By Helen Mondloch

With about a minute left in the broadcast of NBC News4 @ 6, Doreen Gentzler is wrapping up the evening with a lighthearted look at a new fashion innovation for shoe lovers: something called “modular shoes.”

Video footage shows a woman assembling the rubbery product on her own feet while Gentzler’s voice-over explains that the 16 shoe components—thermo-plastic blocks held in place by rubber bands—can be combined to create 256 different pairs of shoes. Gentzler also mentions the designer’s claim that the shoes can be assembled in 30 seconds. With a few of her colleagues snickering in the background, she adds, “The designer did not say anything about the comfort level of shoes made of plastic and rubber bands.”

After a split-second reflection, Gentzler opines, “That looks horrible! Not particularly attractive, either!”

With her signature blend of elegance and spunk, Gentzler is more than a local celebrity. She is something of a household staple. Since 1989, area residents have tuned in to her top-rated news casts. Fans have always been endeared by her sense of humor and the camaraderie she shares with fellow anchors, especially co-anchor Jim Vance and other News4 veterans, like meteorologist Bob Ryan (now forecasting for Channel 7), and the late, legendary sportscaster George Michael. In his farewell broadcast back in 2007, Michael (who died of cancer in 2009) called Gentzler “a sunshine girl” and joked that maybe he’d always had “the hots” for her.

At 54, the brown-eyed Arlington native with the bright smile and impeccable hair has enjoyed a virtually uninterrupted career in journalism since the late ‘70s. A wife and mother of two, she has juggled the demands of professional life with those of a busy family while accomplishing some pretty amazing personal feats as well. On camera and in real life, she is quick with a laugh but, at times, waxes quite serious. While ubiquitously in the public eye—and ear—Gentzler also knows when to assert the right to remain silent.

Courtesy of Robin Fader, NBC Washington

Local girl

When she stepped into the D.C. news scene, the then 30-something Gentzler had just turned the page on anchoring and working the crime beat in Philadelphia. Prior to that, she had anchored in three other cities, winning a few awards and a wealth of experience in all facets of the news business. Joining the team at the NBC station on Nebraska Avenue was a homecoming of sorts, as she had moved away from a contented childhood in the Metro-D.C. area when she was just 11.

“Arlington was a wonderful place to grow up,” recalls Gentzler, who was born in the District but raised on the other side of the river. “My two younger brothers and I walked everywhere. We rode our bikes on the W&OD trail. We would ride all the way to Grandma’s house in Shirlington.” She also has fond memories of McKinley Elementary School, where she served as a crossing guard and where a “young, cool, stylish” third-grade teacher named Nancy Landreth recognized her budding talent as a writer and nurtured her with extra assignments. In recent years Gentzler joined forces with a few of her old classmates to try and find the teacher on Facebook, a search she regrets was unsuccessful.

When she was in sixth grade, Gentzler’s father, who passed away last June, accepted a job in Charleston, S.C. He had always worked in insurance, while her mom had held various positions with the federal government. Moving away was a rude awakening, Gentzler recalls, as the schools in Charleston lagged “far behind” the positive school culture to which she had grown accustomed in Arlington. Nonetheless, her innate love for learning and writing persisted throughout her school years, and in 1975 she entered the University of Georgia, majoring in journalism with a minor in political science.

Taking on the news world

Just out of college, Gentzler scored her first reporting job at a television station in Chattanooga, followed a couple years later by a stint with a larger television market in Charlotte, N.C. In the mid-‘80s, she landed a position behind the news desk at Channel 3 in Cleveland, where she met her journalist-husband, and where she won an Emmy for news writing.

Two anchor jobs and five Emmy Awards later, she admits to being mystified by the television industry’s most coveted honor. “The Emmys are so hard to figure out. You can work your fanny off and create what seems like the masterpiece of your career, and it will not get any recognition,” she says. She earned that first award by writing a not-so-profound audio piece to go along with video coverage of a local fire. “Sorry!” she laughs, “I’ve done things that I’d consider way more challenging!”

Some of Gentzler’s greatest emotional and intellectual challenges involved reporting from overseas. As a young reporter in Cleveland, she traveled to Israel to cover one of the last Nazi War Crimes trials—that of a Cleveland resident named John Demjanjuk—an experience that immersed her in the horrors of World War II death camps and the intricacies of the Israeli court system. In later years she did correspondence in places like Ecuador and Bosnia. At the start of the war in Iraq, she spent a week reporting aboard the USNS Comfort, a naval hospital ship treating U.S. troops and Iraqi civilian war casualties in the Persian Gulf. Her work included live satellite reports from the ship. “The frightening part,” she recalls, “was being on the darkened ship’s deck at midnight. The Navy doesn’t want to be an easy target in a war zone, and the time difference dictated being out there at that hour to be live on the 6 p.m. news.”

Closer to home, Gentzler’s award-winning medical reports, News4’s “Your Health” segments, continually provide eye-opening experiences. “It’s a big reality check when you talk to someone dealing with a serious medical problem,” she says. The reports send Gentzler into the field, where she interviews patients and specialists about medical procedures like organ transplants and everyday health matters like exercise and nutrition. Occasionally she goes off the beaten path to explore new trends, like fitness classes that combine exercise with trivia games.

Asked if the health beat has an impact on her own lifestyle choices, she answers, “Oh, all the time! I drive my family crazy! I’m always saying things like, ‘We had a story the other day about blueberries.’ Or, ‘Let’s put ground flax seed in those muffins because it’s good for your brain.’” She also admits to giving her doctors a run for their money during routine check-ups. “’I’m always asking them, ‘Don’t you think we need to check for blah-blah-blah?’”

As an anchor, Gentzler has always attributed her success to the positive bond she shares with her colleagues, especially sidekick Jim Vance. After 22 years, the two have been together longer than a lot of couples have been married. Vance praises his partner’s intellect and empathy but also remarks that she can be “headstrong,” and that he “would not want to piss her off.”

Gentzler often muses about the remarks people make when meeting her in person. (At 5’8”, she is taller and thinner than she looks on TV, and fans don’t mind pointing this out.)

Sometimes strangers ask, “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Doreen Gentzler on Channel 4?”

On-the-job demands and heartaches

While she clearly loves what she does, Gentzler laments the way her job has changed over the years. She does only a fraction of the writing she used to do in the early days. The journalism industry as a whole has suffered a downfall, she believes, what with a 24-hour news cycle run amok. “There is less quality control, less oversight, and lower standards,” she says gravely.

