Walter Boynton has invested his life in the environment. World famous for his research into urbanizing watersheds, the plain-spoken professor is a public employee, laboring on salary at Chesapeake Biological Laboratory in Solomons.     “He was understanding, always encouraging my sister and me to do different things,” recalls daughter Sarah. “Showing us and telling us about the Bay and rivers. He kept us involved and gave us every opportunity to explore. But he...

June’s not only for brides; it’s also the month for fathers of the brides. The time I’ve spent with both in recent days has advanced my thinking on both. And just in time for Father’s Day.     When I imagined Dad and the Family Business, this week’s story for the paternal occasion, I didn’t go looking for father-daughter partnerships. Yet that’s what I found. Fathers with daughters following in their footsteps. Of the seven children in...

I haven’t yet worn out my personal copy of 101 Ways to Have Fun: Your Indispensable Guide to Summer. But its pages are already dog-eared to mark the many spots I want to revisit.     Fireworks, for example.     With three nights of fireworks, July 4’s celebrations must be memorized — or checked and re-checked — lest you show up at the right place on the wrong date. So I’ve devised a mnemonic. My ABDCs remind me Sunday, July 4 is the...

There’s a new Smithsonian going up. Instead of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., this Smithsonian is rising out in the country southeast of Edgewater.     It’s so new that rising jumps the gun. The first spadeful of soil was turned only two weeks ago. But two years hence, the Mathias Lab will give the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center a place to work that’s as “high-tech sustainable” as the research scientists are doing there.  ...