Author: Hazel Becker

Chewey and I would like to thank the National Park Service for hosting our excursion on this glorious fall day!

I’m glad that I’ve discovered the pleasures of walking in Rock Creek Park after living in this neighborhood for nearly 30 years. Chewey and I started taking long walks (akin to hikes, so worthy of replacing a workout!) in the spring. The terrible, hot summer put an end to that routine by the end of June, though. 
I’m glad we’ve resumed it, at least until the weather turns cold. I’m also glad for my new camera, which takes pictures far superior to those I get on my ‘droid.
The park is still pretty green – much moreso than our neighborhood, which is full of showy maples in full fall colors. Even so, under the canopy the colors are pretty intense.

Today the sky was blue and the air was crisp.

Rock Creek was clear and sometimes smooth enough to reflect the beautiful sky.

Also clear enough for Chewey to get a drink!

Here are the details (for those who doubt the part about the workout):

We’ll try to do this at least once a week until the weather betrays us. I’m looking forward to the next one already!

A Washington Post article about a Bethesda teen who’s recovering from an infection with necrotizing fasciitis (also known as “flesh-eating bacteria”) got me thinking – after I read every word. I couldn’t help but see a few parallels between her 16th birthday and my own. We both “celebrated” in hospitals, uncertain about our futures. And both of us were changed by our brushes with death at a young age.
Doctors credit Alexis Hanford’s fighting, positive attitude for making “the difference” in recovering from her infection. I don’t remember what my attitude toward my illness was, and really the parallels end with those two: “sweet 16” birthday in hospital, coming out with a new perspective on life.
My illness – characterized by dangerously low white blood cell and platelet counts – was never diagnosed with any certainty, and my struggle did not include high fevers or pain measured at 10 on a scale of 1 to 10, as did Alexis’s. True, I was confused about what was going on inside my body, and I remember studying about it – reading everything I could understand and writing papers for school before we knew that I would have to give up my junior year. But I don’t remember feeling I was fighting for my life, and I certainly didn’t face the months of rehab and pain Alexis has been through and continues to face.
Post reporter Valerie Strauss got me to thinking about this when she quoted Alexis as saying, “It just makes you look at life differently.” In retrospect, and even at the time, I have been aware of the changes this experience brought about in my approach to life, and particularly how I face adversity.
I think Alexis was referring to her exposure to people with worse afflictions than her own: she said, “What we consider normal — going to college, getting a job, getting married — isn’t going to happen for those people.” I wasn’t exposed to other people during my hospitalizations in 1963 – my low white count left me vulnerable to infection and kept me in isolation, both in the hospitals and at home, for months. I’m pretty sure I didn’t think about anyone other than myself during my recovery.
But I knew I was going through a life-changing experience. It was fall in Kansas City, and I remember watching the leaves change colors outside my window at Menorah Hospital. By the time spring came, massive doses of prednisone had begun to work, mysteriously, toward bringing my blood counts up somewhat. I still couldn’t go out much, so I spent a lot of time watching the buds and leaves unfold on the trees.
For many a spring thereafter, I made sure I watched the leaves grow in the spring. I’m pretty sure my love of nature and growing things stems from the attention I paid, through the windows, to the outside world that spring.
My parallel with Alexis Hanford, though, is in another change I perceived from the newspaper article: acquiring a different view of life. Focusing on what’s really important is pretty easy for me – I haven’t got much patience for petty jealousies or gossip, and I don’t put much importance on glitz and glamour. I don’t waste much time or energy on pursuits that aren’t rewarding in one way or another. And, I thank my lucky stars for all the wonderful experiences I’ve had while trying not to take tomorrow for granted.
I think it all stems back to my 17th year, not the happiest time of my life but one that I’m grateful for nonetheless.

The title of this post repeats what our friend Lorna Melendy said Saturday as we were selecting wines we were given as a thank-you for pouring Kilaurwen wines at a tasting event. We wholeheartedly agree!

Kilaurwen is the vineyard and winery owned by Doriene and Bob Steeves in Stanardsville, Va., a little way north of Charlottesville.
 