Gentzler also bemoans the volatile political climate that has emerged in Washington. “What a mess! We’re so polarized, it just seems insurmountable.” But that’s about as far as she is willing to go with expressing her political views. One thing that hasn’t changed is her conviction that, as a professional, she must remain objective. Asked if she speaks her mind feely about politics when off the air, she resists the bait. “Yeah,” she deadpans.

Would she like to share some of her views now? “No, thank you.”

Any thoughts on who will be elected president in 2012? “Not a clue!”

She does offer this: “I don’t see any new candidates emerging [as of this interview] who are blockbuster stars.” She adds, “And who would want to be president under the current circumstances?” In a recent interview with President Obama, Jim Vance caught the president off guard with that very question, says Gentzler. “It’s a good question!” she quips.

Notwithstanding the excitement of reporting on the national scene, local news is what she and her colleagues do best, the anchor lady asserts. She has always believed that their job is to help viewers better understand their communities—not just to report crimes, for instance, but to shed light on the factors that spur crime in particular neighborhoods. Along those lines, she is frequently asked about how she copes with the steady stream of violence and tragedy that crosses the news wire on a daily basis. “It does wear on me, just as it bothers everyone else—especially the senseless things, or when the victim is a child.”

Gentzler grows similarly pensive when reflecting on personal losses, like the death of her beloved friend George Michael. She makes no attempt to sound wise or resilient, saying simply, “It was awful.”

Juggling career and life

Asked how she does it— how she juggles family life with a busy career—Gentzler shrugs and shoots back with, “I don’t know—How do you do it?” With a swift inhale, she then breaks out in that familiar, disarming laugh—sort of a cackle, only a lot classier. “I never, ever feel like I’m on top of everything,” she confesses.

When her son Chris and daughter Carson, now 20 and 17, were young, she would go home between broadcasts to the family’s Chevy Chase residence for baths and bedtime. The kids grew up believing that everyone’s mom returned to the office at 9 p.m., she says. Nowadays she makes a concerted effort to touch base with them in between their computer chats or over flaxseed muffins at the breakfast table.

Pictures of Gentzler’s grinning family, displayed at her surprisingly unremarkable work nook at the NBC station—just one desk among rows of many others—reveal blond, blue-eyed offspring who look more like Dad. “I had something to do with them, honest,” she says.

Don’t ask her too many questions about the kids. She likes to protect their space. She does say that Chris played football all through high school and is now studying business at the University of Pennsylvania. Carson is a budding writer who entertains the idea of becoming an anchorwoman—a goal Gentzler is not encouraging, given the dearth of writing opportunities bestowed on anchors these days.

Gentzler also demurs a bit when talking about her husband, Bill Miller, a former Washington Post reporter who now works as a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “I really should keep my big mouth shut,” she says. That’s because he handles sensitive law enforcement issues related to homeland security. He has to be very careful about what he shares with his news-lady wife, and vice-versa. But the need for discretion is nothing new. After years of working for rival news organizations, they learned to refrain from spilling the beans to each other about breaking stories. “The older we get, the better we get at it,” she notes.

Easing whatever stress is generated by rules of secrecy and crazy work hours is the family’s shared quality time. Over the years Gentzler has planned what she calls “very successful” active vacations involving biking and kayaking in places like Alaska and Yellowstone National Park. A few years ago, she returned from a family biking venture in Italy with her arm in a sling, the result of taking a nasty fall on a steep incline.

Notwithstanding the occasional injury, Gentzler’s athleticism may rank as one of her most remarkable qualities. She started running in her 20s, working up to her first race on Mother’s Day 1992, a 9K, some nine months after the birth of her son. Since then she has run two Marine Corps Marathons and several half-marathons, including the 2009 run over the new Wilson Bridge. She also plays tennis and regularly bikes.

All of which lends plenty of credence to Gentzler’s role as community spokesperson for the annual D.C. Health and Fitness Expo. Just as befitting is her active embrace of the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, an organization she cherishes for its success in empowering local women.

After more than 30 years in the never-a-dull-moment world of news media, Gentzler could certainly write a book. As the time approaches when she and Bill empty their nest, she will definitely consider the idea.

For now, the seasoned anchor lady will continue delivering the evening’s top stories and the latest health trends with just the right mix of professionalism and personality. It’s a combination that clearly comes naturally.

(January 2012)

Illustration by Ashleigh Carter

KK: Do you look at any pictures of the area or do you imagine what it might look like?
CA: “It is a combination of imagination and hard, cold research. It’s almost like 50/50, really.”

KK: How much thought do you give to maintaining geography in your work?
CA: “Most of the places we do … have generally been (hesitates) I won’t say imaginary, but most of them are sort of … created out of our own feverish imagination rather than locked down on one specific place.”

KK: When you do your research on an area, what do you look at mostly?
CA: “It depends on what the area kind of needs. It’s obviously specific to the story … I can’t afford to do an overview type of research just to get me the feel of the place because there just isn’t the time.”

KK: How much about the locations are handed down from [writer Robert Kirkman]?
CA: “Sometimes it’s been very specific; all of the Washington, D.C. stuff was incredibly specific … I didn’t want to do an imaginary D.C. It’s such an iconic city, and you can’t fudge that.”

KK: How do you go about capturing Alexandria; I don’t want to say you guessed, but …
CA: (Pause) “I guessed! (laugh) A lot of it is kind of guess-work. A lot of it … comes from nearly 40 years of reading comic books and sort of just being kind of immersed in American culture in a certain way that I know roughly what it all looks like.”

(January 2012)

By Matt Basheda

Courtesy of Christene Sockoloski (sculptures)

Arlington artist Cindy Ann Coldiron takes an environmentally friendly approach to her work, using recycled glass for her sculptures, like the sparkling dragonflies in Barcroft Park. Three years ago, when she noticed the lack of any literature unifying recycled glass art as its own genre, she took it upon herself to reveal an emerging artistic world. Her book, “Sculpture and Design with Recycled Glass,” took two years to research and ended up taking her all over the world, from Swaziland to Australia.

“My main goal in writing this book is for someone to never look at a discarded bottle, or even discarded window glass, in the same manner again,” she says. “Basically, if you were a painter and you saw canvases on every street corner, you’d grab them because you knew you could use them. … There really are wonderful uses you can make from [glass].” And to that end, she includes detailed instructions for four simple projects that readers can try. However, magnificent professional sculptures feature prominently as well, including a sun-struck bus stop made almost entirely out of discarded bottles.

