Required Reading

Blogger Candace Dodson Reed is back with her Most Fascinating People of Howard County, 2015 edition. You can find her at Is This Thing On?

Is This Thing On? she asks. Yes, it most definitely is. There's a crisp, off-the-cuff, no-messing-around quality to her writing that I find singularly refreshing. And if she weren't too busy living an actual life on multiple platforms--parenthood, career, community, politics, and more I'm probably forgetting--we might get to enjoy her blog more often.

Take a moment to read this piece. I found that I knew some people well, others not at all. And that means I learned something. Sometimes our personal (and even shared) worlds in Howard County are quite small. Reading this bumped out my boundaries. It also reminded me that, despite my belief that I am open to all kinds of people, on most days my world is starkly, almost completely white.

In the same vein, including Baltimore on this list is a brilliant reminder of all the ways we in Howard County have been challenged to look at race during 2015. Not just to look, but to stand up and join in. Ms. Dodson Reed has long been an advocate in Howard County for bringing folks together to examine attitudes on race. She's absolutely right that Baltimore is

Such a beautiful place (with beautiful people!) scarred by a history of complex social issues. As TS said, “bandaids won’t fix bullet holes”...

And absolutely right to include it in this list. We are not separate. We are interconnected in many, many ways.

There's a lot more I could say about the people on this list. But I don't want to get in the way of your actually reading the thing. So, do it. Then come back here and leave your thoughts if you are so inclined. It feels like a great conversation-opener to me.

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Teacher Gifts

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Columbia Chance Connection

Last night, as my husband and I were about to sit down to dinner, our front door swung open and a cheery voice announced, “I’m ba—ack!” We weren’t expecting anyone. Clearly the only people who’d walk right in to our house would be one of our offspring. I had my reading glasses on so I wasn’t seeing too clearly. It seemed too tall for our youngest, but we knew our eldest was at work. I took off my glasses to see a friendly but confused face scanning our living room. When her gaze landed on us we all had a sudden realization. We didn’t know eachother. “Oh I’m so sorry! I’m in the wrong house! My daughter just moved in and she needed hooks for the kitchen so I ran out to get them.” She waved the package. “All these houses look the same and I don’t know the neighborhood yet. I thought this was my daughter’s house.” We were all getting a bit giggly. “That’s okay. For a quick second we thought you were our daughter,” said my husband. I told her our names and said she should defin...

Village Green/Town²

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