Village Green/Town²

Yesterday was a busy day for local news. The County held its first teleconference for Older Adults and caregivers, to “provide updates on the County’s COVID-19 response as it relates to older adults, including health tips, impact within the long-term care and assisted living facilities, available resources, and reopening plans.” Earlier in the day County Executive Ball participated in the announcement of Howard County’s Official Pollinator Plant: bee balm. News from Macy’s had folks wondering whether they will or won’t be closing our local Mall store. Initial accounts seemed to suggest closure, while follow up from HoCoMoJo indicated that they intend to remain open at least for a while. That, of course, brings conversations of the economic health of the Mall model of retail to the forefront. The days of having the Big Anchor Stores seem to be over. Will that mean the death of the Mall in Columbia, or will replacements like Lidl and entertainment venues ease the shift to a different wa...

Easing into Monday with some thoughts about young children. Those of us who work in early childhood often joke about how we work in germ factories. It doesn’t matter how much you clean, the kids are massive cross-pollinators for every illness that is out there circulating. The first year you work with young children, you are as sick as a dog. If it doesn’t outright flatten you, subsequent years are usually better. This also happens when you change schools/centers.  Ask me how I know. Now these children will be returning on a limited basis to childcare settings which are desperately racing to provide accommodations to prevent the spread of COVID. These measures involve keeping children physically distanced while also cleaning everything they come in contact with every time they use it. They will limit who can enter classrooms and school buildings. They will require layers of safety protocol. Temperature checks, health checks.  All of these things are now necessary but almost al...

It’s eight twenty three on a Sunday morning as I type this, which means that I overslept and have missed my time window for getting the blog out at the time most people are looking to read it.  Oh well. Here goes, anyway. My thoughts this morning? The news that Tim Walters, the leader of the Re-open Maryland movement has been diagnosed with COVID 19. No, wait, it’s more than that: He’s been having symptoms for months. He has been all over the place with no mask. He refuses to take part in contact tracing. He thinks it’s all about him. Walters said he had long suspected he might have the virus but was surprised by the toll it was taking on him this week. “It was nothing like what I thought,” he said. He didn’t think.  You may recall that our own little Re-Open Howard County group brought Walters in to their (unwanted by Main Street) Ellicott City event. His thinking is the kind of thinking they espouse. At this moment it might be useful to read the article about Tim Walters an...

I overslept. It was lovely.  Last night we celebrated the end of the teacher school year with food from Maiwand. HCPSS teachers are officially done for the year, and my students had their last Zoom meeting. My daughter has been finished with her college term for ages now, but, she’s happy to help us celebrate. I bought myself a home snowball machine. It came in twenty-four hours and it was worth every penny. This is not the kind that can supply your whole neighborhood. But, for someone in a high risk category who doesn’t get out much, it’s just about perfect. I made a simple syrup and added strawberry jam for flavor. Ooh...this means you can probably make a whole slew of snowball syrups with flavors from  Neat Nicks Preserve s. Tempting. Oakland Mills entrepreneur Monica Rogers Williams has been combining her DJ skills (DJ Classix) with her baking business as she broadcasts Momma’s Treats and Beats. Her video DJ sessions are streaming at around one pm each day and come with a ...

What a joy it was to see social media light up with rainbow photographs yesterday evening. As much as we lament how bad news travels fast these days, nothing moves faster than than color in the sky. My thanks to you all. Another unexpected treat yesterday was a moment when the Columbia Archives account (via the Columbia Association) popped up on Facebook and Twitter to remind us of an important day in the New American City. On Facebook :  The planned community of Columbia was founded on principles that enabled the growth of people. However, the realities of societal challenges have impacted this visionary community since its inception. Fifty-two years ago this week, those who believed in the founding principles of Columbia were faced with a physical manifestation of what this New Town’s existence denounced. This prompted a call to action!  On Thursday, June 27, 1968, George Wallace, governor of Alabama and segregationist presidential candidate, held a rally at Merriweather Pos...