Not forgetting the “design” portion of her title, Coldiron dedicates a chapter to the swiftly growing role of recycled glass in current construction and interior design. Also included are step-by-step narratives of three public art sculptures from inception to installation. And most non-artists never imagine the technical issues of various art forms, but Coldiron covers that facet as well.

Info: ‘Sculpture and Design with Recycled Glass’ by Cindy Ann Coldiron; $37.49 @ Amazon

(January 2012)

By Susan Anspach / Illustration by Matt Mignanelli

Welcome, 2012.

We’ve been waiting for you.

Now that you’re here—a fresh start! a new dawn!—there are so many things we can finally get around to, like that deadbeat boyfriend we’ve been meaning to dump (dude still lives with his mom) and that job hunt we’ve been meaning to get going on. (Although who are we kidding? It’s a recession—lots of us still live with our moms, too.)

No excuses, though! This time it’s for real, compliments of brand-spanking-new, harder-faster-stronger year 2012.

Just as soon as we text our mom asking for money so we can go gift shopping for our boyfriend. His birthday/our anniversary/Groundhog Day’s right around the corner, and it’s not as if we’re void of a soul.

Welcome, 2012.

We’ve got news for you: It’s not often that people change.

At least, it’s not often that people change all at once—in the blink of an eye, say, or overnight, or at the mythologically charged stroke of 12.

On the bright side, however, we do have potential for transformation on the scale of the long term. That is, while the return of Jan. 1 in and of itself doesn’t count for diddly—change doesn’t produce itself on a 365-day cycle—that’s not to say it doesn’t produce itself at all.

Having grown up in Northern Virginia (yeah, I’m a world traveler), looking back for me means taking a look around. So it’s not the sexiest vantage point: It’s still a distinct one, and in some ways a position of privilege.

Stay with me now, because it can’t be all sexy all of the time (a line you’re welcome to use, by the way, when you finally do get around to pulling the plug on that boyfriend).

A lot of residents spend less time in this area than they do around a revolving door. Whatever the reason—change in job, change in deadbeat, maybe your mom finally got fed up with you—plenty of Northern Virginians don’t have the time to really get to know the place. They’re hustled out just as fast as they got sucked in; as a result, they never come to appreciate the charms of that one musty used bookstore on the lake in Reston, or discover the best the region has to offer by way of sledding hills (a shortcut: You’re not going to come away disappointed from Van Dyke Park). Essentially, the people who go without a good chunk of time in Northern Virginia miss out on the chance to uncover the region’s best bits, all its proverbial nooks and crannies.

In some ways, however, those of us on the other side of the coin run the same risk. The longer you live in a given place, the easier it can be to take for granted those things that make it special, thereby undoing whatever appreciation you may have once had for it.

In NoVA, it can be easy to forget that we’re home to Herndon’s Frying Pan Park, long the dwelling place of the annually pardoned Thanksgiving turkey—a regional contribution that’s not only adorable but also significant to the landscape of executive branch history. Or that, heck, Virginia hosted the first Thanksgiving, period. (There are lots of unique, non-harvest-themed things about Virginia, too; but by now it’s like trying not to think about a pink elephant.)

Of course, letting regional landmarks and trademarks fade from attention into that bleary haze of background static is only natural, and happens all over the place. It’s how you know when you really inhabit a region: when its peculiarities stop striking you as peculiar.

I’ve got a friend who grew up in New Orleans never once having thought it strange to set out an emergency outfit before bed—you know, should a rescue boat have to whisk him and his family away in the night. Why would he have? In those parts, a flood on scale with the apocalypse is apparently never out of the question.

Then there was the college roommate I had from Brooklyn who could whistle down a cab—the badass kind of whistle, with fingers—by the seasoned age of 6. And my dad, who grew up in Ontario, and could ice skate as a toddler better than he could walk.

All of that’s to say virtually anything, even really weird and significant stuff—more weird and significant than an albino turkey named Courage, although I know off the top of your head it’s hard to imagine what—can bleed into virtual invisibility, given enough time for naturalization.

When was the last time, Northern Virginians, you stopped to consider that we are acting home to the CIA? As in, the CIA. The stuff of Hollywood spy blockbusters? Global espionage? International lore? If you’ve been around long enough to have heard it before and none of that makes an impression on you, try pulling into the CIA parking area one night when you were really only looking for Langley High School but took a wrong turn. Believe me when I say that’s a night that will make an impression.

More that may have slipped your mind: People come here on vacation—“here” as in NoVA, not “here” as in Washington, D.C. Northern Virginia is a destination, and we have been since the mid-19th century. History buffs, eat your heart out: We’re home to the battle site of Stonewall Jackson, the guy who reminded someone of a literal rock partition in a hailstorm of bullets. Sure, you know the story. That’s because Northern Virginia is the stuff of literal legend.

We are the bulk food bin of federal headquarters. When it comes to national HQs for anything you can think of, Northern Virginia is a Staples commercial on repeat. National security? We got that. Rolls-Royce? We got that. Mitsubishi, Hilton, a little thing called the Internet? You’re getting the point. I think I turned 12 before realizing there is not, in fact, a National Rifles Association looming down over every major thoroughfare in America. (And when I say it out loud, it’s a wonder that college roommate of mine from Brooklyn didn’t decide to go ahead and eat me for breakfast.)

Naturally, the quickest, most obvious way to implement change is to shake things up on the level of logistics. Switch your town; switch your job; get a landlady who’s not a blood relative. You’ll inevitably shed some habits and paradigms along the way—but you’ll pick up some new ones, too.

That friend from New Orleans eventually moved to NoVA, and has since learned how to navigate airport security at Reagan National faster than a sky marshal with Spidey sense. Now a 30-year resident of Manassas, my dad’s ice skates mostly stay in storage, but he flashes a mean security badge—no better place to learn than the Pentagon—and quite frankly looks totally kick-ass doing it.

But my point is that you don’t have to be from Canada, New Orleans or some other far-flung locale to appreciate how this fine place has made you what you are. Every now and again, when the mood strikes, just bother to turn your head from side to side and squint a bit.

So forget 2012. Forget resolutions. They don’t possess magical powers, and, well, to be brutally honest, neither do you, my friend. Promises made to ourselves on Dec. 31 rarely prove to be that swift kick in the pants we think we so desperately need.

