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 . . .

In the Fall of 1958 I was living in Falls Church, Va., in an old house on an old street. The house had been built in 1929 as a summer home, and by 1958 it needed, among other things, a new roof, a new heating system, and several coats of paint. Its owners, my husband Frank and I, were older than the house and needed a great many things, too, most of them even more expensive.

It was November, bleak and cold. My five children, ranging from 12 down to 2, were comporting themselves as children do. The 12-year-old girl was learning to smoke; the 10-year-old boy was failing math; the 6-year-old boy was a problem to his teacher; the 4-year-old girl had an ear infection; and the baby had just given up his morning nap. My husband traveled a great deal, and who can blame him? I stayed home a great deal. In fact, a trip to the supermarket was quite an outing, one for which I fixed my hair and put on lipstick.

One morning, when the washing machine was in its spin cycle and the children were either in school or watching an old George Raft movie on television, I wrote a letter which altered my life. It was a fan letter to a man I had never met, the first one I had ever written. It went:

Dear Mr. Thurber,

Because I feel that I know you so well — knowing through your work, the houses in which you lived, your brothers, your parents, your maids and dogs — I feel that I may make bold and tell you that I love you.

I am getting old and fat, my last permanent didn’t take, my five children have been throwing up for days, singly and in pairs, my husband is at a convention at some posh hotel, and I’M SORRY FOR MYSELF, SEE? It was in this mood that I went to bed last night, like Niobe, all tears. With my last ounce of strength I opened your latest collection, “Alarms and Diversions,” and I laughed! Did you hear what I said? I laughed! My children came in to see what caused this strange sound, and they laughed with me. They love you too.

Oh, Mr. Thurber, do you know how good you are? Have you ever written a bad or clumsy line? Have you ever failed to see the half-sad humor of any situation? I doubt it. This is the first fan letter I have ever written. (Do all your correspondents say this?) I know other writers I enjoy, many of them friends of yours. I’ve always been sorry I didn’t write John McNulty, God rest his soul; and certainly E.B. White is very fine. But it is you I truly love. And now I have told you so, and I’m glad.

I feel that I am in your debt, and if there is anything I can do for you, you have but to ask. (I frankly cannot imagine what this might be, but I live quite near Washington and perhaps I could do away with someone for you.)

Ever and only thine,

ELIZABETH C. ACOSTA

After writing the letter, and addressing the envelope, I put it in the mail rack near the front door. I said earlier that writing this letter altered my life. What I should have said was that mailing this letter altered my life. I have no trouble writing letters. But the mailing of letters is more difficult. Postboxes are all on the wrong side of the street. I never have a stamp. There is no place to park at the post office. But three days after my burst of passion, a neighbor stopped in on her way to the post office, of all places. She travels on foot. She insisted on mailing it even though I protested that it was silly in the first place, and he would never get it in the second place. She took the letter. She even had a stamp. (She has no children, which may help explain her awesome efficiency.)

I quite forgot about it in the days that followed. Elizabeth’s ear infection was worse, the drier broke down, and it was raining. There being no hope or help, I was playing Crazy Eights with the children one day when the mail came. There, among the usual overdue notices from the library and the coupons good for two cans of tuna fish, was a long envelope bearing the return address: “James Thurber, West Cornwall, Connecticut.” I screamed a little, opened it and read:

Dearest Elizabeth,

I don’t think you know about all the houses I’ve lived in, because one of them was a house on Maple Avenue in Falls Church, Virginia. This was fifty-seven years ago, in the summer of 1901, when my father had a job in Washington. My mother couldn’t stand the heat of the city and so we rented this house on Maple Avenue, but I can’t remember the number now. It was there that, one Sunday, I was struck in the left eye by an arrow fired by my older brother. He was seven, and I was six, and Robert was four, and I’m sure we all threw up together, too. My father was on a fishing trip, of course, when I got hurt. It is too late for you to do away with Dr. Malone, who must have died years ago, and who did not have the eye removed soon enough. The operation was finally done by the great Dr. Swan Burnett, whose wife, a dozen years earlier, had written “Little Lord Fauntleroy.”

When I was a code clerk in the State Department in 1918 I went back to the house on Maple Avenue, and it seemed pretty much the same. We had a big backyard and an apple orchard and there were some Seckel pear trees. Our best apples were big yellow ones called Sheeps Nose. A quarter of a mile from our house was a big estate with a winding driveway, called The Evergreens, and a family named McSween lived there. My brother, Robert, now 62 — William was 65 in October — still has some photos of the Maple Avenue house, I think, and if he has, I’ll send them to you. A lot of good things as well as bad happened in that house. Falls Church was a quiet little village then, and I often wonder what it has become.

