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Category: events

It’s a Decade!

It’s a Decade!

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I’ve been looking forward to this day for months, but in the end it crept up on me. Here it is, though, 10 years since I began this blog on February 7, 2010.

I’m thankful beyond measure that I’ve been able to press on in this endeavor, even when time and troubles and life itself have thrown roadblocks in the way.

A Walker in the Suburbs is not fashionable, it’s not slick. It’s just a few words every day. But it’s a place to collect my thoughts, and it reminds me that if you stick with a project, in the end you have a body of work. As you can see from my first post (linked and pasted below) that’s all I ever wanted.
February 7, 2010
Blue skies today and people are stirring again. I went out early with the camera to capture the trees covered in white. Already the high branches are bare, blown clean of snow, springlike with swollen buds. The fir trees look like models from a miniature of the North Pole, their snowy covering like sugar icing. It’s colder today, about 15 when I woke up, and every so often a breeze blows the snow off the trees and creates a whirl of white, a brief flicker of snow fog. I think back two days ago to those first flakes in the Target parking lot. From those first flakes this white world was wrought. The snow has clung to every available surface. The most spindly branches of the forsythia have “Vs” of snow, and I can imagine the accumulation, patient and slow, crystal attracting crystal until little pockets formed. I hope this blog will be the same, a slow, patient accumulation of words.
(Thanks to Celia for her wonderful congratulations sign!) 
There’s an App for That

There’s an App for That

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This morning I heard on the radio what I thought was a victory speech from my favorite candidate (or at least the candidate who would be my favorite if this was an ordinary election season). It was a hopeful, aspirational speech and held within it the promise of true change, both political and generational.

But before I could get too carried away I switched to the station carrying news headlines — and learned there was no clear winner yet in Iowa. The new app that had been heralded only a few days before, the technology that was to make the results more robust and trustworthy … was not working.

So the speech I heard was not only hopeful in terms of our nation’s future — but hopeful in terms of a victory that has not yet (and may not) happen.

As Alice would say, things are getting curiouser and curiouser.

Happy Palindrome Day!

Happy Palindrome Day!

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Today’s date — 02-02-2020 — is not only a palindrome; it is a palindrome of all palindromes. One that applies in all date formats (whether month or day goes first).

According to those in the know, the last time there was such a day (11/11/1111) was 909 (itself a palindrome) years ago. And the next time it will come again is 101 (palindrome) years from now, 12/12/2121.

To make it even more special, today is the 33rd day of the year, and there are 333 more to go.

Happy Palindrome Day!

Modern Day MLK?

Modern Day MLK?

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We need another Dr. Martin Luther King, a modern-day voice crying in the wilderness. We need someone who has a positive vision and can motivate others to follow it; someone grounded in faith who has moral clarity. Someone who understands sacrifice and can inspire others to make one.

I think about how the world sometimes gives us the people we need when we need them. Abraham Lincoln to keep our nation together. King to lead the Civil Rights movement.

We don’t always treat our heroes well, of course. King and Lincoln were both assassinated. In their case history righted the wrong, and they ultimately received the honors they were due. But honor is not what they were seeking. It was a cause beyond themselves, a greater good.

It’s hard to imagine such a person appearing now, someone who could heal the partisanship, who could bind us together again as one nation. But I’m an optimist. I have to believe there might be.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

A Milestone

A Milestone

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This is Tom’s last day of full-time work as a senior economist. He officially retires today after more than three decades of government service. The fact that in two weeks he will begin working again for the same agency is important, yes, but today still marks a milestone in his life and in the life of our family.

There are several reasons why Tom is becoming what the government calls a “reemployed annuitant.” Some will benefit his agency and others will make our life a little easier. But what it ultimately means is that he will tiptoe into retirement, will wade into it gradually rather than diving into the deep end.

Which is not to say he couldn’t handle an immediate plunge into a life without his three-hour roundtrip commutes. He could, and in fact he will, since his new gig will be mostly telecommuting.

I’m the one who likes the gradual approach. I liken it to what the racehorse world calls “walking hots” — making sure thoroughbreds don’t suddenly lurch from 60 to 0 and sicken themselves in the process. (This is something you learn when you grow up in Kentucky.)