If you’re looking for change, the only real solution is to consider where you come from in view of where you’d like to go. And we’re not wizards; no one can ever say for sure if what comes next will be better or worse.

How can you compare Brooklyn to Herndon? A job in the Pentagon to a pair of ice skates?

The best we can do is make ourselves self-aware.

Oh, and give that boyfriend of yours the ol’ heave-ho, and do it pronto. Clearly, unless he can list three facts about the presidential turkey pardon and what is has to do with Herndon, he’s never going to change.

Never.

One hundred-forty characters don’t leave room for fluff. See what we’re made of when you follow @CitySprawlNVMag on Twitter.

(January 2012)

The switch from WUSA9 to NBC4?

Angie Goff (Photo by Jonathan Timmes)

“Regardless of the station you are at, you really become close with the people. And when you wake up at 2:30 in the morning, and you have a group of people that share that burden every day, you get to know each other pretty well. The best friends that I’ve met [at WUSA9], I’m going to miss waking up with them every day and working side-by-side with them, laughing and joking, but thank goodness there is Twitter.

“I grew up with NBC—watching the people—so for me, it is the biggest honor to be a part of such an amazing team. I think being able to get back to doing news (which is where I started), and doing a show on the weekends, and being able to help wake up Washington, that is going to be great. I feel like I am home with NBC. They really make you want to rise to another level. At this part of the game, it is very easy to get complacent, but it makes such a difference when you work with people that want to make you better—that you want to be better for.”

You are everywhere. How do you keep up with everything you do? How do you keep that energy up?

“I keep the energy up when I have to, but I do have to admit that I am only human, and there are times of breakdown. There are times I go home, turn the computer off, I turn off the lights, and aside from anything my baby needs, I’m not answering the world.

“My big thing is, when you feel really, really tired, take a day off. I find that that has helped. As far as finding energy, I drink so much water people think I am going to drown. And I’ll have coffee at 7 o’clock at night, even knowing I have to go get up at 2:15 am. I think it is going to catch up with me eventually, but so far, that seems to be the magic solution to keeping me going.

“The other thing I think is doing things that truly interest you, or that your friends are involved with, or organizations that you believe in and support because that gives you motivation.”

Do you feel there needs to be a newsperson taking on the idea of the journalist as a person as opposed to the news organization?

“You are going to watch the people on television that you like, that you feel most comfortable with, that you connect with. And I think that is the same for social media. You have so many different options—so many people that you can follow or choose to be a part of your day, because that is what you are doing.

“By following their feed, or following them on Facebook, you are choosing to let them influence your day. I am honored every time I get a Twitter follower or a Facebook friend; I think it is just great, and I feel like it is only growing our community. For me, I’m there to get information, too, and to better my life. Who better to get it from then the people living right here in the community—they are our experts.”

— Lynn Norusis
(December 2011)

By Susan Anspach

Illustration by Matt Mignanelli

The holidays take on quite a different sheen when you’re a grownup living in an affluent area on a fiscally conservative budget.

And we all are; that’s not the point. That is, when you stop and consider the various-world-countries’ scheme of things, we all are living in an affluent area. But we all aren’t snatching toilet paper rolls from Starbucks bathrooms. I should know; I see the purses that shuffle in and out of those joints. (Know your competition, I always say.)

Before you cast judgment, especially this time of year, let me remind you that being a grownup in an affluent area means you’ve almost indubitably accumulated at least one or some of the following acquaintances:

Friends with the expectation of gift giving.

Family with the expectation of gift giving.

Work friends, and possibly even foes, with the expectation of gift giving.

Children—or, better yet, the children of friends, family and even the occasional co-worker—who expect nothing less this time of year than an unceasing, ribbon-festooned, category-four downpour of gifts.

And none of them gives a rat’s patootie about anybody’s fiscally conservative budget.

Now, what I’m not trying to do is rain on anyone’s Christmas parade. As a one-time child and present-day public T.P. savant, I’ll tell you I like gifts (in T.P. savant speak: freebies) as much as the next guy! As a present-day graduate student, too, however, I can also say I especially like the crisp green rectangular ones, an option that matches most seasonal color schemes and helps kick off the new year with the relief of knowing your January rent check’s not going to bounce.

So on behalf of all the co-workers, family members and friends out there, I say Happy Chanukah! Feliz Navidad! The merriest of Kwanzaas to you and yours! But on behalf of the interns, students and the otherwise untraditionally employed, I’d like to point out that some of us siphoned off less funds in the “extras” column of the December Excel document in favor of, oh, I don’t know, various pescatarian casserole ingredients.

Not that you’ll hear me complain. God bless the tuna-fish casserole, I always say. What I’m getting at is: There’s a bracket of seasonal participants who’d rather not be cast as the Grinch in the minds of the folks who go coo-coo for Christmas gifts.

Consequently, we’re left with a choice: Get gone or get creative.

You could always ditch town, I suppose. Take the easy way out. The easy, tropical breeze-blown, daiquiri-flavored path of least resistance. Let your computer mouse hover over the one-way ticket option just a beat longer than you’d like to admit. I’ve been there, my friend. My gift to you: www.CheapCarribbean.com. You go on and linger over that Barbados link as long as you damn well please.

The problem comes when we all come to our senses and realize we can’t actually justify skipping out on the mistletoe and the gravy. Turns out, access to the actual island of Barbados costs more than a Pandora subscription. Besides, the holidays only come around once a year—so that’s 12 whole months we’d have to live with the guilt and the watery stink-eye from every aunt, cousin and niece’s pet porcupine you gypped out of a box with a bow.

Still, that realization’s going to cost us—if not in money, then in ingenuity. I’m talking the good stuff. Homemade. Handmade. Made-with-love works.

It’ll knock a store-bought sweater vest on its ass every time. Don’t believe me? One time, in an unanticipated rush of seasonal generosity, my kid cousin kept me after Christmas dinner to scribble a stick figure onto a flowerpot. Start to finish, the artistic process totaled less than three minutes, and two mediums: terracotta and Sharpie. The stick figure was supposed to be me, I think, but the end result turned out looking more like a cross between Twiggy and some abstract incarnation of Frankenstein’s monster.

