Another Loss for Lewes

I was saddened this week to learn that Howard Seymour has passed away. Howard died at home on December 4. He was 79.

Howard was a member of the Lewes Board of Public Works and sat as an ex-officio member on the Lewes Planning Commission. So, for the last several years I've spent about one evening each month with him. He was a cranky-seeming guy, but he knew all about the city and the utilities that serve the city.

He liked to appear crusty and cantankerous, but at heart he was a sweet, kind, wise man. He will be missed.

We're losing too many of our city's characters. Howard was one of the people who made Lewes unique and special. We've lost Howard. We lost Mayor Smith. It's been a rough year.

British Car Club?

British Car Club?
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie.

I couldn't help noting that the British Cars in the Lewes Christmas Parade this past week-end was led by... a Japanese truck.

Arts in Education in the News

Two stories caught my eye in today's News Journal. Both touch on issues around the Arts in Education.

The state leaders from around the US gathered in Wilmington this weekend for the Council of State Governments meeting heard about the importance of Arts Education from Daniel H. Pink. Pink is the author of A Whole New Mind, a guide to navigating the shift from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age. He told the group of the importance of teaching students to take advantage of their artistic and creative strengths as well their ability to read, write and calculate.

The challenge, he said, for state governments -- especially in an era of federal- and state-mandated academic accountability tests and graduation standards geared toward English, math and science mastery -- is to make room for and encourage students to take part in arts programs that hone those skills.

What pleased me most, though, was to see Delaware's Governor picking up on that theme.

Pink's arguments rang true to Gov. Ruth Ann Minner, who said she's been toying with the idea of adding an art requirement for high school graduation.

"It's not something I've really discussed with my staff yet," Minner said. "But I've always thought that the arts were important to be a well-rounded person."

Indeed.

Karen and I have been supporters for many years now of a choice school -- the Southern Delaware School of the Arts -- that was set up to use a focus on the arts to support the academic goals of students in first through eighth grades. Both of our girls are students there and Karen is a part-time teacher. The last few rounds of state testing I think have borne-out the efficacy of the school's approach; SDSA students are among the leaders in test scores.

The sports section of today's paper had a profile of Darnerien McCants, former Washington Redskins receiver and now a back-bencher for the Philadelphia Eagles. McCants also attended Delaware State University, in Dover. I became a Darnerien fan when he joined the 'Skins partly because he had been a Delawarean, partly because he was an underdog, and partly because when he did get a chance to play, he exceeded expectations.

Darnerien never did quite fit into the current plans of once and present Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs. I like to think that that is just because of the bigger-named receivers that have been brought in this season. He was released by the Redskins and picked up by the Eagles. His playing time for the Philadelphia team has also been limited.

And yet, as the newspaper profile makes clear, Darnerien McCants has more to do in life than just catch footballs.

When it was mentioned to Darnerien McCants that he's an athlete who also is an artist, the Eagles wide receiver smiled and shook his head.

"You got that backward," he said. "I'm an artist who's also an athlete. My football career could end at any time, but I'll be creating art as long as my hands and my brain are working. Art is forever."

He credits his teachers in the arts program at Delaware State with awakening the artist in him. And he's not limited to one medium, as his web site makes clear. Darnerien McCants paints, draws and sculpts, he writes poetry and music, and he sings.

I was interested to note, though, that it wasn't until he got to Delaware State that McCants found an arts program to engage his native talent. There'd been no support in the schools he attended growing up in Maryland. This is no knock on Maryland; I grew up there myself. I think it's more a function of the times than the state.

Now, McCants is looking ahead to the inevitable end of his football career.

McCants is thinking about his life after football, but he knows trying to make a living off his art would be difficult. So his goal is to become a high school art teacher and also coach at that level.

If he follows through on that idea, I'll be a fan of Darnerien McCants for a long long time.

Irony, Thy Name is... Irony

Life is good. The Village President of the suburban Chicago village of Justice has been charged with fraud.

Secret Desire to be an Outlaw #45

There's a growing trend towards PhotoCakes -- birthday cakes whose icing features images, sometimes copies of old baby pictures, cunningly rendered in the many-hued icing now available.

Often these are the sheet-cakes favored for office birthday gatherings for co-workers. And they sit there by the mailboxes all day as people wander by sneaking small slices throughout the day.

