Village Green/Town²

  The story you did not know you needed is right here for your Monday reading pleasure: World's Largest Rubber Duck Waddles Into MD For Two Special Events The world's largest rubber duck will be bobbing in the Bay for 2 community events in MD. It's the duck's 1st time visiting the DMV region. You can find all the details in this story by Kristin Danley Griner, a staff writer for Patch. All photos courtesy of Craig Samborski, owner of the world’s largest rubber duck I have a few things to share that went through my mind as I read this story. First: these ducks will not be waddling anywhere. They have no feet. They arrive by truck and then float on water. There will not now, nor will there ever be, any waddling.  Second: how can Columbia hope to be a world class city if we don’t even rate a visit from the world’s largest rubber duck (and her baby Timmy)?  Surely the Howard Hughes Corporation can see their way clear to forking over the $9,500 cost of bringing the aquatic ...

The kid was up, dressed, and out of the house on a Saturday morning by ten am. Destination? Clarksville Commons. A friend (from both high school and college) was in town and the gang/theatre friend group was gathering to hang out and catch up. About half of the group were from the immediate area. They convinced the others that this was the place to meet up. The Saturday market was in full swing. They wandered about to investigate the offerings, then grabbed some food inside at the Common Kitchen. All college grads or soon to be. All employed in one way or another. Not one of them could afford to live anywhere nearby or even aspire to in the near future. The thought of this reminded me of a photo posted by State Delegate Chao Wu in July. Image from Del. Chao Wu, social media post   What you see here is Phase Two of the Clarksville Commons project. (Phase Two was always a part of the project.) It will include 72 apartment units. The building will sit behind Clarksville Commons on wha...

  I’m not at all sure I’m going to brave the heat much this weekend. Of course I have a ticket to the concert at the Chrysalis tomorrow evening, and I hope it will be cooler by then. But, other than that? I feel a strong desire to hunker down inside with a cool drink. I learned something this week that you may already know. More than seventy per cent of fire departments across the United States rely on volunteers. The Howard County Fire and Rescue Services web page states: We are a combination system of nearly 900 career and volunteer providers operating from 14 stations across Howard County. The department is located between Baltimore City and the District of Columbia and provides and receives automatic aid to and from our surrounding partners in Prince George's, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Montgomery and Frederick counties. The department is statutorily responsible for the administration of the affairs for the county in fire suppression and prevention, fire training, arson ...

  I discovered last night that my blog had been quoted in a piece on Baltimore Fishbowl. It felt weird. Columbia residents condemn country singer Jason Aldean’s Merriweather concert Thursday, but no protests are expected , Aliza Worthington, Baltimore Fishbowl I make no secret of the fact that I spend a lot of time on Twitter looking for local stories. I’m also keenly aware that, as a blogger, I am essentially an amateur. Seeing someone from a much larger, professional Baltimore website put together a piece in much the same way that I do felt…odd. ***** Recommended read for F ³ that takes us out of the Bubble: Baltimore’s first zero-proof bottle shop will offer booze-less beer, wine, and liquor as non-alcoholic trend grows , Amanda Yeager, Baltimore Sun It’s an excellent article plus it’s written by a former local journalist. What’s not to love? People choose to abstain from drinking alcohol for a variety of reasons: Some are pregnant, some don’t like the taste, some are sober and...

  Today’s heat falls into the category of a weather emergency. As with blizzards and flood-producing storms, Howard County Government is on high alert and communicating with the public. Even though it goes without saying, this is no time to leave children or pets in your car. If you are in need of a place to cool off: Howard County Recreation and Parks' Gary J. Arthur Community Center North Laurel Community Center Roger Carter Community Center (www.howardcountymd.gov/facilities) Howard County Department of Community Resources and Services' 50+ Centers (www.howardcountymd.gov/50pluscenters) are open.  Howard County Library System branches  If you don’t have access to a car, how would you get there? Is there a web page or a printable map that specifically links Howard County’s official cooling centers with public transit? I don’t know. If I am very lucky, someone from the County will read this and fill me in. Hint, hint. This would be a great day to break down and give thos...