Anyway, that was five years ago—and the thing still occupies center stage on my kitchen windowsill. You just can’t compete with raw talent. As a region, Northern Virginia’s not often celebrated for its artsy side. Occasionally we’ll snoop past Alexandria’s Torpedo Factory; the really cultured among us may head out every now and then to a Fairfax Symphony concert. Best regional orchestra in the country, but I’ll bet you didn’t know it, did you? The only reason I can come up with for our less-than-robust artistic reputation is that we already lay claim to some of the best schools, top jobs … not to mention the first American spa to offer the fish pedicure therapy. There’s only so much that can hog the spotlight at any given time.

But all the evidence I see around me speaks to a snazzy creative streak, too. I’ve got a neighbor who wires sculpture out of old abandoned bicycle parts. A colleague whose apartment walls are decked in enormous, swirling abstract oil paintings: her own. A friend who designs and tattoos characters culled from literary fiction.

Basically, you can bet money none of their aunts ever gets shafted on the gift-giving front.

Not necessarily so for the rest of us, because when you’re an adult, you can’t get away with Sharpies and a smile. If you’re going to go the homemade route, you have to lay claim to actual right-brain aptitude. Some genius, flair.

So where, pray tell, does that leave the rest of us, the ones with scant funds and less than awe-inspiring imaginative vision? Without much a choice, that’s where.

With a recent gift-gifting occasion hurling toward me right before the start of the holidays, I found myself in a nook of the Internet previously unexplored: the make-your-own-holiday-ornament pages. (And I’ll tell you something: If anything out there is homemade, it’s those Web pages.) But I thought I could at least scrap together a few ideas.

Glitter paint, while admittedly, ah, spirited, looked like a party time ingredient for the “Cat in the Hat.”

Glass-blowing was a good for a laugh. Who do these people think reads this stuff? Here’s a tip, folks: There’s no Internet connection at Ye Olde Renaissance Fair.

Polymer clay seemed to waffle somewhere in the middle between most extremes, and their website had a step-by-step skill-level section for kids. You’re not recreating Michelangelo’s David, but at least their mini clay snowman had two eyes and a spine seemingly unafflicted by scoliosis, which is more than I can say for Flowerpot Lady From the Black Lagoon. Polymer clay: winner, winner, chicken dinner.

Here’s what the polymer clay people don’t tell you about polymer clay. (Lies, all lies. There’s no doubt in my mind they tell you somewhere, like in the instructions.) If it gets overheated—like if, say, some of the clay drops to the bottom of the oven, and then gets cooked again and again, and again and again, say, when you’re baking a tuna-fish casserole—funky little whiffs of smells and smoke start to emit from the oven. Run a quick Internet search for over-baked polymer clay. Glance the word hydrochloric. Google hydrochloric. Glance the word poison. Run for your life. Forget to turn off the oven.

At the end of the day, what matters most about this time of year is the meaning of whatever it is you want to celebrate. But that doesn’t mean we approach it without expectations.

For the graduate student in your life, do yourselves both a favor, and keep the bar low.

Real low.

I’m talking be-grateful-for-a-gift-wrapped-in-toilet-paper low.

Talk to the bird. Get in with City Sprawl online when you DM, retweet, reply or mention @CitySprawlNVMag on Twitter. (We’ll even talk back—and we’re mouthy.)

(December 2011)

After an All-American career at Villanova, Reynolds did not make the NBA. Now he toils in Europe and the NBA’s minor league with a surprising goal in mind.

Scottie Reynolds (Courtesy of Eric Wallis/Springfield Armor)

A basketball is kicked from one end of the court to the other. Forty teenagers, messing around on the sidelines, waiting for their chance to play, fall silent for a second.

Scottie Reynolds, his retired No. 3 on the wall, has just lost an early June pick-up game and, in frustration, punted the ball from one end of the gym to the other.

“We couldn’t give up a two,” he says, just loud enough to be heard by absolutely everyone in Herndon High School’s tiny gym.

As Reynolds, dressed in a loose grey T-shirt and baggy red shorts, goes to collect his belongings, finished for the day after playing three short games, Herndon’s varsity basketball coach Chris Whelan explains the rules.

“A lay-up is one, a three-pointer is two,” he says.

So Reynolds’ team, made up of a mix of Herndon students and local adult players, leading 6-5, gave up a long-range shot and lost 7-6.

“He just hates to lose,” Whelan says, before jogging out to midcourt to set up the next game, making sure the younger players, ninth-and 10th-graders, get some time on the floor.

It’s not the first time Reynolds has chucked or punted something after a loss.

After the Hornets fell 55-51 to Booker T. Washington in the 2006 Virginia Class AAA state championship game, Reynolds tossed his runner-up medal into the crowd.

“It probably was something I shouldn’t have done,” Reynolds told the Washington Post after the game. “I hate second place. I hate to lose.”

That was more than five years ago, when he was just 18-years old. Now 24 (10/10/87), Reynolds still hates to lose, even in a pick-up game with high school kids.

Reynolds, a 6’1″ guard, launched a tremendous four-year career at Villanova after graduating from Herndon, highlighted by his game-winning shot that earned the Wildcats a trip to Detroit for the Final Four in April 2009.

A Free Agent

At the end of his senior season at Villanova, Reynolds was named a first-team All-American by the Associated Press and hoped to be drafted by an NBA team.

So when the Phoenix Suns announced Dwayne Collins, a forward from the University of Miami, as the 60th and final pick of the June 2010 draft, Reynolds went from All-Star to underdog. Dreams of the NBA weren’t dashed, but definitely put on hold.

That night, for the first time in his sports career, Reynolds was a man without a team.

“That’s the biggest adjustment,” says Ed Pinckney, a 12-year NBA veteran who coached Reynolds at Villanova and is now a coach with the Chicago Bulls.

As a major talent in AAU, high school and college games, Pinckney explains, Reynolds never had to worry about making a team. In fact, the team was usually built around him. “That’s not the case anymore.”

A Year of Growth

Reynolds is arguably the best player to come out of a Northern Virginia public school since Grant Hill starred at South Lakes High School 20 years ago. He wowed D.C.-area fans as an 11th-grader with a 43-point game against DeMatha during a tournament at American University in December 2004.

“He was seen as big time, and he was big time,” says his Herndon teammate Danny Jones, who played against current NBA players Kevin Durant and Michael Beasley because Reynolds’ profile resulted in invitations to big tournaments in high school. “People were definitely expecting him to go to the NBA,” Jones says.

Those fans and former teammates want Reynolds to make it, not only so they can say they knew a star before he had to shave, but also because Reynolds, according to people like Pat Chambers, currently Penn State’s basketball coach and a former assistant at Villanova, is a genuinely nice person. “I would leave him with my kids and trust he would take care of them,” he says.