I've noticed that people tend to avoid cutting into the photo section as long as possible. As a people, we must have some deeply ingrained reluctance to cut into a baby's face with a kitchen knife. I think this is a good thing, by the way.

I find I have this slightly disreputable desire to arm myself with a small tube of cake-decorating icing that I might whip out when no one is looking and draw cartoon mustaches on those pictures.

I must have some anti-social tendencies. Anti-cake, anyway.

Home for the Holidays

For Thanksgiving, we headed over to the suburbs of Washington DC and spent a night in my childhood home. This is the view out of the front windows.

I grew up among trees, and hills. Fall was truly a time of fallen leaves for me.

Are Fuel Prices About to Fall?

A Local Focus

I was a bit surprised today to read a story on the Michael Scanlon plea agreement in my local bi-weekly newspaper, the Cape Gazette.

Scanlon pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy stemming from the Justice Department's investigation into high-powered Washington lobbyists. He's a former member of former House Speaker Tom DeLay's staff, and is a big-time lobbyist.

Now, I was once in news broadcasting in a small market. I know that, to effectively report on a national story, you sometimes have to find the local angle. But I was surprised today to read this headline:

Rehoboth Beach lifeguard
pleads guilty to conspiracy

It turns out that Scanlon is also a former member of the Rehoboth Beach Patrol. A lifeguard. So the story included a discussion of how the charges, and the unfolding scandal in Washington, might reflect on the resort town.

Buckson said there is no connection between Scanlon'’s federal conspiracy charges and his work as a lifeguard. "I don'’t think they'’re related. I don'’t think they're connected, Buckson said.

That's Rehoboth Beach Patrol Capt. Kent Buckson.

It seemed odd to me to be reading about this story in terms of the Rehoboth Beach Patrol. What do the worlds of resort-town lifeguards and Washington insiders have in common? More than I thought, apparently.

While Scanlon was known as ruthless in Washington, he was also a generous friend to many Rehoboth Beach lifeguards.

He allowed friends and lifeguards to use his house in Dewey Beach and his vehicle. Rehoboth Beach Patrol Capt. Kent Buckson said that in 2004, several guards were shuttled from Georgetown to Daytona Beach, Fla., for the U.S. Lifesaving Association National Championship aboard Scanlon'’s private jet.

Lifeguards with private jets. Who knew?

Tagging Our Christmas Tree

On Saturday, Karen, the girls and I were at Sposato's Tree Farm to tag our Christmas Tree. We head out each year around Thanksgiving Weekend to find a tree on this farm. We tag it and return a week or so before Christmas to collect it, cart it home, trim it and decorate.

Sposato's is a middle-sized tree farm between Milton and Lewes. They have a landscaping business and, I think, a Bed and Breakfast.

The tree farm is starting to be surrounded by subdivisions. I worry that its field of trees may be replaced by another collection of cul-de-sacs.

But, for now, it is still the Christmas Tree Farm that gets our business each year.

Our approach to choosing a tree is chaotic. We spread out among the rows of trees, each looking for those that meet our own preferences. Colleen likes tall trees. Christina likes cute ones. Karen likes well-formed, symmetrical trees -- though she also has a fondness for Charlie-Brown trees. Me? I wander around unhelpfully, taking experimental, expressionistic photos.

Eventually, though, we end up with a couple of candidates. Then, we have to negotiate. We post a guard in each tree. Tree-tagging is a competitive sport; we don't want some other family snagging one of our candidate trees. We hurry back and forth between the two, comparing and contrasting and discussing.

We work it out. There are compromises and concessions. In the end, we tie our family tag to the chosen tree and head back home.

RIP: Link Wray

Link Wray
Originally uploaded by rustovision.

Link Wray has died. He was 76 years old and living in Denmark, where he appears to have (sort of) retired.

Link Wray was a pioneer of early rock music, and recorded some of the great pre-punk, pre-grunge music that helped give rise to gritty forms of rock in every generation since.

Link Wray had ties to the Washington, DC, area, where I grew up. I learned about him as my playing in a high-school punk band led me to the ripe Rockabilly scene in the DC area in the 1970s.

Hearing his very simple, but growlingly powerful tune "Rumble" for the first time remains a powerful moment in my life.