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VOL.30, NO.2

Missions to help heal the world

FEBRUARY 2018

I N S I D E …

PHOTO COURTESY OF MICAH DAVIS

By Barbara Ruben In the remote village of Cerro Iglesias, in a mountainous region of Panama, Pastor Micah Davis arduously mixed cement by hand and spread it to create bases for huge water storage containers that would pave the way for the village’s first running water.

Then, Davis went to a nearby city to pick up supplies when a torrential rain began to fall.

“It was just [coming down as] solid sheets of water, and all I could think of was that wet cement we’d worked so hard on. I said, ‘Dear God, don’t let it rain on the mountain,’” recalled Davis, a pastor at the Reaching Hearts Seventh Day Adventist Church in Laurel, Md., a congregation that now makes yearly trips to help the indigenous people of the village.

Davis got back to the cement pads under a threatening sky, but found the rain hadn’t reached the village yet. He just finished spreading plastic sheeting over the cement when the rain came crashing down there as well.

“We’ve seen miracle after miracle,” said his wife Toni Davis. “We believe God ‘parts the waters’ so we can go in and help these people.”

The Davises and their congregation are among a number in the Washington area that find their faith calls them to help others in often primitive circumstances in developing countries.

Some spend weeks to years on the ground, working to improve living conditions, healthcare and educational opportunities, while others work to find and fund similar projects around the world.

For the past four years, the Davises, who are in their 50s, travel to the village in Panama for two weeks each July. They are joined by about three dozen parishioners,

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L E I S U R E & T R AV E L

Exploring Virginia’s African American heritage sites; plus, two bargain vacation spots, farther from the madding crowds page 32

ARTS & STYLE More than three dozen members of the Reaching Hearts Seventh Day Adventist Church travel each summer to the isolated village of Cerro Iglesias in Panama to assist the indigenous residents. Here, they pose in front of the large blue water tanks they installed last summer so the village could have its first running water. Youth pastor Micah Davis (with goatee) and his wife Toni Davis (in a blue native dress) are in the middle of the photo.

who range in age from 5 to 75. Having families with young children come along adds an intergenerational aspect that increases the richness of the experience, Toni said.

Surrounded by a jungle inhabited by boa constrictors, pythons and poisonous spiders, Cerro Iglesias is a primitive village of dirt-floored, wood homes. There is

no electricity and, until Reaching Hearts made it their mission to help the village, no running water.

Villagers would carry water by hand or on horseback from a creek a quarter-mile away.

In 2016, the church installed huge blue tanks See MISSIONS, page 16

A silk painter shares her skill with others; plus, Hamlet in the age of Twitter and Snapchat, Oscar nominee Laurie Metcalf, books on presidents, and Bob Levey befuddled by the modern world page 36 TECHNOLOGY 4 k Online shopping pros and cons FITNESS & HEALTH k How to break a fall k Antibiotics and alcohol

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LAW & MONEY 24 k Bull market charges ahead k How to simplify your finances SPOTLIGHT ON AGING k Newsletter for D.C. seniors

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A bitter pill indeed A seemingly innocuous request recently of. He said they discount the drug and abled me to a bout of righteous indignation sorb the co-pay, and he would call the preand a passionate battle. scription in to them. If I decidAt the end of an appointed I wanted it, they would mail ment with my orthopedist, I the pills to me free of charge. asked him to refill my preI left feeling somewhat unscription for an NSAID pain comfortable about the whole reliever. Though it happens to exchange, but took the sambe available over-the-counter ples with me. at a reasonable price, the preBack home, I read the fine scription is a 12-hour version, print on the packaging. It exand its cost (to me and to my plained that the new drug, insurance company) is even called Vimovo, was basically a less than OTC retail. high-dosage NSAID coated FROM THE The physician assistant PUBLISHER with a common proton-pump By Stuart P. Rosenthal asked if I wouldn’t prefer a inhibitor (to reduce stomach different pill that’s coated to acid). avoid stomach upset. I said no thanks.

I realized this was another of those inThat’s one problem I don’t have (yet). creasingly common situations where a But he pushed a bit, saying the new pill drug company combines two older drugs is supposed to be helpful, and wouldn’t I available in generic form into one branded like to try it? Again, I said no, adding that I pill. That allows them to patent the combionce was prescribed something like that in nation and to charge a significantly higher error, and it had a horrendous co-pay. price for the convenience.

He said, “Oh, there’s no co-pay at all for I tried the new pill and didn’t find it any this drug! And I have some samples. Why better than my trusty generic. So I decided don’t you take some home and try it?” to forget the whole thing.

He gave me the samples and a piece of Over the weekend, I found a voicemail paper with the name and phone number of a on my cell phone from the family pharmaparticular “family pharmacy” I hadn’t heard cy, seeking to confirm my address so they

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The Beacon is a monthly newspaper dedicated to inform, serve, and entertain the citizens of the Greater Washington DC area, and is privately owned. Other editions serve Greater Baltimore, Howard County, Md. and Greater Palm Springs, Calif. Readership exceeds 400,000.

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Publication of advertising contained herein does not necessarily constitute endorsement. Signed columns represent the opinions of the writers, and not necessarily the opinion of the publisher.

• Publisher/Editor ....................Stuart P. Rosenthal • Associate Publisher ..............Judith K. Rosenthal • Vice President of Operations ....Gordon Hasenei • Vice President, Sales & Marketing ....Alan Spiegel • Managing Editor............................Barbara Ruben • Art Director ........................................Kyle Gregory • Director of Operations ........................Roger King • Advertising Representatives ........Doug Hallock, .................................. Dan Kelly, Barbara Koscielski, ........................................................Hubie Stockhausen • Assistant Editor ..........................Rebekah Alcalde

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could mail me the prescription. Since I didn’t plan to order it, I ignored the call.

Two days later, a small package arrived in the mail. Inside was a bottle of Vimovo, plus a return mail envelope and a receipt with instructions to “sign and return this form in acknowledgement of receipt of correct prescription.”

OK, now my suspicions had grown.

Combining the PA’s eagerness to push me to try it, and the pharmacy’s presumptuousness in sending me the pills without my asking, I felt there was something fishy going on.

So I scrutinized the mailing. The receipt included my name, the Rx#, the name and quantity of the drug, and “co-pay: $0.00.”

But what did they charge my insurance company, I wondered?

So I looked closely at the label of the pill bottle packaging. It showed something shocking: “co-pay: $0.00. Ins. paid $2,236.76.”

Whoa! I expected to see a brand-name kind of price there, but more than $2,000? I was spitting nails. By what right are they charging hundreds of times the real cost of the ingredients?

And why did my insurance company pay such an outrageous price without complaint? I had no illusions: insurance rates for the Beacon, like for the rest of the country, have been going up much faster than inflation. Costs like this ultimately get passed on to us, the customers.

I was on the phone within seconds to the pharmacy, giving them a piece of my mind. They kept trying to calm me down by reminding me, “but there’s no co-pay!

You don’t have to pay a cent!”

That just made me angrier. In the end, I’m paying; we’re all paying! I insisted they take the pills back and credit my insurance company for the full charge.

To their credit, they sent me a postagepaid return slip so I wouldn’t incur mailing fees, and once they got the bottle back, they called me to confirm they had refunded my insurance company.

In the meantime, I called my orthopedist’s office to find out if they were part of this scheme, or maybe just the victim of a drug company marketing rep.

When I reached the head of the practice, I told him what happened, and he was as flabbergasted as I had been. He asked me to repeat myself, then he slowly repeated the same thing back to me, clearly growing more and more incredulous at the outrage.

He called over the PA and asked him if

he had any idea what those pills cost. The PA said no, he didn’t.

The doctor repeatedly thanked me for bringing this to his attention, and said he would immediately warn his staff about the situation and the pharmacy.

After that conversation, I went online to see what Vimovo’s standard retail price was, and I was floored yet again: $2,650 is the average retail cost. To my amazement, the family pharmacy was indeed “discounting” the drug!

But that didn’t change the fact that the price sought by the drug company is, to my mind, unconscionable and exploitative.

I was relieved that my doctors were as shocked as I, and that they were determined to take the price into account before ever prescribing the drug again. But this lack of knowledge about the cost of drugs on the part of doctors is as appalling as it is common.

I didn’t think it was the responsibility of patients to inform our doctors about the costs of drugs. But apparently there’s no one else with the incentive to do so. Not even our insurance companies or Medicare Part D plans. (However, just recently, CVS Health announced it will start informing doctors about drug costs in an effort to avoid patient sticker shock at the pharmacy, and to reduce the number of patients who don’t fill their prescriptions.)

So I urge you: take a look at your prescription receipts and note what your insurance pays. If it seems out of whack, or if there are cheaper alternatives you are willing to try, let your doctor know.

And those with Medicare Part D are not off the hook. While such plans can negotiate drug prices, if you are taking a more expensive version of a drug than you need, it’s contributing to the overall problem.

There are many reasons healthcare costs in America are rising much faster than inflation. One might point to surgeries (such as the nearly 500,000 knee and hip replacements done each year), and the extraordinary costs for the latest treatments for cancer and genetic diseases.

But the price we all pay for our prescriptions drives at least part of the rising cost.

Be vigilant and speak up. It might be a small thing in itself, but I can tell you from experience: It can make your day!

Letters to the editor Readers are encouraged to share their opinion on any matter addressed in the Beacon as well as on political and social issues of the day.

Mail your Letter to the Editor to The Beacon, P.O. Box 2227, Silver Spring, MD 20915, or e-mail to barbara@thebeaconnewspapers.com.

Please include your name, address and telephone number for verification.

Dear Editor: Great “From the Publisher” editorial in your January 2018 issue (“Reasonable risks”). I spent a 33-year career and then a post-career avocation promoting injury

prevention in our community.

The editorial is spot on: Banning a product because a business doesn’t follow lawful See LETTERS TO EDITOR, page 40

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Technology &

Innovations Pros and cons of buying products online

By Anya Kamenetz Have you ever thought about buying a pair of pants online without trying them in real life? Or a pair of glasses? Or even a mattress?

While using Facebook or Instagram, listening to podcasts or just browsing the web, you may have come across ads from brands like Betabrand, Warby Parker, Casper or Harry’s.

These companies represent a growing niche in the retail marketplace: direct to consumer. They bypass traditional retail channels and sell their own products themselves using social media.

These brands tend to have cachet, particularly with younger people. Nearly half

of millennials, in one survey, said they were influenced by social media in their purchases, compared to 19 percent of all other age groups.

There are potential benefits to shopping this way. But there can be drawbacks, too.

Benefits • Price. Direct-to-consumer brands pitch that they can offer higher quality at lower prices by cutting out the middleman.

Warby Parker pioneered this area by offering all of its eyeglasses for a single uniform price of $95. That can compare to hundreds of dollars at traditional retail.

• Quality. As companies with a limited range of products, these brands are squarely

associated with the products they sell. This compares favorably with buying at Amazon or a big box store, where the actual maker is somewhere far down a global supply chain.

Some of these companies promise better manufacturing practices or other socially responsible approaches to business.

Also, since they are direct to consumer, some of these companies can be more nimble with offering a variety of updated options, in response to consumer demand.

Betabrand, an online apparel brand, for example, has a “crowdfunding” model.

New styles are introduced and get made only if enough people pledge to buy them.

• Service: In order to get you to buy things online you might otherwise not,

these companies often try to offer highly responsive customer service. This can include free try-ons, free samples, free shipping and returns, and customer loyalty programs.

At the same time, some people like to shop and make decisions on a purchase without having to interact with sometimespushy salespeople.

But that’s not all there is to shopping on social media...

Drawbacks • Try-ons. A major reason that people don’t like to shop for glasses, clothes or matSee ONLINE SHOPPING, page 7

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Virginia

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❏ Aspenwood Senior Living (See ad on page 21) ❏ Atrium Assisted Living (See ad on page 18) ❏ Brooke Grove (See ad on page 15) ❏ Churchill Senior Living (See ad on page 20) ❏ Covenant Village (See ad on page 16) ❏ Emerson House (See ad on page 16) ❏ Gardens of Traville (See ad on page 12) ❏ Homecrest House (See ad on page 16) ❏ Maplewood Park Place (See ad on page 23) ❏ Park View Bladensburg (See ad on page 17) ❏ Park View Columbia (See ad on page 17) ❏ Park View Emerson (See ad on page 17) ❏ Park View Laurel (See ad on page 17) ❏ Riderwood (See ads on pages 1 & 8) ❏ Ring House (See ads on pages 29 & 34) ❏ Springvale Terrace (See ad on page 10) ❏ The Village at Rockville (See ad on page 19) ❏ Victory Crossing (See ad on page 28)

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See LINKS & APPS, page 7

❏ Friendship Terrace (see ad on page 10)

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Fooducate won first prize in the U.S. Surgeon General Healthy App Challenge several years ago for its personalized approach to finding foods that are healthy and nutritious.

Users sign up with their age, gender, weight, height and activity level, as well as health conditions and dietary goals, such as non-processed foods or vegetarian.

They can also tell the app if they want to

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A lot of customers don’t want to just buy TVs and sofas. They also want someone to come over to hang up the flat screen or put the furniture together.

Launched six years ago as an online platform where people could hire professionals to clean homes or put up a ceiling fan, the company Handy has moved into partnerships with stores and shopping sites to offer its services to customers.

On Wayfair, for example, furniture buyers can also hire someone to assemble it for them as they check out. At Walmart, a test at its Atlanta stores lets shoppers hire Handy professionals at the register when they buy a TV or furniture.

Handy CEO Oisin Hanrahan says people are more likely to buy a product when

Housing Communities

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Hire a helper

While we haven’t had a lot of snow yet this season, there’s still a chance for a big storm this month. Instead of spending hours shoveling your driveway and sidewalk, an app called SnoHub lets users connect with local people who can plow you out.

Started in Connecticut last winter, SnoHub expanded to the Mid-Atlantic (including the Washington and Baltimore areas) and the Northeast this winter. Users can select if they just want their driveway plowed, or if they need sidewalks and other walkways cleared, as well as any salting desired. https://snohub.com; Free in the iPhone app store and from Google Play.

For free materials on housing communities and health studies, just complete and clip this coupon and mail it to the Beacon.

★

Can alcohol cause anxiety? Is Seattle the rainiest U.S. city? Why are rodents such popular lab test animals?

You’ve got questions, and the website HowStuffWorks has answers to thousands of them. The site got its start in 1998 at a college professor’s kitchen table. From there, it grew into a source of unbiased, reliable, easy-to-understand answers and explanations of how the world actually works.

There are now nearly 30 million visitors to the free site each month. www.howstuffworks.com

Uber for snowplowing

MAIL OR FAX FOR FREE INFORMATION

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How the world works

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By Barbara Ruben

they can have it assembled. If the site you order from doesn’t offer Handy as an option, you can connect with one of their background-checked and insured workers (they have 80,000!) through the Handy website or app. www.handy.com; Free in the iPhone app store and from Google Play.

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Beacon Links & Apps

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Age-Friendly Montgomery “I’m inviting you to enjoy our County’s resources and programs.”

County Executive Ike Leggett

Support for Family Caregivers Being a caregiver is challenging, rewarding and exhausting. It can be easy to forget that you must care for yourself in order to effectively care for your loved one.

Caregiver Tips Be Prepared Elder care can be expensive, complex, emotionally challenging and physically draining. Create a list of questions you have surrounding medical, legal and financial planning.

Gather Support Find support in your community. Many communities have caregiver supports via faith-based groups, neighborhood villages and nonprofit organizations.

Montgomery County provides caregivers with education and referrals to County programs and other community resources.

Our trained staff understand each caregiver experience is unique. We will work with you to identify the support and services that are right for your situation.

Take Action

Make a Plan Geriatric care managers can guide you as you learn about what your loved one needs and what resources are available (e.g. long-term care insurance or government programs).

Caregiving in Action Support groups, respite care, adult day programs and senior centers are just a few of the resources available to caregivers. To learn more call: 240-777-3000.

“Sometimes asking for help is the most meaningful example of self-reliance.” – Unknown.

1. Don’t wait to seek medical care and treatment for your loved one and yourself.

2. Connect with condition-specific organizations that focus on care, support and research.

3. Call the County’s Aging and Disability Resource Line to discuss caregiving topics 240-777-3000.

4. Subscribe to Montgomery County’s Caregiver Support eNewsletter visit: www. montgomerycountymd.gov/senior/caregiver. html and look for the green box marked “NEW.”

Contact Us Today

• Aging & Disability Resource Line 240-777-3000

• 3-1-1 or 240-777-0311 for County programs and services; 9-1-1 for emergency • www.montgomerycountymd.gov/senior

• “Seniors Today” airs on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00 p.m. on Comcast/RCN 6, Verizon 30

Online shopping From page 4

Links & Apps From page 5 avoid MSG, high fructose corn syrup, gluten and other things in food.

The app lets users scan a product barcode to see a personalized nutrition grade (A, B, C or D) and learn about a product’s pros and cons.

The app also tracks food intake and exercise, as well as the quality of calories, not just quantity. It also ferrets out ingredients that are sometimes not easy to decipher on food labels — such as trans fats, excessive or added sugar, and artificial sweeteners.

Users can chat with others on the app to swap nutrition advice. This community is also available at the Fooducate website, along with recipes. www.fooducate.com; Free in the iPhone app store and from Google Play.

Solo travel pricing tracker As most single travelers know, they’ll pay a price for not sharing a room or cruise ship cabin. But it can be hard to find out how much more they will have to spend or where such options are offered.

Solo Trekker 4 U claims it is the only existing way to find solo travel deals by destination and trip type linked to single supplement pricing.

Users can search 900 providers with 26,000 trips. Some of the best are featured on the home page — from English countryside bed and breakfasts to Sri Lanka cultural adventures.

The site also includes a blog with posts about such subjects as safe solo traveling for women, and how to travel with your dog. https://solotrekker4u.com

To subscribe, see page 45.

Award-Winning Senior & Assisted Living Community

Where Quality Meets Affordability

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tresses online is, of course, that they want to try these things on in person. And this can be a big drawback to online shopping.

These companies may offer trial periods and money-back guarantees, but they do that in full knowledge of a home truth of consumer psychology. That is, once the product gets into your home, it is most likely to stay there.

• Marketing. Just because there are no sweaty salespeople breathing down your neck when you shop online for, say, mattresses, that doesn’t mean there is no unwanted marketing associated with these brands.

A recent investigative report in Fast Company, a business magazine, showed that various online mattress companies offered both incentives and threats to bloggers who represented themselves as independent reviewers of mattresses. Some of these bloggers may have been earning millions of dollars.

The bottom line is to take anything you read online about a product with a grain of salt, even a supposedly “independent” review.

• Locked-in. For savvy consumers, one

more drawback of many online direct-to-consumer retailers is the subscription model.

A mattress is likely to be a once-in-along-while purchase. But other companies specialize in products you’ll buy again and again: glasses (Warby Parker) or contacts (Hubble); razors (Harry’s) or feminine products (Lola).

And a whole other category of direct-toconsumer, web-focused retailers is turning just about any product category into a subscription, usually in the form of a monthly box: cosmetics, snacks, pet treats, clothing, you name it.

Here’s the issue: We all get exhausted making decisions month in and month out.

These companies rely on getting your credit card information once and then sending you products — whether or not you want them or need them. This can wreak havoc on your budget, even if it’s fun when you open the mail. © 2018 Anya Kamenetz. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Health Fitness &

HEADING FOR A FALL Strength training and learning how to land can help prevent injuries in a fall SAFER SUPPLEMENTS The FDA wants to crack down on homeopathic remedies that may be toxic DRUGS AND DRINK A little wine is fine with most antibiotics.

Ask your doctor or pharmacist CARPAL TUNNEL PAIN Why carpal tunnel syndrome causes wrist pain, and what to do about it

Scientists explore music’s healing power

By Lauran Neergaard Like a friendly Pied Piper, the violinist keeps up a toe-tapping beat as dancers weave through busy hospital hallways and into the chemotherapy unit, patients looking up in surprised delight. Upstairs, a cellist strums an Irish folk tune for a patient in intensive care.

Music increasingly is becoming a part of patient care — although it’s still pretty unusual to see roving performers captivating entire wards, like at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital one fall morning.

“It takes them away for just a few minutes to some other place where they don’t have to think about what’s going on,” said cellist Martha Vance after playing for a pa-

tient isolated to avoid spreading infection.

The challenge: Harnessing music to do more than comfort the sick.

Can music help heal?

Now, moving beyond programs like Georgetown’s, the National Institutes of Health is bringing together musicians, music therapists and neuroscientists to tap into the brain’s circuitry and figure out whether music can help with healing.

“The brain is able to compensate for other deficits sometimes by using music to communicate,” said NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins, a geneticist who also plays a mean guitar.

To turn that ability into a successful

therapy, “it would be a really good thing to know which parts of the brain are still intact to be called into action. To know the circuits well enough to know the backup plan,” Collins added.

Scientists aren’t starting from scratch.