Doriene Steeves
We first met Doriene and Bob when Robert and Doriene’s brother David Melendy were roommates at GW – and when the three Steeves “girls” after whom the winery is named were stairsteps, all still in grade school (or younger). After retiring from federal government jobs Doriene and Bob moved full-time to the vineyard they started in 1994. In the beginning they sold all their grapes to other Virginia winemakers. They began producing their own wine in 2009. 
Saturday’s event was a small section – the “Wine Garden” – of the Manassas Fall Jubilee, an annual festival in Old Town Manassas, Va., near where two of the Civil War’s early battles were fought. We knew we were in a different world as we drove past tons of Romney-Ryan signs peppering the landscape on our way into town. Not to worry – we knew we would be in foreign territory before we left home – and not because the Confederate Army won both of the Manassas battles. Doriene and Bob have long worked for Bob and Elizabeth Dole, John Warner, and other Republicans. We enjoy their company tremendously but don’t talk politics much! When we do, they are thoughtful listeners and reasonable debaters. 

We started the day by changing into our new Kilaurwen shirts, and then Bob poured us samples of each of the wines they were selling that day. We learned to use the pouring caps that measure the “right” amount into each glass, and we learned the composition of each variety in their tasting flight. Most of their wines are dry, with the exception of one white and one red that are “off-dry” – made mostly from dry-wine grapes, with a little concentrate of sweet-grape juice with or without sugar. These Fiesta wines, we were told (and repeated often during the day), make great Sangria, and the Fiesta Red can be served chilled or warm and mulled.
We learned what varieties of grapes each wine is made of – primarily Rkatziteli and Viognier for the whites and Cabernet Franc for the reds. Their stock of Reisling and Rose wines was depleted earlier in the year, so we did not have those to offer. Some visitors came looking specifically for their Reisling, which will be back in stock in the spring when the next group of wines matures. Most of what we were pouring was made in 2010 – the exception was a 2009 Cab Franc that I particularly like.

Lorna Melendy (right) awaits the verdict of her customer.
We had a beautiful sunny morning, and in the afternoon the wind picked up. Before our shift ended at 1:30 we helped Bob take down some of the Kilaurwen banners, which threatened to take our tent for a ride.

Lorna’s friend Lynne (left) joined us on our shift.
Doriene and I were remarking Saturday about how long we’ve known each other, and I do think it’s remarkable that we’ve kept in touch through the years. That’s largely because of David and Lorna, our longtime close friends – we’ve lived near them all but a few years since leaving GW, in Connecticut from 1973-1982 and then here in D.C. We’ve gotten to know each other’s families through the years, and that includes the Steeves clan. We’re looking forward to pouring at another festival in the future. As Lorna said, “Will work for wine!”

I’m noticing more and more lately, when taking Chewey to the park in the afternoons, how little attention some parents pay to their children these days. My observations lead me to worry about the effect that mobile devices will have on the next generation – not from the kids’ using them but  from their parents’ neglect.

The other day I saw a dad supposedly watching his kids from a park bench while the boys were climbing on playground equipment carrying sticks. What a recipe for disaster! But the dad was busy talking on his cell phone, apparently engaged in a business conversation with a colleague. Dad’s gaze was directed toward the play structure, but his eyes appeared to be focused far off (if at all). A nanny with another child in the group took the sticks away – disaster averted this time – but didn’t explain why to these two boys, only to her charge. The two boys – perhaps five and seven years old – ran to Dad to complain, but he turned away from them until his conversation was finished about five minutes later.
I wasn’t shocked by this – I have become accustomed to seeing parents with tablets and mobile phones, reading or playing games while their children play in the park. Is this any different from knitting or reading while the kids watch a DVD or Netflix? I know that sometimes Gabriel needs quiet time sitting on the sofa, and if Wonder Pets gets him to be still for a few minutes I’ll try to ignore how stupid it is. Knitting helps me not to lose my mind while he’s “watching.”.
But then, I find it too easy to check email on my phone or iPad while he’s playing with his trains and then not direct my attention back to him until he demands that I do. I remember spending hours with my kids in the sandbox, or on the floor with shape-sorters and puzzles, listening to their chatter and marveling at how quickly they were learning, chuckling at some of the strange things that came out of their mouths. I just hope today’s kids get enough attention from their parents – and that their parents will have wonderful stories to tell down the road.
And I’ll try to remember this, too, when I’m with Gabriel in November. He deserves my undivided attention as much of the time as possible – and I will be rewarded with memories to get me through the long stretches we are apart!

