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KLMNO POSTLOCAL Talk to us. Talk to newsmakers. Talk to each other. Join the conversation at postlocal.com Focusing on your community


Each week, our photographers bring you scenes from your community. Today, take a look through the lens of Sarah L. Voisin at the waterfront in Tylerton, on Maryland’s Smith Island.


JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON


His unchained reverie comes to abrupt stop


did my best lying when I was about 11 years old. I’m thinking of one lie in particular, employed when I would come home later than my parents had asked me to. Say they’d asked me to be home by 5 p.m. and I — having had too much fun playing Army men with my friends or throwing dirt clods against tree trunks (oh, the joy of a well-proportioned, slightly friable dirt clod) — didn’t get home till 5:30. I would say, “My chain came off my bike.” The key to a successful lie is to have


I SARAH L. VOISIN/THE WASHINGTON POST W ✔


aterman Bill Clayton, 64, starts his workday before the sun rises in Tylerton, Md. The community is one of just three on Smith Island, Mary-


land’s only inhabited offshore island; tiny Ewell and Rhodes Point are also there.


The residents of these villages are mostly watermen and their families, who make their living fishing for oysters and crabs. But Clayton says they are a dying breed. Most of the younger generation is leaving the family businesses and finding a new way of life. Asked how the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will affect the Smith Island


watermen, Clayton says he is sure the price of crabs will go up because of the increased demand, but he doubts any of the watermen will see the ex- tra money. Smith Island is 13 miles west of Crisfield between the Tangier Sound and the Chesapeake Bay, and is part of Somerset County. The island’s southern tip, which is uninhabited, is intersected by the Maryland- Virginia line.


To see more of Sarah’s photos from Tylerton, Smith Island, go to washingtonpost.com/photos.


You voted 85%


of you said texting while driving should be outlawed nationwide, according to a user poll on postlocal.com (as of Wednesday evening).


Share your thoughts on D.C. area driving and other getting-around issues with The Post’s


transportation staff at washingtonpost.com/transportation.


Q&A


Morgan Bramlet, 48, of McLean has a full-time job in communications — and is also an author, having self-published the novel “Virtual Death: A Cyber Thriller.” He talked about his life, work and goals with The Washington Post’s Avis Thomas-Lester on her Rapid Reinvention blog.


A real thriller about virtual reality


What do you do? In my day job, I’m the senior director for branding, creative and video production for the American College of Cardiology, an association representing 37,000 cardiovascular professionals — the heart doctors.


Needs a fix


Join your friends and neighbors who have suggested improvements in their communities at our new online Daily Gripe feature.


Wanted: Stoplight at D.C. intersection


Some D.C. residents are clamoring for a traffic


light at the intersection of Florida Avenue and R Street NW in the Bloomingdale neighborhood. The District Department of Transportation recently installed signs reminding cars to stop for pedestrians, but reader Matthew said that’s not enough.


“I would rather walk across a tightrope over a pool of lava,” he wrote. DDOT has installed two crosswalk signs on Florida and a pedestrian yield sign on westbound R Street as a short-term fix while the agency reviews the situation, according to spokeswoman Karyn LeBlanc. “There’s a certain number of criteria that [the intersection] has to meet in order to warrant a traffic signal,” she said. In the meantime,


LeBlanc


recommends that pedestrians cross Florida Avenue a block away at First Street NW, where there is a traffic light. We’ll keep you updated on this Gripe as there’s news.


Suggest things you want fixed — and read about things that have been fixed — at


washingtonpost.com/dailygripe. THE DAILY QUIZ


Where does the couple featured in Wednesday’s House Calls live?


(Hint: The answer is in today’s Local Living Section.)


EARN 5 POINTS: Find the answer, then go to washingtonpost.com/postpoints and click on “Quizzes” to enter the correct response.


Why were you driven to write this novel? I think just about every creative person would say that they are primarily driven in order to have their voice heard or their story told. I’m no different. There are always ideas, concepts and bits and pieces of stories swirling around in my head. The trick is to pluck one of those ideas, examine it, give shape to it and see where it goes from there.


What do you think was the smartest move you made? Initially when I was shopping the novel through traditional channels, there had been a tremendous amount of interest but also a number of starts and stops. At one point, it was set to be represented by the William Morris Agency. But the publishing market is fickle, especially with “new writers,” and it takes months or even years sometimes for a publisher to make a decision. It can be an incredibly frustrating process. In going the self-publishing route, I took the fate of this novel out of the hands of others and put it into my own.


