What's in Dave's Head

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...

Donna and I went to Washington, D.C. this weekend and visited, among other things, the  U.S. Capitol, whose iconic dome is undergoing a two-year restoration.  It was the first time I had visited the Capitol as a tourist, although I had been there many times as a reporter back in the 1980s. We had a glorious weekend.  The weather was ridiculously perfect—70 degrees with cloudless skies at the end of October.  We walked for miles, and took advantage of the incredible complex of Smithsonian galleries and museums on the Mall.   We saw Degas’ The Little Dancer sculpture, Titian’s Danae and other magnificent artwork.  We had lunch outside.  In the evening we enjoyed a tapas dinner at Jaleo, a fantastic restaurant in D.C.’s Penn Quarter, a trendy, upscale neighborhood that when I worked (and lived) on Capitol Hill was blighted, unsafe and decayed after the 1968 riots.  On Sunday we watched the Marine Corps Marathon and saw two of our friend...

On Saturday, Sept. 6, the Douglasses will be gathering for a family reunion in Silver Spring, Maryland.  It got me and my brother JD thinking about a place we had visited as children—the home of Tom and Tillie.  It’s where my dad lived from the time he was born until he was a teenager.  I have pretty strong memories of the place and of Tom and Tillie, and I emailed with JD and talked to my dad, Paul, Jr., this weekend to hear their memories and to get details right. A preface: I love the names.  Tillie’s a good one, especially when you say “Tom and Tillie.”  Her real name was Leoma Carson (no one seems to know where the name Tillie came from).  Tom’s mother’s name was Ola Edna but was known simply as Mom.  There was Big Gene and Little Gene and Eugene.  Paul and Pauline.  Tom’s sister, Mary Frances, married a guy named Rivers.  And the middle name of my dad and his dad?  Manuel.  No idea about the story behind that....

My maternal grandfather, Earl Frank Egleson, was born in 1902 in Middle Fork, West Virginia.  I had a special bond with Grandpa Earl.  As far back as I can remember, he managed to spend a lot of time with me.  One day when I was four or five, he took me for a walk from our house in Kensington, Maryland to Wheaton Plaza, which was probably three blocks away.  It was a great adventure for me.  I remember going through woods, although there are no woods around there anymore. He spent countless hours playing catch with me.  I had a lively arm but struggled with command.  In other words, I would throw as hard as I could and didn’t care too much where it went.  Once I sailed one well past him and into a peach tree we had in our backyard, knocking down a good number of fruit.  I got in big trouble for that one. My mom has given me a number of mementos from him.  He was big into cars, and somehow she had a really cool gearshift knob...