Learning to play an instrument, for example, sharpens how the brain processes sound, and can improve children’s reading and other school skills.

Stroke survivors who can’t speak sometimes can sing, and music therapy can help them retrain brain pathways to communicate. Similarly, Parkinson’s patients sometimes walk better to the right beat.

But what’s missing is rigorous science to better understand how either listening

to or creating music might improve health in a range of other ways — research into how the brain processes music that NIH is beginning to fund.

“The water is wide, I cannot cross over,” well-known soprano Renee Fleming belted out, not from a concert stage but from inside an MRI machine at the NIH campus.

The opera star — who partnered with Collins to start the Sound Health initiative — spent two hours in the scanner to help researchers tease out what brain activity is key for singing.

How? First Fleming spoke the lyrics.

Then she sang them. Finally, she imagined See MUSIC, page 9

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From page 8 singing them.

“We’re trying to understand the brain not just so we can address mental disorders or diseases or injuries, but also so we can understand what happens when a brain’s working right, and what happens when it’s performing at a really high level,” said NIH researcher David Jangraw, who shared the MRI data with the Associated Press.

To Jangraw’s surprise, several brain regions were more active when Fleming imagined singing than when she actually sang —including the brain’s emotion center, and areas involved with motion and vision. One theory: it took more mental effort to keep track of where she was in the song, and to maintain its emotion, without auditory feedback.

Fleming put it more simply: “I’m skilled at singing, so I didn’t have to think about it quite so much,” she told a spring workshop at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where she is an artistic adviser.

Indeed, Jangraw notes a saying in neuroscience: Neurons that fire together, wire together. Brain cells communicate by firing messages to each other through junctions called synapses.

Cells that regularly connect — for example, when a musician practices — strengthen bonds into circuitry that forms an efficient network for, in Fleming’s case, singing.

Music and dementia But that’s a healthy brain. In North Carolina, a neuroscientist and a dance professor are starting an improvisational dance class for Alzheimer’s patients to tell if music and movement enhance a diseased brain’s neural networks.

Well before memory loss becomes severe, Alzheimer’s patients can experience apathy, depression, and gait and balance

problems as the brain’s synaptic connections begin to falter.

The NIH-funded study at Wake Forest University will randomly assign such patients to the improvisation class — to dance playfully without having to remember choreography — or to other interventions.

The test: If quality-of-life symptoms improve, will MRI scans show correlating strengthening of neural networks that govern gait or social engagement?

With senior centers increasingly touting arts programs, “having a deeper understanding of how these things are affecting our biology can help us understand how to leverage resources already in our community,” noted Wake Forest lead researcher Christina Hugenschmidt.

Proof may be tough. An international music therapy study failed to significantly help children with autism, the Journal of the American Medical Association recently reported, contradicting earlier promising findings. But experts cited challenges with the study and called for additional research.

Unlike music therapy, which works oneon-one toward individual outcomes, the arts and humanities program at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center lets musicians-in-residence play throughout the hospital.

Palliative care nurses often seek Vance, the cellist, for patients anxious or in pain.

She may watch monitors, matching a tune’s tempo to heart rate and then gradually slowing.

Sometimes she plays for the dying, choosing a gently arrhythmic background and never a song that might be familiar.

Julia Langley, who directs Georgetown’s program, wants research into the type and dose of music for different health situations: “If we can study the arts in the same way that science studies medication and other therapeutics, I think we will be doing so much good.”

— AP

PHOTO BY ISABEL OWENS

Music

9

Vocalist Tamara Wellons sings for patients at Georgetown University Hospital.

Studies are starting to show that music can heal patients and not just bring comfort.

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Getting stronger can help prevent falls Dear Savvy Senior: which really adds up over time.

I’ve fallen several times over the past But study after study has shown that it’s year, and my doctor has never too late to rebuild musrecommended that I start a cle through strength trainstrength-training program ing. Regular resistance or to help prevent future falls. strength training can help But at age 72, I’ve never you build muscle strength, lifted weights before and increase your bone density could use some help. What and improve your balance, can you tell me? coordination and stamina, — Looking for Help and will help prevent falls.

Dear Looking: It can also help reduce the Weak leg muscles and poor signs and symptoms of many SAVVY SENIOR balance are two of the biggest chronic conditions, such as

By Jim Miller factors that cause older adults to arthritis, diabetes, high blood fall. After age 40, most people lose about one pressure, back pain, depression and obesipercent of their muscle mass each year, ty. And some studies even show that it HOLY CROSS HOME CARE AND HOSPICE

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helps improve cognitive function, too.

Here are some simple ways to help you get stronger.

Getting started After you get your doctor’s okay, consider working with a professional trainer or physical therapist for a few sessions to help you develop a safe and effective routine you can continue on your own.

Or go to www.growingstronger.nutrition.tufts.edu for a free program from Tufts University in Boston and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Also see www.go4life.nia.nih.gov, a resource created by the National Institute on Aging, that offers a free exercise guide that provides illustrated examples of exercises you can do at home to strengthen your body. You can order a free copy online or by calling 1-800-222-2225.

To improve your strength, you have to keep stressing your muscles, so you’ll need to exercise at least two or three days a week for 30 to 45 minutes, and increase resistance and the number of repetitions over time.

But be sure you give your muscles a day off between workouts. It makes the muscle stronger and more able to resist future injury.

Inexpensive equipment If you work out at home, you’ll probably need to invest in some equipment.

While some strength training can be done using your own body weight (like pushups, sit-ups and leg squats), there are many great tools for strength training, including hand weights, ankle weights, medicine balls, and resistance bands or rubber tubing.

You can find all these products at sporting goods stores, or online at Amazon.com for around $10 or less. Cans of soup, water bottles or plastic milk containers filled with water or sand can also be used (like small hand weights) for resistance.

Take a class If you don’t like exercising alone, consider joining a gym. Or call your local senior or recreation center to see if they offer any strength training exercise classes.

You should also check out SilverSneakers (www.silversneakers.com, 888-423-4632) and Silver&Fit (www.silverandfit.com, 877-4274788) — fitness programs offered in thousands of fitness centers, gyms and YMCAs throughout the U.S. with special classes designed for older adults. These programs are available for free to those who have certain See FALLS, page 12

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WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

The most meaningful words to describe Holy Cross Germantown Hospital are:

Your Very Own.

Sue is Back on Her Bike After a Custom Knee Replacement Sue Hamann likes to stay active. From riding her bike to working as a health scientist for the federal government to taking care of her two big dogs, the 67-year-old isn’t ready to slow down anytime soon—but arthritis in her right knee was making those activities, and many more day-today tasks, exceedingly painful.

“I was up and around right away with physical and occupational therapy the day of my surgery,” said Sue. “The best thing was that every staff member on the floor cheered me on with every step I took.”

“I had been dealing with arthritis for years, but over the winter, it got a lot worse,” Sue said. “I tried medication, physical therapy and several kinds of injections, but nothing helped for very long.”

Finding her very own solution Ready to consider additional measures, Sue consulted with Korboi Evans, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at Holy Cross Germantown Hospital.

Various joint replacement implants are used by Holy Cross Health orthopedic surgeons, and after discussing her options with Dr. Evans, she chose a custom knee replacement implant. This option uses a CT scan of the patient’s knee and 3D printing technology to build a joint that replicates the patient’s anatomy exactly. The resulting replacement knee from ConforMIS is unique to the patient.

“The technology has advanced to the point that we can tailor the knee to the patient’s anatomy to improve outcomes and improve function, which is ultimately the goal of knee replacement,” Dr. Evans said. “The custom knee implant is sized, aligned and configured prior to surgery.”

While the knee was being built, which takes up to six weeks, Sue prepared for the surgery by

participating in the hospital’s joint replacement education class, which teaches patients what to expect before, during and after surgery.

On a Monday morning in early November, Sue got her new custom knee at Holy Cross Germantown Hospital.

A smooth experience in the hospital “I was up and around right away with physical and occupational therapy the day of my surgery,” said Sue. “Each day in the hospital, I could do more and more. Pain management was a concern of mine, but I was happy to find that I only needed ibuprofen after the surgery. The best thing was that every staff member on the floor cheered me on with every step I took. It was wonderful.”

Holy Cross Germantown Hospital has all private rooms and is situated on a beautiful campus that contributes to the tranquil healing environment of the hospital. Orthopedic surgeons and the joint

care professionals at Holy Cross Germantown Hospital and Holy Cross Hospital are focused on helping people live full and productive lives by eliminating the debilitating symptoms that can accompany disorders such as arthritis. They are experts at advanced, minimally invasive joint replacement and repair techniques that relieve joint pain and increase joint function.

Sue’s new joint is helping her move her life ahead When Sue got home two days after her surgery, she was able to walk up the steps to her bedroom. The next day she was doing a load of laundry in the basement. She had minimal postoperative soreness, and the constant arthritis pain she had was gone. A month later she was back at work full time, and two months later she was able to get back on her bike.

Sue credits her fast recovery to the hospital’s joint replacement patient education class, her careful preparation before surgery, the skill of Dr. Evans, the wonderful physical therapists at Holy Cross Germantown Hospital and the custom knee implant itself. Now, Sue says, she is encouraging friends with arthritis to consider surgery. “I’m telling them not to hesitate.”

Learn more about Holy Cross Health’s joint care at HolyCrossHealth.org/Joints and check out our upcoming joint health event with physicians on February 22 (see details below).

U P C O M I N G E V E N T S AT H O LY C R O S S G E R M A N T O W N H O S P I TA L These events are FREE and held from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 19801 Observation Dr., Germantown, MD 20876.

To register, call 301-754-8800 or visit HolyCrossHealth.org/AskTheDoctors.

February 22

March 1

March 22

JOINTS: REPAIRS AND REPLACEMENTS

THE LATEST IN BREAST RECONSTRUCTION

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Learn about various treatment options for joint pain, including joint replacement. Panelists include orthopedic surgeons Ricardo Cook, MD; Korboi Evans, MD; Christopher Farrell, MD; and Gabriel Petruccelli, MD.

Hear about the latest approaches in breast reconstruction, including using a woman’s own tissue to rebuild her breasts, even years after cancer treatment. Panelists include plastic surgeons Ali Al-Attar, MD, and Stephane Corriveau, MD.

Learn about issues that may be impacting your life, such as heartburn, indigestion, bloating and constipation, as well as advancements in the diagnosis and treatment for conditions affecting the gastrointestinal tract and abdominal organs. Panelists include Halim Charbel, MD, Gastroenterology; and Rami Makhoul, MD, Colorectal Surgery.

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Ways to reduce fall risk and injuries It can happen to anyone at any time.

One minute you’re on your feet; the next you’re on the ground. Falls are the leading cause of all non-fatal injuries, and the most common reason for visits to the emergency room.

One in five falls results in a significant injury, such as head trauma or broken wrists, hips, legs or ankles. Falls are also the second leading cause of injury-related deaths behind motor vehicle accidents.

“We often associate falls with children or the elderly, but in fact 50- to 60-year olds experience more falls than older individuals,” said Dr. Allison Averill director of neurorehabilitation, Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation (www.kessler-rehab.com).

“And while falling at some point in time is inevitable, there are ways to protect yourself from serious injury by creating a safer environment in and around your home, and also by learning how to fall,” Averill said.

To reduce fall risk: Eliminate clutter. Keep pathways clear by moving furniture or removing throw rugs, toys and other obstacles in the home, as well as tools, hoses and other items outdoors.

Focus on safety. Make sure rooms are well lit, and use handrails on stairways and grab bars in the bath or shower.

Outdoors, pay attention to the pave-

ment or other surfaces and weather conditions. Even at the market or the mall, watch the flooring, displays and other potential hazards.

Build your balance. Developing core strength and flexibility through exercise and/or physical therapy, along with training like tai chi, may help improve balance.

Check your eyes and your meds. Poor eyesight, certain medications, and even your diet — as well as the effects of arthritis, MS, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, stroke and other medical conditions — can affect balance and coordination and lead to falls. See a physician if you experience any difficulties.

If you start to fall: Understanding the science of falling is critical. Studies have shown that it’s not whether you slip on a wet or icy surface, trip over a rug or a crack in the sidewalk, or fall down a flight of stairs,

Falls From page 10 Medicare supplemental policies or Medicare Advantage plans.

Some other good fall-prevention exercises that can help you get stronger include aerobic activities like walking, cycling or water aerobics.

And to improve your balance there’s tai

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but rather what you do in those brief seconds before you reach the ground: Protect your head. Falls are the #1 cause of traumatic brain injury in the United States, accounting for nearly half of these injuries. To help minimize the risk, try to tuck your head toward your chest if falling backward, and turn your head to the side if falling forward.

Reach and relax. Although it’s natural to tense up, try to stay loose and reach with your arms bent to help cushion your fall.

Butt first. Falls are the second leading cause of spinal cord injuries. To help distribute the impact of a fall, try to land on the fleshier parts of your body and roll with the fall.

For more information, visit www.kesslerrehab.com. Kessler Institute is one of seven federally-designated model systems in the nation for the treatment and research of both traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries. chi, along with a number of simple balance exercises that you can do anytime — like standing on one foot for 30 seconds, then switching to the other foot, and walking heel-to-toe across the room.

Send your questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit SavvySenior.org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today show and author of “The Savvy Senior” book.

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WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

Health Shorts Blood test helps predict recurrent breast cancer A blood test five years after breast cancer treatment helped identify some women who were more likely to relapse — long before a lump or other signs appeared — a preliminary study found.

It was the largest experiment so far to use these tests, called liquid biopsies, for breast cancer. Results suggest they someday may help reveal which women need longer preventive therapy and which ones can be spared it.

“It could be providing an early warning sign” for some women that cancer is returning, said Dr. Joseph Sparano of Montefiore Einstein Center for Cancer Care in New York, who led the study On the other hand, “if you had a negative test, there was a 98 percent chance you would not have a recurrence in the next two years,” and perhaps could skip further treatment, he said.

The test — CellSearch, sold by Menarini-Silicon Biosystems — looks for stray cancer cells in the blood.

Breast cancer survivors may be tempted to rush out and get it, but doctors say it’s too soon for that. Although it’s been used for about a decade to monitor certain patients with advanced cancer during treatment, its value for helping to predict breast cancer relapse risk is not well established, and insurers won’t pay the $600 to $900 tab.

The study involved 547 women in longterm follow-up from an earlier cancer drug study. Two-thirds of them had cancers fueled by estrogen, and in most cases it had

spread to lymph nodes but not more widely.

All had surgery and chemotherapy followed by hormone-blocking medicines for five years. Guidelines now recommend considering hormone blockers for up to 10 years, but they have side effects and their benefit beyond five years is fairly small. So finding a way to tell who really needs that would be a big help.

Women in the study had a CellSearch test five years on average after their cancer was found and treated.

Among those with estrogen-fueled disease, 5 percent had cancer cells in the blood test, and they turned out to have a 22-fold higher risk of recurrence within roughly two years compared to women whose blood test was negative.

About 65 percent of women with hormone-positive disease and a positive blood test did not have a new breast cancer within two years The blood test seemed to do a good job of identifying which of these hormone-positive patients were at low risk of recurrence, suggesting that women who test negative may be able to forgo an additional five years of hormone-blocking medicines.

The test did not predict recurrence risk in the rest of the women in the study, whose tumors were not fueled by estrogen. They have a lower risk of recurrence after five years to start with.

— AP

New diabetic drug helps with weight loss U.S. regulators recently approved a new diabetes drug that reduces blood sugar levels and also helps people lose significant weight.

Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ap-

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proved its once-a-week shot for people with Type 2 diabetes. The drug, Ozempic, also known as semaglutide, works by stimulating the body’s own insulin production and reducing appetite.

In one big company-funded study, Ozempic, on average, reduced long-term blood sugar levels at least 2 1/2 times as much as a popular daily diabetes pill, Merck & Co.’s Januvia. It also helped study participants lose two to three times as much weight as those in the comparison group.

Over 56 weeks, patients who got a lower dose of Ozempic lost an average of 9.5 pounds, while those who got a higher dose

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lost 13.5 pounds. The patients who took Januvia lost an average of 4 pounds.

Novo Nordisk, a leader in diabetes care, has also been testing the drug separately for weight loss alone.

The new drug comes in injector pens, and costs about the same as similar weekly drugs: $676 for a four- to six-week supply without insurance. Novo Nordisk already sells a similar once-a-day shot, Victoza.

Ozempic will compete with other popular once-a-week drugs in the same class, including Eli Lilly and Co.’s Trulicity and AstraZeneca PLC’s Bydureon, which don’t produce as much weight loss.

— AP

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

FDA proposes crackdown on homeopathy

By Matthew Perrone U.S. health officials plan to crack down on a growing number of unproven alternative remedies, focusing on products containing dangerous ingredients that have occasionally been linked to serious injury and death.

The Food and Drug Administration recently issued a new proposal for regulating homeopathic medicines that have long been on the fringe of mainstream medicine.

The agency plans to target products that pose the biggest safety risks, including those marketed for children or for serious diseases.

But under the government’s framework, the vast majority of low-risk products would remain on the market. Popular homeopathic brands include Zicam Aller-

gy Relief and Cold-Eeze.

Once a niche market, homeopathy products have grown into a $3 billion industry, according to FDA figures. [The underlying principle of homeopathy is that “like cures like,” that is, that a disease can be cured by a substance that produces similar symptoms in healthy people.]

Long regarded by scientists as a form of modern-day snake oil, homeopathic products are treated as drugs under law, but not supported by modern science. Most remedies contain heavily diluted drugs or toxins, as well as vitamins and minerals.

“People may be putting their trust and money in therapies that bring little or no benefit in combating their ailments, or worse — in products that may cause seri-

ous and even irreparable harm,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said.

No FDA safety review Homeopathic products are treated similarly to dietary supplements, in that the FDA does not review their safety or effectiveness before they are sold. But unlike supplements, homeopathic medicines can state that they are intended for specific medical symptoms and conditions, similar to drugs.

A handful of products in recent years have been subject to major safety problems, usually involving potentially toxic ingredients.

In 2016, the FDA warned consumers about the risks of teething tablets marketed by Hyland’s Homeopathic after they were tied to seizures and deaths in infants and children. FDA testing later confirmed the products contained high levels of belladonna, also called nightshade, a poisonous herb that has long been used at low dosages in homeopathic medicine. The products were recalled last April.

In 2009, the FDA ordered Zicam to stop marketing three products that contained zinc gluconate after more than 100 users reported losing their sense of smell.

Other dangerous ingredients used in homeopathy products include nux vomica, which contains strychnine. Regulators have issued five warning letters this year

to companies selling products with nightshade or nux vomica.

The FDA said its proposal also targets products that claim to treat serious diseases like cancer, or are administered via unconventional routes such as injection or eye drops.

Regulators can issue warning letters, seize products or pursue criminal action against companies that disregard federal guidelines.

The agency will take comments on its proposal until mid-March before beginning to finalize the plan.

Consumer advocates said the FDA plan makes sense for products that are mostly harmless, but can be dangerous if manufacturers stray from traditional ingredients, dosing and manufacturing.

The FDA hasn’t updated its regulations for homeopathic medicine since 1988, when it essentially exempted the industry from basic production standards that are mandatory for traditional drugs, like listing ingredients on product labels.

Hundreds of homeopathic remedies today are sold alongside over-the-counter drugs like Tylenol and aspirin at pharmacies across the U.S. The National Institutes of Health has said there’s little evidence that homeopathic medicine is effective for treating any specific condition.

— AP

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WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

FEBRUARY 2018

UPCOMING SEMINARS & EVENTS at Brooke Grove retirement village

As experts in senior care and memory support, Brooke Grove Retirement Village is pleased to offer seminars and events that promote physical, spiritual and mental well-being.

All seminars and events will be held at Brooke Grove Rehabilitation and Nursing Center, located at 18131 Slade School Road on the Brooke Grove Retirement Village campus, unless otherwise noted. Please register with Toni Davis at 301-388-7209 or tdavis@bgf.org.

living well seminar: “Mindful meditation”

Healthy Living Class: “Mindful meditation”

Parkinson’s Support Group

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7 1-2:15 P.M.

February 14 through March 21

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Discover the health and wellness benefits of meditation and learn the technique of focusing awareness on your breath to help you feel relaxed and refreshed.

Experience guided, mindful meditation in a quiet space. Sessions promote greater focus, reduce anxiety, increase compassion and improve well-being.

WEDNESDAYS • 11-11:30 A.M.

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Reservations are requested by February 11. Registration opens at 10:30 a.m. on February 14, and the class fee is due at that time.

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caregiver connection seminar: “Changes in Intimacy and Relationships Caused

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

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Missions

Congregants engage in fund-raising to support the mission, which costs about $2,000 per participant, including supplies used to help the village. While cash donations are appreciated, the church is particularly looking for construction workers, a doctor and a dentist for this summer’s trip, as well as donations of dental equipment and medications.

To learn more, contact Micah Davis at (301) 717-9556 or youthdude@me.com.

The website is www.reachinghearts.org.

