Secretaries: The behind the scenes crew

Marsha Hunt greets the students who walk into her office with a smile and a glowing face as she calls them by

MARSHA HUNT, THE BUSINESS ASSISTANT for the geology department, said she and her staff take care of the nuts and bolts of the department like paperwork, accounting and supplying toner. DELAYNE LOCKE photo

name and asks them about their classes and projects.

“When do you leave for New Jersey?” she said to Brady Utley, a graduate in geology, who is headed to the East Coast to pick up a tool for a research study in Green River, and talked to him about the specifics of his trip.

Hunt is the business assistant for the Geology department, one of the many titles of a secretary at Utah State University. Hunt said she and Jean Daddow, her staff assistant, are the ones who keep the department together by keeping the little things in order as well as organizing the big things.

“If Jean or I weren’t here for two or three days consecutively, the department would have a hard time,” she said. “Our faculty are great, our students are great, but Jean and I are in the trenches. We take care of the nuts and bolts.”

Hunt said the nuts and bolts are things like paperwork, accounting, organization and even things as seemingly small as supplying the correct toner for the correct printers.

“Jean has a book with how much toner and what kind everyone needs, and she keeps track of it,” Hunt said. “For example, if someone needs yellow toner and doesn’t have it, they’re screwed. So we do things like that.”

Hunt also takes care of the employee forms when the department hires new people and organizes when companies come in to interview students. She helps the students and teachers stay organized.

Hunt and Daddow also do some of the larger things, such as making some of the decisions about how the office and department are run. Hunt said the two reorganized how the main office is laid out after theft of rocks in 2011 and opened up different areas for graduate and undergraduate students.

Hunt said life in the office and the department is always busy, and there is no such thing as downtime in the geology department.

Hunt said after the spring semester ends and many of the students leave, the department has field camp where the graduate students host and the faculty teach modules. It’s always “up time” in her eyes.

“Students come back from the summer in August and they ask if we’ve had a quiet break without the students here,” Hunt said. “And I always tell them, ‘You’re crazy.’ There is no quiet here.”

Hunt said Daddow does most of the traveling with the geology field trips and does more travel in six weeks than anyone from any other department.

Hunt said each of the geology classes has field trips, from visiting Green Canyon to Jackson Hole, Wyo, and she and Daddow do the paperwork for all of it. She said the two have to work as a team.

“It becomes a real collaboration with me and Jean,” she said. “If I don’t give her a bill, she can hold onto paperwork for weeks.”

Hunt said she knows the students who come into her office, but she also strives to be sure the faculty and staff are happy and to help them do their best.

“The other day, Jim came in and he sat in that chair and just breathed,” she said. “I said, ‘Hard morning?’ It had been a very difficult morning.”

But Hunt said she, as well as the faculty, are really at USU doing their job for the students, a philosophy staff assistant Carolyn Brittain agrees with.

“The students are the best part of my job, and I like the several hundred I work with,” Braittain said. “A couple years ago, I had one freshman boy who came in every day for three weeks to ask where buildings on campus were.”

Brittain said she does all manner of tasks each day, and what she does depends on the time of year. The past couple weeks, she has been doing scheduling for spring semester classes and textbook orders. She also works on the Facebook page for the department, helps faculty with proofreading and whatever else they need.

In addition to being a secretary, Brittain is also a student.

“I have a 3.93 GPA and I’m a senior in interdisciplinary studies,” Brittain said. “I really enjoy school. I think I’ll do either a second bachelors or a masters.”

Hunt has also received an education, although she said she is always still learning as she works for the geology department.

“I got a degree in vocal performance, but what I like about geology is the rocks,” she said. “The thing that’s so cool about rocks is that they’re everywhere, they’re the life around us, and the life before us.”

Hunt has two rocks sitting on her desk, which were formerly one rock sliced in two by a student. The rock has a petrified tree in it, and she said it’s one of the many ways she feels connected to the department.

Hunt does a lot of office work, but she said she does different things every day, from scheduling to managing money.

“I used to think that after being in a job for a year, you’ll know everything,” she said. “No, that’s not the case here.”

The students say Hunt and Daddow are indispensable to the department and count on them to be there. Senior Dave Richey said the two women are very helpful.

“They are the only reason we’re successful around here,” he said.

– april.ashland@aggiemail.usu.edu

 

Feral cat population dwindling on campus

CREAMSICLE THE CAT sits in a cage as part of the Trap, Neuter and Release program. The aim of the program’s sponsor, Aggie Cats Services, is to decrease the number of homeless cats. Photo courtesy of Aggie Cats Services

There are about 76 cats who live on campus, all with clipped left ears. These cats are called the Aggie Cats, and are cared for by volunteers and supported by donors on and off campus.