But making it to the NBA is one of the toughest tasks in sports, since with 30 teams and just 15 roster spots a piece, one must be among the 450 best players in the world to play in the league. Reynolds, in spite of his credentials, is just not there yet.

Not Your Average Dream

Reynolds fuels his sometimes four-a-day workouts with more than just the promise of prestige and five-star hotels. He has something more in mind, and to understand his dream, it’s necessary to quickly recap his back story.

Reynolds, who says he still sees himself as “a grown kid,” was born in Alabama and adopted as an infant by Rick and Pam Reynolds, who moved their family to Herndon in 2001 after a stint in Chicago. He has three older siblings, biological children of the Reynolds’, and a younger brother and sister who were also adopted. He has not yet sought a meeting with his birth mother even though the family worked with a private investigator a few years ago to locate her.

He says he dreams of seeing Pam Reynolds and his birth mother sitting together and watching him play in the best league in the world.

“I want that for them,” says Reynolds, whose struggle with being an adopted child was documented in a story published by USA Today in 2009. “I think it would bring everything together. It would bring a lot of peace of mind for everybody, especially me. Hopefully it will work.”

Of course, the $500,000 minimum salary for an NBA rookie would be great, but Reynolds wants something on which he can’t put a price—to unite his family. Consequently, he frets over every career-related decision. He asks himself: “What if this choice ends up being a mistake and my dream falls out of reach? I want to make sure I do the right thing. For some people it’s easy, but I need to contemplate, ask a lot of people. … It causes a lot of stress,” he says, “but it shouldn’t be that hard for me to make a decision.”

For example, before accepting a likely six-figure contract from a second-division Italian league team, Prima Veroli, in the summer of 2010, Reynolds surveyed all his friends and past mentors. Signing the contract should have been cause for celebration, but it brought on tears and self-doubt.

He wondered how come he didn’t get drafted by an NBA team. “Did I not take another rep on the bench press? Did I not dive on the floor?’ he asked himself. “It was just a bad night.”

Reynolds says Italy was never a good fit, and yes, he felt out of place and a bit homesick. A former player from the league says Reynolds didn’t play particularly well, either, and the team lost three of its first four games. Reynolds left before the fifth game of the season, but before he had time to worry about what he would do next, he was chosen in the NBA Development League draft. A few weeks later, he made his debut with the Springfield (Mass.) Armor, a team affiliated with the New Jersey Nets, who still hold his rights for this season.

Under the tutelage of Dee Brown, the Armor’s coach who had a 12-year NBA career and gained fame by winning the league’s Slam Dunk Contest in 1991, Reynolds thrived. He worked on leading a team instead of just scoring; passing instead of shooting; managing a game instead of just dashing down the court for the winning lay-up.

“Coach Brown showed me a whole different view of the game,” Reynolds says. “That’s going to help me later on in my playing career. For me to get eight points and 12 assists, that was better than scoring 30.”

Reynolds played 46 games for Springfield, averaging 13 points and nearly six assists per game. He recorded the first double-doubles (games with at least 10 points and either 10 assists or rebounds) of his career. He made the league’s All-Star and All-Rookie teams.

But just that, according to an NBA scout familiar with Reynolds, will not be enough to make it to the NBA.

“He’s just not quite good enough, I don’t know what else to tell you,” says the shoot-it-to-you-straight scout, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he’s not authorized by his team to speak about players. “He wouldn’t embarrass himself in an NBA game, but he’s gonna be a third-string point guard. If he had more potential, he would have been called up.”

Because of the NBA lockout, which began in early July, no one from the Nets or Armor could comment on Reynolds’ status for 2011-12 in time for publication. But even if Reynolds returns to Springfield, his promotion chances remain slim. In the history of the “D-League,” going back to 2001-02, only 128 players have been promoted to the NBA, and most for a short time. Last year, 20 players made the jump. And every season, there are more players like Reynolds who come into the league: some who are younger, some who have just come off a big season in Europe. But they’re all competing for those few call-ups.

Not Everyone Makes the NBA

After a while, some players stop asking “Why didn’t I make it?” and decide they would rather make a good living playing the game they love. Scoonie Penn, 34, went through the same pains as Reynolds 10 years ago. He led Ohio State to the 1999 Final Four and was an All-American. He even was drafted by the Atlanta Hawks, but he didn’t make the team. “A lot of guys go to Europe and have a very good living, a very good career and make very good money. So don’t just sell yourself only on the NBA,” says Penn, who took over Reynolds’ roster spot on Prima Veroli and helped them to the league’s semifinals. “There’s a lot more basketball out there. Not everyone gets the chance to play in the NBA.”

Reynolds, in a crisp white T-shirt, necklace, casual shorts and slip-on shoes, seems calm sitting outside the Starbucks in the Worldgate shopping center and talking about his future. But it’s easy to imagine the frustration, anxiety and anticipation swirling inside him. A summer which should have presented some opportunities to turn some heads in NBA-sponsored leagues close to home became a regimen of workouts bracketed by a trip to Puerto Rico for some playoff games in the late spring and 10 games in a Philippines pro league during the months of July and August.

The league’s labor instability made Reynolds’ already murky future became even murkier. Established NBA veterans were talking about going to Europe to play, likely shrinking chances for players like Reynolds.

It’s enough to make a guy consider getting out of the game entirely.

“The one thing I hate about this profession is you never know, day-to-day, what’s going to happen. You always gotta be ready,” he says.

The uncertainty, and a need to impress a scout or a coach in order to find a spot on his next team, has Reynolds wound tight, something he’s asked a therapist to help him manage. Reynolds thinks he can sustain this intensity for three or four more years. But unless he has a breakthrough, he might explore another basketball-related career, like starting a business coaching young players. Whelan also says Reynolds had been contacted by ESPN about being a college basketball analyst.

So why does he keep at it?

“The biggest thing that’s kept me going is fear,” he says of the last 18 months. “The fear of failure. The fear of letting people down. The fear of not getting to where I want to get.”

Days after the conversation that formed the basis for this story, Reynolds, aiming to impress scouts and earn a few dollars, got on a plane bound for Manila, Philippines, to play for the Tropang Texters of the Philippine Basketball Association. He was the team’s “import” brought in for the playoffs, which included a championship series against the Petron Blaze. While Reynolds started fast, scoring 37 points in his third game (July 29), he faded by the end and was actually cut in favor of the team’s original import, who had stayed in the country. Reynolds was back in the U.S. by the time the Texters lost the decisive seventh game.