From page 1 that hold more than 5,000 gallons of rainwater collected off roofs. It is pumped by solar power (also installed by Reaching Hearts) to provide running water to a school kitchen and showers. This year they are hoping to drill a well to augment the water supply.

A medical lifeline Each year, Toni, a nurse, organizes a three-day free medical clinic to provide vaccinations, dental work, wound care and more.

The clinic serves nearly 800 people, many of whom come from miles away for care. Davis sets up the clinic in the church, hanging table cloths to serve as exam room dividers.

One woman carried her 90-year-old mother there on her back for care. A pregnant woman about to give birth scrambled down narrow paths on the mountain to a waiting ambulance on the road. Toni used charcoal poultices to draw the venom from a snake bite on another patient before sending her off to a hospital in town.

The volunteers come with suitcases packed with medicine for the clinic, but the Panama government is very strict about what they can bring into the country. Once, customs officials were giving the group a hard time, hand searching each bag. But suddenly another agent waved them over and let them all through with no further delays.

“We don’t think that’s a mistake. We believe strongly this is God’s intervention,” Toni said.

Each trip, she feels her faith strengthen, and she also feels a bond with the villagers she helps. “I don’t know if I’ve seen people any more grateful than there. They are so appreciative, and want to give you something [in return],” she said. Village women spend hours sewing intricately stitched native dresses for them on manually operated sewing machines.

An interfaith effort in Haiti After a powerful earthquake decimated Haiti in 2010, congregants from the Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, Md., responded by not just donating a substantial amount of money, but by traveling there to build homes for people living in tents, plant a vegetable garden so they could grow food, and expand a school.

So far, the temple’s Founding Rabbi Sid Schwarz and congregation members have made four trips to Haiti. They are planning another in December.

In the process, they came to know a young minister, Pastor Johnny Felix, who had started a church and elementary school in Haiti. Adat Shalom now underwrites the school’s budget and provides scholarships for students. Felix will be visiting Adat Shalom next month for the first time.

Each congregation has learned from the other, according to Schwarz. “I can’t fully put into words the impact it had on all of us to be with people who have so little, yet are so gracious and optimistic and positive.

“They treated us as if we were changing their lives. We came to understand each other better, and respect each other from our differences. It all came from a very deep faith place,” Schwarz said.

Two years ago, Louis Tenenbaum, 63 See MISSIONS, page 17

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Missions From page 16 and a member of the synagogue, helped pour foundations for houses and build a dining hall for the school there.

“I was coming off a divorce, and I needed a full-scale respite, a reset, something to get out of my own self,” Tenenbaum said. “I was looking for something that was engaging and used my energy apart from my every day.”

Tenenbaum, who lives in Kensington, Md., is a carpenter, building contractor and aging-in-place specialist. He also is founder and president of HomesRenewed, a nonprofit that advocates for incentives to increase the number of homes whose features allow residents to age in place.

“I’d say the main thing I got out of this trip was that these people, compared to us, seem to have nothing. They have to walk miles to get water.

“But by working side by side to build something together, we shared our sense of dignity with each other,” he said.

Schwarz found that he and his congregation became increasingly inspired to help the more they got to know the Haitian adults and children they were working with.

“We took great pride in ‘walking the talk’ of Torah. We weren’t just talking about Jewish values; we were living those values every day,” he told the members of Adat Shalom when he returned home.

Learn more about the project at www.rabbisid.org/success-stories/the-haiti-project.

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WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

munities. The people are just so welcoming and warm, and do what they can to embrace the time the group is there,” said Jayne Swanson, of McLean.

The community has no air conditioning, and temperatures are often in the 90s with humidity to match.

“It is quite rigorous. You have to be careful of the water. Physically you have to be in OK shape. We painted and painted and painted. You just feel yucky by day’s end,” said Swanson, who was 60 when she went.

“I was by far the oldest.”

She said that, throughout the week, more and more children showed up each day for the program, and there were about 100 by the end of the week.

“It’s hard to leave. You can see it in the children’s faces that they don’t want you to go,” she said. “When you get back to the U.S., you are seeing all you have so differently.”

To learn more, see www.stjohnsmclean.org/get-inv/midd.

Matching Catholic volunteers The Catholic Volunteer Network, based in Takoma Park, Md., serves as a clearinghouse, recruiting and matching more than 12,000 volunteers to 180 international and domestic service programs each year — ranging from one week to three years in length.

“Service is a really rich part of the Catholic tradition,” said Katie Mulembe, director of operations. “According to everyone’s baptism, we’re called to some sort of mission and service to the church and God’s people. This is a great outlet and opportunity for people to live out their faith,” she said.

Don and Pat Clausen did just that after retiring, he as principal of Annandale High School in Virginia and she as a nurse practitioner. Peace Corps veterans in the 1960s in Ecuador, they decided to commit to working for three years in impoverished Chiltiúpan, El Salvador through the Franciscan Mission Service.

Don, now 74, ran a computer lab at a school “where kids had never even seen a

computer before.” Pat put her nursing skills to work. They lived in a three-room apartment with no air conditioning.

While they now live in Wheaton, Md., they travel back to El Salvador two to three times a year, once attending the wedding of one of Don’s former students.

They also help Salvadoran immigrants here in Maryland. Both are fluent in Spanish, and they help immigrants with translation, writing letters and filling out forms at the Langley Park Community Center.

Pat, 73, also does pro bono health clinic work in Baltimore twice a month, and Don has served as an election observer in El Salvador for every election since 1990 to help ensure there is no voter fraud.

“Faith is an essential part of this, that you should be serving. It’s part of your daily life, and you have a responsibility to other human beings,” Pat said.

For more information about the Catholic Volunteer Network, see https://catholicvolunteernetwork.org or call (301) 270-0900.

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Be a happy camper with your grandchild If you attended a camp as a child or teenager, you might remember the meaningful experiences you enjoyed, or the long-lasting friendships you forged. You may also yearn to go back to those days of s’mores, sing-alongs and summer sun.

The good news? Just because you are no longer a kid doesn’t mean you can’t go

to camp.

There has been a recent increase in the number of opportunities for grandparents and their grandchildren to bond at “grandcamps.” Not only will this allow you to once again partake in the fun of a summer camp experience, but it can also allow you to develop stronger relationships with

your grandchildren.

For nature and sports lovers, Sierra Camps are an ideal way for children or Club’s Just for Grandparents and Grandteens to experience independkids — which gives campers ence for the first time. Grandopportunities to hike, skate, camps are no exception, beswim and more — could be cause many don’t allow parents the perfect fit. to come — only grandchildren For a historical experience, a and their grandparents. stay at Historical Virginia camp Grandcamps are a great way could be a blast. Campers can to introduce a child to the idea actually weave baskets and of going to sleep-away camp in cook over an open hearth while the future. They won’t be comenjoying colonial music. pletely on their own because More of an artsy type? At GENERATIONS their grandparents will be there, TOGETHER Sagamore Summer Camp’s so they will have the comfort of By Alexis Bentz “Grand Camp,” attendees can a familiar face. Still, they will be create crafts, barn dance, and separated from their parents and exposed to participate in music programs and talent what camp is all about. shows.

They will also get to truly be themSome universities — including the Uniselves, and won’t have to worry about the versity of Wisconsin, Michigan State Unipressure to “fit in” that they might experi- versity and Winona State University in ence at home. At a camp, they can let loose Minnesota — offer a slightly different type and have a great time. of grandcamp, in which campers can stay Camps can be just as beneficial for the in university housing and take classes tograndparents. Going to camp enables gether. them to get a vacation, relax and revisit If you are a person of faith, some church some of their old passions. If you’ve ever camps offer grandparent-grandchild expetraveled with your grandchildren before riences. And they tend to be less expenand enjoyed yourself, think of camping as sive than some other camps. another experience to spend some vacaDoing a search online for “grandparent tion time with your grandkids. grandchild camps” can help you to find the The summer before last, I went on a va- perfect option for yourself and your grandcation with my grandparents to Alaska. We children. enjoyed some camp-like activities togethDon’t have grandkids? You can still er, including hiking, photography and na- enjoy a “homemade” camp experience by ture walks. This experience not only al- camping out in your backyard with a friend lowed me to experience the beauty of or other young family member, and planAmerica’s largest state, but it brought me ning some fun activities: perhaps roasting a lot closer to my grandparents. marshmallows, bird-watching, star-gazing A camp can be just as powerful. Both and telling ghost stories. teens and grandparents will be able to spend Regardless, enjoy the opportunity that a some meaningful time together, and bond grandcamp, official or homemade, gives over fun and interesting camp activities. you to get closer with a special member of Camp will also give both generations the op- the younger generation. portunity to make new friends of both ages.

Some of the many websites where you can How will you find a camp that sounds search for grandparent/grandchild camps inright for both you and your grandchild? clude: www.grandparents.com, www.roadFortunately, there are plenty of options to scholar.org, www.stratfordhall.org, and choose from, each with unique activities www.grandcamps.org, a ministry of a Chrisand focuses. tian grandparenting organization.

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WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

19

A little alcohol OK with most antibiotics

By Dr. Robert H. Shmerling Q: My doctor prescribed a 10-day course of antibiotics for a persistent sinus infection. I usually have wine with the dinner. Do I need to stop drinking?

A: I’d heard the warning to avoid mixing alcohol and antibiotics from friends and family while growing up. But during medical school, I only heard it in reference to a specific antibiotic, metronidazole (Flagyl).

People who take metronidazole and drink alcohol can become quite sick with nausea, vomiting, palpitations and facial flushing.

The concern about combining alcohol and antibiotics is not related to the effectiveness of the antibiotic. It’s more about side effects.

Of the commonly prescribed antibiotics, very few of them warn against drinking. If you’ve filled a prescription for amoxicillin, Augmentin or cephalexin (Keflex), you may have noticed that there is no warning sticker about alcohol.

Alcohol reliably causes trouble when mixed with only a handful of other antibiotics. In addition to metronidazole and its close relative tinidazole (Tindamax), avoid drinking while taking: • Furazolidone (Furoxone), an antibiotic used for intestinal infections • Griseofulvin (Grisactin), an antifungal drug used to treat ringworm and other skin or nail infections • Quinacrine (Atabrine), an older antibiotic used to treat malaria and giardia (an

intestinal parasite) These drugs represent a tiny minority of the millions of antibiotic prescriptions written each year. As mentioned, there is no specific advice to avoid drinking alcohol with most commonly prescribed antibiotics.

However, some of the most common side effects of antibiotics (stomach upset, nausea, diarrhea) can overlap with trouble that alcohol can cause (such as stomach inflammation, also called gastritis).

Since gastrointestinal side effects are quite common with erythromycin and related antibiotics (and many others), that’s something to be aware of — but it’s not generally a dangerous or reliable enough problem that everyone taking erythromy-

cin is advised to abstain from alcohol consumption.

While it’s best not to drink while taking certain antibiotics, there are few if any risks associated with drinking in moderation while taking most antibiotics. Always ask your doctor or pharmacist about potential interactions between your medicines, including antibiotics, and your diet.

Robert H. Shmerling, M.D., is Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Clinical Chief of Rheumatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. For additional consumer health information, visit www.health.harvard.edu. Š 2017 President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. Distributed

by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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VISITING DEMENTIA PATIENTS The Visitors Project for People with Dementia is looking for volun-

teers to provide compassionate human connection to residents in local nursing homes who do not receive regular visits from family or friends. This project is a collaborative effort of local clergy, health and social service professionals, and consultants on aging. The training program with area experts prepares you to provide one-on-one visits. Scheduling is flexible. For more information, contact Ken Silverstein at KenVisitorsProject@gmail.com or (301) 570-6664.

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

When carpal tunnel pain requires surgery Dear Mayo Clinic: I have carpal tunnel syndrome that used to bother me only at night. Wearing a splint helped, but now my symptoms are noticeable throughout the day as well.

Does this mean surgery is inevitable, or are there other things I can do to help lessen the tingling and numbness it’s causing?

Carpal tunnel syndrome is caused by pressure on the median nerve that’s in the front of your wrist. Treatment for carpal tunnel syndrome usually starts with splinting, self-care measures and, if needed, a corticosteroid injection. If that provides only temporary relief, then surgery may be recommended.

The carpal tunnel is a small passageway on the palm side of your wrist. Nine tendons and the median nerve travel through the carpal tunnel. Those tendons are like ropes that control the movement of your fingers.

The median nerve serves as a pathway for the sensations you feel in your palm, thumb, index finger, middle finger and outer border of your ring finger. It also sends the nerve signals that move muscles around the base of your thumb.

Carpal tunnel syndrome happens when the space in the carpal tunnel becomes smaller, or the tendons in the tunnel thicken, placing pressure on the median nerve.

In its early stages, symptoms may include tingling or numbness in your thumb, index finger, middle finger and outer border of your ring finger.

A wrist splint typically is the first step in carpal tunnel treatment. A splint can be particularly helpful for people whose symptoms bother them at night. Wearing a splint during the night can keep the wrist from bending while you sleep. That can relieve the nerve pressure and eliminate nighttime discomfort.

When symptoms persist during waking

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hours, wearing a splint during the day can be useful. You also may be able to ease daytime symptoms by taking frequent breaks from repetitive activities. Throughout the day, take time to rotate your wrists, and stretch your palms and fingers.

Taking a pain reliever, such as ibuprofen, naproxen or aspirin, may help lessen the inflammation of carpal tunnel syndrome.

If those steps aren’t enough, then a corticosteroid injection into the carpal tunnel may reduce tingling and numbness. Corticosteroids lower inflammation and swelling within the carpal tunnel, which can relieve pressure on the median nerve.

Surgical options For those with severe symptoms, or whose symptoms come back after an injection, surgery may be an appropriate option. The goal of carpal tunnel surgery is to relieve pressure on your median nerve by cutting a ligament, called the transverse carpal ligament, pressing on the nerve.

Traditionally, surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome has been performed as an open surgery in which a surgeon makes a small incision in the palm of the hand over the carpal tunnel and then releases the ligament.

Alternatively, this procedure can be performed via endoscopic surgery. With that approach, the surgeon uses a telescope-like device with a small camera attached to it, called

an endoscope, to see inside the carpal tunnel.

The surgeon cuts the ligament through one or two small incisions in the hand or wrist.

Ultrasound-guided carpal tunnel release is another alternative treatment in which a surgeon or a qualified physician uses ultrasound images to guide an instrument into the carpal tunnel through a small incision in the forearm, and then cut the ligament.

As the techniques for ultrasound carpal tunnel release continue to evolve, the procedures may be able to be performed in a doctor’s office under local anesthesia.

Treat sooner rather than later Effectively treating carpal tunnel syndrome as promptly as possible is important.

The longer the median nerve remains compressed, the more damaged it can become.

If the nerve is compressed for too long, it may not recover even once the pressure is relieved. Eventually, that could lead to permanent weakness and lack of coordination in your fingers and thumb. — Jay Smith, M.D., Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn.

Mayo Clinic Q & A is an educational resource and doesn’t replace regular medical care. E-mail questions to MayoClinicQ&A@mayo.edu. For more information, visit www.mayoclinic.org. Š 2017 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research. All rights reserved.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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EMOTIONAL IMPACT OF VISION LOSS

The Friendship Heights Village Center hosts a free Vision Support Group meeting with lunch on Monday, Feb. 26 from noon to 1 p.m. The lunch features social worker Nina Glasner, who consults with the Low Vision Clinic at Wilmer Eye Institute. The center is located at 4433 S Park Ave., Chevy Chase, Md. For more information or to register, call (301) 656-2797.

WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

Say you saw it in the Beacon | Fitness & Health

21

Comforting lentil soup doesn’t need meat

By Melissa D’Arabian Rich bean soups are classic winter comfort food. They are filling, healthy and inexpensive, making them a worthy addition to the menu rotation.

The downside to dried bean cookery is the time it takes to soak and then cook beans.

Canned beans are a reasonable substitute, although they cost more than three times the price of their dried, bagged counterparts.

An easy, money-saving solution is lentils, which you can find easily at any grocery store, next to the dried beans. Brown lentils — the type you’ll most likely find in inexpensive bags next to the rice — don’t require any soaking (although a good rinse is recommended), and are cooked to tender perfection in about a half hour.

Don’t let the cheap price fool you: the everyday brown lentil is a nutrition powerhouse. One serving has over 8 grams of filling fiber, 9 grams of protein, and a nice array of vitamins and minerals, including over half the daily requirement of folate and nearly 20 percent of our daily iron.

Lentils themselves have an earthy, mild flavor, so they easily take on the flavors of other ingredients. Today’s recipe for Smoky Lentil Soup is all plant-based, which means it’s truly jam-packed with health-boosting foods, but it’s also full of flavor. It gets its smokiness from smoked

paprika instead of the traditional ham bone, and little bit of cumin.

Finely chopped mushrooms add meaty depth of flavor, and I use small cubes of butternut squash instead of classic carrots for just a touch of sweetness. A bonus: the entire dish cost about $10 to make, and you’ll probably have leftovers. Meatless Monday fans, this may be your new favorite dish.

Smoky (Vegan) Lentil Soup Servings: 8 Start to finish: 45 minutes, including cook time 1 tablespoon olive oil 1 large onion, chopped (about 2 cups chopped) 1 stalk celery, chopped (about 1/2 cup chopped) 4 ounces white mushrooms, finely chopped (about 1 cup chopped) 1 1/4 cup cubed butternut squash (1/2inch cube) (or substitute chopped carrot) 5 cloves garlic, minced 1 teaspoon ground cumin 2 teaspoons smoked paprika 1 teaspoon chili powder 2 teaspoons dried Italian herb seasoning (or dried oregano) 3 cups vegetable stock 2-3 cups water 1/2 pound dried brown lentils, rinsed

and picked through (about 1 1/4 cup) 1 bay leaf 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar (or wine vinegar) 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, if needed In a large heavy-bottomed soup pot or Dutch oven, soften the onion, celery and mushrooms in the olive oil over medium heat, and cook for 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

Add the squash, garlic, cumin, smoked paprika, chili powder and Italian herbs and cook for another five minutes, stirring frequently. Onion should be quite soft now.

Add the stock, 2 cups of the water, the lentils and bay leaf, and bring to a simmer over medium high heat. Reduce heat, cover partially with a lid, and let simmer

until lentils and squash are tender, about 25 to 30 minutes. If the mixture gets too thick, add up to another cup of water.

Once soup is cooked, remove 1 to 2 cups of the soup to a blender and very carefully blend on low until somewhat smooth. Pour the thickened, blended soup back into the pot and stir. Stir in vinegar and taste for salt.

Add the salt only if needed.

Chef’s note: green lentils may also be used, but add about 10 minutes of cooking time.

Nutrition information per serving: 155 calories; 22 calories from fat; 3 g. fat (0 g. saturated; 0 g. trans fats); 0 mg. cholesterol; 328 mg. sodium; 27 g. carbohydrate; 7 g. fiber; 4 g. sugar; 8 g. protein.

— AP

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

K2 can prevent, and fight, prostate cancer Couples have plans, but after the C word markable nutrient can have wondrous canis dropped, those plans change to unite a cer fighting and preventative properties for couple in the medical process. all kinds of cancers. You might After skin cancer, prostate have thought I mean vitamin C cancer is the most widespread or D3, but you’d be wrong. It’s cancer among men, affecting actually vitamin K2. one in seven every single Vitamin K2 is proving to be year. Prostate cancer is also a marvelous ally in the war on the third-leading cause of canprostate cancer. In fact, K2 cer death, after lung and coland vitamin D3 work harmoorectal cancer, according to niously together for a wide the American Cancer Society. range of diseases.

The good news today is DEAR Higher levels of K2 and some significant strides are PHARMACIST higher intake of K2 are associbeing made in the prevention By Suzy Cohen ated with lower prostate canof prostate cancer, as well as cer risk, and vitamin K2 defithe treatment of advanced prostate cancer. ciency status has been found in most men In fact, we have now learned that one re- with aggressive prostate cancers.

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Researchers for the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) have found that increasing one’s intake of vitamin K2 may lower the risk of getting prostate cancer dramatically — by up to 35 percent. With a one in seven risk of developing prostate cancer within their lifetime, this is an encouraging discovery!

But because we’re talking about a vitamin, I’m sure you won’t see commercials about it. And K2 is not something you even have to buy — it’s commonly found in foods that most of us already enjoy, such as salads, green vegetables, some meat and cheese.

There are also supplements that are sold without prescription at health food stores. However, I encourage you to ask your physician if these are right for you, as K2 can interfere with blood-thinning medications.

For people on the healing process with cancer, their number one goal is to stop the spread of cancer to other organs and tissues, termed metastasis. When prostate cancer is caught early on, before it has

spread to many other organs, the interventions are more useful.

Vitamin K2 has been proven to have neuroprotective effects on the brain, to shuttle calcium out of the arteries and to the bones (where it hardens and strengthens them), help wounds and bones heal faster, improve the skin and — now hear this — reverse wrinkles as well!

Vitamin K2 is found in foods such as dairy products, meat, and dark leafy greens like salads, Swiss chard, spinach and other greens.

