The Lie We All Live In

Earlier this week, my next-door neighbors Devon and Trina Ward noticed the letter N sprayed into their front lawn, accompanied by an empty container of Skoal, beer bottles and chicken bones. Soon after it became mailbox conversation and sidewalk small talk.

On Friday, police officers were canvassing the street, interviewing neighbors about the unfortunate incident. I myself got a ring at the doorbell from officer Rodriguez. None of us had noticed anything out of the ordinary. The police downplayed the incident and advised the Wards to cover it up.

Unbelievable.

The Wards reached out through other channels; local papers, WBAL TV-11 News and myself.
Melissa Carlson and John Cassini from WBAL interviewed the Wards, my mother and myself. Do I feel safe in my own neighborhood, they asked.

"Its the lie we all live in," I told Carlson. Its Columbia and anyone who thinks civility is the categorical imperative of our town needs to add Tom Paine to their bumper. Einstein said time and space are relative. I think he should add safety to the list.

Now I'm asking the readers of this blog and other local blogs to spread the word. The "not in my neighborhood" mentality ends where the driveways meet the streets. And on Columbia's summer streets, many a youth walks around with nothing to do.

So if you've got nothing better to do, or you'd like the details, tune in to 11 News at 11pm for the story and thanks for reading.

Under The Sun

"Well I don't want no preacher telling me about the god in the sky." Thanks Ozzy for a great song. This post has nothing to do with gods, preachers, or Ozzy Osbourne but it seemed fitting for sitting in a tunnel playing a flute under the sun.

On lake Elkhorn in Owen Brown there are are two concrete and steel tunnels that connect the lake to the river that runs behind Allview. On sunny days I enjoy sitting in the right tunnel, practicing my flute.


If however you're one of those people that likes to fish, take my advice and take the left tunnel down to the other side of Broken Land parkway for the best fishing spot in Owen Brown.

Oh Snap!

Snapping Turtle sightings have increased with the recent rainy weather. If you're walking your dog or strolling along open space paths, keep an eye open for these snappers. Snapping turtles tend to hide themselves in the low brush near stream beds. Though they don't move very fast, they have quick reflexes and can bite without warning so keep pets, appendages and skateboards out of range of their beaks. The snapping turtle shown here had claws almost two inches long and hissed just before lashing out.

Grapeheads Spotted!

I found Grapeheads along time ago while at a video arcade in theTowson area. Grapeheads are firm with some give, blue dried blueberry shaped candies. Addictive. 25 cents a box. These candies are also available in lemon, cherry and apple flavors at the Cradlerock Mart in Owen Brown. I thought it might weird the owners out if I started taking pictures of the candy isle even though I go here weekly.

Which Lots Are Best For Tots?

In Owen Brown, behind the historic church I found this tot-lot nestled between the treeline and houses. The wood is in good condition, the swings have seats and the lot is graffiti free. The one thing that stood out though is the square-springy-thingy. I'm at a loss for words as to what it is exactly but I like it.

There are numerous tot-lots in the nine villages, some old, others new. So I'm asking readers, which tot-lot is your favorite? Factors in your decision should be location, surrounding environment and variety of play for children. Good hunting! I'm eager to hear back from you.

Housing Boom in Owen Brown

Despite a contracting economy, housing is booming in the village of Owen Brown. Just off the sidewalk from the historic Episcopal church, ants are building clusters of new homes. Sources say plans are underway for the construction of a microcosmic village center.

The Space Between

I'm sure some people walk through Owen Brown village center but not me. After the revitalization by Giant Food owner Ahold, the layout of the village center was changed to bring parking lots up close to the stores, eliminating the central court and thus the need to actually walk through the center.

If you think back to the way things were, Owen Brown village center had a central pebble stone plaza ringed with benches. I don't think I ever saw people sitting on all the benches at any one time but they had choices.

Owen Brown village center didn't need revitalization, in fact it was fine the way it was. Giant Food, the anchor store, had entrances facing the center court which encouraged shoppers to walk the plaza. The current incarnation of the village center greets strollers with plain white concrete sidewalks and a grass square surrounded by a thin row of bushes, topped with brick walls.