The Aggie Cats live in many areas on campus — a colony of four lives next to the Junction, and another lives by the Townhouses. Whit Milligan, director of resident housing, was one of the founding members of the Aggie Cat Services, which began as an organization dedicated to reducing the feral cat population on campus in 2004.

Milligan said before Aggie Cat Services organized, the Pre-Vet Club, headed by a professor in the veterinary science department who was a veterinarian, used the cats as an example to students of spaying and neutering procedures. However, the intent of the group was not the same.

“They didn’t go in with the intent to reduce the number of feral cats, which is what we do,” Milligan said. “So when that professor left, the program ended.”

The transition in purpose and organizations began at that crossroads in time, with one woman who Milligan said was passionate about the humane treatment of cats and connected a group of concerned campus residents to Utah No More Homeless Pets in Salt Lake City.

The Pre-Vet Club chose the name Aggie Cat Services, and the core group of five people received training on the Trap, Neuter, Release which is in place today.

Trap, Neuter, Release is a program employed by cities across the state, such as West Valley City, to decrease the population of feral cats in a humane and manageable way. According to the No More Homeless Pets website, one unspayed female cat can have about 3 litters of kittens a year. Each litter of kittens is from 4 to 6 kittens, who can breed within a year.

“The beautiful thing about TNR is that it’s costly and time-consuming on the front end, but as time goes on it all drops off,” Milligan said. “We haven’t had to do a trapping since May of 2011.”

Milligan said the Trap, Neuter, Release program stops the breeding and therefore slows the growth of feral cat populations. Before Aggie Cats, the fix to a call about a feral cat on campus was usually handled by USU Facilities or USU Police.

“Before, it was the police or facilities people who had to respond to calls, trap the cats and have them taken down to the Animal Control to have them put to sleep,” Milligan said. “So after the training, they said if it worked, they were on board.”

The group worked with wildlife officials, city council members from local communities such as North Logan, Providence and Smithfield, as well as Human Resources from USU in order to create their guidelines.

Since the founding of the group with the specific mission 8 years ago, the program has trapped and spayed or neutered 76 to 78 cats, vaccinated each cat and found homes in the community for a dozen kittens.

Milligan said she got involved with Aggie Cat Services in part because of her love of cats but also because of her job with Housing. Milligan, who owns four Aggie Cats, said she heard many of the complaint calls that came in from family and other housing on campus.

“I don’t think that just because a cat is unowned it should be killed,” Milligan said. “I wanted to help find a solution.”

Milligan said feral cats live mostly where people do because of ease of access to food and shelter. At USU, the Aggie Cats live mostly around the Junction because of the large dumpsters filled with food, and around Family Housing, which is near a field teeming with rodents, snakes, and other cat edibles.

Marcela Gardner, a business assistant with the Huntsman School of Business, said she got involved with the Aggie Cats after a friend told her about the program. Gardner said she is a volunteer who mostly feeds the cats on campus, filling water bowls and food bowls.

“I make sure there’s enough food and fresh water, especially in the winter,” Gardner said. “The kitties get really thirsty. I also keep an eye on the population and see if there are any newcomers and if they’re fixed.”

Gardner said she also goes each year to the animal blessings at the Saint Thomas Aquinas church in Cache Valley and educates the community about the Trap, Neuter, Release program and spaying and neutering cats in general. Gardner said education is one way to stop the problem.

“I think it’s important to educate people since this is an educational institution,” she said. “People come here with a cat or dog and then leave them when they can’t take the animal wherever they’re going, so educating the people about not getting a cat they can’t care for in the first place is important.”

MIlligan said the reason Aggie Cat Services uses Trap, Neuter, Release is because it is more effective than killing cats, and by educating the public the group has even raised support for the program from unlikely sources.

“A couple of our biggest and most loyal donors are cat haters because once you have face time with them and they realize Trap, Neuter, Release is more effective and how it all works, once they get that and see it will drop the numbers, they support it,” she said.

Milligan said the entire program is run by volunteers and money from community donors. The cats are fixed at Cache Meadows, where the doctors give them a discount on the services and vaccinate the cats before returning them to the trapping location.

Milligan said the cats are returned to where they live because it is easier to maintain a cat population in a place because cats are territorial. It is rare that a cat colony will allow new cats into the area.

O’Malley is one of the Aggie Cats on campus, and he lived near the now non-existent Agricultural Science Building. When the building was torn down, he relocated to the bushes between the Geology and Animal Science Buildings. Milligan said she received many calls asking if he was taken care of before she sent out a flier explaining the situation.

