Inspirational Message

In a few short days, an African American man will move from his private residence into a much larger and infinitely more expensive one owned not by him but by the taxpayers. A vast lawn, a perimeter fence and many well trained security specialists will insulate him from the rest of us, but the mere fact that this man will be residing in this house should make us all stop and count our blessings - because it proves that we live in a nation where anything is possible. Many believed this day would never come. Most of us hoped and prayed that it would, but few of us actually believed we would live to see it. Racism is an ugly thing in all of its forms and there is little doubt that if this man had moved into this house fifteen years ago, there would have been a great outcry - possibly even rioting in the streets. Today, we can all be both grateful and proud that no such mayhem will take place when this man takes up residency in this house. This man, moving into this house at this time in our nation's history is much more than a simple change of addresses for him - it is proof of a change in our attitude as a nation. It is an amends of sorts - the righting of a great wrong. It is a symbol of our growth, and of our willingness to "judge a man, not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character". There can be little doubt now that the vast majority of us truly believe that this man has earned both his place in history and his new address. His time in this house will not be easy - it will be fraught with danger and he will face many challenges. I am sure there will be many times when h e asks himself how in the world he ended up here and like all who have gone before him, the experience will age him greatly. But I for one will not waste an ounce of worry for his sake - because in every way a man can, he asked for this. His whole life for the past fifteen years appears to have been inexorably leading this man toward this house. It is highly probable that that in the past, despite all of his actions, racism would have kept this man out of this house. Today, I thank the lord above that I am an American and that I live in a nation where wrongs are righted, where justice matters and where truly anything is possible.

Who is this man? you ask.

Attribution: Compliments fromT. M. Throckmorton via e-mail.

Older Than Dirt

'Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?' 'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I informed him. 'All the food was slow.''C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat 'It was a place called 'at home,'' I explained. ! 'Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.' By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table. But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it : Some parents NEVER! owned their own house, wore Levis , set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died. My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow). We didn't have a television in our house until I was 5. It was, of course, black and white, I was 13 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called 'pizza pie.' When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had. We didn't have a car until I was 4. It was an old black Dodge. I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line. Pizzas were not delivered to our home. But milk was. All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 6AM every morning. On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day. Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. Touching someone else's tongue with yours was called French kissing and they didn't do that in movies. I don't know what they did in French movies. French movies were dirty and we weren't allowed to see them If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing. Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it? MEMORIES from a friend : My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to 'sprinkle' clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old. How many do you remember?Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.Ignition switches on the dashboard.Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.Real ice boxes.Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.Older Than Dirt Quiz : Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about Ratings at the bottom. 1 Blackjack chewing gum2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water3. Candy cigarettes4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes6 . Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers7. Party lines8. Newsreels before the movie9. P.F. Flyers10. Butch wax11. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels) 12. Peashooters13. Howdy Doody14. 45 RPM records15. S& H greenstamps16 Hi-fi's17. Metal ice trays with lever18. Mimeograph paper19 Blue flashbulb20. Packards21. Roller skate keys22. Cork popguns23. Drive-ins24. Studebakers25. Wash tub wringers

If you remembered 0-5 = You're still youngIf you remembered 6-10 = You are getting olderIf you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!I might be older than dirt but those memories are the best part of my life.

Compliments via e-mail from S. Bennett

Have another example to contribute, please do!

This is your neighborhood. This is your town. This is North Beach.

Buy Locally

Bank of America has issued the following alert:

"Store Closings & Gift Cards"

I wanted to give a heads up that if you tend to give gift cards around the holidays, you need to be careful that the cards will be honored after the holidays. Stores that are planning to close after Christmas are still selling the cards through the holidays even though the cards will be worthless January 1. There is no law preventing them from doing this. On the contrary, it is referred to as 'Bankruptcy Planning). Below is a partial list of stores that you need to be cautious about.

Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)

Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide closing

Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine's to close 150 stores nationwide

Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January

Cache will close all stores

Talbots closing down specialty stores

J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots)

Pacific Sunwear (also owned by Talbots)

GAP closing 85 storesFootlocker closing 140 stores more to close after January

Wickes Furniture closing down

Levitz closing down remaining stores

Bombay closing remaining stores

Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January

Whitehall closing all stores

Piercing Pagoda closing all stores

Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.

Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( New Brunswick )

Macys to close 9 stores after January

Linens and Things closing all stores

Movie Galley Closing all stores

Pep Boys Closing 33 stores

Sprint/Nextel closing 133 stores

JC Penney closing a number of stores after January

Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.

