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The Gazette BETHESDA | CHEVY CHASE | KENSINGTON
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Wednesday, May 28, 2014
‘Not the life I was supposed to have’ Chevy Chase women honor wounded veterans’ caregivers n
BY
NOAH JONES
SPECIAL TO THE GAZETTE
Improvise, adapt and overcome may be the unofficial Marine mantra, but members of the Chevy Chase Women’s Republican Club say it also describes the people who care for wounded veterans. For Jessica Klein, the club’s celebration of those caregivers at their spring luncheon on May 21 was exactly what she needed. About two dozen caregivers attended the luncheon at a private home in Kensington. Klein is a full-time working mother of two who also looks after her triple-amputee husband, Army Capt. Edward “Flip” Klein. He, like the others whose caregivers were honored, is recovering at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda. “This was not the life I was supposed to have; I had to choose this life,” said Klein, whose husband stepped on
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Honoring the nation’s war dead
a bomb in 2012 when he was deployed in Afghanistan. “Once you make this choice, it doesn’t get any easier.” Many women in the club have ties to the military. Member Chrissy Kasuda’s husband served in the Marines and she said she knows how much effort these women must give to take care of their wounded husbands. “I know their roles,” Kasuda said. “The roles of these spouses and everything they do … they are rocks.” Susan Warren, one of the club’s luncheon coordinators, said she sympathizes with the caregivers because, much like Klein, they are blindsided when the unthinkable happens. “Their life gets turned upside down,” Warren said. “These women have to do so much for their families: hospital visits, taking care of their children, their husbands, earning money to support their family — they don’t know what they’re in for until it happens. “These women are in a constant flux of improvising, adapting and overcoming. Their lives go from a normal
See VETERANS, Page A-10 KERI RASMUSSEN/FOR THE GAZETTE
Janet Ammerman 59, of the Chevy Chase Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, pays tribute during Monday’s Memorial Day ceremoney at Veterans Memorial Park in Bethesda. The ceremony included a presentation of the colors by Boy Scout Troop 439 of Kensington, with members of the Maryland Sons of the American Revolution in period dress leading the procession and readings.
Euro Motorcars phases out opulence n
Bethesda dealership trading in its Rolls-Royces for more family-friendly Volvos BY
ELIZABETH WAIBEL STAFF WRITER
GREG DOHLER/THE GAZETTE
Mary Jo Myers (left) greets Jessica Klein at the Chevy Chase Women’s Republican Club luncheon May 21 at a private home in Kensington. Klein was among the caregivers of wounded veterans who were honored at the luncheon. Myers, wife of retired Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the guest speaker.
Man is electrocuted at home in Chevy Chase n
Man may have been trying to repair pump under house BY
ELIZABETH WAIBEL STAFF WRITER
An electrical shock killed one man in Chevy Chase Saturday evening and injured two people. Pete Piringer, spokesman for Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Service, said it seems that the man was in the crawl space under a house on Oxford Street working on a pump to deal with some flooding. Electrical cords probably came into contact with the water, Piringer said. A neighbor called emergency responders, who found the man not
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Bethesda Green, a nonprofit, is working with downtown businesses to install rooftop gardens.
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breathing and unconscious, Piringer said. A woman also received serious electrical burns and a male teenager was shocked, he said. Firefighters isolated the electrical issues and pulled the three people out from under the house. Pepco shut power down to the house as a precaution. Piringer said it was his understanding that the man died at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda. The woman and teenager were both taken to Washington Hospital’s burn unit, but their injuries were not considered life-threatening, Piringer said. Police are still investigating the circumstances of the man’s death. ewaibel@gazette.net
Bethesda hovers near the top of lists of the nation’s highest-earning communities, but its residents tend to be conservative in their choice of cars, one dealer said. Euro Motorcars, which operates several auto dealerships in the area, shuttered its Rolls-Royce and Bentley showroom in downtown Bethesda last September and plans to reopen it this summer with Volvos.
Gil Hofheimer, general manager of the new Volvo store, said the high-end Rolls and Bentley cars have become socially questionable in the Washington area. “It became a car that people were reluctant to be seen in because of the statement that it made,” he said. “It was a little too opulent for the area.” On the other hand, in areas such as Miami, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, which are “a little bit more glitzy,” Hofheimer said, those models sell very well. Most Rolls-Royce models sell for $250,000 and up. Not so in Washington. “In a region where people are more concerned with the ecology, the environment [and] political statements, the
car made the wrong statement, shall we say,” he said. Many models get about 20 miles per gallon on the highway and about 12 in city driving, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The nearest Rolls-Royce dealership is now in Sterling, Va. Bentley Tysons in Vienna, Va., bought out Euro Motorcars’ Bentley business, and Simone Durbin, director of business development, said the company sells an average of five a month. “Bentleys are moving actually very well, considering the price tag,” Durbin said. “‘Economically friendly’ is simply not in our clients’ vocabulary.” Volvo has a reputation for being a
See LUXURY, Page A-10
34 years of peace, music at Glen Echo Annual folk festival returns this weekend
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BY
ELIZABETH WAIBEL STAFF WRITER
A decades-long tradition of music and cultural appreciation returns to Glen Echo this weekend as the 34th annual Washington Folk Festival brings hundreds of musicians, storytellers, dancers and crafters together from around the region. The event is hosted by the Folklore Society of Greater Washington, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Dwain Winters, the festival coordi-
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DRIVING TO THE HOOP St. Andrew’s hopes to increase exposure by launching boys basketball summer league.
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nator, said the festival pulls performers and craftspeople from all over the Greater Washington area. “We’re really trying to have something that focuses on the cultural diversity of Washington,” which has locally and internationally known talent, he said. “It’s the only festival that really cuts across all the cultural makeup of the city.” The Folklore Society of Greater Washington was formed in the early days of the urban folk revival, Winters said. The festival has been around for 34 years, and it is the largest single event at Glen Echo Park, he said. Winters, who lives in Bethesda, has volunteered to help with the festival and the Folklore Society in various
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capacities for about three decades. He said festival volunteers contributed to restoring the structure of Glen Echo Park and are active in maintaining and preserving it. In return, they introduce patrons from all over the region to the historic park. “It’s one of the ways in which we introduce the park to people who might otherwise not see it,” he said. The festival’s “home has always been Glen Echo, and we’ve been a strong supporter of the park and the park has been a strong supporter of the festival.” This year, the festival will also include workshops and programs in tribute to Pete Seeger, the legendary
See MUSIC, Page A-10
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