Village Green/Town²

This just in: a moment for a musical interlude. Most people who know me know that my college degree is in music. It’s no surprise that music, in one way or another, has figured in many of my blog posts: music in the County Schools, Music Education as a powerful tool in reaching at risk students, community music events, concerts at Merriweather and beyond, the influence of music in old age. Since childhood music has been intertwined in every aspect of my life: school, church, my professional life, my leisure pastimes, the self-chosen soundtrack of my car rides, cooking sessions, parties,  hours of writing papers in college and hours of labor in the hospital before our younger daughter was born. One thing you’ll never find in my life or in my blog is any hint that music ought to be combined with violence.  Yet that’s just what I have been accused of by members of an online group opposed to the Superintendent’s plan for redistricting. This is what I wrote...

It’s a bit of a long story as to how we ended up in Bowie yesterday. It started with a spur of the moment trip last Sunday when my husband discovered that the only place that had something he needed for class was at the Bowie Barnes and Noble. He was intrigued by the Bowie Town Center and suggested we go back together to have a look. Bowie Town Center is what indoor shopping malls have morphed into in some places. You can see examples in Hunt Valley and White Marsh: a few criss-crossed streets with shops up and down the way. It is meant to feel like old time small town shopping, I think. I feel it pull at feelings of nostalgia and yet I find myself resisting the sense that I am being manipulated by a commercial “concept”. Last night was more like a summer evening than a fall one. The air was warm and humid. A central plaza was packed with lawn chairs as a live band performed. People strolled on the sidewalks, stopping to listen to the music or to chat with friends. When we came...

A beer after work on a Friday night? Don’t mind if I do. I popped into Sapwood Cellars yesterday for the first time. At five thirty, it was hopping. There was a food truck out front, which seems to be the trend in local brew places these days. I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t remember the name of the beer I had other than that it was the first one in the list and it was a pale ale. It was delicious, far too easy to drink. If I hadn’t already had subsequent plans with my spouse, I could have spent several more rounds in the company of such good beer and my even more excellent fellow-teachers. Sapwood Cellars is on Route 108. Sort of. It’s is a building that’s behind the building that fronts to 108. And it isn’t actually a cellar, either. ( I think that’s artistic license.) It looks like they’re having some kind of anniversary party today, Do you have a local micro-brewery that you favor? What do you like and why? We seem to be having a boom of sorts in Howard County. If...

Today is the last day to vote in the Best of Howard Readers Poll . Due to local goings on, I haven’t campaigned much but I’d appreciate your vote. I still think that, in the end, I have the best readers around and I don’t need a contest to know that. I’m grateful for community support of the blog, especially right now. I’m looking forward to a long weekend. Will we get any true Fall-like weather that will motivate me to do some much-postponed organizational tasks? Seems questionable. Perhaps if I spring into action early in the day, I’ll catch the coolers temps. Fall is probably my favorite season but it certainly is taking its time to arrive. I’ve got a car to clean out, some recent Elevate Maryland episodes to listen to, and perhaps a haircut to fit in. I have an interesting blog post to finish up, the kind that requires a weekend. I was inspired by this from Threw Mike’s Eyez blog: My goal for tomorrow is to fill a trashcan of old junk and get rid of it. Well, I do hav...

Here’s a bit of time travel for you: this episode of Postcards from Buster (PBS) where the fictional band Los Viajeros receive a Coin of Excellence for performing for the troops in Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. I’m a big fan of PBS programs for children. I always learn something. For instance, this piece about military families introduced me to what a Coin of Excellence is. “ To me, a coin is like an Army Achievement Medal or award," said Command Sgt. Maj. Byron Loyd, the command sergeant major for Division Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Infantry Division. "There are two types of coins I give: the regular battalion coin that represents the battalion, and then my personal coin that has my name and rank on it. It symbolizes something solid from me as a senior leader. It's my way of saying thank you for the hard work I see you do.” In Maryland special coins are used both in this way - - honoring or thanking - - and also to commemorate special occasions. Governor Hogan...