“He’s very friendly, would meow at people passing, and go up to them to be pet on the head, and everyone assumed he had to be someone’s pet,” Milligan said. “We had to let everyone know he was an Aggie Cat.”

O’Malley is so popular in the area, he has two Facebook pages. The first one, under O’Malley the Aggie Cat, has 43 likes. The other, under his newer nickname Moo Cat, has 140 friends.

Milligan said O’Malley hasn’t been seen in a while, and she’s a little worried about him. However, she said he might show up again when it gets colder.

*Update 10/12: O’Malley has been found, and according to Blair Larsen, who maintains his facebook page, now resides near the Caine Home off campus.

Story by April Ashland, printed in The Utah Statesman

 

Student’s life altered by infection

JAKE OLSEN IS RECOVERING from a dangerous Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Auerus. He has a strict medication routine and wakes up at 5 a.m. every day. Photo courtesy of Jake Olsen.

When Jake Olsen walked into Alpine Orthopedic in mid-September, he had no idea there was a highly contagious infection in his knee. What he did know, he said, was that he had a large lump on his knee.

“It started as a little bump on my knee, kind of like a bug bite, and I started to play with it, and it got really big, really fast,” Olsen said. “It looked like I had another knee on top of my knee.”

Olsen first went to a regular doctor, who told him it looked like he had an infection, gave him antibiotics and sent him home. Two days later when the large lump showed no signs of improvement, Olsen said he was sent to a specialist at Alpine Orthopedic.

At Alpine, Olsen said Dr. Finlayson looked at the lump, poked it once, and told Olsen he was going to cut it open. The worst part though, he said, was the numbing.

“It’s inflamed already, there’s a lot of pressure, so he pokes it in a really tender spot with a needle and pumps a ton more fluid in there,” Olsen said. “I laid back and was trying not to just scream.”

Olsen said what then came out of his knee was gross, but the doctor still didn’t know what had caused it, or what it was. In order to find out, Dr. Finlayson swabbed the inside of Olsen’s knee and sent it out. Finlayson then put a piece of gauze soaked in Hydrogen Peroxide in Olsen’s knee, and told him to pull it out two days later.

“We had like 15 people there,” Olsen said. “Some people said they definitely weren’t going to come, and other people said ‘Oh, I have to be there to see it,’ so it was fun.’”

THe next day, Olsen found out the infection in his knee was Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, or MRSA.

MRSA is a type of staph infection resistant to most types of antibiotics. According to the Center for Disease Control, when MRSA exists in the community, it is most often in the form of skin infections and generally happen on sections of skin with visible skin trauma, like cuts or scrapes.

Leona Goodsell, the communicable disease nurse at the Bear River Health Department, said one in three people carry staph, although not all carry the MRSA strain. She said the best way to protect yourself is just to wash your hands often.

Olsen said he may have had it and it just didn’t show up for a while, but he is not the first in his family to have MRSA. He said his father had it too.

“I called my dad and told him I have MRSA and he said, ‘Whoa, Jake this is serious. You have to do everything they say and I’m going to tell everybody and we’re going to be praying for you,'” Olsen said. “I knew it was serious before that, because they said they’d have to give me an I.V. to give me medicine, but I’d also need a picc line.”

A picc line is a catheter, or tube, which is placed in a patient’s arm and fed through the veins into the heart. Olsen said he needed the line because his veins would collapse, and since he needed medicine so often, the doctors needed a way for his veins to stay open.

“There’s a 43-centimeter-long tube from my bicep threaded up through my veins to the top of my heart,” Olsen said. “When I found that out I was like, ‘Whoa this is a big deal. Are you kidding me?'”

Olsen said he spent most of that day in the hospital waiting for his picc line to be inserted so he could take his medicine. He said he spends about 5 hours every day preparing for and taking his medicine each day.

Olsen said he wakes up at 5 a.m. every morning to take his medicine out of the fridge and to take Benadryl. The first dose of medicine Olsen received made his skin itch to the point he wanted to rip his skin off, so he takes Benadryl to calm the effect.

An hour later, Olsen is able to take his medicine. The medicine, Vancomiacin, has to be at room temperature to enter Olsen’s blood stream or it hurts.

“It’s in a little bulb, it looks a little like a water balloon or a grenade,” Olsen said. “And I hook it up, and it takes an hour and 45 minutes to get all the way through my bloodstream.”

12 hours later, Olsen repeats the process.

Olsen said his life has been altered by having MRSA by the medicine process and the lifestyle change. Olsen recently joined the Air Force ROTC and said he took his medicine with him to physical training one morning.