So: Clyde’s.  I’ve been going through old blog posts and sifting through my memories since yesterday, when the announcement came out. The Columbia component of Clyde’s restaurant group is to be no more. No Clyde’s down at the Lakefront, no Soundry.  I don’t have any personal nostalgia for Clyde’s. As I’ve said here before: But we don't really go down to the Lakefront all that often. It's a special occasion thing for us. It's where you celebrate a birthday or take folks from out of town. It just wasn’t in our price range to be a regular hang out. But clearly, for many, it was just that special place, and will be missed. In fact, the wait at Clyde’s used to be so long that a local quipped that what the Lakefront restaurant scene needed was simply another Clyde’s.  That was before the fits and starts of this newer go-round of Downtown development. Before the Howard Hughes Corporation tilted up the enormous bag of shiny new things that have come sliding out onto the landscape...

News story for the day, from the Washington Post: Maryland House speaker wants to repeal Civil War-era state song  , Ovetta Wiggins Maryland House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore) said Tuesday that she plans to lead the chorus in calling for the repeal of the state’s Civil War-era state song, which has lyrics urging Maryland to secede and join the Confederacy against the “Northern scum.” This may feel like a new story. In the context of leadership roles changing in the Maryland State Legislature, or in the wave of national uprisings against police brutality against Black citizens, this may pop out to some as just one more “spur of the moment” initiative to “erase history.” It’s not. Maryland’s State Song has been known to be problematic for quite some time. And nothing has been done about it. Just like Aunt Jemima, or Unce Ben’s, or the face on your Cream of Wheat box, it’s been sitting there, right out in the open, full of its anti-Union message crafted by a Confederate Sym...

Today I’m giving you an assignment. It will take approximately nine minutes. Watch this video, made locally, about Juneteenth. https://www.facebook.com/HoCoGovExec/videos/286092202535427/ Hosted by the County Executive, it includes community members who each have something valuable to share about the history of the Juneteenth holiday and the experiences of Black people in Howard County. It is beautifully done, and it is worth your time. Learning more about the history that most of us didn’t learn in school can make us better citizens and neighbors. This video is a great jumping off point for folks who may be just now realizing that there’s a lot they haven’t known. It’s positive, informative, thoughtful. It feels like it was made by neighbors for neighbors.  And I can’t wait for the opening of Harriet Tubman School as a museum and community center in 2021. 

I continue to be unimpressed by white people in Howard County claiming there is no racism here purely because they don’t recognize it. I am getting well nigh unto enraged by those who go on the County Executive’s Facebook page and call him a liar for speaking out about racism. There are people over there trolling daily as though it is their job.  Still, it’s probably just a hobby from which they derive some sort of twisted enjoyment. In my opinion their time would be better spent opening their eyes to the lives and circumstances of people in Howard County that are not like them.  But the kind of hate we see right now, abetted by the layers of denial that there is any hate at all, is all of a piece with a kind of dedicated ignorance that has taken generations to solidify in this country.  “It’s not that bad.” “I’ve never seen that.” It’s hard for everybody.” “They’re just looking for an excuse.” “They must have been doing something wrong.” “They should have just done what ...

I received a response to yesterday’s post that felt a bit wistful to me: Actually, I'd love to hear how other fathers juggle their family responsibilities. It's difficult and I certainly haven't figured out all the answers. What a perfect segue into Father’s Day. Happy Father’s Day, Columbia/HoCo. Fatherhood is hardly a purely local phenomenon. But I do wonder how it will be observed today, in a time of so many health and financial challenges. Some families, I suppose, will venture out to celebrate Dad at one of the newly reopened local restaurants. Some will bring in Dad’s favorite takeaway for a special treat. Some will be cooking up homemade delicacies. And some will be scraping together what little they have.  The Father’s Day of the greeting card companies and retail establishments is naturally aimed at the consumer. And that means those with disposable income to spend on cards and gifts. Their commercials and print adverts and store displays paint a certain homogenize...

Here’s a piece about Amy Brooks of OMO (originally Oakland Mills Online). Passionate About Community: Local Teacher Talks About The Transition To Distance Leaning For Her Students And Her Family , Anika Baty-Mills* for Columbia Lifestyle   Columbia Lifestyle Magazine has made its own transition from print editions to online publication during the recent Covid-19 crisis. I don’t know much about them other than that they describe themselves as a locally owned publication which is a part of the larger Lifestyle Publications Brand. I’ve seen them featuring a variety of interesting local people, Ms.Brooks, for instance. You can read their issues here . You know I love local connections. And I’m always interested in learning more about the people who are active in our community. But I’m going to point out a pet peeve of mine, which turned up in a promotional tweet. Why do we keep doing that? Why must the accomplishments of women continue to be framed in the context of “juggling” or...