My wife Helen and I both loved your letter, one of the best and funniest I have ever got, and we have shown it to all our friends. I love your loving me, and I love you, too.

When my daughter, Rosemary, called Rosie, was four, her nurse told her about a little boy who, she said, spelling it out, t-h-r-o-w-s-u-p. “Vomits,” said Rosie promptly. Now 27, “with more gray hairs than any other woman I know,” she has a four-year-old girl and a two-year-old boy, and I’m sure, the tradition of throwing up goes right on.

Thanks again for your lovely letter, and I hope I hear from you again. And my love to your husband and children, as well as you.

Cordially yours,

JAMES THURBER

And there, two inches high, was the famous signature. I read it three or four times and finally called in a neighbor to have her read it to see if what I had read was true. I had lived in northern Virginia for 10 years and had never heard that James Thurber had lived in Falls Church. I was dumbfounded and delighted. To be a part of this wild coincidence was, and remains, quite the nicest thing that ever happened to me. I was more than excited, and slightly drunk with his praise of my letter. I called everyone I knew and told them the whole story and read the letter and screamed some more. As I recall, there was very little by way of dinner that night.

The next week or two were given over to telling the story and trying to find out, for sure where on Maple Avenue the great man had lived. Maple Avenue was only one block long. It contained 12 houses, about half of which dated back to 1900 or before. I talked to the street’s oldest resident, Mrs. Harkins, who had moved there as a bride in 1910. She was thrilled at my news, but only because she thought I had heard from Edna Ferber. She had never heard of James Thurber. I spoke to the Misses Simpson, maiden ladies of advanced years who lived down at the corner of Maple and Great Falls. I knew they had lived in Falls Church most of their lives, were librarians, and thus doubtless would know who James Thurber was, and would care. But the Simpson girls, Emily and Lucy May, proved only slightly interested. In the first place, they informed me that they were not allowed to associate with “summer people” and therefore could not possibly have known the Thurbers. In the second place, they went to California during the summer of 1901. Getting to California in 1901 must have been quite a feat, and it is quite possible that they were not here at all that year. After two chilly interviews with them, I began to hope so, for the Thurbers’ sake.

The reference to The Evergreens and the McSween family struck a chord with no one. Quite clearly I needed to see the pictures of the house which Mr. Thurber’s brother had, and, even more importantly, I had to write Mr. Thurber again.

It took me some time to compose another letter. I managed to work into several conversations the fact that I owed James Thurber a letter. This remark invariably elicited an incredulous, “Who?” which in turn allowed me to retell the entire story. My husband, after the 65th telling, went to a convention in Chicago.

I wrote Mr. Thurber again, telling him about the stir the correspondence had made, and asked if we might see any photos of the house. He wrote me at once, and said that his brother, Robert, would not part with the family pictures, but had identified the house as “The Loving Cottage.” Robert Thurber also said the photograph was dated 1902 and described the house as having shuttered windows and a porch on three sides. I went back to the oldest inhabitants with these new facts. The Simpson girls were of no greater assistance than before. They spent the summer of 1902 with their grandparents in Bucyrus, Ohio. (The Simpson girls were obviously the Jet-Set of the 1900s.) Mrs. Harkins insisted that “The Loving Cottage” was on Park Avenue. Another old-timer, Ben Elliott, who lived in a house with a porch on two sides, was quite sure his was the house. The Simpson girls said flatly that the original occupants of Ben Elliott’s house did not rent to “summer people,” to which Ben Elliott said, “Faugh!” Mr. Elliott’s mother and the Simpson girls’ mother had had a serious falling-out over a well which had been sealed over in 1913, and the breach had never healed. I was really no closer to the truth.

Before I could write Mr. Thurber again, asking for more clues, I received a package from him containing the photographs. The accompanying note explained that he had called Robert in Ohio and insisted he send the pictures. The proof was in my hands. The pictures didn’t look like any house on Maple Avenue, and my heart sank. Had there been another Maple Avenue? Was there another Falls Church? I took the pictures to Mrs. Harkins, who studied them under her cataract reader for a long time and finally said, “That’s the Ogg House.” Ogg? Ogg.

The Ogg House was known to me as the Nicholas House, and it was next door to me.

