What's in Dave's Head

Donna and Kate and I had dinner last night with our daughter Eileen and her husband Andrew at their apartment in Baltimore’s Brewer’s Hill neighborhood. Andrew’s parents, John and Diane, were there, as were Andrew’s aunt and uncle, Elaine and Dean. After much bourbon, followed by a spectacular lasagna dinner and much wine, Dean and I were talking about his work as an independent video producer. He was talking about work he recently did for a client, interviewing owners of car dealerships. Many car dealerships are family owned businesses and are passed from generation to generation. One of the things that struck Dean was the amount of community outreach many of these families do. It makes sense from a business standpoint: As you contribute to the community, you build your network of potential customers. But it’s much more than that. Many of these family businesses contribute to the community for the purpose of, well, contributing to the community. After taping an interview ...

When I was five our family moved to a neighborhood in Rockville that would become a Paradise for me.  Our new home was on Leverton Road, the southernmost street in Hungerford, a suburban tract development of modest single-family houses. 800 Leverton Rd. Two attributes made my childhood home special: One was that the sprawling neighborhood of a few hundred homes was built all at once and filled with families, like ours, with kids, so I instantly had playmates by the dozen. The second advantage was that within walking distance were my elementary school and a rec center with a ball field; a community pool and a fantastic park that were built a few years later; and, best of all, dense woods on three sides of us and winding, long trails throughout them. We spent as much time outdoors as possible .  Nobody I knew stayed inside much unless they were sick or being punished. We found plenty of things to do.  We were among the first people to move in, so ther...