Today Howard Hughes breaks ground for a new location of the popular Busboys and Poets restaurant/bookstore. In honor of this event, here’s an online conversation from 2015 where Busboys and Poets makes an appearance. What is one business that doesn't exist in Columbia, that you wish did?  - - July 15, 2015 An open all night diner. An old fashioned ice cream parlor. The Pub. A kosher eatery A good old fashioned Fish Fry. Dim Sum restaurant! Seafood restaurant  Maybe it's because I grew up in a town that had a video store, a grocery store, a pizza place, a Chinese place, laser tag, tiny indoor mini golf, and gas--but I cannot imagine Columbia does not have  enough businesses! I long for a place that has truly feisty baba ghanouj like Egyptian Pizza in Baltimore. A good deli (Attmans or comparable) Ben's Chili Bowl Busboys and Poets The Container Store! Miss Shirley's, a seafood restaurant, Boxwood Collection, great deli. No more chain r...

Much has been made of the recent announcement by the Howard County Schools that students will no longer be able to recycle trash in school lunch rooms beginning in 2020. In general, we feel as though it ought to be possible. In reality, this kind of recycling is becoming less and less feasible, for a variety of reasons.  I noted with excitement that Moms Organic Market in Jessup is now set up to recycle a wide variety of items including shoes, cell phones, batteries, baby food pouches, and more, Check them out. A different kind of recycling today - - take a look back at this post from a year ago about the ALICE report from United Way. This paragraph leapt out at me: It feels good to be in our bubble of like-minded people. It feels like home. If someone challenges our comfortable life by suggesting that we open our eyes (our neighborhoods? Our schools?) to that other twenty-five per cent we may bristle. It’s one thing to make a donation to help people who are mos...

I’ve been thinking about Governor Hogan’s State slogan, “Maryland is open for business.” It stands to reason that any state would want to attract jobs, good jobs if at all possible. So business means jobs. And jobs mean workers. And workers have to live somewhere. Where? Is Maryland Open for Workers? For Families? Are we welcoming to new residents or are we only looking for better jobs for the people we have already? And if residents move up to better jobs, who gets the old jobs? Where do they live? Attracting new business is seen as a sign of a good local leader. In Howard County it would seem that one ought to attract business without creating any additional residents. I don’t know if that is altogether possible. If there isn’t enough housing, workers will have to commute from somewhere else. That means a lower quality of life for them and more carbon emissions for all of us. And traffic. We all hate that gridlock from folks coming in and out, right? Maybe someone should...

When I started writing this blog I was focused more on understanding why a certain segment of Columbia’s Pioneers were determined to control future outcomes for the New American City. I wanted to get a grip on what it meant to be in Columbia versus being in an outparcel. I was spending a lot of time tracking complaints from folks who could pinpoint the exact moment that Columbia began to go wrong, (Not always the same moment.) Or, on the other hand, those who pointed to a possible change which would definitely be that moment of never-turning-back destruction of Rouse’s vision. Recent events have made it clear to me that there’s another encircling ring of judgement: those who pinpoint the exact moment at which Howard County went wrong. And that would be in the creation of Columbia. It’s hard for me to swallow. Columbia, the unwanted. Columbia, the unloved. Or derided, or feared. But it’s absolutely true that there is a segment of Howard County which blames all sorts of things on...

It turns out that the blog post from this week that Facebook was most excited by was this one: Well, thanks, Facebook. Keep on doing your algorithmic thing. This weekend there’s a music festival in Ellicott City, a multigenerational Korean Festival at the Howard County Fairgrounds, and a Recovery Walk in Ellicott City at the Assembly of God Church. Each one of these event most likely started as somebody’s dream. I’m always in awe of people who have what it takes to turn those dreams into reality. It takes outreach, and team-building, flexibility, and persistence. This year’s first ever Howard County Pride event comes to mind. Readers of this blog know I have a soft spot in my heart for the people who dare to dream the big dreams. I want to give a special shout out today to the people who work to make dreams become a reality. It is tiring and unglamorous work. And it is hugely important.

Howard County doesn’t have enough school bus drivers. And, according to this article by Talia Richman in the Baltimore Sun, we are not alone. Other counties are struggling with this issue as well.  Ms, Richman shares a response from HCPSS spokesman Brian Bassett:  A Howard County schools spokesman said the district also faces a shortage of about three or four dozen drivers. Officials there have “leveraged several operational solutions to make up for the shortage that include scheduling buses to make multiple runs by serving schools that have different start and dismissal times.”  I don’t know how it works in other counties, but here in Howard the school system contracts out the various routes to a number of independent local bus companies. They, in turn, are tasked with recruiting, training, and supervising their fleet of drivers. I don’t think this is the first year that we’ve had a shortage of drivers. Is it possible that the system we currently have ...

