Quotable Quotes on Main Street

Quote of the day for Monday comes from Mark Hemmis of Phoenix Upper Main in Old Ellicott City.

"We have rebuilt twice, we have moved, we survived Gordon Ramsey, we survived a pandemic -- we are still here," Hemmis said. "This tunnel gives us the hope we will continue to be here."

Hemmis was interviewed by WJZ TV in connection with ongoing work on the County’s Safe and Sound plan, most specifically the North Tunnel Project which will be created to divert stormwater.

Yesterday local officials celebrated the next step, which will bring in a machine to tunnel through OEC’s granite. Also worth celebrating: the work of State Representative Courtney Watson and State Senator Katie Fry Hester at the state level to secure funding to bring this public safety initiative closer to completion.

You may recall that the county held a contest to name the digger: yesterday we learned that it will be named Rocky. Choices: were Ellicott Drills, Ellicott Excavator, Granite, Granite Grinder, Hudson and Rocky. I can’t remember which one I voted for but it was definitely not “Roving Radish.”

If you’d like to know more about what was going on in Ellicott City yesterday, take a look at the following coverage from local media outlets. The WBAL TV piece is the most thorough and lays out a comprehensive look at the flooding history which led to the creation of the Safe and Sound plan by County Executive Calvin Ball and the County Council. But they’re all worth a read.

Ellicott City’s tunnel mole machine has a name: Rocky, Jess Nocera, Baltimore Banner

'Rocky' ready to start boring North Tunnel Stormwater Conveyance Project in Ellicott City, Kate Amara, WBAL TV

Howard County leaders celebrate next steps for Ellicott City's new flood mitigation system, Dennis Valera, WJZ New

Flooding in Ellicott City is deadly serious. So are the increasingly extreme weather events due to climate change. Yet I couldn’t help but chuckle at the picture Mr. Hemmis paints with his words. After everything they went through, they had to survive Gordon Ramsey, too?

Hadn’t they already suffered enough?

Seeing Rocky chosen as the symbolic persona for the tunnel-boring machine reminded me of the travails of the committee tasked with naming the new high school in 2023. They seemed to come up with nothing but rock-related names:

Gabbro Quarry High School

Granite Quarry High School

Quarry Field High School

Quarry Heights High School

Quarry Hill High School

Quarry Ridge High School

Quarry Rock High School

Quarry Run High School

Quarry View High School

Rock Quarry High School

None of them appealed to the community. While the school system eventually settled on a name with historical significance, Guilford Park, it looks like the rock theme has resurfaced in OEC.

You can’t keep a good rock down, apparently.

Village Green/Town² Comments

Comments

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents. When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word. Days passed. They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts. Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public. So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that. But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...

Separate and Unequal

Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not. It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...

Village Green/Town²

Search This Blog