It is also found in very high concentration in a popular Asian fermented soy dish called natto. Other foods high in vitamin K2 include ground beef, liver, chicken, as well as cheese, egg yolks and butter.

This information is opinion only. It is not intended to treat, cure or diagnose your condition. Consult with your doctor before using any new drug or supplement.

Suzy Cohen is a registered pharmacist and the author of The 24-Hour Pharmacist and Real Solutions from Head to Toe. To contact her, visit www.SuzyCohen.com.

BEACON BITS

Ongoing

CAREGIVERS SUPPORT GROUP

A caregivers support group meets on the first and third Thursday of every month for caregivers to adult family members with dementia. The group meets in the program building at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax, 2709 Hunter Mill Rd., Oakton, Va. from 10 to 11:30 a.m.

For more information, visit http://bit.ly/CaregiversSupportGroupFairfax or contact Jack Tarr at (703) 821-6838 or jtarr5@verizon.net.

Ongoing

SENIOR WOMEN’S SOFTBALL

The Golden Girls Senior Women’s Softball League is looking for members 40+ years old. The league plays Wednesday evenings and Saturday mornings. For more information, visit www.goldengirls.org.

But it doesn’t have to be.

Jewish Council for the Aging’s Thome Kensington Club at the Germantown Community Center is a new, upcounty social club for men and women in the early stages of memory loss.

Since 2008, JCA’s Kensington Clubs have provided socialization with peers and varied activities including current event discussions, day trips, music and art therapy and physical activity in comfortable surroundings.

Call 202.735.3464 or 301.255.4204

Caring for your aging parent or loved one?

It’s not all up to you.

Call us.

240-777-3000 ADS@ MontgomeryCountyMD.gov

Aging & Disability Services

for information on criteria to enroll and monthly dues.

Club size is limited to 10 members per day.

Mon and Fri: Tue, Wed, & Thur:

Jewish Council for the Aging www.AccessJCA.org Agency 8127

Agency 52847

8:30am – 5:00pm 8:30am – 7:30pm

A free service of your County Government

Say you saw it in the Beacon | Fitness & Health

WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

23

Facing violence and guilt in relationships Dear Solutions: him. Tell her to remember this: The first I’m ver y concerned about my time you get hit, you’re a victim. The next granddaughter, who is contime, you’re a volunteer. sidering marr ying her Dear Solutions: boyfriend. She is confiding I’ve been seeing a man, in me and asked me, “Can and although I like him, I someone love you and still don’t feel as connected to hit you at the same time?” him as he seems to be to She says she knows her me. boyfriend loves her and One of his children and wants to marr y her, but one of mine live in Califorwhen he gets very angry he nia, and I haven’t seen my lashes out at her physicalson for many months. ly. They’re making wedding SOLUTIONS Now my boyfriend has plans, but she says that By Helen Oxenberg, offered to take me to Calilast week he punched her MSW, ACSW fornia for a birthday celein the face, and she still bration at his daughter’s has the bruise. house and wants to come with me to He says he loves her and promised visit my son and his family. I will that it won’t happen again. She asked spend time at his daughter’s house, me if she should believe him. Please but I want time alone with my son, help me answer her. who’s going through a divorce, and — Aggravated with my little granddaughter.

Dear Aggravated: My friend always wants to spend as Tell her to look in the mirror and be- much time as possible with me, so I lieve her face! Tell her that violence is not don’t know what to say to him about about love. It’s about control. He wants her not coming with me to visit my son. I to do what he wants her to do no matter feel guilty doing this because he’s paywhat, and he doesn’t know how to handle ing for the whole trip. anger.

How do I tell him, and what do I do He needs to get a lot of professional help with the guilt? before she can even consider marrying — Ellen

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Dear Ellen: Put the guilt in an envelope and give it to a friend to hold for you until you get back from the trip. Your boyfriend is doing this for both of you. He wants you to share the birthday with him at his daughter’s house, so it’s his choice to pay for the trip.

Be clear before you go. Accept this gift graciously, but tell him that you hope he’ll understand your need for time alone with your son since you haven’t seen him in a long time. This will also give him time

alone with his daughter, which she probably wants.

So there’s something in it for both of you. And if you miss the guilt, you can pick it up from your friend on the way back from the airport. Enjoy! © Helen Oxenberg, 2018. Questions to be considered for this column may be sent to: The Beacon, P.O. Box 2227, Silver Spring, MD 20915. You may also email the author at helox72@comcast.net. To inquire about reprint rights, call (609) 655-3684.

See our updated website at www.TheBeaconNewspapers.com

24

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Money Law &

ENCORE CAREERS Tips for transitioning to a new career, from volunteering to evaluating what inspires you GIVING AWAY THE STORE Think twice when offered a store credit card, which can cause your credit score to drop SIMPLIFY YOUR FINANCES Spending time now simplifying and organizing your financial life can help both you and your heirs

Despite concerns, bull market continues

By Stan Choe Wall Street is forecasting another year of gains for stocks in 2018, even as worries rise that the end may be nearing for one of the market’s greatest runs in history.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index has nearly quadrupled since the dark days of early 2009, and this bull run of eight-plus years is well into old-age status. Only the rally of 1990 to 2000 lasted longer.

But analysts see several reasons this bull market isn’t ready for retirement.

Chief among them: Economies around the world are growing in sync.

The global gains, along with the lower tax rates that Congress recently approved, should help companies pile their profits even higher. That should provide more life for the market, analysts say, because stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits more than anything else over the long term.

Plus, interest rates are expected to remain relatively low, which can raise investor appetite for stocks.

Tempered growth The expected gains aren’t as strong as in the past few years, however. For one thing, stocks are relatively expensive.

There are also concerns that a growing economy could eventually spark inflation.

Another gain for stocks in 2018 would be the latest step into record territory for a market that’s been maligned and doubted since it emerged from the rubble of the global financial crisis. Investors have been hesitant to fully embrace stocks after watching the market lose more than half its value from late 2007 into early 2009.

“No one seems complacent” about the market’s performance, said Rob Lovelace, vice chairman of the Capital Group, whose American Funds family of mutual funds invests $1.5 trillion. “Everyone seems scared as heck. We’re continuing with the pattern of this being one of the most untrusted, unloved bull markets.”

Most of the predictions indicate investors shouldn’t expect returns to be as big or as smooth as they have been. “The

sky is not falling, but our market outlook has dimmed,” economists and strategists at mutual-fund giant Vanguard wrote in a recent report.

Over the last five years, investors have enjoyed an annualized return of more than 15 percent from S&P 500 index funds. In the coming decade, Vanguard expects annualized returns for global stocks to be closer to the 4.5 to 6.5 percent range, with U.S. stocks likely returning less than their foreign counterparts.

For 2018, strategists at Goldman Sachs say the S&P 500 may end the year at 2,850.

That would be up roughly 6 percent from its close at the end of 2017. Strategists at Morgan Stanley have a base target of 2,750, which would be less than a 3 percent gain.

Expensive U.S. stocks A big reason for the relatively modest forecasts is how expensive stocks have become. The market has been rising faster than corporate profits, which makes it less

attractive than in years past.

The S&P 500 is close to its most expensive level since the dot-com bubble was fizzling out, according to one measure that looks at stock prices versus corporate profits in the last decade. That method was popularized by Nobel prize-winning economist Robert Shiller.

And so, many investors are increasingly turning their attention abroad for stocks.

Investors have poured $227 billion into foreign stock funds over the last year, six times more than they put into U.S. stock funds, according to Morningstar.

Europe is earlier in its economic expansion, which could mean it has further to run. Foreign stocks, although not cheap by historical standards, are also cheaper than their U.S. counterparts.

Of course, in late 2016 many voices along Wall Street were warning investors to ratchet back their expectations for 2017.

Instead, they got a nearly perfect year. The See BULL MARKET, page 25

Is more tech in mutual funds a good thing?

By Stan Choe As technology takes over more of people’s daily lives, it’s also taking over everbigger chunks of their retirement accounts.

Surging prices for technology stocks around the world mean the industry is making up a larger proportion of global markets. In the United States, Apple, Google’s parent company, and other tech companies account for nearly 24 percent of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index. A decade ago, they made up less than 17 percent of S&P 500 index funds.

The makeover is even more dramatic overseas, where ascendant companies like China’s Tencent and Alibaba have quickly stormed into the ranks of the world’s largest.

As a result, investing in many stock funds has increasingly become a bet on technology companies. That could be reassuring for investors, given how tech companies have been able to deliver big profit growth for years, even when global economic growth was only middling.

But it’s also a concern for skeptics who see tech stocks as overly pricey and primed for a pullback. The worries came into starker relief late last year, after tech stocks tumbled more than the rest of the market.

Tech in emerging markets To see how the tech takeover is changing investing, consider mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that focus on stocks from emerging markets. These kinds of funds offer access to growth in China and other developing economies.

A decade ago, these funds were dominated by hulking telecoms, energy companies, and the commodity producers that feasted on fast growth in construction and factory activity. They included China Mobile, the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras, and Russia’s Gazprom natural-gas company.

In late 2007, technology companies made up less than 11 percent of Vanguard’s Emerging Markets Stock Index fund. But in the ensuing years, tech companies like Tencent and Alibaba grew to

serve hundreds of millions of users buying things with their mobile phones, chatting online and listening to music.

Now the Vanguard fund, which is the largest emerging-market stock fund by assets, has almost twice as much of its portfolio apportioned to technology stocks. Its biggest single holding is Tencent, the company behind the popular WeChat messaging app and other products.

“It’s a sign of the times,” said Patricia Ribeiro, senior portfolio manager at the American Century Emerging Markets and Emerging Markets Small Cap funds. “In the emerging space, it’s a story about the consumer.”

The shift toward technology stocks and away from old-economy companies is a result of the rise of emerging markets’ middle classes, which are increasingly going online and also benefiting from the world’s voracious demand for technology, she said.

Ribeiro has 33 percent of her Emerging Markets fund invested in technology stocks, more than any other sector. Some

of her recent acquisitions include Momo, a Chinese dating app, and AAC Technologies, a Chinese supplier for Apple.

A decade ago, the fund invested more money in financials, raw-material production and other areas of the market. The portion devoted to tech was just 12 percent.

The fund has ranked in the top 8 percent of its category for returns over the last five years, according to Morningstar.

In the United States, tech stocks in the S&P 500 doubled the gain of the index through 2017’s first 11 months. A slump in the sector toward the end of the year reminded investors that tech stocks are historically prone to price swings and expensive of late, based on several measures of value.

Analysts attribute the drop in tech stocks — nearly 4 percent in a little more than a week in December — to investors looking for reasons to sell and take profits.

Washington’s push to overhaul the tax See TECH STOCKS, page 26

Say you saw it in the Beacon | Law & Money

WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

Bull market From page 24 S&P 500 returned nearly 22 percent and, perhaps more remarkably, the gains came with virtually no headaches.

Only four times in 2017 did investors have to stomach a drop of at least 1 percent in the S&P 500. That’s way down from 22 times in 2016, and it’s the fewest such days in a year since 1995.

The market has had years-long periods of calm before, so 2018 could be serene as well. But market watchers do anticipate volatility to rise a bit from its ultralow level

in 2017. In part, that’s because investors’ climbing expectations for economic strength and other indicators leaves more room for disappointment.

Inflation concerns Another worry is that an old foe for markets may return. Inflation has been low for years, and many economists expect it to stay subdued.

But the healthy job market is leading to some small gains for workers’ wages. If the pickup accelerates, it could drive inflation higher across the economy. “Inflation is the one risk worth highlight-

BEACON BITS

Mar. 18

ing to investors, mostly because we haven’t had any for so long,� said Brian Nick, chief investment strategist at Nuveen. “Central banks haven’t had to deal with higher-thanexpected inflation, investors haven’t had to deal with it, and companies haven’t had to make choices about keeping wages down or raising prices.�

If inflation does rise, the Federal Reserve and other central banks could be forced to become more aggressive about raising rates. That, in turn, could slow the global economy and knock down stocks.

What may end up being the biggest threat this year is simply that many in-

25

vestors are worried that this nirvana of constantly rising stocks, high prices relative to profits, and perfectly calm markets is unsustainable. It’s been nearly two years since the last time the S&P 500 had a drop of 10 percent — something market watchers call a “correction.� “Everyone thinks we’re in the ninth inning,� said Capital Group’s Lovelace of the bull market. “But with synchronized economic growth and the strength of many of these companies we’re seeing, I can come up with more reasons for why this is the fifth or sixth inning.� — AP

BEACON BITS

PIANO CONCERT

Washington Piano Society is holding a free “Prelude to Spring� concert on Sunday, March 18 at 3 p.m. There will be piano solo and piano trio works by Haydn, Beethoven, Chopin and Scriabin. A reception will follow. No tickets required; contributions accepted. The concert will take place at Calvary Lutheran Church, 9545 Georgia Ave., Silver Spring, Md. For more information, visit www.dcpianosociety.org or call (301) 793-1863.

Feb. 28

NOMINATE WARD 7 WOMEN Nominations are now open for the Ward 7 Women of Excellence

Awards Luncheon on Thursday, March 22 from noon to 2 p.m. in Washington, D.C. Submit the name of a woman who has made significant contributions for at least two consecutive years to improve the lives of seniors in Ward 7. Submissions must be in by Wednesday, Feb. 28. ERFSC will select the top six nominees from

Ongoing

NOMINATE GREAT VOLUNTEERS

entries received. A typed letter of nomination should be approximately 1,000

Montgomery County, Md., is calling for nominations of extraordinary local volunteers for its annual Montgomery Serves awards, which are given in four categories: individual, group, business and youth. In addition, nominations are sought for the Neal Potter Path of Achievement Award, given to county residents 60 and older for their lifetime of volunteer service to the county. The deadline for nominations is Friday, Feb. 23 at 5 p.m. For more information, visit www.montgomeryserves.org or email serviceawards@montgomerycountymd.

Feb. 24

words. Bullet points are acceptable, and the nomination must be signed. Nominations are limited to only one individual. For more information or to email the letters, contact Rosie Parke at msrparke@gmail.com.

GARDENING CONFERENCE

The 18th Annual Spring Gardening Conference will be held on Saturday, Feb. 24 by the Montgomery County Master Gardeners. “Garden Solutions for Our Changing Environment� will offer gardening workshops at the Agricultural History Farm Park, 18410 Muncaster Rd., Derwood, Md. The charge for the conference is $55, or $50 each for groups of two or more. The price covers coffee and refreshments, bag lunch, presentations, handouts, door prizes, access to speakers, and online reference for presentations.

For more information, visit http://bit.ly/GardeningSpringConference.

Feb. 18

CONCERT TO BENEFIT CHILDREN

The Harmony Heritage Singers presents a concert of popular and traditional music at Mount Vernon Unitarian Church, 1909 Windmill Ln., Alexandria, Va., on Sunday, Feb. 18 at 3 p.m. The program includes a set of songs commemorating the 100th anniversary of World War I. All are welcome. There is no admission charge, but there will be an offering for Alice’s Kids, a local nonprofit that helps children with financial needs. For more information, contact Ron Brandt at gronbrandt@gmail.com, call (703) 765-4779 or visit www.mvuc.org.

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Tech stocks From page 24 system served as a trigger. Tech stocks stand to gain less from lower tax rates than other industries, so some investors moved money out of tech and into those sectors expected to be tax-overhaul winners, such as financial companies and retailers.

Strong growth expected But technology companies are in the midst of reshaping several industries, from retail to media, and proponents see even more growth ahead. Ken Allen, portfolio manager at the T. Rowe Price Science & Technology fund, calls it “being on the right side of change.”

Plus, the pace of adoption is accelerating. It took Microsoft’s Windows nearly 26 years to get to 1 billion users. For Google’s Android operating system, it took less than six years.

Many mutual-fund managers seem to agree. After looking at 495 mutual funds that invest $1.9 trillion, strategists at Goldman Sachs found that actively managed

funds generally have even more invested in the technology sector than index funds do.

The margin has been shrinking a bit recently, but the preference nevertheless remains.

A big difference between tech stocks of today and the last time the industry was such a dominant force in the market during the late 1990s is how much profit they’re making.

Tech companies are not only making money, they’re delivering some of the strongest gains as customers continue to snap up iPhones and click on ads in Facebook. Tech stocks in the S&P 500 reported 21 percent growth in earnings per share in the third quarter of 2017, triple the rate of the overall index.

That’s a far cry from 2000, when tech stocks made up nearly 35 percent of the S&P 500 at the height of the dot-com bubble and investors were more interested in capturing “eyeballs” and web traffic than in something as mundane as sales or even earnings.

— AP

BEACON BITS

Feb. 21

COMMISSION ON AGING MEETING

The Fairfax Commission on Aging meets on Wednesday, Feb. 21 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Mount Vernon Government Center in Rooms 2 and 3 at 2511 Parkers Ln., Mt. Vernon. The public is welcome to attend and join in the comment period that begins each session. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/FairfaxCommissionOnAging or call (703) 324-5403, TTY 711.

Feb. 13

NURSING HOME RIGHTS

Arlington County offers a free talk on the laws pertaining to nursing home discharges and transfers that differ from state to state.

A representative from Northern Virginia Legal Services will explain the laws and how they protect the consumer on Tuesday, Feb. 13 at 1 p.m. at Lee Senior Center, 5722 Lee Hwy., Arlington, Va. For more information or to register, call (703) 228-0555.

The Career Gateway! features small classes, 30 hours of intensive training over two weeks, a long-term mentor, and valuable take-home materials

WHEN: 2018 Sessions: #4: March 5, 7, 9, 12, 14 #5: April 23, 25, 27, 30 and May 2 WHERE: 12320 Parklawn Dr., Rockville, MD 20852 FEE: $75

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Say you saw it in the Beacon | Law & Money

WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

27

How to make your encore career count

By Sandra Block Marci Alboher is vice president of Encore.org, a nonprofit that encourages baby boomers to use their skills and experience to help their communities. She’s the author of The Encore Career Handbook: How to Make a Living and a Difference in the Second Half of Life.

Here is an excerpt of a conversation with her from Kiplinger’s: Kiplinger: Are there particular fields that lend themselves to an encore career?

Alboher: There are jobs and roles that benefit from the kinds of qualities that age provides. For example, having gone through an illness yourself or having served as a caregiver can make you more qualified for positions such as wellness coach, healthcare navigator, or a wide variety of roles in the health and wellness area.

Roles that involve guiding young people are natural fits for people with experience.

For example, Pushy Moms was founded by a group of women who had helped their own kids get into college, and wanted to do that for other young people.

Grandmas2Go offers “grandmas” to new parents who want to learn good parenting skills.

Should you look for an encore career in your field of expertise?

I’ve seen it go both ways. Many people leverage 30 to 40 years of experience to do something they can do only because of what they did in a prior career, such as a social worker who goes into policy work or education reform.

I’ve also seen people who are burned out and ready to focus on something different. They go back to school, get new training, and revisit an earlier passion they had put aside to take a more practical path.

Where should people who are interested in an encore career start?

The most important thing you can do is

BEACON BITS

Feb. 10+

INTERNATIONAL MUSIC AND DANCE

The Tamburitzans, an international music and dance group, performs a new show called “Passages,” at two area locations: at F. Scott Fitzgerald Theater, 603 Edmonston Dr., Rockville, Md. on Saturday, Feb. 10 at 7:30 p.m., and at the Ernst Theater at Northern Virginia Community College, 8333 Little River Turnpike, Annandale, Va. on Sunday, Feb. 11 at 3 p.m. Tickets begin at $27. For more information or to purchase tickets, visit fscottfitzgerald.showare.com or call (240) 314-8690.

Feb. 26

GARDEN CLUB MEETING

Ayr Hill Garden Club is holding a meeting on Monday, Feb. 26 at 12:45 p.m. with complimentary refreshments. The program begins at 1 p.m. at Emmanuel Lutheran Church, 2589 Chain Bridge Rd., Vienna, Va. The topic is “How to choose and prune roses.” Guests are welcome. For more information, visit http://bit.ly/2AyrHillGardenClubMeeting.

volunteer. It’s the surest path to trying out something you think you’re interested in.

Encore.org’s Generation to Generation campaign is a great place to start.

Our Opportunity Finder, powered by VolunteerMatch.org, identifies roles with youth-serving organizations that are seeking experienced talent.

AARP also has a website for volunteer opportunities, Create the Good, www.createthegood.org.

What about people who want jobs

that pay?

Volunteering will help you test out your ideas, learn about issues that matter to you, and build a network that will help you find other opportunities and even jobs.

LinkedIn is the best resource to stay in touch with your network, to find opportunities and to keep up with any field that interests you. © 2018 The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Store card could torpedo your credit score

By Bev O’Shea When a sales clerk cheerfully asks, “Would you like to save 20 percent on your purchases today by opening a card with us?” you may think you’re getting a bargain.

But the reality sounds a lot less cheery: “Would you be interested in a low-limit card that could damage your credit standing?”