It’s true. I didn’t learn anything about Black history in school. But I did know about Juneteenth. Why? Because my mother told me. My mother was born in Lowell, Massachusetts but moved to Dallas, Texas after her parent’s divorce. Her mother had accepted a position teaching at the prestigious Hockaday School. Among other Dallas stories she told me was the fact that she was cast as “the colored maid” in the school play because her (New England) accent was different from everyone else’s. Also possibly because everyone knew that she attended Hockaday for free because her mother taught there. The rich girls called her “plebeian.” One day my mother heard something in the kitchen and when she went in discovered a Black man hiding under the sink. His eyes were wide with fear. “They’re going to cut me,” he said.  It was Juneteenth, she told me. And she explained what that was. She described how the celebration in Texas was accompanied by drinking and carrying on, as many celebrations do. Bu...

If you’ve been using the time during quarantine to binge watch television shows, you’re in good company. Without baseball, binge-watching could now easily be called the national pastime. I’m not much of a television watcher but I must admit a show on HGTV has caught my eye:  Home Town. Home Town centers around a young couple in Laurel, Mississippi whose goal is to bring back their small town by connnecting people with older homes, which they then renovate. There’s something engaging about the hosts, Erin and Ben Napier. They are warm, genuine, and funny. They purposefully share the spotlight with local businesses and contractors/craftspeople. And they love the homes they are saving. It’s on from noon to nine on Mondays and I have begun making my plans around it. I now want to live in a beautifully renovated Craftsman-style cottage. Here comes the pitch: what if HGTV did a show saving older Columbia homes? They’re not as old, certainly, but they’re definitely “classic” in their own ...

I’m just going to be upfront about this and admit I was not expecting a Black Lives Matter event to pop up in Western Howard County. But people can surprise you. And stereotypes can be easy but give an incomplete picture. So, here we are. The poster doesn’t say “wear a mask” so I’m just telling you: wear a mask. Period. If you are curious about the people behind the protest, it’s a group called HoCo United. From their Facebook page: # WestHoCo4Change We are a group of Howard County residents and community members working toward making timely changes through community engagement and advocacy. Youth-led!  The event page is here . Changing gears, I want to direct you to a piece by my friend Marge Neal from her blog, Scribbles from the Margen that will start your day off right. It combines artistic expression, the love and support of parents, and, a rarity in this day and age, a boost of encouragement from social media.   Meet the artist known as Liam Have a wonderful day. Use yo...

Yesterday Candace Dodson Reed, co-host of local podcast Elevate Maryland , made the following observation on Twitter: Please take a look at the @ColumbiaAssn board. And think about the diversity of Columbia. I talked about the lack of diversity on this board in 2010 after hosting a “beer summit”  & not much has changed.  Please, please look at your boards & commissions. And speak up. She linked to the Board page on the Columbia Association website. The current CA Board is one hundred per cent white. I wonder why that is? I attended that “ beer summit ” that Ms. Dodson-Reed hosted. I remember a piece by Larry Carson in the Sun around that same time: Columbia: integrated on the streets but not in the boardroom In the past I have written about my concerns that Village Boards and the CA Board can be tough for newcomers to break into. I’ve been distressed by how a younger generation of Columbians feel unwelcome at meetings and dismissed in their interactions with leadership...

Even before quarantine made our world a good bit smaller, many of us lived fairly sheltered lives in Columbia/HoCo. We often live in neighborhoods with folks more or less like us, work with people like ourselves. More and more our children go to school with children who are more alike than different.  Even our places of worship can be islands of homogeneity. Our self-selected social media communities reflect that sameness. Your individual case may differ. I know I am generalizing. And for those of you who say, “that’s not what Columbia is all about,” well, yes. I know that. As long as we keep ourselves separate from people who are different we lack the life experiences and perspective to truly value them as part of our community. Ignorance, and the fear that comes with it, is what leads to “othering” and avoidance. Right now in Columbia/HoCo there is an army of volunteers organized by founder Erika Strauss Chavarria to provide for families in crisis through Columbia Community Care....