September 2006 Volume 40 Issue 1 Serving the people of Cabin John and beyond 37th Annual Crab & Chicken Feast Festivities Will Commence at 2:00 PM on September 9 by Lisa Nicholson It’s time to mark your calendars once again, because Cabin John’s 37th Annual Crab & Chicken Feast is slated for Saturday, September 9, from 2-6 pm at the Clara Barton Community Center. A local tradition since the late 1960s, the feast allows Cabin John to celebrate its sense of community in a relaxed manner. Features include delicious food and refreshments, a Rabner © Ruth children’s bike parade Volunteers preparing green beans at last year’s crab feast. to the feast, live music, children’s entertainment, and Cabin John Local businesses, including the Market on memorabilia and t-shirts for sale. (continued on page 9) 8th Annual Canoe Trip Charts New Waters by Burr Gray side of the river where we had lunch, took a team photo, and then proceeded back to the Maryland This year’s 8th Annual CJ Potomac River Canoe side. At that point, we made a very short portage Trip expedition, on July 23, was very different and then paddled back up the C&O Canal to our from those of the starting point. This loop is prized by boaters since INSIDE previous years. We it allows you to park your car and put in at the spot moved the location up where you take out. At this point it was about 4:00 river so that we put in at pm, but Dave Smith (head guide) and his assistants Neighborly News ............................................2 Violette’s Lock, about were not done and they headed out for another run 8 miles northwest of accompanied by CJ resident Tim Kallman and his Profile: Clare Amoruso ...................................3 Potomac Village. The friends from South America and Belgium. The run then takes you down rest of our crowd, consisting of the following folk, CJCA News ....................................................4 a series of very mild were happy to head home: Walt Dence, Ross Dence whitewater stretches, and a friend, Elaine Hornauer, Gill Cook, Robert River Center Activities ....................................8 after which our group Patch and friend, Scott & Heidi Lewis and their moored our boats in the kids, Forrest & Lorraine Minor, Pete Couste and Growing Native ..............................................9 middle of the river and his two children, Michelle and Christopher, Reed we did a little swimming Martin, Nick Fobe, Jackie Hoglund and her guest, Cabin John T-Shirts ..................................12 (not very deep). We and Burr Gray. All in all, we had about 15 canoes, proceeded to a nice not counting guides. Dave Smith provided his sand bar on the Virginia (continued on page 5) The Village News Neighborly News by Barbara Martin Thanks to Don Cable for identifying some of the married to Bo Money who was Fire Chief for CJ unknown kids in the 1976 playground picture that Fire Department Station #10. I attended Churchill appeared in the July Village News. They are: #4 High for 2 years, then graduated from Whitman in Darla Cable, #5 Brooke Peyton, #6 Chris Busi. 1970. I am looking for family, friends, classmates who lived in Cabin John or still do, to contact me. I Pete Quinn of Ericsson Road, commenting on an would love to get in touch with them. It has been a article in the last issue about the streets of Cabin very long time. I remember standing in front of the John Gardens, writes, “...you state that John Ericsson Good and Quick, drinking hot chocolate, waiting designed the Merrimack. Actually, Ericsson for the bus with my friends. If you remember me, designed the USS Monitor, a Union Navy ironclad I’m at [email protected] or (304) 839- that Abraham Lincoln is said to have described 9381, or PO Box 595, Harpers Ferry WV 25423.” as ‘a cheesebox on a raft.’ Family lore says that one of my ancestors worked on its construction in (continued on page 10) Brooklyn...The Confederacy used the hull of the burned Union vessel USS Merrimack on which to build its ironclad chip, the CSS Virginia.” Community Calendar Michael Peterson, 23, of MacArthur Boulevard, died in July when the car he was riding in went off the road and struck a tree. Michael’s parents are Robert and Michele Peterson. Michael worked 26 .......Going Native Ambassador Meeting with his brothers, Thomas, James, and Robert, as 7777 Democracy Blvd. a freelance soundman for media outlets. 9 am - noon (see p. 9) Marty Rouse and Scott Sherman have moved to Cypress Grove Lane. Marty is the National Field AUG Director for the Human Rights Campaign, and 2 - 4 ........................ Labor Day Art Show Scott works for the Federal government. They Spanish Ballroom, Glen Echo Park have a 6-year-old son, Sasha, who will be starting 12 - 6 pm (see p. 5) kindergarten at Bannockburn and a 2-year-old son, David. Marty and Scott would like to hear from 5 ............................. Fitness Classes begin neighbors who would be interested in setting up Clara Barton Center play dates for the kids or hellos for the grownups. (see p. 4) Erez and Amy Levev have come from New York to Seven Locks Road with their two 4-year-olds, 9 ............Cabin John Crab & Chicken Feast Adam and Ariel. Amy is a physician, and Erez is a Clara Barton Center computer software engineer. 2 - 6 pm (see p. 1) From the Potomac Conservancy’s newsletter, 10 .............. Montgomery County Birthday Riverscape, comes the information that our own Beall-Dawson Park C&O Canal Park, designated in 1971 as a national SEP 103 W. Montgomery Ave., Rockville historical park, receives 4.2 million visitors each 2 - 5 pm (see p. 10) year, more than Yellowstone or Yosemite. Over 100 rare, threatened, and endangered species exist in 10 ...............................Voices of the River the park. Lockhouse 8 River Center 3 pm (see p. 8) And here’s a letter from a former Cabin John lady. “Hello, my name is Mary McMillan (maiden 26 ......................................CJCA Meeting Schley, first married nameMoney ). I lived on Clara Barton Center MacArthur Boulevard from ages 2 to 30. Worked 7:30 pm (see p. 4) at the Model Basin for a very long time, and was 2 The Village News Clare Amoruso: Living the Can-Do Lifestyle by Tina Rouse Clare Amoruso has never been one to walk away Clare and several from an adventure or a challenge. Born Clare friends decided to Weeks in Wilmington, Delaware, she and her relocate to Georgetown older sister and younger brother were raised by to be closer to the her mother after her father, a pilot with TWA, was museums, dance clubs, killed in a plane crash in 1947, five months before memorials, and all the her brother was born. Although there was some happening places. insurance money and Social Security, money was tight, so Clare’s mother went to work part-time, The riots of April eventually settling as a secretary to a high school 1968 that devastated principal. There was also family nearby to help Washington after out—both her maternal grandparents lived about the assassination of ten miles away, in a house they built in 1913, and Martin Luther King, that’s still in the family. Jr., changed all that. By January 1969, Clare Her paternal grandmother died in the 1918 flu decided that it was time epidemic, leaving her grandfather with two young to move on, packing boys. He turned over the care of his youngest son up her light blue VW to a young couple next door, who were childless. beetle with sun roof and Although Clare’s grandfather eventually remarried heading cross country. and began a new family, Clare’s father remained Her driving companion with the couple until his foster father passed away had learned to drive and his foster mother remarried. He was then weeks before the trip, © TIm Weedlun taken in by relatives of his foster father. Despite and needed Clare to Clare Amoruso the fact they were only fourteen years older help shift when she than him, they formed a strong family bond and got up to highway speeds. They passed through remained active as grandparents to Clare and her El Paso (a disappointment), Las Vegas (fun), but siblings after her father passed away. skipped the Grand Canyon (too cold). Knowing that on this move, she had no job lined up and With a strong family, Clare had a happy childhood waiting for her, every morning Clare would wake and was a good student, attending Catholic school (continued on page 7) until tenth grade, when she switched to the local public school. She excelled at mathematics and problem solving, but was unsure what she wanted to study or be when she went to the University of Delaware, and left with an associate’s degree in general studies. Sparked by a longstanding desire to live in a big city, Clare and a friend decided to move to Washington in 1966, where Clare had lined up a job as a secretary at the U.S. Agency for International Development. With her roommate teaching in Rockville, and her job in Foggy Bottom, the two decided to live halfway in between, and rented a place in Alden Apartments, on the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Bradley Boulevard. Rent was a whopping $105 a month. Washington was a beehive of activity during the Vietnam War, filled with young men in uniform. Eventually, 3 The Village News CJCA News by Burr Gray Next CJCA Meeting—1) Steve Shofar, WSSC Heflin, Robinwyn Lewis, and Angela Coppola. A Waste Water Collection – Group System Manager, couple of CJ residents deserve special mention: will talk about the spill of approximately 600,000 Reed Martin (who drove the latex paint trailer), and gallons of sewage into the CJ Creek in early July John Rabner (who took the computer equipment for and what is being done to prevent such spills in the recycling).