Here’s a quick summary of my take-away from the session on Finding Freelance Success given by Robyn Sekula Davis and Jeff Cutler at SPJ’s national convention:

Capitalize on all your opportunities to write something for someone. Ask where every piece of writing came from. If you are reading it, someone wrote it.
Choose your clients with a mix of potential conflicts in mind. If you write for a company or organization, you might need to decide later on not to cover an event or happening that client is involved in. In other words, you should not cover a company you write PR or ad copy for. Think about that up front – before you write speeches or blog posts for a client in the field you specialize in covering.
Err on the side of disclosing too much about your potential conflicts of interest. That gives the client the opportunity to decide whether you have one.
Everyone you meet has the potential to throw work your way, so be open to connections.
When a potential client says “no” to a pitch, it really means “no for now.” Be open to opportunities to approach him/her another time – and be ready when s/he calls in the future.
Freelancers have NO LEEWAY for errors in their copy. They are more accountable for meeting deadlines than staff writers, and it is more important for them to follow instructions to a T.
When someone asks you what you would charge to do a particular job, don’t bid too low! Figure out how long it’s really going to take to complete the assignment, and don’t be afraid to put your number out there. There is room for bargaining down, not up.

When we first went walking on Ft. Lauderdale beach, coming home from dinner on Wednesday night, we found some areas that were marked off with posts and pink tape to keep people from crossing them. They were scattered up and down the beach, some close to the ocean and others in the dunes. My long beach walk on Thursday morning, while Robert attended the Society of Professional Journalists board meeting, revealed that these were sea turtle nests being watched over by a group called Sea Turtle Oversight Protection.

When the mama turtles come up on the beach to nest in the spring, this organization observes them and, once the females have left their deposits in the sand, sets posts and pink plastic tape around them. Each nest is numbered and given a sign that warns people not to disturb the nest. 

The female turtle comes ashore at night to lay her eggs. She digs an indentation in the sand big enough for her body and then uses her powerful back flippers to dig a deep hole for her eggs. After depositing between 50 and 200 eggs, she covers them over and returns to the sea, leaving the eggs untended. When it’s time to hatch, the babies work together to break out of the nest – usually at night. Although they instinctively head for the ocean en masse, they become distracted by bright lights in populated areas and head in the wrong direction, leaving them exposed to predators once daylight comes and to traffic if they happen across a road.
S.T.O.P. volunteers monitor the beaches in nesting season, marking and numbering the nests. The group keeps track of where they are so that volunteers can return when it’s time for the hatchlings to emerge – generally about 45-50 days later. They watch the nests each night so that they can help any disoriented hatchlings find their way to their natural habitat – the ocean. They also look for tracks in the sand and attempt to count the number of trails indicating that hatchlings made their way to the water. That’s what John was doing – the volunteer in this picture.

The variety of different tracks in the sand can make this a challenging task. There’s one set of sea turtle tracks going right to left in the next photo. The tracks going from top to bottom are from shore birds.

John was kind enough to show me what what he was seeing. This next photo has trails from three hatchlings that may have made it all the way to the ocean.

I think John was not very happy with his count that day – 39 trails. The S.T.O.P. volunteers generally hope to help a bigger number of hatchlings from each nest get to their native habitat. The odds for hatchling survival are not very high even in nature – perhaps 1 in 1,000. It would take more than 39 swimmers from each nest to ensure survival of this threatened animal.
Other S.T.O.P. volunteers could not conceal their disappointment at losing so many from this nest. They had been watching the nest for eight hours the previous night and said they left 15 minutes before the hatchlings emerged. 

Because the nest was so close to a parking lot, it was inevitable that many of the hatchlings would move toward the bright street lights instead of the (relative) safety of the ocean.

According to S.T.O.P.’s website, Ft. Lauderdale Beach is heavily monitored – volunteers had filed 705 hatch reports there by Sept. 24, covering about 60% of the 52,000 hatchlings they have counted so far this year. Of the Ft. Lauderdale hatchling crew, S.T.O.P. reports that 39% were disoriented.
Our convention hotel – the Marriott Harbor Beach Resort – says it has helped in the rescue effort by installing sea-turtle-friendly lighting, and the S.T.O.P. website seems to support Marriott’s claim. Most of the nests that have hatched so far this year on the beach in front of the hotel have been reported to have less than 1% disorientation. I doubt this was an issue for SPJ in choosing the venue, but I’m glad our hotel is doing its part.