  The first light of day brought a whopping headache over here, so the post I had been planning to write today is going to take another day to coalesce, I fear. Instead, let me shine a light on this Sunday’s concert at the Chrysalis. This Sunday, from 5 to 7 PM, you can enjoy a family friendly concert by the Accord Symphony at Merriweather Park at Symphony Woods. The concert is free. You must register for tickets in advance so they will know how many people to expect and will be able to assign parking appropriately. Here comes some wholesale copying and pasting: Join the Inner Arbor Trust and DC String Workshop to welcome the Accord Symphony to the Chrysalis Stage, performing family-friendly favorites from Broadway and beyond! This incredible FREE performance for all will have the entire family singing along! Some information about the performers: A project of DC Strings Workshop, a non-profit organization, The Accord Symphony Orchestra now entering its 7th season, is an orchestr...

  This week’s Columbia Association e-newsletter contains a link to current happenings at the Columbia Maryland Archives. You should definitely click that link . Of interest is this featured exhibit: Image from Columbia Maryland Archives  CMA hosted its second annual Summer Field School in partnership with Howard Community College (HCC) History Department. The five students not only learned Columbia history but experienced skills in archival research, public history, digitization, and curation. Their final project was to create a display using collection material, click here to explore the digital replica! If you are interested in community theatre and/or Columbia history, you will find this digital exhibit to be delightful. I’m afraid to say too much because I don’t want to rob you of the joy of discovery. It’s fascinating to see how the performing arts were valued from almost the very start in Columbia. A tip of the hat to HCC students who researched and curated the exhibit:...

  My husband went down to the Walgreen’s this week and bought a planner. I know what that means. In his mind, summer is drawing to a close. The school year is looming. During the baseball game on tv he practiced songs he might want to teach his guitar students this year. In my mind we are smack dab in the middle of summer but, for teachers, they’re watching those sands falling through the hourglass. Time is running out. Over on Twitter, which may be reduced to nothing but an X any day now, teachers are already talking about back-to-school meetings: the dreaded “teachers’ meetings” that begin each school year. Admins, please listen up: What IF... We DIDN'T do icebreakers this year for pre-service? A lot of the adults I know absolutely hate them. We hate scavenger hunts. We hate word of the year. We hate minute-to-win-it. Two truths and a lie - ick. How about... just letting us meet our coworkers organically? And then there’s this: Admin: What makes y’all pack preplanning full of mee...

  Columbia Maryland is not a small town, even if it sometimes seems so to me. I have never lived in a small town. Have you? Country singer Jason Aldean is bringing a song about small towns to Merriweather Post Pavilion this Thursday as a part of the Highway Desperado Tour. Promotional material for Highway Desperado Tour The song, “Try That in a Small Town”, is a pro-gun, pro-vigilante justice anthem for ‘good old boys’ who want you to know how tough they are. It’s an invitation to use violence against people who make you angry. It sets up shadowy demons and encourages the listener to give them what (he thinks) they deserve. That, by itself, is bad enough.  The video for the song takes it into a kind of violently racist, pro-lynching hellscape.  “Try That In A Small Town” debuted in May without unusual fanfare, but the video attracted much more attention with its imagery: Aldean and his band perform in front of what appears to be a government building at night, lit by stre...

  In a Baltimore this week some young people made the news who probably would rather not have been in the spotlight.  Screenshot captured from WBAL social media post Several children were caught breaking into one of the many Baltimore City pools that remain closed with their gates chained. The break-in was caught on Monday. Footage details the children breaking in, setting up "camp", and entering the water along with a scooter. - - WBAL News Radio Locals were quick to ask why the city had money to use helicopters for surveillance but not money to repair and or staff the three closed pools: Lake Clifton, Patterson Park, and Cherry Hill. After a good deal of public back-and-forth, one of the pools - - Lake Clifton - - opened on Friday. Baltimore City Public Pools are free. There are plenty of residents for whom they are the only way to cool off during increasingly hotter and hotter summers. State law as of yet does not require rental housing to provide working air conditioning...

  It fell out of an old picture album as my sister and I sat on the couch together. I very nearly squealed. “That’s it! That’s it!” It was a newspaper article from 1965.  A while back I had been searching the internet for information about my paternal grandmother. There are more traces of her out there than many of my other family members because of her professional life. My most recent find was this: “Lives her creed.” What did that mean? I conjured up memories of my grandmother. They were childhood memories. I know only what we did together, the television shows she liked, the big basket of Christmas cards she received each year and the little drawer in the coat closet where she kept the odd and quirky toys we could play with when we visited. What was her creed? I wanted to know. The newspaper is very probably The Cleveland Press, which ceased publication in 1982. And these snippets were all I had to go on: just the title and her photo, nothing else. I tried searching in any...

