After summer stint in Florida, son comes back to Highland

By Chuck Gait
Posted: August 19, 2008

Our son, Charlie Gait, came back home after spending the summer living and working in Melbourne, Fla. His cousin, staff Sgt. John Beltz, is stationed near there with the U.S Air Force and had invited Charlie down for an extended stay. The only thing left for him to do was to find a job. It turned out that he got a job at the apartment complex where his cousin, John, resides.

Charlie spent the summer working as a maintenance man. There he got a taste of what the world was really like. On his very first day of work, Charlie was assigned to clean out an apartment from which the tenants were evicted. I can’t describe some of the things that the former tenants did in the apartment, but suffice it to say, the condition of the apartment after they were evicted was atrocious.

Throughout the course of his employment, he learned to do some simple plumbing, lots of painting, carpet removal and laying — he really learned lots of things that he’ll be able to use once he completes his schooling and gets a place of his own. That’s one thing that this job really drove home for him — the need for a college education. “I had fun, learned a lot but I’m glad to be home,” he said.

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Parking Permit Meetings Aug. 19 and 27

By Chuck Gait
Posted: August 19, 2008

Everyone makes mistakes. Almost all are minor and at most cause little or no inconvenience but some are real whoppers. Hopefully this is one of those minor ones.

If you have a child who is of legal driving age and you intend to allow him/her to drive a vehicle to Reservoir High School (or any other Howard County school for that matter), then you and that child must attend a mandatory parking permit meeting offered at Reservoir Tuesday, Aug. 19 and again Aug. 27 (not the 22nd as was mistakenly reported in a letter which was sent home with your students’ school schedule). The meetings start at 7 p.m. in the school auditorium.

If you are unable to attend one of the presentations at Reservoir, you may attend one at another school. Please call the high school office at 410-888-8850 for more information.

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Morgan Dice’s Great Adventure

By Chuck Gait
Posted: August 13, 2008

One of the Reservoir graduating seniors from the class of 2008 is getting ready to leave and start her college career. Her name is Morgan Dice and she lives with her mom and dad, Molly and Rob Dice and 3 brothers, Alex, Cameron, and Taylor, in a house off Lime Kiln Road.

Morgan did well at Reservoir, graduating near the top of her class. For her junior and senior years, she had the honor of being “Concert Mistress” for the Reservoir High School Orchestra. This is a very important position — she sets the pace and tempo and is the leader of the orchestra.

In addition to this, she was first chair violin, for which she is definitely gifted. Her dad, Rob, wrote in an e-mail that “she applied to and auditioned for eight different schools of music.”

Morgan initially intended to major in performance but settled on music education instead. Of the schools to which she applied, Duquesne accepted her for performance and the University of Hartford accepted her for music education. She has decided to attend the Hartt School of Music University of Hartford.

During her senior year, she did an independent study class with Colin O’Bryan, the orchestra director and studied why “elementary students might not continue with music into high school, especially those playing violin.” Dad said that he thought her conclusions were inconclusive.

In addition to the violin, Morgan plays the flute, piccolo, bass drum and snare drum; the last three instruments she played in the marching band. In a couple weeks, Morgan will start the next phase of her life and that means changes at home, too. Her brothers are excited that big sister is heading off to college; that means, more room for them! Isn’t that typical of boys? Mom and dad will also be adjusting to Morgan’s adventure. So, I plan to write an occasional update about Morgan’s great adventure.

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Wooden toys not just for kids

By Chuck Gait
Posted: August 10, 2008

My brother, John Gait, of Bensalem, Pa., is in town for a visit and Jennie and I took him to the Howard County Fair. He had never been to a county fair before so we thought it would be a good experience for him. We toured the animal barns looking at the cows, steers, pigs, goats lambs and ending with the chicken/rabbit barn. We also looked at a couple of the craft barns where 4-H kids (and adults) had their things on display.

One display that caught my eye was a large wooden Peterbuilt tractor pulling a low-boy trailer on which was a wooden Caterpillar bulldozer. I was entranced. This was not the typical wooden toy. These pieces looked like the real thing. The builder, Ron Clements of Highland Road, even had the correct color for the brake air lines that connected the tractor to the trailer. The bulldozer was a work of art. Even the treads worked. Each piece was hand made. One of the attendants tapped me on the shoulder and pointed me towards the “champion” piece — a bucket loaded with working treads. Ron came over and explained his modifications to the toy.

“See this knuckle here?” he said. “I modified the plans so that there was a lot more rotation of the bucket.” He added a “hydraulic” cylinder that allowed the plunger to travel up and down, letting the bucket scoop and dump. “I spent about three months working on the loader” Clements said. “Now, that’s not full time. I just work on it after dinner in the evening. I set a goal for that night and that’s what I try to get done.”

I’m sure that his “toys” were quite a hit with the “boys.” They were with me.

While we were at the fair we ran into two former co-workers- Dave Karson, of Baltimore, and Christine Estacion, of Columbia. I hadn’t seen either of them in quite a while and it was nice to catch up on things. Dave was there “doing” the fair while Christine was sitting in one of the barns as an attendant.

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A Phone Caller, looking for info, gives more than she gets

By Chuck Gait
Posted: August 6, 2008

I got a call the other night from a woman named Leah Brown, of Dayton. Now, we weren’t home when she called so she left a message on our answering machine and asked for a call back. She was looking to have a question answered about the upcoming Highland Day which, by the way, takes place Oct. 4 this year (rain date: Oct. 5).

By the time I got around to phoning her back, she had already had her question answered so we just chatted. “I really enjoy reading about Aunt Jennie” she said. Leah is referring to Mrs. Jennie Thompson, my wife’s mother and one of the subjects about which I’ve written in several Highland/Fulton columns. “I cut them out and send them to a relative in Florida, Charlotte Easton Case.”

Now, I was curious as to how Leah was related to Jennie. “My father’s brother married Uncle Paul’s sister Therese”. Uncle Paul, who passed away in December of 1992, is the husband of Jennie. “When we were young, we used to go down to Uncle Paul’s farm to see Pop and play.

When he married Jennie, she became Aunt Jennie.” Leah asked about how Jennie was doing after the cancer surgery (she is recovering fine). Leah went on to say that she had had the same surgery in October of 1986, losing her right kidney to cancer. That was pretty encouraging for Jennie, I thought.

After I hung up from talking with Leah, I was reflecting on just how interconnected the old farming families of the area were. Spouses didn’t come from “the big city”– they came from surrounding farms, people that were part and parcel of the farming community. Then I thought it really is a small, small world.

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