What was the biggest challenge you faced in writing? The biggest challenge is always going to be finding the time. I have a family and a demanding career, so my writing hours are usually between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. or so.


Tell us


Capital Weather Gang blogger Ann Posegatewants to hear the serious — and comical — ways that the area’s first heat wave of 2010 affected you.


How hot was it?


It was so hot . . . . . . you fill in the rest.


Tell Ann your summer heat stories — and get local forecasts, weather analysis


and more — at washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang.


POINTS EVENTS Share Your Expertise


Give back by sharing your knowledge with local charities that need a boost! You can be a pro-bono consultant, serve as a nonprofit board member, or donate goods or services. Greater DC Cares will help you identify the right opportunity and find projects near your home or office. Contact Greater DC Cares at volunteer@greaterdccares.org, or call 202-777-4447.


Interact with Avis and other contributors to our online On Success panel at washingtonpost.com/onsuccess.


Today on POSTLOCAL.com


Got plans? If you don’t know what you’re up to this


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Your opinion We want to know what you think of this page and all of our local coverage. E-mail us at metro@washpost.com


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Summer video contest: What are you doing this summer? We want you to show us by taping and submitting a 30-second video capturing how you’re spending your summer in the metro area. John Kelly is one of the contest judges. Enter at washingtonpost.com/30-second-summer and win a prize.


A complete list of PostPoints Spots can be found at washingtonpost.com/postpoints.


supporting documentation. Mine came in the form of my greasy hands, which I would raise as if in a shrug. Here was proof that my chain had come off my bike and that I had spent some period of time wrestling to get it back on, time that had made me regrettably, unavoidably late. How else could my hands have gotten greasy? Certainly not from me just rubbing them against the chain at Greg Carpenter’s or Scott Baughman’s house. I thought about that lie this week when I was stuck on a Metro train. There is nothing further from the fanciful flights of childhood than being stuck on a Metro train. We were stopped in a tunnel on the Red Line when my mind transported me to an 11-year-old’s suburbia, a landscape I traversed on a three-speed with a coaster brake as confidently as any shoeless Yanomami Indian trod down a jungle path. I knew the borders of my world, a geography demarcated with various landmarks: the houses of classmates, good places for gathering sticks or strange seedpods, barking dogs, culverts . . . Here was the flat bit of sidewalk where girls played hopscotch. There was the impeccable lawn of the retired couple that none dared walk on. It seemed in my recollection a time of near-endless play, of lawn darts and slot cars, balsa wood airplanes and dirt clods. My memory was suffused with the overwhelming sense of movement, of running and tumbling, of the incomparable rush of a bike building up speed, spokes flashing. Who wouldn’t tell a lie to extend that for even just a few more minutes? I was jarred from my reverie by the train


operator’s announcement that we would be holding at that location. My teenage children were on the train with me, both of them that morning starting summer internships downtown. We were a trio of little worker bees, drones on the way to the office. How far my daughters’ childhoods were from


my own, I thought. What kid rides a bike these days? What parent would let an 11-year-old pedal off to destinations unknown? (Without a helmet! Without a cell phone! Without a transponder implanted under the skin!) My older daughter kept pulling back her


sleeve to look at her watch. We hadn’t moved in 10 minutes. Her very first day, and it was looking as if she might be late. I thought of what she would tell her new bosses. Her chain came off her bike? No, she wouldn’t need to lie. “The Metro was messed up” was something everyone would believe.


Cleaning up your act Is your car dirty? Has someone written “Wash


Me” or “Government Dirt Experiment” in the grime of its trunk or the dust of its door? Then head over to Redland Exxon in Derwood this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Kids from the Shady Grove Middle School and Magruder High School Leo Clubs are holding a car wash to benefit Camp Moss Hollow. This the third year that the clubs, youth adjuncts to Lions Clubs International, have held the fundraiser. “No set price,” says sponsor Karen Buscemi, “but whatever people wish to donate for a clean car.” The gas station is at 17651 Redland Rd. Or, if you’d prefer, you can make a tax-deductible gift by mailing a check or money order, payable to “Send a Kid to Camp,” to P.O. Box 96237, Washington, DC 20090-6237. Or contribute online by going to www. washingtonpost.com/camp and clicking on the donation link. To use MasterCard or Visa by phone, call 202-334-5100 and follow the instructions on our taped message. kellyj@washpost.com


Join me at noon Friday for my online chat. Go to washingtonpost.com/discussions.


THURSDAY, JULY 1, 2010


COURTESY MORGAN BRAMLET


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