Close study revealed that the edifice of 1901 might, with determination, have been altered into the monstrosity of 1958. The three-sided porch had been enclosed, the roof raised, and windows boarded over. Then the whole had been covered with a sickly asbestos siding. But James Thurber had lived there. And it was right next door. I continued to celebrate my good fortune, people took to inviting us to dinner to hear it all, and Frank went to another convention, this one in Seattle. I wrote to Mr. Thurber, apprising him of developments. I also located a Bill Loving, in Arlington, whose father had lived on Maple Avenue at the turn of the century. The father was alive and able to clear up the Ogg business. Mr. Ogg had built the house for his bride in 1895, and shortly thereafter had died. The Lovings, who had lived on Park Avenue in the cottage Mrs. Harkins knew, eventually bought the Ogg house.

The mystery was solved, but I thought of ways to continue our correspondence. Some of our letters were published in the Washington Star in the spring of 1959. This resulted in letters from elderly ladies who had lived in Falls Church in 1901 and 1902, and who remembered “little Jamie Thurber.” Mr. Thurber received copies of the paper from friends all around the world. We were, we had to be friends for life.

Mr. Thurber and I exchanged letters and phone calls until his death in 1961, and Mrs. Thurber and I still write each other.

All of Maple Avenue was changing. The street had been widened, which required that all the old trees be cut down. It was cut through at each end, so that it was now three blocks long. One new block contained a high-rise apartment house and a skating rink. The other block featured a plumbing-supply house and a garage for moving vans. Let us say that its character was altered.

In time, we were approached by a team of architects with an idea for building town houses on our acre of land. Eventually that was done. Our house was demolished, as was the Ogg-Nicholas-Thurber House and one other. On this property now stands a dead-end street and 20 town houses. I live in the last town house on the right. My address? 218 James Thurber Court.

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.

Photo: Falls Church Times

Concrete section of Tripps Run near former home of Dave Eckert and Annette Mills. . .

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.)

So I was delighted to read in the Falls Church Times that Dave was back in town this week for the Environmental Film Festival, where he premiered his latest film, “RiverSmart.” I missed the Monday showing at the E Street Theater, and just as well. Far more folks showed up than could be admitted, and there was “a near riot,” Dave told me. The final showing was Wednesday at the University of the District of Columbia, and I determined not to miss it. But how to get there?

Dave and Annette’s lives are centered around ecology and sustainable living. Their Falls Church home on W. Westmoreland Road had a huge cistern, for example. Annette was the City’s environmental specialist, and she commuted to work by bike. When they moved away they drove their 1986 vehicle to Oregon and then sold it. They’ve functioned without a car ever since.

So, in that spirit, I checked the Metro website to learn how to get to UDC. The show started at 5 p.m. I could catch the GEORGE bus at 3:45, arrive at WFC Metro in 10 minutes, depart at 4 p.m., arrive at Metro Center at 4:23, change to the Red line, and get to the Van Ness-UDC station at 4:37 (if everything worked). The cost: $7.65 round-trip (or more, if I used Metrobus instead of GEORGE).

“Why not just drive and save time & money?”

Hmmm. That seemed like a long commute to see an hour-long film. If it were at the E-Street Theater I would definitely take the Metro, but UDC is way up Connecticut Avenue. There’s bound to be parking up there, especially at the end of the day. Why not just drive? I’d save both time and money.

So, at 4:10 I set out in my car. In five minutes I’m on I-66. Traffic is heavy at first but soon speeds up, and I cross the Potomac about 4:20. This is great! Nothing beats the freedom of personal transportation.

Now, it’s always been a little tricky to get on Rock Creek Parkway. Stay left after Roosevelt Bridge, DON’T get on Whitehurst Freeway – left again. All goes well until the intersection with 27th Street. Nuts! I’m in the right lane and I need to turn left. I wait until there’s no traffic on 27th, then make a left turn, angering a driver in a black Lincoln Town Car waiting on my left. He holds the horn down while my heart rate rises and blood boils. As we merge onto Rock Creek, he accelerates on my left and I speed up on the right in a match of cojones. Is he going to cut me off? Fortunately, neither of us is carrying a gun. Eventually he speeds away.

Now – don’t mess up again. Rock Creek can be tricky with the reversible lanes. OK, good – I didn’t get shunted onto Massachusetts Avenue. Wait, what now? There’s a roadblock. I have to cross over into the oncoming lane. Which way to go? Not where it says “Do Not Enter.” OK, this looks right. I’m going the wrong way on a one-way, but it’s set up this way for the afternoon traffic. Soon I turn left onto Connecticut Avenue, and then Van Ness Street – home of UDC.