I'd like to see Giant do something, anything with this space. Plant trees and flowers and insert tables perhaps. This gaping hole sticks out like a sore thumb, a constant reminder of the clumsy hand of the builder.

Left On Lake Elkhorn, Right?

I like to bicycle around lake Elkhorn among other places in Columbia, primarily because I live right on the edge. I'm sure this sounds pedantic to most and excessive to some but I wish people understood which side of the path to walk on in relation to the direction they are traveling in.

In America we drive on the right side of the road going forwards and on the left going backwards respectively. This is a fairly simple concept for me to grasp and for most people I would imagine. Yet every single time I bike around Lake Elkhorn, I see people walking towards me on the right side of the path.

How can you pass a pedestrian or group of pedestrians on the if they walk shoulder to shoulder? Some people walk confidently towards me on the right side of the path as though they truly believe they are in the right. My favorites are the people who walk on either side holding a stroller in one hand and a dog leash in the other; with an energetic dog at the other end of the leash.

I've never hit anybody though sometimes I may give the offender a rat face. This is in no way a major problem but if you're still reading this, thanks for letting me vent my frustrations on you. Have a nice weekend and if you have a little free time tomorrow, go out and volunteer your time to help clean up Columbia's green space!

Village Center Vitality

There are nine village centers in Columbia. Almost all of them have undergone "revitalization" in some form or another. Some village centers have sit down restaurants, others have interfaith centers, but which village center can be called the best?

I'm asking readers for their opinions on the village centers. Which village center attracts the most residents? Which village center has the best mix of shops? Which village center has the best liquor store? In essence, which village center is your favorite and why?

I'm not done. Don't just tell me which village center is the best, tell me which one is the worst. Which village center deserves the most attention and why?

Manpower Beats Back Repression

Remember when there was a cell phone store nestled between Starbucks and Three Brothers Italian restaurant? Probably not because its been replaced by Manpower. I've biked past it many times on my way to Supreme Sports Club in Owen Brown. For a while, I've wondered what its about. Today, notepad in hand, I walked in and found out.

Upon entering I was greeted by staffing specialist Patricia Izydore. The inside of the store vaguely resembles the eclectic look and layout of a cell phone store. A few pseudo offices and coffee tables line the floor to ceiling windows. Ironically, the three employees manning manpower today, weren't men.

Branch manager Debra Provencher says Manpower is a job placement business based out of Milwaukee and a fortune 150 company with 4,400 offices nationwide. Izydore says Manpower has been in Columbia for 30 years and was previously located in Symphony Woods next to Toby's Dinner Theater. The company, which worked out of the 6th floor of an office building in Town Center, moved to its present location because of increased visibility and traffic.

Manpower, Izydore says, works to pair clients with associates. Most often walk-ins are placed in temporary jobs primarily in administration and warehouse work as well as professional and technical positions. The retention rate by client companies hovers around 40 percent.

Anyone interested in job placement at Manpower needs to bring two valid forms of I.D. and complete work history for the previous 10 years. For more information, call (410) 290-5176.

What does repression have to do with Manpower? I remember hearing economists debate the semantics of our financial situation . . . the worst since the great depression or a pseudonym recession setting us up for the fall to follow.

Last Friday I sat at my desk, streaming On Point. My cuticles twitched in sync with my corneas. My attention wavered on the line between listening to Tom Ashbrook & rewriting page 33 of Fear & Loathing: On The Campaign Trail '72. Solecism aside I thought repression seemed both logical and lexical.

It's fair to say Columbia feels the squeeze of Adam Smith's invisible fingers. Businesses press & fold like bills with pale faces, buried under Big cardboard Boxes. If you look hard enough you can find the silver edge in the empty windows. At a time when people seek and jobs hide, Manpower

Is Owen Brown Safe?

My mother and I had an argument Tuesday night. She didn't want me going biking from our house on the edge of the lake to Supreme Sports Club at 9:30 p.m. Owen Brown isn't safe she said. You don't walk around the village I retorted, you drive to Giant and back for groceries. I ended up staying home and reading, but not because of our argument. The hot tub closes at nine. Lift weights and soak, its a tie in deal.