Credit expert John Ulzheimer warns that opening a new store card could hurt your credit score by: • Having an outsize impact on your credit

usage, which is a big factor in credit scores • Causing an inquiry on your credit • Reducing the average age of your credit accounts

Lower limit, higher usage The credit limits on retail cards that you use only at one store or chain are typically about 10 percent of those on comparable general-use credit cards, Ulzheimer said.

Let’s say you open a store card to get 20 percent off a $250 purchase. After the dis-

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VICTORY CROSSING SENIOR APARTMENTS

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Victory Crossing Senior Apartments will feature one- and two-bedroom apartments for rent in Silver Spring, MD for those 62 and older. Our community offers quality LEEDS Silver construction that you can count on. Features include: • Building has been designed to LEED Silver requirements • AAMA and NFRC Labeled, Energy Star Rated Windows with Low-E/Argon filled insulating glass • Utilized Advanced Framing Techniques to minimize material usage and maximize insulation values in exterior wall assemblies incluing insulated headers.

• Exterior walls composed of 2x6 studs with Blown-in-Batt insulation with an R-Value of 23.0.

• Attic insulation composed of Blown-in Cellulose with a minimun R-Value of 49.0 • Exterior siding is composed of low-maintenance Manufactured Stone and Fiber-Cement lap and panel siding.

• High Efficiency Split-System Heat Pumps for heating and cooling with digital thermostats meeting Energy Aware Guidelines.

• Green Label Plus Certified carpeting.

• Resilient flooring of Luxury Vinyl Tile (LVT) with Post-Consumer and Pre-Consumer Recycled materials.

• Paint products are Low/No VOC, Green Guard Certified.

• Plumbing fixtures are low-flow, water conserving fixtures.

• Energy Star Rated kitchen Appliances and lighting fixtures.

www.VictoryCrossingSeniorApartments.com Another quality community by

Victory Housing

Professionally managed by:

H A B I T A T

AMERICA

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301-236-0000 1090 Milestone Drive Silver Spring, Maryland 20904

TTY: 711

count, your balance is $200. A few days later, you spend $150 more. You’re still well below the card’s $1,000 limit — but your balance is 35 percent of your credit limit.

How much of your credit limit you use has a major influence on your credit scores. The only thing that matters more is paying on time.

Credit experts advise staying below 30 percent of the limit on any card. Consumers with the very best scores typically use less than 10 percent.

To keep your usage low, credit card expert and author Beverly Harzog suggests paying your bill before the issuer reports the balance to the credit bureaus. Call the customer service number on the card to find out when that is. Or get in the habit of making online payments as soon as you purchase something. That way, your charges never stack up.

A retail card doesn’t just affect your scores by spiking your credit usage. “When you apply for a new card, the card issuer is going to want to pull one of your credit reports,” Ulzheimer said. That helps the issuer assess whether to approve your application, but it can cause a small, temporary dip in your score. “That’s problematic — I wouldn’t call it catastrophic,” he said.

The bigger problem comes if you’re approved. That new account causes the average age of your credit cards to decrease.

Credit age is a minor factor in scores, but every point counts.

The worst decision of all might be to apply for card after card as you shop to snare multiple discounts. Each application can ding your score, and each new approval drops your overall age of accounts.

Limited usability, limited services On top of potentially hurting your credit scores, retail cards have usability issues.

They’re often good only at one store or retail chain, usually have high interest rates, and typically have less robust security alerts than traditional cards.

You might be better off using an existing credit card, especially if you have a rewards card that offers cash back on every purchase, not just the initial one.

“In the grand scheme of things, 20 percent off your purchases, one day ever, isn’t that big of a deal. Even if you spent $1,000 — which I doubt most people will do — that’s a $200 discount,” Ulzheimer said. “Really, you didn’t save $200, you spent $800.”

And if you carry a balance instead of paying in full, interest will eat into that discount.

Avoid snap decisions If you shop at a particular place often See STORE CARDS, page 29

Say you saw it in the Beacon | Law & Money

WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

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Simplify finances — for you and your heirs

By Liz Weston Simplifying and organizing our financial lives can make things easier for us while we’re alive and for our survivors when we’re not.

This task becomes more urgent as we age. Our financial decision-making abilities generally peak around age 53, researchers have found, while rates of cognitive decline and dementia start to climb at age 60.

Over time, we tend to become more vulnerable to fraud, scams, unethical advisers and bad judgment, said financial literacy expert Lewis Mandell, author of What to Do When I Get Stupid. Cleaning up our finances early can help protect us.

Some steps to take:

Consolidate financial accounts Fewer accounts are easier to monitor for suspicious transactions and overlapping investments, plus you may save money on account fees.

Your employer may allow you to transfer old 401(k) and IRA accounts into its plan, or you can consolidate them into one IRA. For simplicity, consider swapping individ-

Store cards From page 28 enough, it might be worth opening a store

ual stocks and bonds for professionally managed mutual funds or exchange-traded funds (but check with a tax pro before you sell any investments held outside retirement funds).

Consider moving scattered bank accounts under one roof, but keep in mind that FDIC insurance is generally limited to $250,000 per depositor per institution.

mends her older clients keep just two credit cards: one for everyday purchases and another for automatic bill payments.

But note: Closing accounts can hurt credit scores, so wait until you’re reasonably sure you won’t need to apply for a loan before you start dramatically pruning.

Certified financial planner Carolyn McClanahan in Jacksonville, Fla., recom-

Identify someone you want making decisions for you if you’re incapacitated. Use software or a lawyer to create two durable powers of attorney — one for finances, one for healthcare. You don’t have to name the same person in both, but do name backups in case your original choice can’t serve.

Consider naming someone younger, because someone your age or older could become impaired at the same time you do, said Carolyn Rosenblatt, an elder-law attorney in San Rafael, Calif., who runs AgingParents.com. Grant online access to your accounts, or at least talk about where your trusted person can find the information she’ll need, Rosenblatt recommends.

Also create “in case of emergency” files that your trusted person or heirs will need.

These might include: • Your will or living trust • Medical directives, powers of attorney, living wills • Birth, death and marriage certificates • Military records • Social Security cards • Car titles, property deeds and other ownership documents • Insurance policies • A list of your financial accounts • Contact information for your attorney, tax pro, financial adviser and insurance agent • Photocopies of passports, driver’s licenses and credit cards A safe deposit box is not the best repository, because your trusted person may need access to its contents outside bank hours.

A fireproof safe bolted to a floor in your home, or at minimum a locked file cabinet, may be better, as long as you share the combination or key (or its location) with your trusted person.

Scanning paperwork and keeping an encrypted copy in the cloud could help you or someone else recreate your financial life if the originals are lost or destroyed. — AP

card to access ongoing discounts, presales and insider benefits. But resist deciding that in the checkout line.

And if you already have a store card?

Don’t close it — that also would hurt your average age of accounts.

Better to use it lightly and pay on time.

Both actions have a positive effect on your

credit scores.

And make the most of any exclusive deals the card offers.

— NerdWallet via AP

Set up a watchdog Automate payments Memory lapses can lead to missed payments, late fees and credit score damage, which can in turn drive up the cost of borrowing and insurance.

You can set up regular recurring payments in your bank’s bill payment system, have other bills charged to a credit card, and set up an automatic payment so the card balance is paid in full each month.

Head off bounced-transaction fees with true overdraft protection, which taps a line of credit or a savings account to pay overlimit transactions.

Prune credit cards

Nominate Extraordinary Volunteers In Montgomery County Seeking nominations for NEAL POTTER PATH OF ACHIEVEMENT AWARD This award honors residents age 60 & better for their lifetime of volunteer service to Montgomery County.

In partnership with the Commission on Aging & The Beacon Newspapers.

MONTGOMERY SERVES AWARDS These awards recognize special volunteer accomplishments in 2017 in four categories, individual, group, business, and youth.

Deadline for nominations — Friday, February 23, 5pm www.montgomeryserves.org 2017 Montgomery Serves winners

Jews and Chocolate: A Love Story Join us for a sweet event with special guest

Sheilah Kaufman

Thursday, February 8 | 2 - 3:30 p.m.

Ring House,1801 E. Jefferson St., Rockville, MD 20852 Sheilah Kaufman never met a chocolate she didn’t like, and she is certainly not alone! Chocolate is the most craved food in the United States! Come and meet Sheilah, award-winning author of 26 cookbooks, cooking teacher, food editor, and culinary lecturer, as she tells the story of the History of the Jews and Chocolate. Who knew there was a Jewish history here! Learn valuable information about using and cooking with chocolate, and enjoy a chocolate tasting.

Stay for a chocolate buffet!

The author will have several cookbooks available for sale and will be happy to sign them for you.

Find out more and nominate now! www.montgomeryserves.org Questions? email serviceawards@montgomerycountymd.gov or call 240-777-2600

RSVP by February 5th to Jill Berkman at berkman@ceslc.org or 301-816-5052

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VOLUME XXVIIII, ISSUE 2

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

A newsletter for D.C. Seniors

February 2018

Office on Aging Oversight Hearing On Monday, February 12, Councilmember Anita Bonds, Chairperson of the Committee on Housing & Neighborhood Revitalization, will hold an Agency Performance Oversight Hearing for FY 2017 of the Office on Aging.

The hearing will take place in the John A. Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue NW., at 10:00 a.m.

Those who wish to testify are requested to telephone the Committee on Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization at (202) 724-8198, or email omontiel@dccouncil.us, and provide their name, address, telephone number, organizational affiliation and title (if any), by close of business on February 9.

Persons wishing to testify are encouraged to submit 15 copies of written testimony. Oral testimony should be limited to three minutes for individuals and five minutes for organizations.

DCOA Seeking Centenarians to Honor The D.C. Office on Aging (DCOA) is seeking District residents who are 100 years or older to honor during our 32nd Annual Salute to Centenarians being held in April.

If you know of residents who will have celebrated their centennial birthday by April 30, 2018, please call Darlene Nowlin at 202-727-8364 or email darlene.nowlin@dc.gov. When registering centenarians, please make sure you know the name, date of birth and contact information for each individual.

Spotlight on Aging

WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

Say you saw it in the Beacon

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Get Involved Feb. 5, 12:45-1:20 p.m.

Feb. 15, 10 a.m.-noon

Feb. 20, 11 a.m.-noon

D.C. Seniors Resources Group networking lunch Metropolitan Memorial, 3401 Nebraska Ave. NW Contact: Steve Gurney, 703-966-6182, Steve@proaging.com

Train to become A DCOA Ambassador 500 K St. NE To register, contact sadia.ferguson@dc.gov or 202-727-0374

AARP Medicare Patrol: Get your questions about Medicare answered.

Greenleaf Apartments Community Room 1200 Delaware Ave. SW Contact: Lavelle Ginyard, 202-554-3100

Feb. 6, 8-9 p.m.

The Village at 2430 K St. NW Carol Schwartz book discussion and signing event Contact: Peter Sacco, psacco@fbwevillage.org, 202 333-1327

Feb. 7, 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Benning Ridge Civic Association’s Community Health & Resource Fair Ridge Road Community Center, 830 Ridge Rd. SE

Feb. 15, 10:30 a.m.-1 p.m.

DCOA Health and Wellness Fair Bernice Fonteneau Senior Wellness Center 3551 Georgia Ave. NW Contact: Michele Singleton, 202-727-0338

Feb. 16, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

DCOA Health and Resource Fair Hattie Holmes Senior Wellness Center 324 Kennedy St. NW Contact: Teresa Moore, 202-291-6170

Feb. 10, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Asian & Pacific Islander Senior Center Chinese New Year Celebration 417 G Place NW Contact: Kenneth So, 202-842-4376

Feb. 20, 1-2 p.m.

Puzzle-Thon: competitive groups puzzles. Winners will be featured on Facebook and will receive prizes.

Downtown Cluster’s Geriatric Day Care Center 926 11th St. NW Contact: Thomye Cave, 202-347-7527, tcave@dcgeriatric.org.

Feb.22, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Join TERRIFIC, Inc for a tour of the newly opened Museum of the Bible. Transportation may be provided from senior sites.

Contact: Sandra Burley, 202-595-1912, ext. 102.

Feb. 17, 2-6 p.m.

Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, 4611 Sheriff Rd. NE Valentine’s Day/Black History Event Wear African attire or red and white.

Lunch is included and transportation is provided for Community Dining Sites to the event.

Contact: Robin Gantt, 202-397-7300

Sip & Print with Gail Shaw-Clemons, printmaker Join us for a free Sip & Print Enjoy refreshments, learn about the printmaking process, and benefit from the joys of art making — all in the company of friends!

Iona Senior Services 4125 Albemarle St. NW RSVP to 202-895-9407 or online: www.iona.org

Feb. 14, 11 a.m.-1 p.m.

Feb.19, 10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Sadie Hawkins Day Dating Game Fort Stevens Recreation Center 1327 Van Buren St. NW Contact: James Thompson, 202-882-1824

DCOA Health and Resource Fair Congress Heights Senior Wellness Center 3500 Martin Luther King, Jr. Ave. SE Contact: Regina Jeter, 202-563-7225

Feb. 14, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

Feb. 24, 1-4 p.m.

Kingdom Care Senior Village writing workshop: an introduction to writing your ideas.

Greater Fellowship Church, 814 Alabama Ave. SE. Contact: Mary Moses, 202-442-1753.

Feb. 26 Washington Seniors Wellness Center takes a trip to see the play The Great Society, about LBJ and the war on poverty at Arena Stage. Transportation provided from center. Contact: Dr. K, 202-581-6019

Feb. 28, 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m.

D.C. Office on Aging & Partners serve residents of Central Union Mission. Contact: Shirley Johnson, 202-647-7466

Feb. 14, 11 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

Valentine’s Day Party: music, games and fellowship Sibley Plaza Apartments Community Room 1140 N. Capitol St. NW Contact: Billy Anderson, 202-408-4700

Feb. 14 Ingleside at Rock Creek community presentations and workshops 5121 Broad Branch Rd. NW. Contact: Michelle High, 202-596-3120, if you live in the immediate area

Spotlight On Aging is published by the Information Office of the D.C. Office on Aging for D.C. senior residents. Advertising contained in the Beacon is not endorsed by the D.C. Office on Aging or by the publisher.

500 K St. N.E., Washington, D.C. 20002 202-724-5626 www.dcoa.dc.gov

Executive Director Laura Newland

Editor Darlene Nowlin

Photographer Selma Dillard

Feb. 20, 10:30-11:30 a.m.

An Approach to Living Well: discussion on care for the caregiver, wills and right-sizing your home First Baptist Church Senior Center 712 Randolph St. NW, Ida Clark Hall Contact: Barbara Stannard, 202-723-4313

The D.C. Office on Aging does not discriminate against anyone based on actual or perceived: race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, marital status, personal appearance, sexual orientation, familial status, family responsibilities, matriculation, political affiliation, disability, source of income, and place of residence or business.

Sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination which is prohibited by the Act. In addition, harassment based on any of the above protected categories is prohibited by the Act. Discrimination in violation of the Act will not be tolerated. Violators will be subjected to disciplinary action.

The Office on Aging is in partnership with the District of Columbia Recycling Program.

Monday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 10:30-11:30 a.m.

So Others Might Eat (SOME) has partnered with DPR’s Hillcrest Recreation Center to provide SOME Senior Center participants access to weekly recreational activities.

Activities include line dancing, chair and balance aerobics, open gym, and a walking club. FREE Transportation is provided from SOME’s Senior Center to Hillcrest Recreation Center, and back.

To enroll, contact Denise Stoney, 202-797-8806, ext. 1301

Search for Ms.Senior D.C.2018 Are you a D.C. resident who is age 60 or older and interested in representing your peers as Ms. Senior D.C. 2018? Are you actively involved in your community? Consider becoming a contestant in the next Ms. Senior D.C. Pageant! We are searching for the elegant lady who will represent the District of Columbia as the 2018 Ms. Senior D.C. Contestants are judged on a personal interview, their philosophy of life, and their talent and evening gown presentations. The winner will represent the District of Columbia and compete in the Ms. Senior America Pageant.For more information on how to sign up, please call DCOA at 202-7278364 or email darlene.nowlin@dc.gov or visit www.dcoa.dc.gov to complete an application.

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Travel Leisure &

Visit Lima, Peru instead of Barcelona for a bargain vacation without the crowds. See story on page 34.

Explore Virginia’s African American sites

PHOTO BY GLENDA C. BOOTH

tention. At one time, tourists visiting Washington’s Mount Vernon, Madison’s Montpelier or Jefferson’s Monticello never heard a word about the slaves whose labor enabled these plantations to function.

Fortunately, that is no longer the case.

At Montpelier, for example, there is a new exhibition, “The Mere Distinction of Colour,” designed “to pay homage to those in the enslaved community.”

“All of the different nuances of African American life to which society attributed so little is now being brought to the surface,” said Ronald Chase, President of the Gum Springs Museum in Fairfax County.

Gum Springs, a historic black community a few miles from Mt. Vernon, was founded by West Ford, a Mount Vernon slave freed in 1805. The Gum Springs Museum’s collection honors notables of this almost 200-year community.

Speaking of Mt. Vernon, George Washington first expressed his desire to no longer own slaves in a 1778 entry in his diary, and called for their release in his will (to occur after the death of his wife, Martha). But she decided to release the many slaves who worked at Mt. Vernon two years after his death.

The “Lives Bound Together” exhibit at Mount Vernon Estate presents the first president’s dilemma and other perspectives on slave life. The exhibit remains open through this September.

A 14-by-16-foot slave cabin made of roughhewn logs and mud dramatizes the contrast of slave living conditions with their owners’ elegant lifestyle, as do slaves’ unmarked graves near the Washingtons’ imposing tomb.

A memorial created “Sir” James Thornhill stands beside the mural he painted of

by Howard University Harriet Tubman in Richmond, Va. His many murals focus on architectural students African Americans, both well-known and ones who have not honors those in unbeen in the public eye.

PHOTO BY GLENDA C. BOOTH

By Glenda C. Booth Perhaps surprisingly, “Virginia is home to the longest continuous experience of African American culture and life in the United States,” the state’s tourism agency touts. It is a journey of highs and lows, tragedies and triumphs.

In a state that promotes its early devotion to democracy and human dignity through numerous Colonial and Revolutionary War sites, the landscape is riddled with examples of slavery, the Confederacy and racial discrimination.

Today, African American history and culture are told not only through the occasional monument, but also through food, music, literature, politics, business and little-known spots.

Much of the history of Virginia’s African Americans was never written. Most slaves were illiterate; many lacked last names.

Wooden grave markers and cabin homes rotted long ago.

The good news is that remaining African American sites are getting more and more at-

An annual ceremony honors George Washington’s slaves buried in unmarked graves at Mt. Vernon, his estate. A memorial was added to the cemetery in 1983.

marked graves who served in bondage to the Father of Freedom.

In Northern Virginia Alexandria has a proud African American history — as well as one not so proud — conveyed in more than two dozen sites, including these: The Alexandria Black History Museum chronicles the successes and ordeals of local African Americans from 1749 to the present.

Alfred Street Baptist Church, dating from 1803, is the oldest black Baptist church in the Washington, D.C., region.

At 1315 Duke St., Isaac Franklin and John Armfield ran one of the country’s largest, slave-selling enterprises in the 19th century, including a slave pen for thousands awaiting sale. Today called Freedom House, it is a small civil rights museum and office.

The eight-acre African American Heritage Park is next to a 19th century African American cemetery. Nearby, are statues of Emily and Mary Edmondson, two women who fled slavery in 1848 on a ship, the Pearl.

They were imprisoned and eventually freed.

Members of the U.S. Colored Troops staged one of the first organized civil rights actions in 1864 when patients at L’Ouverture Hospital petitioned for their comrades to be buried in Alexandria’s National Cemetery.

During the Civil War, people of African descent who fled the Confederacy and

were protected by Union forces occupying Alexandria were called “contrabands.”

Over 20,000 contrabands, many destitute, came to or passed through Alexandria.

Freedman’s Cemetery honors these refugees at a spot where 1,800 graves were once covered by a gas station and an office building and encroached upon by a railroad, brickyard and highways, including the Beltway.

The city razed all the structures and identified grave sites by analyzing subtle soil color differences. The most prominent feature is the Place of Remembrance, designed by Alexandria architect C.J. Howard, and featuring a Mario Chiodo sculpture depicting grief that leaps off the former gas station pad.

And in more modern times, Samuel Tucker led one of the country’s first anti-segregation sit-ins at the Alexandria library in 1939.

The four million annual visitors to Arlington Cemetery probably don’t realize that Arlington House, built by slaves, was the plantation home of our first president’s grandson, George Washington Parke Custis. Later, a Custis cousin, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, lived there.

After the Civil War, Union troops decided to surround the mansion with a cemetery to ensure the family would never return. Now known as Arlington Cemetery, it rests in fields where 200 slaves toiled.

To learn more about African American See VIRGINIA SITES, page 33

WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

Virginia sites From page 32 history in Alexandria and other parts of northern Virginia, see www.alexblackhistory.org. Consider taking a 90-minute walking of Alexandria’s black history with Manusmission Tours. See www.manumissiontours.com.