UDC is on the left, but I turn right, hoping to find on-street parking. I figure I can pay for two hours, after which it will be free. Wrong: parking meters here are active until 8:30 p.m. But no matter – there are no spaces anyway.

I cross Connecticut, into UDC, where there’s a central parking garage. Since I have a little extra time I drive around looking for a spot on the street. Nothing, so I enter the garage. The sign says “Daily Parking $8.” It’s 4:45 p.m. “I’ll just be here about an hour and a half,” I say with a smile to the attendant. “That’s $8,” she replies. So much for saving money by driving. But I did save time, even if my hair is a little greyer for it.

Dave Eckert

The film is superbly done. Nominally, it’s a training/documentary to show folks how to keep storm water runoff from overflowing the sewer system. But the information comes in entertaining 10-second bites, matching today’s typical attention span, while a first-rate harmonica player harps the blues. I learn to my horror that the District’s modern sewage-treatment facilities don’t work during heavy storms. That’s because the same pipes that carry raw sewage also carry all the storm water runoff from streets, sidewalks, and rooftops. During heavy rains the whole mess bypasses the treatment plants and flows straight into the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. How much overflows? Roughly 2 billion gallons a year. Yuck. In my ignorance I used to water-ski on the Potomac.

The solution is to control storm runoff by allowing water to soak into the ground instead of running into the sewer system. Parking lots, for example, can use open-face paving stones. Falls Church City Hall has a small demonstration area with this technique. Too bad none of the big new projects in town have followed suit, although I’ve read that both the Read Building and the Spectrum have “green roofs” with vegetation to soak up rainwater.

Another solution is a cistern, like Dave and Annette had. Both your garden and your water bill benefit. The D.C. government gives grants to homeowners to reduce the cost of making these kinds of improvements.

At the end of the film I suddenly see the Falls Church City seal, with a “thanks” for the City’s cooperation. Too bad we’re too small and too poor to mount the kind of program D.C. has. Here in Falls Church, homes seem to be doubling in size, creating twice the roof runoff on the same amount of green space. It’s even worse in the townhouse complex where I live, where storm runoff makes the lower third of Big Chimneys Park unusable. It’s just a mud hole. I wish my neighbors had seen “RiverSmart” before they paved their entire back yard with ornamental concrete.

Should we have more regulation? Should you have to get a permit before increasing your roof area, making a double-wide driveway, or adding an impermeable patio? All these things, I’m realizing, are crimes against nature – unless they’re compensated for. “RiverSmart” explains how homeowners can contain the runoff their developments cause. It should soon be available on the Internet.

The film’s over and I head home. As I drive through the underground parking lot a woman in a little Nissan zips out from a side lane right in front of me. She never sees me; fortunately I’m going a lot more slowly than she is. I’m not mad, just grateful to avoid a smash-up. I know someone whose car was totaled in a parking lot. Now, the trick is to find my way back onto Rock Creek Parkway. It’s not well marked, and I’m not even sure you can go that way during evening rush hour. With dumb luck, seeing no signs, I turn on 24th Street and the next thing I know I’m on Rock Creek. My little car knows the way home from here.

But wait – can I drive on I-66 or must I take Route 50? More luck: it’s 6:37, minutes after the HOV restriction ends. Hopefully the traffic hasn’t had a chance to build up. And indeed, I make it past Glebe Road to George Mason Drive before things bog down. I’m in the right lane, moving 10 mph, with an empty entrance ramp on my right. In my mirror I see a black Lincoln Town Car cut over to the right and accelerate, hoping to gain a few lengths. Could this be the same guy? Impossible. A woman in a BMW follows his example. But their lane is giving out, and there’s a wall of cars on their left. I speed up to link with the vehicle ahead of me to form an impermeable barrier. Give me liberty or give me death! Success – I roll ahead while they wait for a more laid-back chump to cut in front of.

I arrive home after about 50 minutes’ drive time. According to the Internet, a Metro commute would take 48 minutes, plus walking time at each end.

Sorry, Dave — I hardly knew you.

(Top Photo: Falls Church Times: George Southern)

(Bottom Photo: Willamette Watershed Productions)

Preview earlier films by Dave Eckert

Read “Gasp! Roanoke Suburb Beats Falls Church As Top Recycler”

In a perfect world “Falls Church” would refer only to the two square miles that comprise the actual jurisdiction, but by the time it was incorporated as an independent city in 1948, the name had been applied to much larger areas in both Fairfax and Arlington counties.  There now are seven Falls Church Zip Codes, only two of which are truly the town’s own.

