MAN ABOUT TOWN: Details of Mrs. Acosta’s Love Affair

Since the Man About Town is on vacation, this week’s column features a guest author: the late Elizabeth C. Acosta, who until her passing in 1994 lived at 218 James Thurber Court in Falls Church.

Back in June I wrote about James Thurber and how a street in Falls Church came to be named after him. That’s when I discovered that although during the height of his popularity Thurber was regarded as a modern-day Mark Twain, today few people under a certain age have heard of him — although they might possibly have heard of Walter Mitty, Thurber’s fictional character who has entered the literary genre as the archetypal henpecked husband who daydreams of performing heroic wonders.

Elizabeth Acosta was the mother of five children, including Falls Church musician Andrew Acosta (the 6-year-old mentioned below). In 1967 she wrote a story for the Saturday Evening Post. If you’ve never heard of James Thurber, you’ve probably also never heard of the Saturday Evening Post. Let’s just say it was the Saturday Night Live of its time. I searched everywhere, but despite its illustrious history, Saturday Evening Post archives are unavailable online.

After my story on Thurber, Falls Church patriarch Lou Olom commented that Elizabeth Acosta’s story was available in the library’s Virginia Room. And so it is, and so I am reproducing it, along with the original Thurber drawings that appeared with it. Now, through the Falls Church Times and Google, it will be permanently available online. So without further ado . . . Read more

Reprise: Analog’s Over, Now Watch TV on the Cheap

In observance of the passing of analog television at midnight, June 12, we’re reprinting this story originally appearing Feb. 6. 

I’m always gratified and somewhat amazed when I encounter someone who doesn’t subscribe either to cable, FIOS, or satellite TV. My daughters always claimed that we were the only ones in the world. But it turns out that, indeed, there are one or two other people out there (including 40 percent of the staff of the Falls Church Times).

The top three reasons I hear for refusing to join the 20^th century (much less the 21^st) are:

1) “57 channels and nothin’ on.” (Bruce needs to update that to 200 channels, still nothin’ on.”

2) “I don’t want my kids in front of the TV all day.” (Instead they’re in front of the Internet.)

3) “It’s just not worth $100 a month.”  (So why are you getting Pay-Per-View?)

Put myself in that last category — I just can’t see paying a sizable utility bill for what, when I grew up, was free. Not that that reasoning worked with my kids: When we moved to Falls Church in 2002, they presented a slam-dunk argument: Without cable, none of the friends they hoped to make would ever visit, and by the way, forget about using a TV antenna because the only shows they wanted to watch were on the Disney channel.

Faced with the awful prospect of seeing my daughters become social outcasts, I bit the bullet and ordered Cox expanded cable (Disney didn’t come on the basic service) for $50 a month. And our basement soon enough was regularly visited by groups of loud and happy teenagers. But I observed (on the sly) that they never seemed to be watching the cable. It was always videos — rental videos, with late fees.

As the girls grew up, the Disney Channel argument held less and less water until finally a couple of years ago I made a “deal” with my daughters that involved canceling the cable. I won’t go into details other than to say that we didn’t save any money with this “deal,” and that horses were involved.

But the cable has been gone ever since, and amazingly, there have been few complaints. Like any good modern family, at night we’re all hunched over our individual keyboards, surfing the web with high-speed Internet.

But still, there are times when you should have a TV. There might be another moon landing, for example. So I bought a big antenna from Radio Shack and installed it in our attic (to avoid looking like a Luddite by mounting it on the chimney). It was a nostalgic experience — we had a snowy screen just like in my youth, except now the snow was in color. 

And then I heard about February 17, 2009 — the date when all TV signals were to go digital. I got my $40 government coupons and bought some digital converters from Radio Shack for $55 each, or $15 after rebate. They even came with remote controls, which was a bonus since our remotes were either broken or missing. After a pretty simple hookup to the attic antenna — WOW, no snow! Plus, extra channels!

Channel 26, for example, now is four channels. Nobody told me that! When we had cable, my favorite was the food channel, followed by the travel channel. Now it’s all on one of the PBS channels, seemingly on all the time and with no commercials. And if I want to watch women’s ice-related sports, they play continually on NBC’s auxiliary channel 4.