“Cpt. Cooksey — he’s in charge of the cadets — he saw me and asked me what was going on,” Olsen said. “So I told him I have MRSA, and he got this way serious look on his face, took three steps back and said, ‘You need to go home right now.'”

Olsen said this reaction is somewhat typical when people find out he has MRSA.

“Most people don’t have a clue what it is,” Olsen said. “But I told one guy, and he said, ‘Whoa, don’t people, like, die from that?’ Oh gee, thanks.”

Olsen has a doctors note stating his condition is not contagious so long as he keeps it covered, and that he can still attend school.

When Olsen is at home, he keeps the spot covered as well to protect himself and his roommates. The only time his skin is exposed is when he showers.

“I have to wash down the shower with Clorox when I’m done, and I keep it covered and it’s fine,” Olsen said.

Chris Wilson, junior in English education, is Olsen’s roommate, and has been his friend since the two were 12, Wilson said. Wilson said his life hasn’t really been affected much, aside from having a little more clorox and a nurse in the house.

“It’s interesting, I’ll wake up and walk to the shower and there will be a nurse there,” he said.

Olsen has a nurse come in to take his blood to be sure the medicine is working, but the nurse doesn’t stay with them.

Wilson said it’s getting closer to the time when Olsen will be healing up, but he’s a bit worried about him.

“Jake’s always been one who’s not concerned about his body,” Wilson said. “I mean, he’s never one to hang out at home and just chill. He’s a ‘Let’s do everything extreme, go hiking and camping even when he has a cold’ guy.”

Story by April Ashland

 

Meditation group brings religions together

The Amrita Sangha for Integral Spirituality is a meditation group that meets every Wednesday evening, led by Associate Professor of English Michael Sowder. The Amrita Sangha has become Sowder’s core focus since he founded it last November.

“The Cache Valley Sangha group is more focused on Buddhism, and in this group we try to draw on the world’s different traditions,” he said.

In the main room where the meditators meet, against one wall is an altar. It’s a wooden table about four feet tall with scarves draped across the length. At the front of the altar are five candles, each of a different shape and size, and behind which are framed pictures.

Within each frame sits a deity, or teacher, of various faiths. There is the Dalai Lama with a Catholic Priest; a picture of Jesus Christ sits next to Buddha. Also upon the altar is a statue of Hindu God Shiva, the destroyer.

“We have an eclectic, universal approach to meditation and spirituality. No one has to be a buddhist to meditate,” Sowder said.

While an ascribed religion may not play a key role in Sowder’s view of meditation, he, along with many of the other members, have had histories with other religions before beginning to meditate.

“I was raised Catholic,” he said. “I had 12 years of Catholic education and I began meditation 35 years ago in a yoga studio for ten years and then I migrated to a Buddhist tradition, but now I’m back in a kind of yoga meditation.”

Meditation takes some practice to get down, but Sangha group member Mirabai* has been practicing meditation for 25 years in the United States as well as Japan.

“When I began, I thought, ‘This is weird,’” she said. “But I’ve given years to degrees, so I thought I could give four years to this.”

Mirabai did just that, and spent longer time with the practice. When she was pregnant with her second child she moved to Japan to teach English, despite her misgivings, and there said she saw the connections between all things.

“There was another woman about the same months along as I was who lived just across from me,” she said. “And we couldn’t communicate, but we both practiced the same form of meditation.”

There are many forms of meditation but at its core, meditation has been practiced for about 5,000 years and has many benefits, both spiritual and physical, Sowder said.

“All the things meditators have been touting as benefits for centuries are now starting to be proven by science,” he said. “Meditation is transformative of your physical health and has mental benefits. Many scientists say they have breakthroughs when meditating.”

Sowder said meditation is supposed to reduce blood pressure, stress and tension, is good for your circulatory system, oxygenates your body and is good for your posture. It improves concentration, willpower and focus, he said.

“Those who meditate report greater feelings of well being, you’re just more joyful,” he said.
Bernadene Ryan, a masters student in folklore, said she believes this meditation group along with the three others offered at different times in the week is a valuable resource in a university town.

“It’s important to be able to slow down, calm down,and understand where feelings are coming from,” she said. “It’s important for students, who become so stressed, to be able to let go, to not be attached, to realize that I am not a stressed person, I am a person who has stress.”

When the Sangha group meets each week, the members greet new and returning guests with a smile and a greeting. The typical meeting begins with gathering in the main room for announcements, singing and sometimes chanting, and a focusing. Next, the leader for the evening will have a dharma, or talk about some spiritual philosophy before the group moves into a 20 to 30 minute silent or guided meditation.