Our argument got me thinking though, is Owen Brown safe? Safety in Columbia is a relative subject. You generally don't see many people out walking or biking on a week night, even the bike guy is home by then. Is Owen Brown any less safe at night than it is during the day? The police still make rounds when they get around to it and the police helicopter can be heard and seen whizzing above the houses around Homespun lane.

Ask any Howard Transit bus driver, the brown route is no joke. I myself was almost mugged getting off the brown bus at the Owen Brown village center. Its a shame to have to carry pepper spray everywhere I go but it beats a beating.

For every person that reads, studies or walks out of the East Columbia branch library with a book, there's another from the housing ringing the school and village center walking in to check their Myspace page or chill.

The graffiti along the back wall of the Head Start building adds a nice touch and I especially like the Keno and scratch-off receipts that litter the school property. If you're lucky, you can find empty dime bags by the neighborhood pool and cop cars parked at the library and village center. To avoid armed robbery, Giant Food and the convenience store close early and Bank of America has a hired gun.

The village center isn't terrible but I'm sick and tired of the hoods that hang out in front of Jerry's, Owen Brown liquors and Giant Food playing the street game. The game works like this, hassle passers by for food, money or cigarettes. If you manage to intimidate a resident into giving you what you should get yourself, you win!

So who's right, my mother or I? Is Owen Brown safe or isn't it?

John Boyle & communal mailboxes

As an Owen Brown resident, I'm interested in what goes on. I don't have the time or desire to walk Elkhorn when it's dry and 45 F outside. It'd be cool if Patuxent Publishing Company delivered an Owen Brown weekly straight to my communal mailbox?

John Boyle has a communal mailbox too but with the Internet he delivers to a niche audience with Owen Brown News, a hyper-local blog. Boyle has a voice in his writing and tells you what's going on, straight up.

“My blog is about the Village of Owen Brown. The activities within the village, local issues that may affect village residents, calls to action or volunteer opportunities that neighbors can help with, etc. I blog because there's a fair amount of information out there that folks are interested in, but (because we're all busy) aren't likely to find on their own. I just pull the information together so that IF folks are interested, they can see what's going on.”

Boyle acts like a virtual village peg-board. He says it's not original reporting but he interprets the need to know from the noise, clean and free.

“Right now, I'm primarily pulling information from other sources (blogs, newspaper and government websites) and getting info that's passed along information from the Owen Brown Village Board. I also have some neighbors who are catching on to the fact that this is a good way to get the word out about activities that they're involved with that affect Owen Brown residents.”

Boyle and I both use Hoco blogs like a virtual communal mailbox. Ask Novello or Newburn about the Analytics but like the concrete and metal boxes, the neighbors don't get their mail at the same time.

Boyle links to other community activists and blogs with pertinent interests and keeps tabs on his friends. Not literally.

“I'd say that Wordbones (A Tale of Two Cities) is the blogger that I follow the closest. I always find his posts worth reading.”

Boyle's advice; find a point of view, let the focus of your content evolve and pace yourself.

Kathy Brodkin

Memories of the First Resident

“We had the first FHA mortgage in Columbia and they built a little square concrete step outside our back door as a gift for being the first mortgage and the first FHA mortgage in Columbia.”

Kathy Brodkin, 90, was the first homeowner in Columbia. Her husband Peter, who worked for The Baltimore Sun at the time had heard about the new town. The first time Brodkin came to Columbia, bulldozers were dredging Wilde Lake, eight months later in 1968, she moved with her husband Peter into 10713 Faulkner Ridge Circle from Baltimore City.

Brodkin grew up in rural Connecticut with an RFD postal number and a four digit phone number. If she missed the bus to school, she faced a three mile trek.

Brodkin had no concept of racial segregation until she went to an all white high school in Water Town, CT. She recalls the family housekeeper, a black woman, whom she respected like her mother and firing her babysitter in Baltimore because of a racist remark.

“We had found this really great babysitter for our kids and she was with us for a while. Then one day my daughter said something about a nigger and I was like where did you hear that?"

