Articles by Sandra Lee Anderson

Article - News; by Sandra Lee Anderson - 5/2/13

Standing Up for Kindness

Out of anguish, a seed grows to produce beauty

In times of trial, the brave step forward. Unrest caught hold at Calvert High School a year ago. It divided students into Us and Them. Into this turmoil stepped a handful of the brave. At a June assembly to bring the students together, senior E.J. LaGoy spoke up. “Words hurt,” she said. “Stop it! Just stop it!” Freshman Andrea Kelson read her poem about bullying. A Revolution ended with this...

Article - History & Lore; by Sandra Lee Anderson - 3/7/13

Snowed In

Remembering the great blizzards of yore

I love winter. My growing up was Colorado, and cold-side Oregon, and cold and snow are in my blood. But not in Maryland. Real winter has been missing so long that I fear global warming has turned it into a memory. My hopes for a last chance at winter 2013 rose with this week’s forecast of snow, lovely deep snow. Rain fell instead, and with it my hopes. But Beverly Spicknall of Owings remembers real winter. ...

Article - Good Living; by Sandra Lee Anderson - 2/14/13

How I Met Your Father

Our match was made, not born

“Count these records,” said Charlie after introductions. The year was 1969. The records were five-inch vinyl-printed cardboard squares recorded by our candidate in the Northern Virginia district where I lived with my parents. The square records would be dropped off at every house to deliver his campaign message. Hundreds were loose in each big three-foot-square box. I started counting. I was fairly nimble at age 26, but the older lady next to...

Article - People; by Sandra Lee Anderson - 12/13/12

Dispatches from the Coldest Capital in the World

Leon Tucker’s tour in Mongolia has him longing for Southern Maryland’s balmy winters

To step out into December’s minus-20-degree weather, Leon Tucker layers up “in bundles and bundles” with long underwear, thermal sweatshirts, camel wool socks and a North Face parka. This is not what he meant back home in Deale when he called himself “an outdoors person.” Mongolia is not what Tucker’s mother, Kathy Norris, imagined for the son who always dreamed of travel. “I thought he was going to take off,” she says, “...

Article - Gardening; by Sandra Lee Anderson - 9/13/12

From Your Garden

Who Ate the Cantaloupe?

Something has been nibbling on husband Charlie’s cantaloupe. I suspected the squirrels, and Charlie blamed mice or voles. Friend Fritz Riedel happened to snap another candidate: an eastern box turtle. It’s circumstantial evidence, but very convincing. Charlie’s conclusion is a new twist on the fable of the turtle and the hare: Turtles are faster than humans at getting to a ripe cantaloupe. –Sandra Lee Anderson, St. Leonard What’s growing in...

Article - Features; by Sandra Lee Anderson - 5/3/12

Hunting Herptiles

Neighbors help rewrite Maryland’s Amphibian and Reptile Atlas

“Why am I always stuck in the mud?” asked five-year-old Xavier Dailey. Xavier was one of the youngest in the group of rummaging herptile hunters on the annual pilgrimage, this year to Kings Landing Park in Calvert County in search of amphibians and reptiles. When Xavier wasn’t mucking through the creek, he was exploring rotten logs and hunting herps with gusto in a search organized by Andy Brown, Calvert County Department of Natural Resources naturalist. It...

Article - People; by Sandra Lee Anderson - 3/3/11

Citizens of the World

Six Chesapeake volunteers tell how the 50-year-old Peace Corps changed their lives

Walking through Gaziantep, Turkey, meant keeping an eye on any young man walking toward me. At the instant he was about to bump me, I did a quick sidestep. In that conservative eastern country 45 years ago, this was nothing to worry about: just a young man’s trick. My sidestep was one small adjustment Peace Corps volunteers make to live by the rules of a foreign culture. I’m one of 200,000 Americans who has volunteered in 139 countries since the Peace Corps...

Article - News; by Sandra Lee Anderson - 9/23/10

Playing the Shell Game

There’s plenty of fun to go around

Growing oysters is about the future of our children — and about the child in us. Watching the squigglies living among the oysters is fascinating fun for all ages. Len Zuza, of Southern Maryland Oyster Conservations Society,left, lifts out an oyster cage for the students. Growing oysters is also about the adult in people of all ages, responsibly working to restore our Bay. So it’s useful to know if our efforts come to anything — beyond the playfulness of...