Retirement is a word I never used to think about but has now come out of the closet.  I’m not ready to contemplate it for myself (do writers ever really retire?), but when I do, the gradual approach that Tom is about to experience looks pretty good to me.

VA for ERA!

VA for ERA!

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Yesterday, Virginia became the 38th state to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. Three-quarters of the states have now signaled their intent to make equal rights for women a permanent part of the U.S. Constitution.

From all reports it was a jubilant day in Richmond. Cheers erupted, and the packed gallery went wild. Say what you will about this being too little, too late, I’m proud of my state for this vote, proud of the women who persevered to bring it to the floor.

I see Virginia as the last, proud runner, the one who keeps her pace even as others streak by only to falter later. I see her now huffing and puffing as she crosses the finish line, long after everyone else has gone home. Maybe her achievement will be discredited — but she knows what she has done. She can hold her head high.

(Photo: Courtesy Virginia Public Radio)

Split Screen

Split Screen

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Last night was perhaps best summed up by my daughter Suzanne, who sent around this text early in the evening: “Christmas in Washington: Cookies in the oven, Congress on TV.” I imagine this was the case throughout the nation, where holiday activities met with political goings-on.

And in fact, there were decisions to be made. Does one trim the tree while watching members of Congress cast votes for article 1 and article 2?  How about addressing Christmas cars? Would that be a suitable accompaniment for watching the president be impeached? And does one keep the recorded carols playing, or turn them down out of respect?

I settled for a smidge of online shopping and a good conversation with Celia, who thinks there ought to be an upper age limit set for holding political office, just as there is a lower one. It’s an understandable sentiment given what was unfolding before us.

Dino Walked into a Bar

Dino Walked into a Bar

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The Halloween’ness of yesterday was eclipsed by the World Series win of yesterday … until later in the day, when my office held a party complete with fog machine. There were three folks from one team who collectively dressed as “working remotely” — wearing  robes, slippers and headphones and carrying big bags of chips to munch. They won first prize in the costume competition.

There was a dinosaur, a scarecrow, an Elvis impersonator, a Minnie Mouse and someone dressed as regenerative soil. (After all, I work for a nonprofit development organization with a robust agricultural unit.)

And then there was my fave, because we hatched the plot together, a woman who dressed as the Winrock “mouse” with gray ears and tail … stuck in a sticky trap. The only hitch: this poor woman found just such a creature in her cubicle the very same day.

That’s a little too Halloween for me!

Indigenous

Indigenous

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As various news stories are reporting, there is no Columbus Day in the District of Columbia this year. Instead, there is Indigenous People’s Day.  Rather than weighing in on either side of the matter, I thought I would riff on the word indigenous itself.

It comes from the Latin “indigena,” meaning native, and I like thinking of it that way. That which is original, that which is true. Which can mean the plants that grow or the people who plant and tend them. Indigenous speaks of a connection to the land.

If we think of indigenous as native, though, then are we not all indigenous peoples? Every single one of us?  We may hail from the mountains or the prairies, the cities or the small towns. We may have grown up in a house or an apartment or a far-off yurt.

But each of us belongs somewhere. And belonging can unite rather than divide us.

Civility

Civility

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Maybe it’s something you learn as an editor, that if you’re going to take the thoughts and feelings of someone who took the time to write them down on a page, and cover these words with red ink, you’d better do it politely. But I think it’s more fundamental, a lesson we learn as children, to treat others kindly and with compassion, as we would like to be treated. You can argue diametrically opposed opinions, but if you do it with kindness and tact, you’ll get much further.

I’m hardly the first person to note that civility has disappeared from public discourse. But let me add my voice to the chorus of those bemoaning its absence. Yes, we may hail from different sides of the political aisle, may not see eye-to-eye on much of anything. But can we at least address each other respectfully?

“Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart,” said Kentucky statesman Henry Clay in another century. I’m hoping we make civility a 21st-century value, too.

(Speaking of Henry Clay, this is the old Henry Clay High School in Lexington, Kentucky, my alma mater.)