In Richmond, Va. Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, is full of symbols of Virginia’s schizophrenic history.

Glistening white on a hill is the state Capitol, the iconic, Greek-temple-like building designed by Thomas Jefferson — slave owner and principal author of the Declaration of Independence. Nearby looms a 60-foot equestrian statue of General George Washington, the slave owner who led the colonies’ revolt against tyranny.

Nearby is an 18-figure, granite and bronze memorial honoring the African Americans who led a 1950s protest of inferior, segregated schools in Farmville, Va. The Capitol sits a few hundred feet from the elegant, 19th century mansion where the state’s governors reside while in power. The home has seen some big changes over the years.

In 1954, Gov. Thomas Stanley vowed to use every legal means to resist the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision, which found that separate educational systems for blacks and whites are unequal and unconstitutional.

Sixteen years later, Governor Linwood Holton escorted his daughter from the mansion to the predominantly black public high school nearby. And from 1990 to 1994, the nation’s first black governor — Douglas Wilder, a grandson of slaves — lived there.

The Reconciliation Statue memorializes the slave trade, a few blocks from the area known as Shockoe Bottom — Richmond’s

19th century commercial heart and the country’s second largest slave trading center. Authorities hanged rebelling slaves there in 1800, including their leader, a blacksmith known as “General Gabriel.”

In 2014, the National Trust for Historic Preservation listed Shockoe Bottom as one of the 11 most endangered places in the U.S. because of a controversial plan to raze buildings to construct a minor league baseball stadium, hotel and other buildings on the historic site.

The Trust helped stop the construction of the stadium. Now plans are underway to build an interpretative center that remembers Shockoe Bottom‘s dark past.

A 17-stop Slave Trail walk, starting at Manchester Docks across the river from Shockoe Bottom, tracks slave marketing routes.

Not all of Richmond’s African American sites represent the city’s scarred past. Artist James Thornhill’s boldly colored murals in historic Jackson Ward illuminate African Americans both well-known and little-known.

In this section of Richmond, the “birthplace of Black Capitalism,” Maggie Walker’s home is a story of empowerment. Daughter of a former slave, she became the first African American woman bank president.

When, from post-Civil War to the 1930s, white establishments refused to serve blacks, she created services for her people — a bank, department store, insurance company, newspaper, a Girl Scout troop.

At the Black History Museum and Cultural Center — situated in a former armory, school and gym for “coloreds” — a touch-screen exhibit chronicles slavery from Egypt to the present, including slaves’ resistance, the Jim Crow era, and the struggle for equal rights.

One standout story is that of Henry “Box” Brown, a slave who in 1849 “mailed” himself to Philadelphia abolitionists in a wooden crate — a 27-hour journey via wagon, railroad, steamboat and ferry.

Say you saw it in the Beacon | Leisure & Travel

Down the block is a statue of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, a local and accomplished tap dancer, known for tapping up and down stairs in a complex rhythmic pattern. He became the country’s most highly-paid African American entertainer in the early 20th century.

After heated controversy, in 1996 a statue of tennis great Arthur Ashe joined the towering statues of five Confederate leaders on Monument Avenue, a boulevard that once symbolized what some called “Southern glory.” Despite recent controversy over Confederate monuments throughout the South, these statues are still standing. Surrounded by children, Ashe holds a tennis racket in one hand and a book in the other.

The following websites provide further information about black history sites in the Richmond area: www.virginia.org (see Historic Sites), www.visitrichmondva.com

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(see Civil War and Black History Museum entries), and the Elegba Folklore Society at http://efsinc.org/tours.

In Hampton, Va. A historic marker at ironically-named Point Comfort recognizes the spot where the first Africans, “20 and odd” from Angola, disembarked from the White Lion in Virginia in 1619. A Hampton History Museum room replicates the ship’s galley, where slaves were crammed and transported, and showcases 17th century shackles.

Other exhibits at the museum relate the story of Cesar Tarrant, a slave who won his freedom by steering a ship for the Virginia Navy in a two-hour battle in 1777. Another panel explains that African Americans were See VIRGINIA SITES, page 35

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Try bargain vacations for smaller crowds

By Miriam Cross Hordes of tourists swarming the world’s most popular destinations can make travel unpleasant. For example, Barcelona and Venice are so crowded that disgruntled residents have staged protests over the influx of visitors.

Governments looking for ways to reduce the crowds in Barcelona and Dubrovnik are considering limiting hotel construction or capping the number of cruise ships that unleash swells of day-trippers.

If your heart is set on viewing Paris from atop the Eiffel Tower or skiing at a chic Colorado resort, the crush of people with the same idea may not deter you. But if you prize a less-crowded experience, consider these alternatives to popular vacation spots around the world.

One way to avoid the crowds is to travel during the off-season. But scheduling time off from work or school, and risking rainy and cold weather, aren’t for everyone. So we chose places that are less packed all

Spring is Right Around the Corner!

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year round and offer good value even in peak season. Here are two suggestions.

bus ride takes about 45 minutes each way.

Lima, Peru instead of Barcelona Snowbasin, Utah instead of Vail Colorado has a slew of ski resorts that draw plenty of season pass holders and other visitors, thanks to a variety of terrain, high-quality facilities and plentiful lodging. To spend more time on the slopes and less time shivering in line for the lift, venture further afield.

The facilities at Snowbasin, an hour’s drive from the Salt Lake City airport, were revamped for the 2002 Winter Olympics (the resort hosted the downhill, Super G and combined races). But its location is just remote enough to put off the masses.

Trails are suitable for all levels of skiing across more than 3,000 acres, and the terrain is varied, too. “Snowbasin has bits of Utah all in one place, from the rolling mountains of Park City to the steep, rugged terrain of Cottonwood Canyons,” said Evan Reece, CEO of Liftopia, an online seller of lift tickets.

An excursion to the nearby ski resort of Powder Mountain can be tacked on to the same trip. Facilities there are not as fancy as Snowbasin’s, but it has more than 8,464 skiable acres — more than any other resort in the U.S. You’ll also pay less to schuss down the slopes. A lift ticket for a Saturday in February at Vail recently cost $164 online. For the same date, you could buy a lift ticket for $89 at Snowbasin or $79 at Powder Mountain.

There are condos and rentals near both mountains. But in nearby Ogden, you’ll have your pick of accommodations and apres-ski activities, including indoor skydiving, rock climbing and stand-up comedy.

Public buses connect both Snowbasin and Powder Mountain with several stops in Ogden ($7.20 for a 24-hour pass). The

Fans of architect Antoni Gaudi may settle for nothing less than a trip to Barcelona, where his sculptural buildings and towering Sagrada Familia Church enliven the city.

Barcelona also features dozens of museums, Catalan cooking, a thriving nightlife and sandy beaches.

But you will be far from alone: The city hosts more than 30 million visitors each year.

If you simply want to spend a few days reveling in art, architecture and cuisine in a lively city, head south to Lima, Peru, instead.

(You’ll also avoid the Catalonia turmoil in Barcelona.)

The old colonial town of Lima comes to life in its historic center, designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can tour the catacombs at the San Francisco Church and Convent for $3, or watch the changing of the guard outside Government Palace, the former residence of Francisco Pizarro, a Spanish explorer and founder of Lima.

Or explore Huaca Pucllana, 1,500-year-old ruins that rise up in the upscale Miraflores district. On the artsy side, pre-Columbian objects and textiles are on display at the Lima Art Museum and the Larco Museum.

We found flights from the Washington area in May in the $500s, or in the $600s later in the summer (which is Lima’s mild winter).

Four-star hotels averaged $138 a night in the summer of 2017, compared with $233 in Barcelona, according to rates from Expedia. Rooms at Hotel Dazzler, in the Miraflores district, recently started at a discounted rate of $132 per night for July 2018 if booked online 60 days in advance. © 2018 The Kiplinger Washington Editors, Inc. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

Best Senior Care Gets Thumbs Up

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WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

Virginia sites From page 33 once integral to the area’s seafood industry.

Under Union occupation, Fort Monroe, built in part with slave labor, offered refuge to runaways. The fort imprisoned Confederate President Jefferson Davis from 1865 to 1867. From his cell’s bed, he had to look at a Union flag, still there today.

An exhibit titled “When the Computer Wore a Skirt,” at NASA’s Langley Visitor Center in Hampton, celebrates the African American women made famous by the recent movie Hidden Figures. Three of the five lived in Hampton, and did some of the math basic to generations of aircraft and manned spacecraft. Another panel honors the World War II Tuskegee Airmen, America’s first African American fliers.

Hampton University opened in 1868 with two teachers and 15 newly emancipated black students. It was founded by Gen. Samuel Armstrong, who was sent by the American Missionary Association to educate blacks. Besides Booker T. Washing-

ton, who walked to Hampton from West Virginia, and other notables, the university educated Native Americans from 65 tribes in the late 1800s.

The university’s museum is the oldest African American museum in the U.S., and the only museum in the South open to African Americans until at least the 1920s. It is the first institution to establish a collection of African American art, started in 1894.

The Emancipation Oak looms near the university’s entrance. Here, in 1863, locals gathered to hear the first Southern reading of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Under its branches, Mary Peake illegally started a school for children of former slaves.

Today, designated by the National Geographic Society as one of the 10 great trees of the world, it sports a canopy over 100 feet in diameter and a trunk at least six feet across. It is a true symbol of survival.

More information on Hampton is available at www.visithampton.com.

prevalent in southwest Virginia as in other parts of the state, but the history of discrimination, struggle and survival is here too.

Roanoke’s Harrison Museum of AfricanAmerican Culture (www.harrisonmuseum.com) documents how, during segregation, local blacks proudly created their own schools, stores, doctors’ offices and hospitals, especially in the historic Gainsborough neighborhood.

Today, a statue of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. stands tall. A mosaic at the City Market honors African American railroad workers.

Thirty miles away is the Booker T. Washington National Monument, a National Park Service site and formerly the Burroughs tobacco plantation, where Washington was born and freed.

A reconstructed cabin with a dirt floor gives visitors a glimpse of slave life. Here

35

Washington ached for an education, later writing, “to get into a school house and study in this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.”

Park rangers conduct educational programs, and offer 19th-century recipes for neckbones and gravy and Confederate cornbread. Learn more at www.nps.gov/bowa.

Reflecting on his youth, Booker T. Washington offered, “One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.” Perhaps Virginia is gradually getting out of that ditch.

At the same time, in the words of civil rights leader and Georgia Congressman John Lewis, “There’s still a great deal of pain that needs to be healed.”

Learn more about these and many other sites that commemorate black history in Virginia at www.virginia.org/blackhistoryattractions.

In Roanoke, Va. Slave-holding plantations were not as

BEACON BITS

Feb. 10

Say you saw it in the Beacon | Leisure & Travel

BASIC COMPUTER CLASS

The Prince George’s County Memorial Library System offers computer basics classes for adults on Saturday, Feb. 10 at 10:30 a.m. at its Bowie Branch, 15210 Annapolis Rd., Bowie, Md. Learn the basics of computer use, including the keyboard, mouse and desktop features. For more information, call (301) 262-7000.

CHERRY BLOSSOM CRUISE, April 4 ....................................................................$129pp Enjoy a three course sit down luncheon while cruising down the Potomac River aboard the Odyssey.

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36

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Style Arts &

Laurie Metcalf, nominated for her first Oscar, talks about her career and her continuing fear of cameras. See story on page 41.

Silk painter shares her skill with others While she was fortunate to discover her love of silk painting in France, she was equally fortunate to have met her husband, an American, there. The two eventually married and moved to the United States, where she resolved to popularize the ancient technique.

While silk painting was a well recognized craft in Europe, she found it to be somewhat of a mystery to American artists, most of whom weren’t familiar with it. Furthermore, the materials were simply not available in America, such as the special dyes used like paint.

In 1977, Tuckman began to change that by setting up her own company, Ivy Imports, to bring over needed supplies from France.

Now 82 and living in Lanham, Md., Tuckman credits the art with keeping her busy and sharp. She thinks it’s important for older adults in general to practice some form of art. “It’s empowering, recreational, stimulating, and mentally active,� she noted from experience.

Many steps to the process For those unfamiliar with the art form, the first step is to “stretch or stabilize the silk� to

keep it in place, Tuckman explained.

For abstract-type art, you can simply apply the dye colors directly onto the stabilized silk. The dyes can be applied using one or more techniques, including “wet on wet, wet on dry, wet next to dry, etc.�

If you want to create a specific design, however, you need to create a “resist,� which exposes a limited amount of fabric at a time to a paint color.

Silk painting uses a variety of dyes and paints, and

PHOTO COURTESY OF DIANE TUCKMAN

By Rebekah Alcalde Living in Egypt as a child during WWII, Diane Tuckman recalls, “they were shooting Jewish girls in the street...My family and I escaped [in 1949] and went to France.�

Though less harrowing, even in France “it was a very difficult time after the war, with ration tickets and very little housing.�

But eventually, Paris became home and much more to Tuckman. For it was there that she learned the art of painting on silk — a traditionally Asian way of painting dye on silk fabric.

She describes the technique as similar to “watercolor for fabric.� Furthermore, the “great variety of silks — with different looks, textures, weaves and weight — contributes to the uniqueness of each piece of painted silk,� she said.

For all these reasons, the delicate skill has been a lifelong love of hers.

To master it, she took classes from the finest silk painting instructors in Europe.

She especially appreciated the “endless possibilitiesâ€? it offered, since the fabric can be used in both dĂŠcor, such as framed art and panels, and for wearables, like scarves, clothing and shawls.

See SILK PAINTER, page 37 Diane Tuckman models one of the colorful silk scarves she so loves to paint. She helped bring the littleknown art of silk painting to the United States, and teaches classes to help others learn the technique.

JANUARY NUARY UARY 11 - MARCH MARC C H 11 1

‘Great Performances in the Neighborhood’ Tamburitzans presents

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A wealthy widow whose ambassador attempts to find her a husband, thus saving her country from bankruptcy.

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WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

Silk painter From page 36 many different types of applicators — “from brushes to Q-tips,” she said.

“Once the fabric is painted with dyes, it needs to be set, so it’s washable and drycleanable. It can then be transformed into panels for home decor and/or wearables.”

any possible application,” she said.

They also launched Silk Painters International (SPIN), a nonprofit organization of silk artists, painters, practitioners and educators, to connect artists and share information.

Every other year, the group holds an international silk painting festival, featuring a variety of workshops, art shows and a fashion show. Tuckman also spent many years at the helm of their group’s magazine, Silkworm.

Teaching teachers Though she was busy raising a family when she first moved here, Tuckman always made time for her art, eventually realizing it was more than just a passion.

Alongside her friend and master silk artist Jan Janas, she started a silk painting teaching program for instructors. “We also both teach independently,” she said.

Tuckman recalls meeting Janas, now 77, at a tradeshow — a lucky coincidence, since their friendship has sparked many collaborations over the years.

“Someone was painting at my [tradeshow] space, and Jan made a quick U-turn and watched. I was teaching a hands-on class at that event; she took the class and was hooked,” Tuckman recalled.

Janas now lives in Lakewood, Colo., and has since become a master painter. “Her work belongs in museums! I am so proud to work with her,” boasted Tuckman. Together they’ve co-authored four books on the art of silk painting, with the most recent, The Fine Art of Painting on Silk, slated to come out this spring.

“All our books are excellent learning and teaching tools, because they describe the step-by-step process very clearly, so anyone will feel comfortable with trying

Local classes Though most of her classes are taught in small groups of no more than ten people, Tuckman is willing to offer larger classes at other venues. In fact, she thinks the class is a good setting for a retreat or team building program, and she has held a few of these already.

Students are not required to have prior experience or artistic skills to learn. “Even if you have never picked up a brush, bring a friend and share in the joy of painting on silk as you watch the dyes or paints glide through the silk,” she said.

Her classes are offered in one- or twoday formats, with “liquid paints” on singleday sessions, and traditional dyes used for longer ones.

The traditional dyes she uses are imported from France, which require steam setting, so the fabric can be washable and/or dry cleaned. The steam also allows the colors to “bloom” so to speak, revealing a deeper, jewel-toned color.

The paints used on one-day workshops are something she actually “badgered the manufacturers for many years” to create.

Though not as brilliant in color as the dyes, they don’t require steam setting, and

Say you saw it in the Beacon | Arts & Style

work on other fabrics as well as silk.

One-day workshops are the best for beginners, according to Tuckman. “It will save a lot of time, materials, and will allow the participant to move on quickly to develop their own style once they learn the techniques. The artists can then decide what to use their silk art for,” she said.

In that class, which costs $100, students learn the basics of silk painting — including stretching, diluting, resisting, spotting, salting, double loading, wet-on-wet, fabric setting, and more — and will create five works of art.

The two-day $200 workshop offers a more in-depth approach, and students will create a total of seven works of art. Students are only required to bring lunch and latex gloves; all other materials are included.

Tuckman also offers classes for chil-

37

dren, and customized programs for groups of four or more.

Even after all these years, Tuckman’s love for silk painting — like the steam-set dyes — has never faded.

“I have been painting on silk for over four decades, and I still get excited when I apply brush to silk,” she said. “As an instructor, seeing the reaction when someone paints on silk for the first time is always so rewarding for me.”

It also has a uniquely practical component, in that you can literally wear the designs you’ve created. “An added plus,” Tuckman said, “is that when receiving a compliment, the artist can say, ‘I painted this myself,’ and elicit a look of amazement!”

For more information, visit www.iteachsilkart.com, call (301) 474-7347 or email dtuckman@gmail.com.

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SEA CHANTERS

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 7:30 P.M. Annandale High School Watson Auditorium 4700 Medford Drive Annandale Va.

All concerts are FREE and open to the public. Tickets or reservations are not required.

For more information about additional concerts in your area, please check our online performance calendar at: www.navyband.navy.mil.

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Hamlet in the age of Twitter and Snapchat

A contemporary take Of course, the key to Shakespeare’s immortality is that his words have layers upon layers, enough depth that we can always find something new to plumb. So there is no need to treat them as sacrosanct, to be delivered with ancient solemnity. There’s always a new way to handle it.

And that’s been one of the reasons this production has been eagerly anticipated.

It’s Hamlet in a contemporary setting, promising a gift from the Shakespeare Theatre’s guiding light, Michael Kahn, as

he transitions into other adventures.

I love seeing Shakespeare’s plays made timeless by being staged in eras other than Will’s. And there’s much here that could make the production fulfill that promise.

The current assault on the institutions of democracy, from the judiciary to the free press to the government itself, cries out to be put in stark relief with this play. Except. Except that actor Michael Urie’s performance as Hamlet is treated as a star-turn, a self-indulgent wallow that reaches only the shallowest of the depths Shakespeare provides.

And the other actors are mostly forced to mirror his superficial shtick in the service of uniformity. An opportunity lost. Or as Claudius (Alan Cox), Hamlet’s murderous uncle (and sudden step-Dad) says in a slightly different context, “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”

This Hamlet takes place in the Age of Now, a time of cell phones and selfies, with self-obsessed millennials the stereotype du jour. When Hamlet speaks his enduring soliloquy in Shakespeare’s time, he thinks he is alone (although Ophelia — Oyin Oladejo — is actually eavesdropping). But here he has to suspect he is being overheard, even if he does rip out one of the omnipresent surveillance cameras.

See how that offers up whole new

Reserve the best seats now to these wonderful summer musicals!

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PHOTO BY SCOTT SUCHMAN

By Michael Toscano To be or not to be.

Is that really the question a twitchy millennial — a man-child with little self-awareness and a slippery grasp on reality — might be asking himself in the midst of existential angst? Apparently not, if Michael Kahn’s uneven wreck of Hamlet, onstage at the Shakespeare Theatre Company through March 4, is to be believed.

And that’s why we see the Danish prince toss off the Bard’s immortal soliloquy as if it wasn’t even important enough to bother tweeting. No, it’s flicked off as an afterthought as the troubled heir-not-soapparent toys with a handgun. Life, death.

What’s the diff? At least he didn’t take a selfie while contemplating existence.

In the Shakespeare Theatre’s contemporary take on Hamlet, Ryan Spahn portrays Rosencrantz, and Kelsey Rainwater is Guildenstern, a role traditionally played by a man. On the right is Michael Urie, known for his roles on such TV shows as “The Good Wife” and “Ugly Betty,” who stars as Hamlet.

worlds of intrigue and consequence? The concept is great; execution, not so much.

And “not so much” is one of the numerous contemporary-sounding asides this halfbaked Hamlet tosses off.

Broadway of late, gives us an insufferably neurotic Hamlet. Is he lacking in selfawareness, or is he overly aware?