Reynolds says he regularly gets positive comments from both current NBA players who know him from college, and Jay Wright, the Villanova basketball coach, recently mentioned his former player’s visit to campus in a positive light: “Great to have Scottie Reynolds back working out @Nova – passionate as ever – great impact on our guys!”

So it’s not unreasonable to think Reynolds, who was not reachable for a follow-up interview, might give the D-League another shot. The scenario works for him right now, fueling the early wakeups and getting him through long plane trips to places like South Padre Island, Texas and Bismarck, N.D.

Losing a pick-up game, or being cut from a team, ratchets up Reynolds’ anxiety about the future, and in a way, it makes sense that basketballs are sometimes punted when the pressure builds up.

“If I don’t make the NBA,” says Reynolds, overcoming some hesitation, “I feel like I failed. It’s not right, and I know I didn’t fail, but that’s what keeps me running.”

Scottie Reynolds: 2006 to Present

March 2006:
Named Virginia State Player of the year, leading Herndon High School to state finals. Finished with 2,033 points in four years.

Feb. 28, 2007:
Scored 40 points for Villanova against University of Connecticut as a freshman; named Big East Conference Rookie of the Year for 2006-07.

March 28, 2009:
Beat University of Pittsburgh with last-second shot to propel Villanova to Final Four.

Nov. 23, 2009:
Appeared on regional cover of Sports Illustrated college basketball preview issue.

March 22, 2010:
Appeared on regional cover of Sports Illustrated NCAA Tournament preview issue.

March 29, 2010:
Finished with 2,222 points at Villanova and named first-team All-American by Associated Press.

Oct. 1, 2010:
Scores 17 points in first professional game for Prima Veroli.

Oct. 22, 2010:
Plays final game for Prima Veroli.

Nov. 2010:
Appears in first game for Springfield Armor of NBA Development League, goes on to make All-Star team and All-Rookie team.

April 2011:
Travels to Dominican Republic to play two playoff games with Domingo Paulino of the Santiago league.

(November 2011)

Unabashed public transit supporter Jason Mendelson is setting WMATA’s Metrorail system to music—one train station at a time. Below he shares thoughts on his ROY G B “MetroSongs” project and accomplishing his musical goal (86 stations, 86 songs).

Jason Mendelson (Photo Courtesy of Maryanne Drury)

On his musical bio:

“Technically, I started playing music at age 4 with a simple chord organ my grandparents got [for] me. At age 10, I joined the school band and learned trombone, which I played until graduating from the University of Tampa in 1998. I started fooling around with guitars and keyboards as a teenager. I learned about recording by helping a professor build the college music department’s studio in 1996.”

On being an Alexandria resident:

“My wife and I lived in and near Tampa our whole lives. Last year, with our wedding approaching, we realized we were both ready for a change of scenery, and these strange things we had heard of called ‘seasons.’ I fell in love with [Northern Virginia] instantly. In Tampa, everyone owns a car. Heck, everyone’s dog owns a car.”

On lyrics:

“Some songs practically wrote themselves because of their locations’ rich history. Others required a little more creativity, like ‘Van Dorn St.’ For that location, which is near a popular parcel delivery service’s local hub, I chose the perspective of a truck driver ending his shift and getting ready to ride the train home to his family … and dinner!”

On each station’s musicality:

“I’ve toyed with elements of power pop, folk, country, swing, blues and electronica, in addition to good old rock and roll. I’ve recently taken a particular interest in trying to sound like specific artists as well, like Steely Dan, Belle & Sebastian, Kenny Howes, Elvis Costello, Stereolab, and most recently, with ‘New York Avenue Invasion,’ The Beatles.”

On boarding the Party Train:

“’Pizza Party at Virginia Square’ from ‘Volume Two: Party Train’ is based on a true story. I was riding the Orange Line … On one side of the train were three or four couples. … A girl on the other side of the aisle sat with two boxes of pizza. The guys in the group were eyeing that pizza, and the girl was happy to share. … I usually hate to see people breaking the no-food rule … but I have to say this was absolutely hilarious.”

On the 86 song finish line:

“Originally, I wanted to finish one line at a time … ‘Volume 2’ covers lots of lines, not just Red. It covers locations where there are really fun things to do, like falling on your rear end ice skating at the Archives, dancing like a fool at a Clarendon nightclub, or hanging with the neo-hippies in Takoma Park. I have done all three of these things.”

(November 2011)

By Lorin Drinkard

Ryan Fountain (Photo by Lorin Drinkard)

It all started with a reunion. Fraternity reunion, that is. When born-and-raised Arlingtonian Ryan Fountain was put in charge of T-shirts for his upcoming Xi Omega Kappa bro get-together, he discovered Zazzle.com, a website that allowed him to upload different shirt designs that his Greek brothers could buy directly online.

“I’ve always had an artistic side,” says Fountain, an Arlington Cultural Affairs employee by day, apparel artist by night. In April 2011, Fountain decided to upload another one of his designs—a stencil of 16th Road S and Walter Reed Drive—this time, to Facebook. “People liked it right away,” says Fountain, the creative force behind South Arlington Apparel, a collection of 30-plus designs featuring local A-town landmarks. “My inbox was flooded with email requests.”

From the Green Valley Pharmacy to Bob & Edith’s Diner, Fountain captures what he believes to be the essence of the many treasured local establishments in SoArl’s neighborhoods. “There’s art in everything,” says Fountain, who frequents Shirlington Village’s Caribou Coffee and has been getting haircuts at Ho’s Barber Shop for years. “You just have to find it.”

Courtesy of South Arlington Apparel

And it’s not just shirts. South Arlingtonians can represent their neighborhood (Claremont, Fairlington, etc.) through stenciled illustrations of popular crossroads and landmarks on trucker hats, sweatshirts, tote bags—even coffee mugs—ordered through his Fountain of Youth store on Zazzle.

(November 2011)

What Northern Virginia can expect from the next 100 years (other than flying Metro cars and restaurant reservations for dogs, obviously).

By Susan Anspach
Illustration by Matt Mignanelli

For three cozy but relatively claustrophobia-free years, I worked a 9-to-5 job in the heart of Tysons Corner … a cold, metallic heart whose cockles pumped CO2 emissions, and the kind of despair uniquely inspired by rush hours that could outlast even an Energizer rabbit on ‘roids.