“Focus on your breath, or on your mantra,” Mirabai said to the group.

Around the room, men and women of varying ages and ethnicities sit with their hands on their knees or in their laps, with their eyes closed or open and heads bowed or faced toward the heavens. The lights are dimmed, and a gong sounds three times, as breathing deepens and the room goes quiet.

Throughout the meditation time, people shift to more comfortable positions. Breathing deepens, then becomes more shallow as thoughts shift from a focus on breathing to whatever is happening inside the mind.

“We follow breath because it happens in the moment,” Sowder said. “Our mind is a lake with ripples, the past, present and future all there. We recognize those thoughts and go back to our breath, because we want to be in the present.”

At the appointed time, the bell tolls again and the group rejoins their minds for a communal sharing time.

Sangha literally means “a spiritual community,” and it is in this spirit of community and connection that the group meets each week, to become connected and grounded. Ryan said the group is a way for her to reconnect to the world.

“I meditate on my own, but when you’re not part of the mainstream religious groups of society then you can feel like an outsider,” she said. “You need support. I’m not sure I would have lasted this long here if I didn’t have the connection to the community through this Sangha group.”

Ryan began her Utah Sangha experience in spring 2010 when she moved to Logan from Canada for school and first was involved with the Cache Valley Sangha, which meets on Monday nights. She transferred to the Amrita Sangha group for the smaller, closer community.

“I like it because it’s a spiritual, non-judgemental, non-lecturing group, and I feel accepted here,” she said.

Story by April Ashland

 

85 year-old man walks, works, gives

Sam Protan

Sam Protan is 85 years old, was born and raised in a small West Virginia coal mining town in Boone County, and now lives in Round Hill. He walks about nine miles a day.

Nine miles may seem far to the average desk jockey, but Protan has been walking for years. He started soon after moving to Round Hill in the early 2000s, with an hour a day, then two. “He would come back and say, I walked an hour today. I walked two hours today. And it just kept going,” said daughter Peggy Chapman. Protan moved to live with his daughter in Round Hill in 2001, because of back problems.

“It was difficult for him to move, he couldn’t even put on his pajamas,” Chapman said. But he walked, and that’s what made all the difference. “I think it was his walking that really made him feel better and the doctor thinks so too.”

Protan hasn’t had an easy life by any accounts, but he’s happy and works hard. Protan is the son of Polish immigrants. His father worked in the coal mines, and after fifth grade, Protan joined him in the deep dark mines of West Virginia.

“I never finished school, didn’t need to,” he said.  He worked small jobs as a child, and continued working and was later married. He raised a family, and when his daughters were of college-age, he worked even harder to be able to send them through school.

“He would go in the mornings to the coal mines, as the fire boss, so he’d be the first one in on a shift to make sure the mines were safe,” Chapman said. “He’d be there about 3:30 a.m. to check the mine to make sure they were safe for all his co-workers.”

But Protan also was a carpenter, and made homes. “I built about 40 homes,” in West Virginia, he said.

“He would guarantee people a home in three months, and he’d work at night and on the weekends to get it done,” Chapman said. When the mines no longer needed workers, he and his family went to Florida, where he continued building homes.

When he finally moved in with his daughter, he started walking. But why walk and not ride a bike? His answer was simple. “I never had a bike,” he said.

Sam Protan said he walked about 2000 miles last year. He keeps a daily log book. Each day Protan walks about 9 miles.

So he walks.

Protan keeps a journal of all the miles he has walked, little journals, big journals. He has a clicker that he carries with him, holding it in his right hand. He clicks the button every time he walks 100 steps. By 9 a.m. it’s not unheard of for him to have walked 3,000 steps.

He walks outdoors as long as he can- before the cold or heat send him indoors. But every day, he drives his red pick-up truck to his chosen spot in Purcellville, or stays locally in Round Hill, and walks. When it gets too hot, or too cold, he goes indoors and does his walking inside.

Protan goes through a pair of shoes every three or four months, his daughter said. But he doesn’t like to replace them. “I have to go in while he’s in bed and switch out his shoes,” Chapman said. “He wears holes in the heels he walks so much.”

But Protan doesn’t like to spend money on shoes- he doesn’t want to waste money on something he views as trivial.

Protan also has a deep care for the children at St. Jude’s Hospital. His daughter said he keeps the pictures he gets in the mail on his mirror. She said, before he came to live with them, she’d look at the pictures sent in the mail, and throw them out. But Protan keeps them. When she asked him about it, he said,

“Sometimes when I go out walking I take a picture and I pray for that one.”

So how does he help the children at St. Jude’s? He collects golf balls from the golf course near the Chapman’s house, and puts the balls in egg crates.