Before the Brodkins moved to Columbia, they never had diverse neighbors like Herbert and Marion Simmons who live near her to this day. She recalls frequent visits with her neighbors, like Ruteena Blake, the local president of the NAACP

“In 1968 to have a neighbor living across the street that was a black family, that was awesome, we were so excited when we found out were were going to get black neighbors!”

She also remembers the first Christmas in Columbia. Mr. B was Santa she says and all of the shops served alcohol to the adults while the kids received candy canes from Santa.

Of course the neighborhood had it's share of excitement from time to time, like the exhibitionist who went door to door exposing himself, or the Peyton Place neighbors.

“The people next door to me, the wife was out sneaking down the street in the back yards behind our fences and meeting the husband of somebody down the street. They were having an affair. And it was so shocking that they actually had to move, they were so embarrassed to be in the neighborhood.”

Brodkin says one year, after the fireworks at the lake front, she and her children picked up pieces of paper and bottles to clean up the area. That was the year Columbia lost its innocence when one of her children showed her a condom among the trash.

Sam Berkowitz

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. In the following days, riots ensued all over the country. Sam Berkowitz, a clinical psychologist, recalls the ripple effects in Crofton, Maryland.

"You could only get into Crofton through I think there were two gates on Route 3, two entrances. And there was a committee that went down, from what I heard, didn't see it, but this vigilante group went down with shotguns to protect the town itself.”

In 1972, Governor George Wallace spoke at Merriweather Post Pavilion and won 70 to 80 percent of the vote in Crofton. Berkowitz saw this as the handwriting on the wall.

In 1973, Berkowitz moved to Wilde Lake with his family where he met Ron Klein, a psychologist who was on the planning committee. Klein started the Family Life Center in Wilde Lake, a non-profit providing mental health services to residents where Berkowitz worked as an adjunct. Berkowitz says he served on low level committees with Barbara Russell.

“As far as I know, I knew of only one black family in Crofton, in fact they had a screening committee that my understanding was to not include minority groups coming into Crofton, so this was very very different.”

Berkowitz says he moved in next to a black family and learned that the first child born in Columbia had interracial parents. Our neighbors were friendly, he says, adding that they would often visit with their children.

Columbia, he says, has lost its small town feel and that along with the over-commercialization disappoints him. He says Columbia could do without the cookie-cutter housing lots as well.

“What they did get right was the quality of the schools and the racial mix I think has been very successful. I think the quality of the schools have lived up to the high expectations."

36 years later, Berkowitz has no regrets about moving to Columbia. He says the city is just want he and his wife wanted for their children.

Introduction

To many residents, Columbia is a town without a past. Before the Rouse Company developed the area, it was a patchwork of farms with pockets of real estate. Then in 1967, James Rouse unveiled his vision of what a town should be.

"Visions describe what best should be, could be - if and when mankind has the will to make them real." -James Rouse

This January, I had a vision of what could become an important conversation about Columbia through the voices of its residents. I decided to write this blog to capture those voices, and to create a conversation about the people who live in Columbia, all 97,000 of them.

I attended planning meetings for the new downtown, read through articles in Columbia Archives and spoke with residents. On February 1st, I began tracking down original residents with a copy of the 1969 phone book I obtained from the archives. Every resident with an e-mail address received a copy of this letter:
___________________________________________________________________
Hello Resident,

My name is Jack Cole. We spoke earlier on the phone. First off, thank you for taking my call. As you can imagine, I really only have about thirty seconds to get my point across before people usually end hang up.

I'm a graduating senior of journalism at Towson University and a resident of Owen Brown. This semester, I'm taking an independent study in the form of journalism through blogging. I'm in the process of creating a comprehensive review of Columbia, in all of its facets. Currently, I'm trying to get to know Columbia's first residents: who they are, where they came from, what they were expecting and whether or not their expectations were met.

I would like to set up a date and time when you would be available for an interview. The only days I am not available are Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I can be reached through e-mail at this address: jcole9@towson.edu.

Thank you for your time and interest,
_________________________________________________________________________________________________