It’s hard to tell with the self-referential nature of his playful delivery. He flutters about the stage, putting the ham in Ham-

Hamming up Hamlet Urie, who has been making his mark on

See HAMLET, page 40

Say you saw it in the Beacon | Arts & Style

WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

For those who would like to take up a new art of craft — or perhaps return to an old passion that had been set aside for years — here are some area programs that provide adult arts classes: In Montgomery County: Live and Learn, Bethesda, (301) 740-6150, http://liveandlearnbethesda.org Oasis Lifelong Adventure, Bethesda, (301) 469-6800, ext. 211, www.oasisnet.org/Washington-DC-area e Writers Center — Poetry, Bethesda (301) 654-8664 www.writer.org Creative Glass Design, Bethesda, (301) 229-1135, www.creativeglassdesign.com City of Gaithersburg, Senior Activities, Gaithersburg, (301) 258-6380, http://gaithersburgmd.gov/services/senior-activities City of Gaithersburg, Art Barn, Gaithersburg, (301) 258-6394, www.gaithersburgmd.gov/leisure/arts City of Gaithersburg, Recreation Classes, Gaithersburg, (301) 258-6350, www.gaithersburgmd.gov/leisure Photoworks at Glen Echo Park, Glen Echo, (301) 634-2274, http://glenechophotoworks.org Glen Echo Park, Classes Catalog, Glen Echo, (301) 634-2222, http://glenechopark.org City of Rockville Recreation Class Guide, Rockville, (240) 314-8620, http://bit.ly/RockvilleParksandRec City of Rockville — 60+ Guide, Rockville, (240) 314-8800, http://bit.ly/Rockville60Plus Arts for the Aging (AFTA)/Joy in Generation, Rockville, (301) 255-0103, https://aaarts.org Montgomery College Life-long Learning, Rockville, 240-567-1828, http://bit.ly/Montgomery CollegeLifelongLearning Bender JCC of Greater Washington, Rockville, (301) 348-3760, http://bit.ly/DCJCCArts Vis Arts, Rockville, (301) 315-8200, www.visartscenter.org/more/art-classes Montgomery County Department of Recreation Class Guide, Silver Spring, (240) 777-6480, www.montgomerycountymd.gov/rec Montgomery County Parks — Botanical Arts, Silver Spring, (301) 962-1470, http://bit.ly/MoCoParksClasses, http://bit.ly/MoCoParksBotanicalArt Montgomery County Department of Recreation Senior Centers, Silver Spring, (240) 777-4925 http://bit.ly/MoCoRecSeniors Montgomery County Arts & Humanities Council, Silver Spring, (301) 565-3805, http://creativemoco.com City of Takoma Park, Recreation Class Guide, Takoma Park, (301) 891-7290, http://bit.ly/TakomaParkGuide City of Takoma Park Arts and Humanities, Takoma Park, (301) 891-7119, http://bit.ly/TakomaParkArts

Montgomery College — Department of Visual and Performing Arts and Community Arts, Takoma Park, (240) 567-5188, http://cms.montgomerycollege.edu/arts-tpss

In Northern Virginia: In PG County: Prince George’s County Parks and Recreation — Seniors, Greenbelt, (301) 699-2255, www.pgparks.com/903/Seniors Prince George’s County, Parks and Recreation — Arts, Greenbelt, (301) 446-3232, http://arts.pgparks.com/1642/Arts Pyramid Atlantic Arts Center, Hyattsville, (301) 608-9101, www.pyramidatlanticartcenter.org Prince Georges Community College, Continuing Education — Seasoned Adults Growing Educationally (SAGE), Largo, (301) 546-0923, http://bit.ly/PGCountySAGE Prince George’s County, Montpelier Mansion, Laurel, (301) 377-7800, http://bit.ly/MontpelierMansion Mt. Rainier Art Lives Here, Mt. Rainier, (202) 528-9278, https://artlivesheremd.wordpress.com

In Washington, D.C.: Corcoran Arts Continuing Education, (202) 994-1700, www.nondegree.gwu.edu/cce Washington Studio School Classes and Programs, (202) 234-3030, www.washingtonstudioschool.org Capitol Hill Arts Workshop DC, (202) 547-6839, www.chaw.org/classes ArtJamz, Dupont Studio, (202) 629-3780, www.artjamz.co D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation, (202) 673-7647, https://dpr.dc.gov DC Commission on Art & Humanity, (202) 724-5613, https://dcarts.dc.gov/services Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, (202) 895-4860, www.olli-dc.org/home Smithsonian Associates Studio Arts Programs, (202) 633-3030, https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/studio-arts IONA Arts and Gallery, (202) 895-9407, www.iona.org/services/arts Split this Rock — Poetry workshops, (202) 787-5210 www.splitthisrock.org National Center for Creative Aging, (202) 895-9456 www.creativeaging.org/about-ncca-0

Art League School and Gallery at the Torpedo Factory, Alexandria, (703) 683-2323, http://torpedofactory.org/classes City of Alexandria Office of the Arts, Alexandria, (703) 746-5565, www.alexandriava.gov/Arts City of Alexandria, Recreation, Parks and Cultural Activities, Alexandria, (703) 746-4343, www.alexandriava.gov/Recreation Del Rey Artisans, Alexandria, (703) 838-4827, www.delrayartisans.org/programs Lifetime Learning Institute of Northern Virginia, Annandale, (703) 503-0600, http://lli.nova.org Arlington County Parks & Recreation 55+ Program Guide, Arlington, (703) 228-4747, http://bit.ly/ArlingtonCounty55Plus Arlington County Department of Parks and Recreation Classes Guide, Arlington, (703) 228-5925, https://parks.arlingtonva.us/classes Arlington Division of Cultural Affairs, Arlington, (703) 228-1847, www.arlingtonarts.org George Mason University, Osher Institute, Fairfax, (703) 503-3384, https://olli.gmu.edu Fairfax Division on Adults and Aging, Fairfax, (703) 324-5277, http://bit.ly/FairfaxCountyOlderAdults Fairfax County Regional Services and Center Operations Division, Fairfax, (703) 324-4600, http://bit.ly/FairfaxCountySeniorCenters Fairfax County Park Authority, Fairfax, (703) 222-4664, www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks Fairfax County Arts Council, Fairfax, (703) 642-0862, https://artsfairfax.org JCC of Northern Virginia — Cultural Arts, Fairfax, (703) 537-3075, http://bit.ly/JCCNOVAArts Work House Art Center, Lorton, (703) 584-2900, www.workhousearts.org McLean Arts Center, McLean, (703) 790-0123, www.mcleancenter.org/visual-arts McLean Project for the Arts, McLean, (703) 790-1953, https://mpaart.org/education/art-classes Northern Virginia Community College Springfield, (703) 323-3000, http://bit.ly/NOVACommunityCollege Reston Community Center, Reston, (703) 476-4500, http://bit.ly/RestonCommunityCenterClasses

39

40

Arts & Style | More at TheBeaconNewspapers.com

Hamlet From page 38 let, eyes rolling along with florid vocalizing. That does give us some laughs, something Shakespeare did not invest in heavily here. That’s OK. But this Hamlet is fixated and overanxious, a neurotic mess that undermines his schemes to wreak revenge on Uncle Claudius, the man who killed his brother — Hamlet’s father (Keith Baxter) the king — and usurped both the throne Hamlet is entitled to and Hamlet’s own mother, Gertrude (Madeleine Potter).

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Hamlet’s plan depends in part on his convincing his enemies that he is insane, which seems pointless if he has already made us all think he’s rather unstable.

Playing the millennial stereotype to excess, he completely lacks the introspection that makes the character so interesting.

He’s all impulse. Or so it seems.

There are many hints at what this production could be. Cox’s Claudius is a smooth modern politician, the devious inner workings hidden by a salesman’s veneer. One can see that this could have been an exploration of a figure all the more terrifying because of the banality of his

Write a letter to the editor.

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evil.

John Coyne’s vivid scenic design of a metal-gray, post-industrial world with security cameras keeping a watchful eye creates a mood that is unfortunately compromised by Hamlet’s flamboyance.

When the dead king’s ghost wants to reach back into this world, he does so by appearing on a security monitor, as the other screens flicker out. It’s startlingly effective, as his spirit takes over the electronics we all sometimes think of as otherworldly.

Then there’s Oladejo’s strong performance as Ophelia, both nuanced and unfettered. It’s bracing.

And Ryan Spahn and Kelsey Rainwater offer us a new male-and-female version of Rosencrantz and Gildenstern, which manages to be great fun without pushing the play farther off track.

Kahn is a great director, who rarely makes a misstep. Thus, the pacing never

lags in this three-and-a-quarter hour play.

And, as I said before, the hints of What Could Have Been are evident throughout.

Kahn deserves much credit for trying.

He may have been gambling when he placed his bet on Urie’s odd performance.

And it’s not too late: he can still rein in his star for the remainder of the run. ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.

Hamlet continues through March 4 at the Shakespeare Theatre’s Sidney Harmon Hall, 610 F St. NW, Washington, D.C. Ticket prices range from $44 to $125.

There is a 10 percent discount for patrons 60 and older. Those tickets must be purchased by calling (202) 547-1122 or visiting the box office. Full-price tickets can be ordered online at www.shakespearetheatre.org.

In addition, any unsold seat, regardless of location, is available for $25 starting two hours before show time, at the box office only.

Letters to editor

ments are followed do their jobs, we would have fewer casualties.

Mike Love Olney, Md. Dear Editor: When I read David Cosson’s December letter to the editor regarding his [discomfort] with a customer who chose to write a check for their purchase [at a grocery store], I found myself becoming somewhat annoyed with his lack of patience.

I myself had a difficult time transitioning from paying by check to using a credit card. The change felt quite uncomfortable at the time. However, as I continued to pay with a credit card, I found myself becoming more comfortable, and I’m at least as old as Bob [Levey, who wrote the column on check writing to which Cosson was responding].

Everyone has their reason for doing things as they choose. If we are patient not only with ourselves but with others, this is a great virtue. In essence, this can make the best of what we think is a challenging situation.

Gina Barile Bethesda, Md. To the editor: I disagree with the assessment of the book Ten Times Chai: 180 Orthodox Synagogues of New York City, described under the heading “Exploring New York’s synagogues” in the January issue.

The book suffers from poor quality photographic reproduction (given the standards of current digital technology), errors in the English translation of the Hebrew names of some of the synagogues, and printer’s errata in the Hebrew prayer at the front of the book, which should have been corrected prior to publication.

These venerable synagogues deserve a better presentation. Your readers should not be encouraged to spend their hardearned money on a book which falls short of the lofty aspirations of the author.

Dinah Rokach Silver Spring, Md.

From page 2 requirements to make the work safer is just wrongheaded and impulsive.

Businesses, local government, insurance companies and (some) states have a responsibility to insure a worker is safe. It is the most basic work safety to make employees both aware of risks, procedures to avoid the risks, and the [use of] safety equipment needed to avoid the risk if they will be working in a toxic environment.

Rather than banning the product, it would have been better to ask the business licensing board, insurance companies and the state occupational safety and health agency why they don’t enforce the safety requirements that are: 1) on the container, 2) on the material safety data sheet, and 3) expected by law to be related to workers in a toxic environment. Failures all the way up the line.

Workers run propane-powered concrete trowels, generators, and they even run into buildings on fire without donning appropriate equipment and using safety procedures.

While they have a personal responsibility to protect themselves, they may not be aware of the hazard, and may be afraid to ask for an explanation or an interpreter to communicate their concern.

Some workers, like firefighters, know better and are assigned personal responsibility to follow all safety regulations. Their supervisors are required to make sure they do. But as your editorial described, many workers may not have the literacy to understand the risk and ultimately judge the risk.

I agree with your editorial: “We will never be able to regulate all risk out of our lives.” And I don’t think we should, as it’s not a reasonable and cost effective way to do business.

If those who bear the responsibility to make sure the volumes of safety require-

WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

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41

Laurie Metcalf gets her first Oscar shot

By Lindsey Bahr Laurie Metcalf has won three Emmys and a Tony Award in her nearly 40-year year career, but the veteran stage and screen actress still feels uncomfortable in front of a camera.

“Even after all those years on ‘Roseanne,’ I have a real fear of cameras. They make me inhibited,” Metcalf, 62, said on a recent afternoon in Los Angeles.

“I think ‘Why don’t I know where to put my hands?’ All of a sudden the spotlight is right on you, and every pore on your face in high definition, and you think, ‘Oh this is all I can think about.’ I can’t just turn it off. You’d think after all these years I’d be used to it!”

Nuanced portrait of a mom Metcalf has figured out ways to work around the phobia, but this year she’s also found herself even more out of her element with the nominations and awards attention being given to her work in Lady Bird.

Not only is it her first film in a decade, but it’s the first time she’s had a serious shot at getting an Oscar (she’s already gotten supporting actress nods from the Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globes and Independent Spirit Awards). Metcalf is nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category for the film.

In the film, Metcalf plays the mother, Marion, to a 17-year-old girl, Christine (Saoirse Ronan), who has begun systematically rejecting everything her mother has given her — from her hair (which she has dyed pink) to her name (she demands that everyone call her Lady Bird).

Marion, meanwhile, under stresses from work and a general dissatisfaction with how their lives have turned out, is trying (sometimes poorly) to navigate this moment of teenage selfishness and motivate her daughter.

The story is loosely based on writer and director Greta Gerwig’s own life growing up in Sacramento. And much like real life, a single scene can turn on a dime. For a moment, Lady Bird and Marion are connecting, and all of a sudden they’re fighting again, or vice versa.

“They’re misinterpreting each other.

They’re looking for buttons to push.

They’re passive aggressive,” Metcalf said.

“We know that Marion and Lady Bird have a strong relationship, but it’s just dysfunctional at this particular moment that we’re watching. But it hasn’t always been like that, and they’ll grow out of it.”

Filming a challenging scene Metcalf laughs that she still feels like she hasn’t had that much experience in

film, and says she relied on others to “steer” her through the movie.

And yet one of her most memorable scenes in the film is one where she is entirely alone, circling the Sacramento airport and having an emotional change of heart during the loop.

It’s the kind of scene that looms on a production schedule for an actor. “Greta said she wanted to do it in one take, and that scared me,” Metcalf said. “I thought ‘I’ve driven around this airport, and that’s a long way. I don’t know if I can be interesting for that long!”‘ The execution was a complicated dance of both trying to physically drive while only being able to see out of a sliver of windshield with the camera set-up obstructing most of the view, and also being able to go through the emotional trajectory necessary (i.e., at this turn, the anger sets in, but by this sign you’re deciding to get back and feeling hopeful, and oh, don’t forget to put the car in park before you jump out). And it’s one that pays off beautifully.

The indie earned almost $40 million by late January.

While Metcalf might have some impostor syndrome with her recent success in film, her co-star Ronan is only in awe.

“Everything she does is groundbreaking. People talk about her performances the way they talk about Meryl Streep,” Ronan said.

“And Laurie has always been attracted to good work. You can tell she’s never done it to get more exposure, she’s never done it for any other reason than she wants to do good work.

“She enriches everything that she’s in because she’s genuinely in it. I just think she’s magic,” Ronan said.

Metcalf only met Gerwig’s mother during the last two weeks of filming — far too late to inform any character choices. But it was revelatory in its own way.

“I saw her mother watching her daughter as the director of this movie happening in her hometown. I saw a really strong relationship, and I could imagine the parallels,” Metcalf said.

“I was able to see, ‘Oh, that’s where we’re headed. Look at Greta and her mom standing in the parking lot. Things will be fine.’”

— AP

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Putting presidents in historical perspective This month, we celebrate Presidents’ Adams and Jefferson were at the foreDay. Reading about our nation’s chief ex- front of the Revolution. They met in ecutives never becomes old.

Philadelphia at the Second Historians (both professional Continental Congress in 1775 and amateur) as well as politiand became friends. Both opcians and reporters sift posed British rule, and through the archives, interserved the new nation as pret documents, and find lessdiplomats abroad and in the er known materials to expose executive branch at home. to a wider audience.

They even died on the same Friends Divided: John day — the 4th of July, 1826.

Adams and Thomas JefferHowever, their personalison, by Gordon S. Wood, 512 ties, lifestyles and political THE pages, Penguin Press hard- BIBILOPHILE philosophies diverged. cover, 2017, Random House By Dinah Rokach Friends Divided will keep Large Print Paperback, 2017. you enthralled as you gain reThe Pulitzer Prize-winning historian newed appreciation for these Founding FaGordon Wood retells the stories of our sec- thers. Wood enables us to understand, ond and third presidents. He skillfully in- through the perspective of the centuries, tertwines the life events and writings of Adams’ and Jefferson’s forward-thinking John Adams and Thomas Jefferson within political principles as well as those ideas the context of colonial, early American and that are better left to the dustbin of history. world history.

Many of their pronouncements on He brings these icons to life as we get to equality, civil rights, taxation, freedom of know them intimately through their private the press, immigration, foreign policy and letters. These former presidents are por- America’s military reverberate to this day. trayed in a refreshing and readable account.

Read whom history has vindicated. See if Wood explains, “I chose this topic be- you agree. You may even be inspired to visit cause I found it fascinating and puzzling the Adams National Historical Park just outthat two such different men, different in al- side Boston in Quincy, Mass., and Jeffermost every conceivable way, should have son’s Monticello in Charlottesville, Va. become friends.”

A Self-Made Man: The Political

Life of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 1, 1809-1849, by Sidney Blumenthal, 576 pages, Simon & Schuster paperback, 2017.

In this first book of his multi-volume biography of our 16th president, Sidney Blumenthal takes us from Lincoln’s birth to the apparent end of the future president’s political career.

In 1849, Lincoln returned to Illinois after completing his only term in the U.S. House of Representatives. It would have been reasonable to assume that he had left the national political stage forever.

The author and former aide to President Bill Clinton explains, “My personal experience with the politics of the presidency inside the White House gave me a fresh appreciation…of...Lincoln’s immense political skills and a new way of looking at how he became America’s greatest political leader.”

In A Self-Made Man, Blumenthal sheds light on the struggles, trials and tribulations of Honest Abe’s youth and adulthood. Littleknown archival material is brought forward and forms the basis for a nuanced understanding of Abraham Lincoln as a man of compassion and a nascent political genius.

In a masterfully written narrative, Blumenthal shows how Lincoln’s early interactions with slavery shaped his more mature views. We learn how the young man’s

poverty, love of learning, and early life on the frontier formed the foundation of his worldview as an adult.

Lincoln’s innate leadership qualities, his charm and storytelling prowess, soaring ambition — as well as his bouts of depression — made him a complex man. The author’s keen insights into the inner man, and his elegant exposition of the personal side of Lincoln is delightful to discover.

Blumenthal writes with authority and lucidity about the politics of the era.

The second volume of the biography does not live up to the promise of this first one. Hopefully, the upcoming third book will fulfill the promise of the initial volume.

The Accidental President: Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World, by A.J. Baime, 448 pages, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt hardcover, 2017 (paperback, October, 2018).

The sudden death of Franklin Roosevelt during World War II elevated into the highest office of the land, Vice President Harry S Truman, The Accidental President. FDR had not included his Vice President in any of the administration’s war councils or domestic policy deliberations.

Truman served as Vice President for See BOOKS, page 45

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WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

Why tall = small, and other conundrums Sometimes, dear friends, we are plunged And it happens whenever I try to make into modern-day situations that are so ab- sense of the machine on which I’m typing surd, so illogical, so incomprethis. hensible, so inexplicable, that I would love to open a hyall we can do is throw up our perlink that my pal sends me, hands. but I can’t figure out how.

So it went with me one reI would adore the chance to cent morning at my neighboruse the cyber-clipboard, but I hood Starbucks. once tried, and I crashed and I had agreed to meet a friend burned. there to give her some career I have absolutely no idea advice. I was early. She wasn’t how to activate the virus-cleansthere yet. So I decided to buy a HOW I SEE IT ing software that’s baked into cup of coffee while I waited. my machine, because the inBy Bob Levey “I’d like a small cup of black structions were written for coffee, please,” I told the young woman be- some cyborg, not for me. hind the counter.

I like Google, but I can’t figure out how “The smallest cup of coffee we have is a to design a search that isn’t a zillion miles tall,” she said. wide.

“I don’t want a tall cup,” I said. “I want a For example, I wanted to search for an small cup.” obituary for a person named Billy Miller.

“A tall IS a small cup, sir,” she said.

There must be a million Billy Millers. But “Then why is it called tall?,” I asked. “my” Billy Miller lived (and might have “It’s called tall because that’s our small- died) in Philadelphia. est cup of coffee,” she said.

So, into the search box I typed, “Billy Goodbye logic. Goodbye language that Miller Philadelphia.” means what it has always meant. Up went What I got was a whole lot of stuff about my hands and out came my wallet. the Liberty Bell, the Phillies and Italian “OK, whatever you call it, I want the food. Plus a whole lot of information about a smallest cup of coffee you’ve got,” I said. Billy Miller who lived and died in California.

In a jiffy, I had both a cup of coffee that I only hope that “my” Billy Miller has looked pretty small — and a major dose of gone peacefully to his eternal rest. I can’t feeling like a fish out of water. find out if he has.

The older I get — and yes, I seem to be And please don’t get me started about succeeding at getting older — the more WiFi. out of step with commerce I get.