“He’ll go out and some mornings he can barely walk, he’ll come back all skinned up, and he’ll have all these golf balls he found in the tall grass.” He sells the balls to friends of the family and gives the money to the children at St. Jude’s. “I don’t need it,” he said about the money.

Protan has a will of steel, and his daughter can testify. She said he gets frustrated with people who don’t have the will he does, and says she doesn’t.

Protan used to smoke, he said, but he quit when his daughters were young. He said he saw that his children needed shoes, and he was spending money on cigarettes. He said he realized it one day and when he came home, he threw away all his cigarettes.

“You have to want to do it. I had kids who needed shoes, and I just thought, they need them more than I needed cigarettes,” he said. “It was hard, but I had to do it.”

Protan has the same attitude when it comes to walking. He just has to do it.

“People sit around, and say, oh I want to do this. But they really don’t,” he said. “If you don’t want to do it, you’re not gonna do it.”

There’s more to Sam Protan than meets the eye, and Chapman said she has only begun to get to know her father. “I didn’t know my dad before he moved in with us, he was always working,” she said. “I didn’t know he liked to fish, because I never saw him.”

The lessons Protan teaches the community around him are strong: work hard, give to those with less than you have, and love those around you. He is smart and very active. He has enough stories to fill a book, and the Chapman’s are busy writing down all he has to tell them, in order to share his wisdom and more with their family as well as his community.

Story and photos by April Ashland

 

4th of July Celebration

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All pictures from the Purcellville Annual 4th of July parade.

 

Teams gather to ‘Play Ball’ like it’s 1864

Joe “Commodore” Stanik is creating the baseball diamond, using flour- a cheap powder used to “chalk” the field in 1864.

The Loudoun Preservation Society hosted the inaugural 19th Century Base Ball Day where men of all ages donned period dress and played the game according to the rules of 1864.

The men were sweating as they donned their wool outfits, put on their hats and took to the grassy field on Sunday, June 12. Three teams gathered to play a game very different from those seen played in modern Baseball.

Vernon Davis, co-chair of the event, said the LPS had come up with the idea as a fundraiser for the organization because it was unique. “Nothing like this has ever been done before (in Loudoun),” he said. “We needed a fundraiser, so this is what we came up with.”

The men who play on such base ball teams today do it because it’s fun and the history is interesting, at least that’s what Joe “Commodore” Stanik said.

“I love history, and I read an article in the Washington Post about the Society of American Baseball Research, a historic team was being created in the Long Island area, so he did some research and found the Chesapeake Nine.

Bill “Pockets” Freeland has been playing for three years for the Elkton Eclipse, and at 67 years old, he said he still loves the game and has been playing baseball and softball for years. “Playing on this team has prolonged my playing,” he said. “I’m the old man on the team. But I can play a couple innings and sit out a few, and then play again.”

The reason “Pockets” can do this is because in 1864, there were unlimited substitutions in the game. In today’s version of baseball, if a player is pulled out of the game and another is put in, the former player is out for the game. The rules were very different- even the point of the game has changed over the last 147 years.

“The point of the game today is to not let people score. It’s to strike them out. Back then, it was to get the ball in play,” he said.

The game is played without gloves, catching gear, or even helmets. The men catch balls with their bare hands, and Pockets said it stings sometimes, but it’s not terrible.

If a ball is caught on one bounce or a pop fly, the hitter, or “striker” is out. The strike zone is much larger, Pockets said, generally from the eyes to the knees, because the point is to get the ball in play. Umpires were called arbiters, and make the calls, but according to Pockets, they often get help from the audience, or call a “do-over.”

According to a pamphlet from the Loudoun Preservation Society, one ball was used for an entire game in the 1860s, rather than the 120 balls ready to be used in a modern game today.

Steve “Scoop” Kahl shows off his uniform, the Chesapeake Nine. Scoop is the field captain for the team, which means he picks batting order, and substitutions

The playing field was not manicured, with sand and cut grass in 1864, rather an open field was considered the perfect place to play, according to Jeff “Pipes” Hornberger, from the Potomac Nine. He said even though this is true, his team usually plays in urban areas, and the team was excited to play in a real field. “This is more like how the game was originally played. It’s beautiful,” he said.

Lori Kimball, president of the Loudoun Preservation Society said the group heard many positive comments about the event, and requests to do the event again next summer. “We’ll see what we do- we have to meet in our September board meeting to discuss it and see our next step,” she said.

The first two games were well attended, and the first game was the biggest upset of the day. The Potomac Nine beat the Elkton Eclipse, a state championship team, 5 to 4.