Wilson Leather closing down all stores

Sharper Image closing down all stores

K B Toys closing 356 stores

Loews to close down some stores

Dillard's to close some stores.

So what better reason is there to buy locally ?

It is good for the Town. It is good for the Neighborhood stores. It is good for North Beach

Great Recipe

1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.

2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Talk to God about what is going on in your life. Buy a lock if you have to.

3. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, 'My purpose is to__________ today. I am thankful for______________'

4. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.

5. Drink green tea and plenty of water. Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli , almonds & walnuts.

6. Try to make at least three people smile each day.

7. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.

8. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.

9. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.

10. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

11. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

12. You are not so important that you have to win every argument. agree to disagree.

13. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.

14. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

15. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

16. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: 'In five years, will this matter?'

17. Forgive everyone for everything.

18. What other people think of you is none of your business.

19. GOD heals everything - but you have to ask Him.

20. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

21. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch!!!

22. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

23. Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements: I am thankful for__________. Today I accomplished_________.

24. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.

25. When you are feeling down, start listing your many blessings. you'll be smiling before you know it.

Send this to everyone you care about.
Direct attribution goes to our very good neighbor Michael Parrish. (Thanks Michael!)

Have any other good recipes, you know what to do.

This is your Town. This is your Neighborhood. This is North Beach

Pie n the Sky

Pete’s Pies (Key Lime Pies to be exact) is on vacation while getting its act together with the Calvert County Health Department as one person, who obviously didn't get a sample, felt the need as a responsible (sic) citizen, to accomplish. The citizen was right on the mark because in Maryland, unlike the Commonwealth of Virginia, you cannot bake food products in your home kitchen for commercial distribution. I am thankful that this person informed on me, during the proposed Town Hall debate, to the Health Department, since, after receiving a certified letter from the agency, I got to speak with one of its very attentive staff members. Since then, I also got to meet an ancillary victim of this incident-Kim of Kim’s Key Lime Pies in Solomons Island, Maryland.

As previously stated, I am doing what I should have done in the beginning, learning the applicable rules, mustering the funding, so when approval to begin anew “Pete’s Pies” is given, I can hit the ground running.

With all that has happened in the past two months, it never dawned on me , contrary to Health Department information, that Kim was not the one who reported my transgression. I visited Kim last Sunday and she was stunned that someone had used her name to complain about Pete’s Pies . A very engaging entrepreneur, Kim regaled me with the histrionics of her career and her store’s operation, which was both impressive and informative.

For obvious reasons, I think my Key Lime Pie is the absolute best, but all should know that Kim’s is a definite contender. After all, that is how it all got started.

On a balmy early summer evening on the porch of the Westlawn Inn, there was a discussion about Key Lime Pies and who could make the best one. Great topic for a small town. I had an old "family” recipe and held an informal tasting of my pie on the porch of the Westlawn Inn to celebrate former Mayor Mark Frazer’s appointment by Governor O’Malley to the state's higher education board. Indeed the pie was a contender and “poof” it was gone. Similar ‘free’ distributions of the pies went to friends, neighbors, relatives, commercial establishments, restaurants, and judicial officials as far away as Annapolis, and, not to my surprise, the responses were all very positive. Samples were also given to Town Hall staff in an effort to get permission to sell the pies at this summer’s Farmer’s Market. The response to the two pies that were left was very positive, but I abandoned the marketing effort in light of the fact that I could not honestly attest to a requirement that the ingredients were locally grown, a criteria for any submission to the Farmer's Market. I probably could have satisfied the process by buying eggs from a local farmer, but it seemed like such a costly effort when I can walk six blocks to Roland’s to get the same. Catch 22, support a local establishment or……you get the picture.

Kim and I are in complete agreement that Key Lime pies are not cheap to make both in terms of product costs and also preparation time, so to market the same would have to be at a price of at least $3.50 a slice, with a minimum of eight slices to a pie, you may net a decent hourly rate with multiple pies in the oven. So my investment in this new venture, with market testing and consumer sampling of this ‘contender’, was very substantial.
I am moving forward with “Pete’s Pies” and hope to be fully licensed over the winter so Kim and I can have a ‘bake off” in the spring of 09. She would actually like to have a ‘throw down” with Bobby Flay, but I am initially from New York, so ……………, what do they say about.....seconds?