I’ve been holding on to this exchange from Twitter for a while now. I’m sharing it today because I’ve been thinking a lot about accessibility. How much is lost when whole chunks of our society don’t receive access to the essentials for physical and emotional growth? Talent and genius can be anywhere. But they need fertile ground to develop. They need nourishment. You might think I’m going to segue now into more talk about schools, but I’m not. What’s on my mind this morning is about how crucial it is to make the arts accessible to all in Columbia/Howard County. So often the arts are the playground of the well-to-do. The more that money is the key that unlocks arts experiences, the more that audiences will be white and affluent. But will future artists come only from this limited segment of our population? And can community support of the arts be sustained in a vibrant, multicultural community like Columbia/Howard County if it speaks only to one audience? This is just one...

I’m having an “I just can’t” day over here today. Talk amongst yourselves. I’ll be back tomorrow. P.S. Music is never, ever violent. It doesn’t have to be. It’s music!

I overslept this morning. I’ve had a lot on my mind that made it hard to get to sleep and stay asleep. Here’s a picture of the first bud which appeared yesterday in our front garden bed. On a whim we planted wildflowers from seeds this year. But we got going rather late, so we weren’t sure what would happen. We’ve had a lot of growth, but no sign of flowers. Summer is over. We figured it was probably too late for flowers. But maybe we’ll get some just the same. I could really use something beautiful in all the local ugliness.

I am old, I am old, I am old.  They’ve changed the formatting for voting in the Best Of Howard Readers Poll and it’s driving me out of my mind. All I want is one button to push when you have finished making your selections that tallies your choices and responds, “Thank you! Your vote has been recorded.” Would that be too much to ask?  Something about this reminds me of my mother and the food processor.  As a newlywed, I adored my food processor. Back then I cooked everything from scratch and it was one of the wedding presents that got frequent use. So, I tried to talk my mother into getting one. She was still chopping everything in a wooden chopping bowl. Her resistance amazed me. "How do you make sure that the plastic pusher-thing doesn't get sliced off by the blades?" She asked, doubtfully. "It doesn't! Trust me! And besides, do you think they could successfully market something that got sliced up as soon as you used it?"  I wasn't very patie...

A few more thoughts about yesterday. Some friends reached out to me to recount positive things happening around town: the Wilde Lake Family Picnic, the Monarchs and More Children’s event at the Chrysalis. A look around Twitter also showed businesses coming back on Ellicott City’s Main Street: Miss Fit and the Forget-Me-Not Factory. All in all, more of our community is thriving than not. We’re not completely a lost cause. It’s interesting to note that, while the County Seat is Ellicott City, the protest event about Howard County Schools redistricting was held in Downtown Columbia. It’s an acknowledgement that the upstart community, around only since the late sixties, has become the center of the County. Yet somehow the entire point of Columbia - - better communities through racial, ethnic, and economic integration - - seems to have been lost on the protestors. I saw so many posts on social media yesterday about the Wilde Lake High School band that I began to imagine what might...

At ten am today in Owen Brown there will be a celebration of the life of Jane Dembner.  At 12 pm there will be an “Opposition Walk” in Downtown Columbia to protest the Superintendent ‘s plan for redistricting. The painful irony of the juxtaposition of these two events is not lost on me. The Columbia that Ms. Dembner believed in and worked for was welcoming and inclusive. She cared about community that was for everyone. Her vision wasn’t simply pools, parks, and pathways. Her Columbia, and, in relationship, Howard County, was a place where attitudes could be changed and  fair and affordable housing welcomed those who needed it. I thought of Jane when we opened our school year with this book, All Are Welcome.  Some samplings from the text by Alexandra Penfold: No matter how you start your day./ What you wear when you play./ Or if you come from far away./ All are welcome here. Then, further along: You have a place here. / You have a space here. / You are we...

The change was made without fanfare, posted quietly to Boarddocs and noticed quite by accident by OMCA Board Chair Jonathan Edelson. The replacement school for Talbott Springs Elementary had been moved from first priority to somewhere on down the line. So was a major capital project for Hammond High School. The response from the public indicates that this announcement was completely unexpected. Who knew?  Not the County Council, if various statements of dismay are to be believed. I haven’t seen any official comments from members of the Howard Country delegation to the Maryland State legislature. I wonder if they knew. What about the County Executive? Local and State Government officials are not in the habit, nor should they be, of micromanaging hcpss affairs. But the construction of a new school is different. It requires the coordination of local and state funding and therefore would require ongoing communication and collaboration. At least, that is what I had assumed. ...