  Many years ago I worked in a small independent church school in Baltimore City. Of all the Baltimore Independent schools we were the most diverse, and the most affordable. Our students were able to walk to Baltimore Symphony concerts, the Walters Art Gallery, the Enoch Pratt Free Library, and the Maryland Historical Society. For many years they walked down the street to the local Y for swimming and physical education, as well. Small independent schools don’t have big budgets and often have crumbling physical plants. Ours certainly did. But the biggest challenge we faced, in my opinion, was our inability to successfully recruit, hire, and keep Black teachers. We were the most integrated Independent school in town but our faculty was always woefully white. During the time that I worked there, it became clear that our school parents wanted a more diverse faculty and our Board was becoming more convinced that our students would benefit from diverse role models. (Educational studies c...

  Yesterday was a prime example of why I am quick to point out that I am a blogger and not a journalist.  It is true that the Regal UA at Snowden Square is closing in its current form. But apparently there is some knowledge out there that it will rebrand and reopen as a Cinemark theatre. Cinemark operates the Egyptian at Arundel Mills Mall, which I still think of as “Muvico Egyptian.” I could not find official verification in writing anywhere in a basic internet search. A helpful reader provided this link  about Regal’s financial state and restructuring but it does not mention by name the theatres in question. It did, however, make my eyes go a bit cross eyed as my brain tried to parse what I was reading. It certainly would have been good business on Cinemark’s part to publicize this in a positive way to avoid the kind of alarm and confusion we saw on social media yesterday. On the other hand, maybe that’s all a part of the plan - - I am not in the movie theatre business....

  It appears that the Regal UA movie theatre is closing. (That’s the one behind the Snowden shopping area.) I learned this - - big surprise - - from a post on social media. Regal Cinemas is closing 39 more movie theaters , Jordan Valinksy, CNN, January 2023 “Is yours on the list?” They ask. Well, in January it wasn’t. According to CNN the Maryland locations slated to close were Bowie Stadium 14 in Bowie and Rockville Center Stadium 13 in Rockville. Yet here we are: Snowden Square is closing which leaves Columbia with one movie theatre.  Horrors! Only one movie theatre! How can Columbia be an award-winning, up-and-coming place to be with only ONE movie theatre?  I know, it’s hardly like losing a newspaper . And it isn’t as though this means than one can only see one movie until its local run is over. Multiplexes mean you have your choice of “one through infinity” as my sister used to joke.  But it does mean that everyone in town who wants to see a movie will be descen...

It’s mishmosh Monday! (Wait, is that even a thing?) Here’s a conversation on Twitter that piqued my curiosity: I always thought of Ellicott City and its surroundings would be a great place for a horror film. The old abandoned St. Mary's College; the "Hell House", Seven Hills, etc... Too bad most of the historic buildings in that area have been destroyed by arson and demolished. Ellicott City is a spooky f-ing town, man! Patapsco Valley State Park is a place filled with lore. Hurricane Agnes tore through that area and lots of it never recovered. Look up the story of the Bigfoot sightings in the area. One where a body purportedly was discovered and sent to the Smithsonian? I’m no film expert but I think some creepy films have used Ellicott City locations. The Blair Witch Project, maybe? And then there’s this… Local Filmmaker Pays ‘Homage’ to Urban Legend in New Film ‘Butterfly Kisses’ , CBS Baltimore, 2018 I’m not a horror film aficionado. Are you? Can you think of any wit...

The last place I lived before planting myself in Columbia was a Baltimore County neighborhood called Rodgers Forge, which is a five minute drive from Towson State University and (downtown?) Towson. I haven’t been back much. I haven’t really had a need to. That made last night’s “road trip” to Raising Cane’s in Towson something of an adventure. My recent college grad wanted to get out and do something. Was I going to turn down an offer for a drive with my kid and dinner at a place I’d been reading about on Twitter for weeks? Of course not. There’s something about returning to a place that you haven’t seen much of for over twenty years. All the changes feel so sudden. Entire buildings have sprung up. Whole sections are missing, or different. Roads have been rerouted. I felt myself looking at it with a sense of curiosity and detachment. Think of Star Trek’s Mr. Spock with one eyebrow raised. Fascinating. The layout of Towson remains one of the weirdest and most counter-intuitive of any pl...