Game two the Elkton Eclipse beat the Chesapeake Nine 19-2, and the third game, which Kimball said was sparsely attended, the Potomac Nine beat the Chesapeake Nine 9-5, in a game shortened by the weather.

“It was really great, the players loved it,” Kimball said.

 

Vintage car show revs up enthusiasts

Billy and Kaylee Coburn pose in front of a family NHRA JR. racecar, a “1150” car, which goes about 60 mph.

The third annual Purcellville Auto show held at Loudoun Valley High School on Saturday, June 11, boasted 138 cars organizer Magic Kayhan, owner of Purcellville Sports Pavilion, said. He guesses about 700 people showed to look over classic cars from 1 to 5pm.

Kayhan defined a classic car as being a car that was American made with a strong engine and a sleek body that took real work to make. The Auto Show had cars such as Rolls Royces, Corvettes and Mustangs.

Kayhan started the Vintage Auto Show in Purcellville because he loves classic cars, but also because there had previously been a car show in Purcellville, but it has been moved to Franklin, VA.

“It’s a good show, but it doesn’t have that old car show feeling- it’s too commercial,” Kayhan said. So he put on the first vintage auto show in 2009. He allows vintage cars to come into the show for a donation that he calls the registration fee.

“We have people donate money for the registration and it can be whatever the person is willing to give,” Kayhan said. “We once had someone donate $500.”

The registration fee, as well as money raised from a raffle and sponsors, goes to a charity or a cause within the community, Kayhan said. Sponsors this year included JK Movers, Purcellville Copy, Eastern Motors, and the Purcellville Sports Pavilion.

This year, the money raised goes toward Pride of Purcellville, the Fourth of July daytime celebration for children that he has hosted in previous years. Kayhan hopes to use the money raised to bring back the very popular event in 2013 after next year’s car show.

Of the hundreds of people who came to the event, there was one boy and one girl who were showing their small racecar off to the side of the vintage car show. Billy and Kaylee Coburn, 12 and 7 respectively, are part of a family of racers, and spent their day on Saturday showcasing a small racer. Billy has been racing since he was 8-years-old, although for the past two years he has been more involved in baseball and football than racing. “I’ve been around racing my whole life; my dad won his first championship two years before I was born. I haven’t won any. Yet,” he said.

Billy used to race just about every weekend, he said, at the Mason Dixie Dragway, in Hagerstown, Maryland.

Billy got his Junior racecar when he was 6 when his family paid $6,000 to buy it from an 18-year-old girl who wanted to get a bigger car. In a few months, the car will pass down to his little sister Kaylee, who has until November before she can race.

But she’s inheriting an “1150 car,” which means it can go one-eighth of a mile in 11.5 seconds. This equals approximately 60 miles an hour. Billy hopes to get a 790 car, which goes about 85 miles an hour.

Billy hopes to continue racing until he’s about 17, he said, and then move on.

“I want to maybe go bigger after that,” he said.

The show was a success compared to years past, Kayhan said, with a huge increase in people and cars showcased.

The first year he held the show he said 80 cars were showcased, last year 110. This year was more than he expected.

“It’s really exceeded my expectations,” Kayhan said.

But he’s not done yet. He said he hopes to possibly bring in motorcycles next year, and possibly open the show to other cars.

“People get mad when you say their car isn’t classic,” he said, “so next year we might have to drop the vintage part.”

Overall, Kayhan said the show was a family event, with rides for children and cotton candy, and he hopes to keep it that way.

 

Juvenile Diabetes: A personal story and search for the cure

Lily Gordon’s life changed irreversibly when she was three years old.

“It all started at my house. I was in the bathroom all the time. My mom and dad recognized something was wrong, but they couldn’t figure it out,” Lily said. Lily had been sick for close to a year before doctors diagnosed the toddler’s condition: Type-1 Juvenile Diabetes.

“It was a relief,” said mom Beth Gordon, “but we were also devastated.” After a urine sample was tested, “It was so final. It’s something she’ll have forever,” Beth said.

The weeks and months leading up to Lily’s diagnosis were hard, Beth said. Lily had unexplained hyperactivity; she was losing weight, was constantly using the bathroom, and had mood swings. The Gordon family visited the pediatrician, and changed doctors, but no one could find out what was wrong. “I’d go into the doctor’s office with her and tell them-she’s really hyperactive, and they’d say ‘She’s a toddler,’” Beth said.

But what Beth was seeing was not normal toddler energy, but rather blood sugar highs.

Type 1 diabetes is a condition in which the body does not produce enough insulin, causing blood sugar to rise and drop, sometimes quite dramatically, in one day.