The easiest way to resolve this dilemma would be for the city to change its name, which would instantly give it a new identity, but at the cost of divorcing itself from its history.  Such an action also would prove an administrative nightmare and most likely be very expensive.  Realistically, any attempt to market the city must focus on its many attributes, rather than its name.

Surely Falls Church City’s prime attribute is its central location: east of Arlington, west of Fairfax, north of Alexandria, south of Tyson’s Corner and McLean.   While people in Richmond may think of Northern Virginia as extending as far south as Fredericksburg or as far west as Winchester, most people living within the DC metropolitan area tend to think of it as reaching no further than the counties adjoining Fairfax and that its character is shaped more by its proximity to the District rather than its distance.

In that sense and spirit, Falls Church City is very much in the heart of Northern Virginia, and those factors clearly suggest a tag or tag line that relates to a heart, such as:

“Falls Church City – In the Heart of Northern Virginia.”  Simple and direct, this focuses on location.

“Falls Church City – We’re at the Heart of it All!”  Somewhat more pretentious than the first.

“Falls Church – The City With a Heart in the Heart of Northern Virginia.” Lyrical, though more complex, this gives location equal billing with the city’s reputation for progressivism.

“We / You’ll (Heart) Falls Church City.”  A takeoff on the old “I (Love) New York” slogan, with an image standing in for the word.

The great advantage of using the heart as a symbol is that its image always conveys positive emotions, in addition to vitality and centrality.  In the commercial realm, local sales could be tied to Valentine’s Day, giving city businesses a jump on competition waiting for Washington’s Birthday.

Whether tagged or branded, Falls Church City likely will benefit from an elevated profile.  The EDA’s initiative will take many forms and proceed on many fronts, but much will depend upon effective promotion, which ultimately is at the heart of the matter.  Hopefully the EDA will consider these heartfelt suggestions.

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?

6.      Please provide the TIA (Traffic Impact Analysis) to back up this conclusion as well as VDOT GLD (Gigantic Leaf Disposal) guidelines as required.

7.      Could these vines support enough weight so that they could be an after-hours security concern for police?

8.     Are these climbing plants or could they be classified as trees and, if so, have we seen an opinion from the Tree Commission?

9.      Does this qualify as meeting a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) requirement associated with green building practices?

10.  Is there a green roof and, if so, is it also painted on?

***Note: Why didn’t Perrier Jouét sponsor First Night?

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.

If you have a heat pump you probably know about heat strips – little electric wires in your furnace that glow red hot, just like a toaster except on an massively larger scale, causing your electric meter to spin so fast that looking at it makes you dizzy, and looking at the bill makes you faint. Heat strips are the “backup” heat source when it’s too cold for a heat pump to warm the house to your liking. They actually have little to do with a heat pump, being an entirely separate source of heat.

So how does a heat pump work? Where’s the heat come from? Astoundingly, that 84.4 degree heat I’m getting is being extracted from the 10 degree “cold” outside. It turns out that 10 degrees is a lot of heat compared to no heat at all, which is defined as “absolute zero,” or minus 459.67 degrees Fahrenheit.

The unit sitting outside your house that makes so much noise is actually pretty simple – just a giant radiator wrapped around a compressor. In the heating cycle, very cold, liquid refrigerant circulating in the radiator actually absorbs heat from the 10 degree outside air, causing the refrigerant to “boil,” or evaporate into gas. The compressor then compresses this gas (I tried to think of a word other than “compresses,” but that’s what compressors do) and forces it into the house to the furnace section of the heat pump. Here, the gas enters another radiator where it condenses into a liquid. The condensation process throws off heat, which a fan then blows through the heat vents of your house. The now-liquid refrigerant then gets pumped outside to “warm up” again. (I hope I got this right!)

Eric actually was wrong: I have learned to like my heat pump. Not love it, but like it. It’s the most efficient source of heat available, since it uses the heat that’s right outside my window. And were I willing to spend thousands more $$$ I could make it a lot more efficient by burying the refrigerant tubing deep underground where the temperature is about 60 degrees year ’round. Once compressed, the refrigerant could throw off a LOT of heat.

The other big advantage of a heat pump is that with the flick of a switch the whole operation can be reversed such that heat is instead pumped OUT of your house – but that’s a different story for a different time, say ’round about August.