I have no idea what it is. I have no idea It happens in Starbucks. It happens at the where it is. I have no idea how to obtain it drug store, when the clerk tells me to slide or avoid it. my credit card through the slot and I can’t WiFi has turned me into a slick, smooth figure out how to do it. It happens when I try liar. to turn on our television set — which reWhenever I check into a hotel, the desk quires clicking three different devices, in the clerk will slip me a little piece of paper. proper order, which I can never remember.

“That’s your WiFi code,” he or she will say.

I will nod, trying to appear casual and knowledgeable. I am actually neither. I am actually wishing for typewriters, rotarydial phones and hotel wake-up calls — the kind where you ask a person to arrange one, rather than punching in a series of codes (and then wondering half the night whether you’ve done it correctly).

As for cars, they have long since passed

my comprehension threshold.

Once upon a time, to turn on the defroster, you looked at the control panel, found something that said DEFROST, then found something that said ON, and bingo.

Now you have to activate the fan. Then you push a button that also activates the air See BOB LEVEY, page 45

ANSWERS TO CROSSWORD

FROM PAGE 44 ANSWERS TO SCRABBLE

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ANSWERS TO JUMBLE Jumbles: ABIDE TANGY DAWNED PRYING Answer: What the pudgy diner did at the end of the buffet line -- GAINED "WAIT"

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N

Crossword Puzzle Daily crosswords can be found on our website: www.TheBeaconNewspapers.com Click on Puzzles Plus A Crossword as Lovely 1

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Across 1. Actress/model Rene 6. A Drink mixers at Barcelona bars 11. Health resort 14. “___ the fat lady sings” 15. Extra inning 16. Start of a TERRIBLE crossword clue 17. Start of Arbor Day advice 19. Tech school in Troy, NY 20. Gluttony or sloth 21. Vegetable soup ingredient 22. Chocolate baron buried at Hershey Cemetery in 1956 24. Advice, part 2 29. Reach the moon 30. Unpleasant type of trip 31. Undersea menace at Dunkirk 34. Rev the engines 35. Container for 7 Up or Coke Zero 38. Advice, part 3 43. Blockhead 44. “___ not a crook” 45. Controlled a canoe 46. Ben & Jerry flavor: Karamel ___ 49. Letters clockwise around a weathervane 51. Advice, part 4 56. Come to the same conclusion 57. Largest coll. in Richmond 58. Work done by one dyne for one cm 60. Gender-neutral ending for gentor miss61. Advice, part 5 66. Fail to tell the whole truth 67. “Ain’t”, corrected 68. Going out live 69. Exceeder of Mach 1 70. “Not in the biblical ___” 71. Thomas Edison’s Park

Down 1. Dead-end jobs 2. Like many Nolan Ryan fastballs 3. “Shorthand transcriber”, shortly

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ByStephen StephenSherr Sherr

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4. Bro or sis 5. Futbol chant 6. Show up for class 7. Insinuate 8. Start of a brief cycle 9. It helps you check in or cash out 10. Terri’s twin sister, on The Simpsons 11. Trolley 12. Cola, which once touted “Twice as much for a nickel” 13. One born on April Fool’s Day 18. Cross the river 23. Paragon of slipperiness 25. Parcel of land 26. After the scheduled time 27. Chills and fever 28. Common sushi ingredient 31. Men in Black craft 32. Abbrev. often used for airports in Baghdad, Bangkok, and Belfast 33. Parking option 34. Place to perform pilates 36. Count of rings on a tree trunk 37. Give silent approval 39. Gaelic name for Ireland 40. Indian bread 41. Seating area, second closest to the stage 42. Playing with a full deck 47. Salt Lake City athlete 48. Sorority letters 49. Stir up emotions 50. Good name for short order cooks 51. Get-out-of-jail fees 52. Unattractive citrus fruits 53. Roman M, C, and X (but not V) 54. Family car 55. Hansel and Gretel’s path back home 59. Greek sandwich 62. Intense anger 63. YMCA members 64. Actor Hanks or Selleck 65. “___ of these days...”

Answers on page 43.

WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

Books From page 42 only three months, the duration of FDR’s truncated fourth term. Truman was not aware of the secret agreements made at Yalta, the work on the atomic bomb, nor the difficult negotiations with the Soviet Union on the future of the postwar world.

A.J. Baime writes a riveting account of the first four months of the Truman presidency.

By limiting the scope of the book, Baime is able to concentrate on the crucial events that unfolded in that short time period — VE Day, the Potsdam Conference, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the surrender of Japan, the start of the Cold War, and the drawing of the Iron Curtain over Eastern Europe.

Truman’s colorful cadre of cronies, the military brass, Washington insiders, and the holdovers from the Roosevelt administration are vividly portrayed. The book draws the reader into this fascinating time when the future of the world hung in the balance, and the man leading this country into the great unknown was a common, unpretentious man.

Obama: The Call of History, by Peter Baker, 320 pages, 275 color photographs, New York Times/Callaway hardcover, 2017.

New York Times’ chief White House correspondent Peter Baker has written a definitive history of the Obama presidency.

The color photographs, many of them full page in size, lend an elegant touch to this attractive coffee table book. Obama: The Call of History is not analytic in nature nor an attempt to view the 44th President through the lens of history.

Perhaps that is too soon, especially as the public and pundits await the publication of the former president’s memoirs. Obama’s biographer, David Maraniss, for one, has delayed writing about Obama’s White House years awaiting those revelations.

If punditry is not your game, you’ll enjoy this thorough and concise re-telling of the challenges and triumphs, highs and lows, achievements and shortcomings of the eight years that Barack Obama was

Bob Levey From page 43 conditioner. Then you rotate a dial to some universal symbol that means defrost, but looks like a frazzled, curvy piece of wire.

If you can explain to me why you need to turn on the air conditioner to make the windshield hot, rather than cold, I’m all ears.

I’m also all hands. Which I use to wipe down the windshield. The way I used to do it 50 years ago, before defrosters were either reliable or got so fancy that they became inscrutable.

Windshield wipers are no more sensible. Yes, I’ve gotten used to the lever that has four locations. Up one means intermittent. Up two means slow and steady. Up three means faster. Up four means that we must be in some biblical rain event.

But how do you squirt fluid on the windshield? One dusty day, I tried to do it. Total failure, after three minutes of fumbling

Say you saw it in the Beacon

ONE BIG HAPPY By Rick Detorie

President of the United States. Armed with the facts provided by Baker, you can whip up your own analysis.

and fiddling.

So I pulled into my friendly neighborhood gas station and asked the mechanic to fix what was obviously a faulty system.

He pulled the lever back toward himself. A gusher of fluid resulted. A gusher of embarrassment soon followed. At least he said no when I offered to pay him for my own stupidity.

I know I can’t turn back the clock. I know I could cope with machines if I really tried — and if I spent time reading all the directions.

But I miss the days of yesteryear, when words meant what they meant, and dials did what you expected them to do.

Oh, yes. Starbucks has just introduced a 31-ounce cup of coffee. They haven’t yet decided what to call it.

I’m betting on “microscopic.” Just to make me miserable.

Bob Levey is a national award-winning columnist.

WB 2/18

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PRESENT THIS TO YOUR PHARMACIST and save up to 90% or more on your prescriptions. Member ID: Enter Patient’s Phone Number. RxGROUP: NCR7241. RxBIN: 610568.

PCN: DRX. This is not insurance, it’s free! Your information is never disclosed to any third parties or used for solicitation, unlike any other card, we are HIPAA Compliant.

PAID RESEARCH STUDY: Participants needed for NIH-funded hearing experiments conducted at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Seeking people ages 65-80 with normal hearing or hearing loss. English must be your first language.

Participation time: 4-5 hours, scheduled in visits of 2-2.5 hours; $12/hour, for total compensation of $48-$60. Contact the Hearing Research Lab (301) 405-7454; hearingresearch@umd.edu.

DENTACK OF MARYLAND PLAN has preferred dentists in D.C. and Northern Virginia.

Two cleanings, x-rays. 50% savings on most procedures. Information and application. 301-9467786, 301-367-6566.

Home/Handyman Services ANTIQUES, COLLECTIBLES AND ESTATE LIQUIDATIONS: One call solves it all when you hire us to handle your estate liquidation and/or home cleanout. We purchase full contents of estates, partial estate contents/col lections and clean out homes. Always looking for jewelry, fine art, vintage toys, sports memorabilia, militaria, Mid-Century Modern and more. We serve the greater Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia region. No home is too packed for us! Call Chris at (202) 731-9447. www.OrionsAttic.com.

I AM A 46-YEAR-OLD HARDWORKING, RESPECTFUL single guy. Looking to meet a respectful woman between the ages of 36-40.

Mc2928@aol.com.

TURN YOUR SILVER AND OLD GOLD jewelry into cash and do something good for yourself.

Gold 4 Good (8241 Georgia Ave., Suite 100, Silver Spring, MD 20910) buys gold and silver jewelry, including broken pieces, all sterling silver, gold watches and gold and silver coins. I will come to your house and give you a free evaluation of what I can pay. If you decide to sell, I can buy your items at that time, but there is no obligation. Licensed with both Maryland and Montgomery County (lic. #2327). Call Bob, (240) 938-9694.

I WILL REPAIR YOUR CHIPPED GLASS and crystal in a perfect, professional way. Call Giovanni, 301-340-2624. I also restore china and porcelain. Museum quality.

NEED HELP RUNNING ERRANDS? Like grocery shopping, pharmacy pick-ups, chores at home and more? Maison@Werk is an errand running service for seniors based in the D.C. Metro area. LGBT senior friendly and welcoming. 713927-3780 or maisonatwerk@gmail.com. https://maisonatwerk.wixsite.com/website.

PIANO LESSONS exclusively for Beacon readers and their extended families. All ages. New students, early beginners, intermediates and advanced. Julliard trained. Let your creativity soar. Call Ken Keyes, 508-612-9647 (leave message).

WANT TO LEARN PIANO WITHOUT THE STRESS of recitals and auditions? I teach beginners from 9 to 90. Studied piano at University of Maryland and Washington Conservatory of music.

Patient, understanding. Very reasonable rates. More information: blackandwhitekeys4U@gmail.com or (301) 942-2589.

FINEST HOUSE, APARTMENT AND CONDO cleaning/organizing. 20 years experience with solid references, primarily in Bethesda, upper NW and Chevy Chase. Free estimate.

Candida, 301-367-6566.

TV/Cable DIRECTV. CALL AND SWITCH NOW — Get NFL Sunday Ticket for FREE! Every Game.

Every Sunday. CHOICE- All-Included Package.

Over 185 Channels. $60/month (for 12 Months.)

CALL 1- 888-572-4953.

DISH Network. 190+ CHANNELS. FREE Install. FREE Hopper HD-DVR. $49.99/month (24 months) Add High Speed Internet - $14.95 (where avail.) CALL Today & SAVE 25%! 1-844560-5837.

SPECTRUM TRIPLE PLAY! TV, Internet & Voice for $29.99 ea. 60 MB per second speed. No contract or commitment. More Channels. Faster Internet. Unlimited Voice. Call 1-888-366-7573.

Wanted

Legal Services WERE YOU AN INDUSTRIAL OR CONSTRUCTION TRADESMAN and recently diagnosed with lung cancer? You and your family may be entitled to a significant cash reward.

Call 1-888-351-0312 for your risk free consultation.

SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY? Up to $2,671/mo. (Based on paid-in amount.) Free evaluation! Call Bill Gordon & Associates. 1-866-9700779. Mail: 2420 N St NW, Washington, D.C. Office: Broward Co. FL., member TX/NM Bar.

Miscellaneous ENJOY 100% GUARANTEED, DELIVERED to-the-door Omaha Steaks! Save 75% plus get 4 more Burgers & 4 more Kielbasa FREE! Order The Family Gourmet Buffet — ONLY $49.99.

Call 1-844-302-3754, mention code 51689JCT or visit www.omahasteaks.com.

GOLD, SILVER, ANTIQUES — Private collector buying what you have for over 40 years!

Wanted: Jewelry, Flatware, Holloware, Antiques, Men’s Magazines (pre-1971), Playboys (1953-1959), Comic Books, Coins, Stamps and other old stuff. Call or Text Alex Now. 571-4265363.

MONEY, TIME TO SELL! Make the right choice. Call Greg, 717-658-7954. We buy costume and other jewelry, coins, antiques, watches, art, paper money, toys, bottles, etc. No middleman, no fees, no overhead means more money for your stuff. Give me a call, and let’s do business.717-658-7954.

WE PAY CASH for antique furniture, quality used furniture, early American art, pottery, silver, glassware, paintings, etc. Single items to entire estates. Call Reggie or Phyllis at DC 202726-4427, MD 301-332-4697.

WANTED: 3 STOOGES, 1959, Bubble Gum Cards + any cards from 1950s. Call John at 301-423-1256.

WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N — F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

Wanted TIRED OF POLISHING YOUR SILVER? Turn it into cash, which does not tarnish. I will come to your home and give you a free evaluation of what I can pay. I buy all gold and silver jewelry, including broken pieces, all sterling silver, gold and silver coins, gold watches, etc. I am licensed with both Maryland and Montgomery County (lic. #2327). If you decide to sell, I can buy your items at that time, but there is no obligation. Call Bob, Gold 4 Good, 8241 Georgia Ave., Suite 100, Silver Spring, MD 20910, (240) 9389694.

CASH FOR RECORDS, CDs AND TAPES. Best price guaranteed. Free appraisals. All types of music, 33, 45, 78 & CDs. Call Steve 301-646-5403. Will make house calls.

BUYING VINTAGE TOYS AND STEREO equipment, tin wind-ups, cast iron banks, peddle cars, Lego, Disney toys, marbles, record players, amplifiers, tube amplifiers, tubes. Betty, 301-219-6201.

WANTED: OLDER VIOLINS, Guitars, Banjos, Mandolins, etc. Musician/collector will pay cash for older string instruments. Jack, 301- 279-2158.

FINE ANTIQUES, PAINTINGS AND QUALITY VINTAGE FURNISHINGS wanted by a serious, capable buyer. I am very well educated [law degree], knowledgeable [over 40 years in the antique business] and have the finances and wherewithal to handle virtually any situation. If you have a special item, collection or important estate, I would like to hear from you. I pay great prices for great things in all categories from O riental rugs to Tiffany objects, from rare clocks to classic cars. If it is wonderful, I am interested.

No phony promises or messy consignments.

References gladly furnished. Please call Jake Lenihan, 301-279-8834. Thank you.

Say you saw it in the Beacon

Wanted COLLECTOR BUYING MILITARY ITEMS: Helmets, weapons, knives, swords, bayonets, web gear, uniforms, etc. from all wars and countries. Also Lionel Toy Trains, and coin operated machines. Wil l pay top prices for my personal collection. Discreet consultations. Call Fred, 301-910-0783.

CASH FOR ESTATES, PARTIAL ESTATES, DOWNSIZING. I buy a wide range of items. Buy-out/cleanup. Gary Roman, 301520-0755.

ITEMS WANTED: CAUTION! BE SMART. Get 3 estimates before you sell anything of value. Cash paid for quality antiques + midcentury items, including furniture, art, sculptures, toys, jewelry, gold, silver, fishing, military, vehicles, etc. One piece or estate. Compare my estimate before you sell. 301-262-1299.

BUYING MILITARY MEMORABILIA WW2, WW1, Civil War uniforms, weapons, photos and items associated with US, German, Japanese or items of other Military History. DAVE, 240-464-0958.

STAMP COLLECTIONS, AUTOGRAPHS purchased/appraised – U.S., worldwide, covers, paper memorabilia. Stamps are my specialty – highest price paid! Appraisals. Phone Alex, 301-309-3622. Stampex1@gmail.com.

MILITARY ITEMS WANTED: Collector seeks to purchase military uniforms; flight jackets, patches, insignia, medals, etc. from the Civil War through Vietnam. Especially seeking U.S. Army Air Corps, USMC, Airborne, and German/Japanese/Italian items from WWII. ALSO BUYING old Boy Scout, Airline Items, Toys, Lighters. Call Dan, 202-841-3062.

BUYING VINYL RECORDS from 1950 through 1985. Jazz, Rock-n-Roll, Soul, Rhythm & Blues, Reggae and Disco. 33 1/3 LPs, 45s or 78s, Larger collections of at least 100 items wanted. Please call John, 301-596-6201.

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CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING RATES Deadlines and Payments: Ad text and payment is due by the 20th of each month.

Note: Only ads received and prepaid by the deadline will be included in the next month’s issue. Please type or print your ad carefully. Include a number where you can be reached in the event of a question. Payment is due with ad. We do not accept ads by phone or fax, nor do we accept credit cards.

Private Party Text Ads: For individuals seeking to buy or sell particular items, or place a personal ad. Each ad is $15 for 25 words, 25 cents for each additional word.

Business Text Ads: For parties engaged in an ongoing business enterprise.

Each ad is $35 for 25 words, 50 cents for each additional word.

Note: Each real estate listing counts as one business text ad.

Send your classified ad with check or money order, payable to the Beacon, to:

The Beacon, D.C. Classified Dept.

P.O. Box 2227, Silver Spring, MD 20915-2227 For information about display advertising, or to request a media kit, call (301) 949-9766.

Wanted LADY WHO LOVES FINE CHINA and crystal would like to buy yours. Especially interested in figurines and dishes by the following makers: Herend, Johnson Brothers, Lenox, Lladro, Meissen, Rosenthal, Royal Copenhagen, Shelley, Spode, Wedgwood, Baccarat, Lalique and Waterford stemware and miscellaneous. Bone China cups and saucers and quality dog and cat figurines. 301-7851129.

Wanted CASH FOR JEWELRY: Buying jewelry, diamonds, gold, platinum, silver, watches, coins, flatware, etc. Ask for Tom. Call anytime, 301654-8678 (reg. 883).

Thanks for reading the Beacon!

ADVERTISERS IN THIS ISSUE TechMedic4u..............................5

Holy Cross Home Care And Hospice . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 MedStar House Call Program . .9 Options for Senior America .....18

Victory Crossing ......................28 Village at Rockville, The .......................19 Waltonwood .............................19

Dental Services

Housing

Legal Services

Friedman, Stephen, DDS .........20 Oh, Judy, DDS .........................14

Aarondale...................................3 Ashby Ponds...........................1, 8 Ashleigh at Landsdowne............3 Aspenwood Senior Living ........................21 Atrium Assisted Living ............18 Brooke Grove Retirement Village. ..................................15 Charles E. Smith Life Communities ...........29, 34 Chesterbrook Residences .........21 Churchill Senior Living ...........20 Crossings at Spring Hill, The .....4 Culpepper Garden ......................7 Friendship Terrace....................10 Gardens of Traville, The...........12 Greenspring............................1, 8 Heatherwood ..............................3 Homecrest House .....................16 Maplewood Park Place.............23 Overture Fair Ridge....................7 Park View .................................17 Paul Spring Retirement Community .............................3 Quantum Property Mgmt............16 Riderwood..............................1, 8 Springvale Terrace....................10 Tall Oaks ..................................13

Law Firm of Evan Farr.............27 Law Offices of Lee Holdmann.......................25 Law Offices of Paul Riekhof ...25

Computer/ Technology Help

Events Boomer Summit .......................28 GROWS ...................................37

Financial Services Children’s National Hospital....25 JCA Career Gateway................26 Mortgage Network Solutions ...27

Funeral Services Going Home Cremation...........40

Government Services DC Office on Aging ...........30-31 MC311 .....................................18 Montgomery County Aging and Disability Services ............6, 22 Montgomery Serves.................29

Home Health Care/Companion Services Ameristar Healthcare Services .9 Best Senior Care . . . . . . . . . . .34

Medical/Health Holy Cross Germantown Hospital .......... 11 Medical Eye Center..................28 Silver Spring Medical Center......................................9

Miscellaneous Beacon Celebration of the Arts..............................39 JCA Kensington Club ..............22 Senior Zone..............................40 TheBeaconNewspapers.com ....48

Real Estate Long & Foster/ Eric Stewart.....................26, 42 Long & Foster/ Walter Johnson ......................27 Re/Max Choice/Bonnie Kyte ...17 Weichert/Sue Heyman..............23

Restaurants Original Pancake House...........13

Retail/Pawn/Auction Healthy Back Store ..................13 Quinn’s Auction Galleries ........20

Skilled Nursing & Rehabilitation Manor Care Health Services ....12 Village at Rockville, The .........14

Subscriptions Beacon Newspaper...................45 Kol HaBirah .............................41 Washington Jewish Week.........38

Theatre/ Entertainment Ford’s Theatre...........................37 F. Scott Fitzgerald Theatre .......36 Kennedy Center .......................38 Toby’s Dinner Theatre ..............36 US Navy Band .........................37

Tour & Travel Eyre Travel ...............................33 Festive Holidays .......................33 Nexus Holidays ........................33 Seven Lands & Sea Travel .......35 Shillelaghs, The Travel Club ....35 US Navy Memorial ..................34 Vamoose...................................35

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F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 — WA S H I N G T O N B E A C O N