There is a multi faceted moral of this recital: I was able to dust off an old “family” recipe, which has been uniformly well received and experience ideally what small towns are all about. ‘Two steps forward, one step back” is a process that I am becoming used to as well. I am learning what entrepreneurism is all about. Even with this “one step back” experience, I got to meet Kim, who is making a difference! Last but not least, small minded people, who operate in the shadows of cowardice, deception, using someone else's identity and who engage in mean-spiritedness really do not know what they are doing, and like the donkey in the "Wells Are All Covered Up", it may ultimately come back to bite you!

I make a very good Key Lime pie!

This is your Town. This is your Neighborhood. This is North Beach.

Veterans Day

I met a guy while working in the middle of the night Saturday who commented on the recent election results, in the context, "That he hoped his two tours as a jumper with the "82nd Airborne" in Viet Nam in the late 60s-early 70s was not in vein." The emotions simmered a little when I told him my older brother Mike did two tours with an armour division out of Ft. Hood Texas in the late 60s as well. Unlike those brave ones who fought for the United States in Viet Nam, we sometimes forget what sacrifices, personal, physical and emotional they experienced or continue to endure.

When I used to ride Harleys, I participated in the annual Rolling Thunder to the Wall in DC, initially for the fun of it, but upon arrival at the Pentagon Parking Lot staging area, my purpose changed. Seeing the hundreds if not thousands in worn military jackets, or jackets with symbolic MIA patches, my focus turned to the higher meaning given to this important event. Some of my grade school and high school friends' names are engraved in the Wall. I occasionally think about them, remember the pranks, the sports challenges we shared, the girls we dated, the alcohol we drank while being underage. My friend Joe Blanchard, served two tours in the Special Forces in Viet Nam. The frustration got the best of him and he took his own life shortly after his return. His neighbor Marine Lieutenant Eddie Bower's name is on the Wall and I have vivid memories of the wailing and tears running down Trish Hunt's face upon learning of the loss of her brother. They are not here now to share in the memories, but I am here to pray for their salvation and the hope that he or she is looking out for me.

Similarly, to Denise Lucero, Mike Overfelt, Bob Tinari, Mark Frazer, Aric Euler, Smokey Ward, Gene Brown, Bud Hunt, Greg Dotson, Ron Russo, George Owings, Fr.David Russell (U.S. Marine) and hundreds if not thousands of other veterans in Calvert County, my brother Mike in Long Island, my former neighbor and friend Robert Gonder, dec'd (101st. Airborne), G. Gordon Liddy, Sen. John McCain, Sam Raker, Willard Morris, Uncle Dent and so many others who have served our country with distinction on the battlefield or off, in Viet Nam, the Middle East or elsewhere, I say: "Thank you for your service to our Country!"

A special thanks to Gen. A.C. Widemeyer, who made it possible for brother Mike and I to achieve some goals in life and to so many others who served with distinction in Korea, and in World Wars I & II.

I would not be able to have this blog or the ability to write profiles or speak out on the issues that I believe to be important had it not been for all of them or you. My prayers are with them and you.

To formerly respond to the veteran's rhetorical question: I do not think your service was in vein!

This is your Country. This is your Town. This is your Neighborhood. This is North Beach!.

The Wells Are all Covered Up

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally, he decided the animal was old, and the well needed to be covered up anyway, it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to every one's amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well. He was astonished at what he saw. With each shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and happily trotted off!
Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the wells created by the North Beach Citizens Council is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of our troubles are a steppingstone. We can get out of the deepest wells just by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.
Remember the five simple rules to be happy: Free your heart from hatred - Forgive. Free your mind from worries - Most never happen. Live simply and appreciate what you have. Give more. Expect less.
NOW............ Enough of that c...p. ... The donkey later came back, and bit the farmer who had tried to bury him. The gash from the bite got infected and the farmer eventually died in agony from septic shock.
MORAL FROM TODAY'S LESSON: When you do something wrong, and try to cover your butt, it always comes back to bite you.

Alternatively, the harder people work the more chance of success they have. The more they practice the more chance of success they have. In case of emergency hard work, and practice pay off. Prayer’s help also. Sometimes emergencies are opportunities in disguise – our hard work and years of practice will soon pay off as opportunities will come our way because we keep our chin up and never give up. When the time comes we will be ready to perform and succeed!

You have two choices...smile and close this page, or pass this along to Russell K. Thurston and fellow members of the North Beach Citizens Council!