It was a flu shot that pushed Lily over the edge, Beth said, and in November of 2008, the week of Thanksgiving, Lily went to the emergency room and was placed in the pediatric intensive care unit.

“I was hospitalized for three days, there was a needle going into me,” Lily said. “While I was there, my parents were learning lots and lots about diabetes and how to take care of it.”

When Lily was released from ICU and allowed to go home, Beth said she was thrilled.

Lily has become an expert at pricking her finger to test her blood sugar levels, and said she uses every finger but her thumb to get blood because it hurts too much on her thumb.

“She was as happy as we were, but she didn’t understand why, when we got home, we kept hurting her. She thought everything would be fine again,” Beth said.

Beth had to give Lily insulin shots to regulate her blood sugar, and prick her fingers to test her blood sugar. But with time, Lily became better at taking the shots, and stopped fighting.

“I think on some level she understood that she was starting to feel better,” Beth said.

The problem with juvenile diabetes, Beth said, is that while it is common, no one looks for signs early on.

“If we looked for the symptoms before we reached Diabetic Ketoacidocis, where the body starts to shut down, you wouldn’t have to go through such a traumatic event,” she said.

Lily is now almost seven, and in kindergarten. Her diabetes affects her, but not as much as it used to.

“We’re so proud of her and how she’s adjusted,” Beth said. “Most people who experience a blood sugar of 40 or 400 are on the floor begging for their mamma, she just takes it in stride.”

Not only is Lily strong through her various highs and lows in blood sugar, she’s also very smart, and outgoing. She understands what diabetes is and how it affects her, and can describe it.

With juvenile diabetes, unlike other diseases, no one knows the cause. Beth said doctors used to believe it was genetic, but believes it is too widespread to be genetic, and neither she, nor her husband has a family history of diabetes.

Lily has her own theory about what causes juvenile diabetes.

“No one knows what causing it; some people think it’s environmental. I think it’s from pollution,” she said.

Lily is precocious, but she also likes to have fun and meet new people, which she does yearly at the walk for Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund (JDRF). June 5th will be the third walk for the JDRF she and her family have participated in, to raise money to find the cure for juvenile diabetes.

“If they (the public) didn’t donate money for the cure, the lab would be just an empty room with crazy stuff in it,” Lily said.

She is looking forward to the event, because she will see friends she’s made over the years, and there will be a bouncy house and a magician. But her mom is a little more reserved.

“It’s different,” Beth said. “Before, we’d hear about a cancer walk or something and you think it’s fun- but when it’s your family and you’re raising money, it’s surreal,” she said. “This year Lily is more excited. She gets to see the other kids, and we have a bigger team so she’ll have fun. But for me, it’s not so fun. The first walk wasn’t fun, it was very difficult.”

According to Beth, this year the JDRF has adjusted its mission statement to include a search, not just for a cure, but for improved treatment.

“The cause is so complex that the cure they’ve been looking for 41 years is equally complex,” Beth said. “The ways of using insulin and treating diabetes is still very crude, and it’s a lot of guess work.”

And while a cure for juvenile diabetes may be far away, Lily said she believes we need to keep looking.

“You want to get rid of it (diabetes). You don’t want the pain,” she said.

Beth says the family is hesitant to tell others what Lily deals with on a daily basis, she said, because people either don’t care, or feel sorry for her.

“Don’t feel sorry for her, she’s an amazing person. But at the same time, it is a big deal,” Beth said.

Team Lily will be walking in the Northern Virginia walk for JDRF, and have raised only a portion of their goal of raising $5,000. To donate to help Lily and her family raise money to cure and research more ways to treat diabetes, visit www2.jdrf. org and search for the Leesburg, Virginia walk on June 5th, and search for a team, Team name: Team Lily.

Footnote: As many as three million Americans may have type 1 diabetes. Each year, more than 15,000 children and 15,000 adults – approximately 80 people per day – are diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in the U.S. (Statistics as of December 2010 as found on the JDFR web site.)

 

Lovettsville 14th annual fishing derby

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The Lovettsville Game Protective Association held their 14th annual Fishing Derby last Saturday, May 14 at the Game Club Farm pond at the corner of George’s Mill Road and Stevens Road. There were 95 children registered and over 100 adults at this year’s event. The Derby was open to children 12 and under.

Trophies were awarded for the largest Trout, Bass, Crappie, Catfish, and Bluegill.

The winners were:

Alexander Miller – Largest Fish and Largest Bass

Makayla Longerbaum – Largest Trout

Alexander Stonesifer – Largest Crappie

Esmirelda Pleitez – Largest Blue Gill