husband found the guitars, among other things. Merchant Timothy Ramsey offers not only guitars and amplifiers but also vintage space-related toys from the 1950s and 1960s. All in all, the Stone House Collective is made up of about 1...

  Today is the final day of operation for CA’s Haven on the Lake. They wished the community farewell on their Facebook page. As we close our doors today, we want to thank you for all of your support over the years! We are honored to have been part of your wellness journey.  Thank you for sharing all of your favorite memories with us over the last few days. We hope to see everyone again soon! It occurred to me that I had been at the groundbreaking of Haven. I searched through old post to find my write up. Here it is. Thursday, July 24, 2014 Two Tales, One City (Today's post is dedicated to Dennis Lane, who should have been there.) 1.We arrived shortly before ten am on a hot and humid Wednesday morning. Real Columbia summer. As we approached the steps we were stopped by a friendly woman who welcomed us.  "Are you here for the groundbreaking?" she asked. We said we were. She introduced herself and we chatted as she showed us to the starting point for the morning's festiv...