All the same, that heart was my bread and butter. So I knew it—valued it, even—like the back of my perspiring, nerve-rattled hand.

I knew just what time to split from my driveway to skid into my work garage at 8:55 a.m. on the nose. At the end of a long weekday, I could mentally conjure a grid of back roads to navigate past the slithering masses all mindlessly headed for the interstates. And, should I have happened to desire an after-hours aperitif, I maintained a mental Rolodex of bartenders who could get the job done in a timely, but tasteful manner (X axis: speediest; Y axis: yummiest).

All of that’s to say my familiarity with Tysons was a fine-tuned science.

So you can only imagine my despair when, recently passing through my old haunts, I found myself not only lost, but wholly wayward. Navigationally forlorn. Where were the familiar merge lanes, the old traffic patterns? What happened to the exit numbers I used to know? Now I was faced with sweeps of highway that lead nowhere, other than empty stretches of sky. Towers that supported nothing, other than their own tubby concrete midsections.

Northern Virginia, if our future is now, I’ve got to tell you: I was sort of hoping for an urban metropolis that doesn’t look like it got shoved off the back of the ugly bus.

But maybe I’m not being fair. In spite of Tysons looking, well, not herself these days, the Men in White Collars seem to be encouraging us to think of her reconstruction as we would invasive surgery: It won’t look pretty or feel nice, but ultimately, it’s for our own good. Not so long from now, we’ll have pedestrian access! A better economy! Livable community! (Roughly translated, in Tysons speak: crosswalk timers that last longer than the time it takes to pick your nose, lunch options beyond the six-inch sub, and a mall kiosk selling Galleria-grown produce. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for you, Fairfax.)

That being said, when it comes to individual jurisdictions, your hopes and dreams for the future are just that: your hopes and dreams. If Alexandria wakes up one morning and decides to supplant its waterfront with a permanent pirate cove installation, then I say power to Alexandria! Should Reston drain its lakes and offer up the remaining pit of dirt for all future Northern Virginia monster-truck rallies, then that’s Reston’s prerogative.

Hey, all I can tell you is, the future is coming. I never said anything about a guarantee of aesthetics.

Anyway, what I think we should collectively focus on is what this influx of future-oriented energy means for the big picture. The grand scale. The chief Kahuna that is Northern Virginia at large. As an aside, though, has anyone ever noticed it’ll take six months to patch up a pothole, but when they really put their minds to it, they can make Tysons an unrecognizable spaceship lair overnight? There’s got to be a distant relative of Murphy’s out there with a law—or at least some sort of half-baked hunch—on this kind of thing.

Back to the Kahuna. Most of us find ourselves on the side of resisting change. We’re skeptical because we’re human—and not only human, but humans with a history. Earlier this year, Manassas celebrated the 150-year anniversary of the Civil War—its own personal Civil War, if anyone from Manassas is to be believed. (Not that I’m suggesting otherwise, especially since more Confederate flags cropped up in Manassas that week than you could shake a stick at; and, frankly, I’d rather pick a fight with a pirate driving a monster truck.)

While we’re on the topic of territory, who here remembers back in the early ‘90s when Disney threatened to plop a theme park down in the middle of rural Haymarket? (They’d have known what they were in for if they’d seen the way folks around here all but tar and feather the committee behind every new Wal-Mart that threatens to lay roots anywhere close.) Walt Disney: Quite literally the largest media conglomerate in all of the world, and it didn’t stand a chance against Northern Virginians with a bone to pick—especially if that bone boils down to more highway congestion.

Still, whether we like it or not, change surely is on the way—and if Tysons’ past two years have taught us anything, it’s that somebody may have sprung to upgrade it to Acela.

So just what is Northern Virginia going to look like in, say, a hundred years? Evidence—ahem, Disney—has clearly shown no one guy’s vision is going to perfectly match another’s, but I’ll tell you what: If you take issue with my blueprint, come rustle me up a hundred years from now. We’ll talk.

I figure we can pretty much bank on the flying cars and clothing styles plucked straight out of the “The Jetsons.” The future’s not really now ‘til we’re all wearing Elroy-inspired antennae beenies, is it? But what about the changes at risk of opposition? What kind of stuff’s on our horizon that doesn’t necessarily stand to improve the view?

Well for starters, Metro will be a many-tentacled thing. Soaring trains, hologram conductors—and every rider will come stamped with his own in-skin Smartcard microchip. If you don’t like it, you can just take a hike … or an escalator. A hundred years from now, most of them still won’t be running.

Our region’s always been teeming with brainiacs, and brainiacs breeding still more brainiacs. So long as we play backyard to the nation’s capital, nothing’s ever going to change any of that—but it’s up to the schools to supply the demand and keep things from getting too cutthroat. Otherwise it’s not hard to imagine that a hundred years from now Baby Mozart will be for amateurs, and NoVA’s expectant masses will be popping pre-natal vitamins stamped—in the wee bittiest script you ever did see—with the complete unabridged works of Leo Tolstoy.

Naturally, it won’t take too long for the Northern Virginia pet society to loom larger and more mightily than it does now. Before you know it, we won’t be snickering at the idea of doggie happy hours—we’ll be confronted with the very grim reality of fancy doggy prix-fixe dinner menus.

And you want to know something? No Fido I know is above snapping up your supper reservation.

Finally, as far as electronics are concerned, much like the present, no NoVA techie worth his salt will be caught dead without his Apple product du jour. Except unlike the present, no techie will have to be. A hundred years from now, the company will be so devastatingly hip that all its gadgets will be colored “Shimmer,” or “Pure” … or some other clever corporate euphemism for “literally transparent”—bringing a fresh new dimension to the catchphrase “fake it ‘til you make it.”

If you don’t believe me, you don’t have to. After all, it doesn’t actually take a hundred years to notice sweeping change. My parents remember when they first moved to the region three decades ago, and Tysons was all but empty on weekends … especially Sunday mornings, when everyone was at church. (Apparently, now we worship at the altar of Hollandaise.) And who knows? It’s possible that I’m wrong on all counts. Maybe NoVA’s future will bring a return of gentler, less hectic, less congested days.

Yeah. And maybe there’s a pirate wielding a monster truck, right this instant, making the turn for Tysons behind the wheel of his four-by-four. Just for his sake, I hope it flies.

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(November 2011)