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Adventures in Inlet Court

As October approached, nights began to get too cold for camping. Plus, the kids had already started school in Reston; so Mary and I found a multi-level townhouse for rent in Reston's Inlet Court development, on the shore of Lake Anne. We lived there for the next year, at which time we moved into another, slightly larger townhouse in the same development. I continued to work at NASD, commuting to their offices in Washington, D.C. by Metrorail.

Outer Banks Flight

The day after Easter, we gathered on the sandy edge of North Carolina, ready for a "Flightseeing" tour that promised a new perspective on the Outer Banks. We would be flying over the same landscape the Wright Brothers had flown over on the very first heavier-than-air flight. The planes were small, so Mary, Karen and Dorothy boarded one, while Jenny, John, and I and my camera rode in another. As the propellers turned and the shoreline slipped behind, we rose into a view that stretched from dune to ocean, a sweep of coast that seemed both fragile and endless.

Kill Devil Hills: Jockey's Ridge and the Wright Brothers

The following morning we traded wings for sand, climbing the vast slopes of Jockey's Ridge. The dune rose like a golden mountain above the flat coast, its shifting ridges shaped by the wind into playgrounds for anyone willing to scramble and slide. We ran, laughed, and felt the grit of the sand cling to our shoes, the same landscape that had inspired hang gliders and kite flyers for decades.

Camping For The Summer

Our six-month lease of the apartment in Silver Spring expired at the end of May. My new job at NASD was still going well; I was making enough money to support and feed my family. So it made sense for us to move into another apartment somewhere. However, I wasn't sure where. We weren't really crazy about Maryland and had enjoyed Virginia on our previous sojourn there. But Manassas, where we'd lived, was too far out from Washington where I worked.

So we decided to take our time deciding where to live next, and instead, now that school was out, we decided to camp for the entire summer while we made up our minds.

Bakersville Fire Tower

In 1975, fresh out of the Navy, I found myself in the Florida pine scrub, working as a fire control dispatcher for the Division of Forestry. It wasn't exactly a calling—more like a government program called CETA dropping me there like a wayward ember. The job came with a radio, a map, and a house at the base of the fire tower. My job was simple: listen, log, and send the plows when things got hot.

When I Was A Lad

When I was a lad I went to school But I didn't study hard, as a general rule; I learned how to read and to count to ten But higher mathematics was beyond my ken. (Yes, higher mathematics was beyond his ken!) Those higher mathematics were beyond my ken, So now I code in COBOL for an IBM. (Yes, higher mathematics was beyond his ken! So now he codes in COBOL for an IBM.)

Stock Breaker

The National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) was a self-regulatory organization for the securities industry in the United States from 1939 to 2007. (In 2007, the NASD merged with the New York Stock Exchange's regulatory divisions to form the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), which is the largest non-governmental regulator for securities brokers and dealers in the U.S. today.) But in April, 1983, it was housed on K Street in Washington, DC, and I went to work for them in one of my longest-lasting contracts of my career.

Camping Pensacola Beach

My new job paid me well enough that, when we were invited to our friends' wedding in Florida, we would all be able to go! —as long as we camped.

Still Thankful!

In the Bible, Luke 18:11 records the Pharisee's prayer: God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this Republican. While the tone is self-righteous, the underlying impulse—to feel relief at not being caught in the chaos of others' poor choices—is hard to dismiss. I agree in principle: humility is noble, and gratitude should be tempered with compassion. But in practice, it's difficult not to feel a certain grim thankfulness when surrounded by a world where reckless decisions, misinformation, and short-sighted behavior ripple outward, affecting even those who tried to do things right. I don't claim moral superiority, but I do claim exhaustion—from cleaning up the messes left by people who never bothered to think.

Still and regardless, today is Thanksgiving and here is my annual list of the 12 things for which I am most grateful.

A Visit To Mount Vernon

Now that I had some income, and my family with me, and had weekends free to do so, I was eager to show off local points of interest. And which better to visit first, than George Washington's home, Mount Vernon. Palm Sunday, April 3, 1983, gave us a soft spring day for the drive; the Potomac shimmered under a partly cloudy sky, and Washington's orchards were just beginning to leaf out. The air was cool enough for jackets in the morning, but by afternoon we were comfortable strolling the grounds.