In all, we receive 20 channels, and if we don’t trust one weather channel, there are two or three others. And when the government finally does mandate a switch to all digital (postponed yet again until June 12), airspace will be freed up to allow even more channels.

Apart from the crystal-clear reception, digital TV has another characteristic, personified by the “Oklahoma” lyrics: “With me, it’s all er nuthin’.” And “all er nuthin’” is exactly what you get with digital TV. Reception is either perfect, or it’s a pixilated, suspended animation. But that should improve after June 12, when stations go to full power digital transmission.

Just For Fun: What’s Ironic About This Picture Sign?

We’re all for international signage — a “sign of the times.” But this new picture sign on Broad Street, pointing to Mary Riley Stiles Public Library, makes us wonder: If you can’t read a sign . . .  is a picture ALWAYS worth 1,000 words?

Photo: Falls Church Times

Sorry Dave Eckert, I Drove My Car to See Your Ecology Film

I barely got to know Dave Eckert and his wife, Annette Mills, before they moved away to Oregon in 2006. Dave and Annette were a Falls Church legend and worked tirelessly to make this City a better place to live.

I remember one fine Saturday when Dave led a bicycle tour around Falls Church, pointing out the travesties committed in the name of Development to the two streams that flow through the City: Tripps Run and Four Mile Run. The most memorable moment was stopping at a manhole cover and smelling the putrid odor emitting from it. This was an area where Tripps Run had been piped underground. Deprived of air and sunlight, the organic material in stagnant water simply rots, Dave explained. During rainstorms the gunk washes downstream into Lake Barcroft, where I used to swim before moving to Falls Church. (I remember once swimming through a thick green sea of algae, like an ice cutter in the Arctic.) Read more

The Heart of the Matter: Thoughts on Branding Falls Church

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Planning Chair Raises Questions re ‘Perrier Jouét’ Building

Some aspects of recent development have been questioned by Falls Church Planning Commission Chair John Lawrence.  His memo to the City Planning Department follows.

Memorandum

From:             John D. Lawrence
To:                  Planning Department
Subject:         The “Perrier Jouét” Building at 800 W. Broad

I have received numerous notes and comments from people about the building at 800 West Broad.  Please see the pictures below as I presume that this building will be named (much like a stadium) after a corporate sponsor that appears to be Perrier Jouét champagne.  Given its appearance, I feel the need to ask some important questions concerning this structure.

1.       Did the City Arborist approve the type of vegetation displayed?  Is this a native plant?

2.      Is it an invasive species that might end up on the 706 building as a result of the shared parking agreement?  Need opinion of the ESC’s Invasive Species Task Force.

3.      Is it deciduous in winter?  If not, how will it provide adequate screening?

4.      If deciduous, does DES have equipment large enough to collect and dispose of the leaves?

5.      If swept to the curb for fall leaf collection, will this impede westbound traffic on West Broad Street? Read more

Do You Have a Heat Pump?

“These are the times that try men’s heat pumps.”
(Apologies to Thomas Paine)

It’s 10 degrees outside: do you know where your heat pump is? Our first experience with such a machine came when we moved into our Falls Church townhouse six years ago. The first cold snap, I was horrified to look outside and see our heat pump encased in frosty, white ice. A frantic call to Eric at SCS Heating & Air Conditioning ensued:

Eric: “Have you ever had a heat pump before?”

Me: “No.”

Eric: “You’re not going to like it.”

It’s normal for heat pumps to ice over, Eric explained, but they have a defrost cycle that should melt it every so often. Our tired and rusty unit was low on refrigerant and couldn’t muster enough heat to properly defrost. Eric gave it a shot of Freon, and another shot the next summer, but ultimately we replaced it with a shiny unit that hums away and keeps us warm.

Well, sort of. I took its temperature yesterday, dangling a thermometer down a heat vent. The best it could do was 84.4 degrees. Since body temperature is 98.6, the “heated” air feels cool to the skin, even though it “warms” the house. For the last few days our heat pump has run continually but never has managed to raise the room temperature above 66 degrees. That’s actually due to my own frugality – last year I tampered with the thermostat and managed to partially disable the emergency heat strip function. Now the heat strips only turn on if the room temperature is at least 6 degrees lower than the thermostat setting. Read more