Healing through movement and dance
When May Kesler was a little girl, her mother, a pediatrician, noticed she walked with her toes turned inward and suggested she try ballet classes to help correct it. “She gave me a book about a young girl who had weak legs, and her doctor told her to take ballet classes. She did, and turned out to be the star of the show,” she recalled. Like the girl in the story, Kesler fell in... READ MORE
Fairfax 50+ Podcast – Talk about Celebration of the Arts
Fairfax 50+ is a podcast series featuring discussions on issues, services and activities of interest to residents 50 and over. On this edition, host Jim Person talks with Stuart Rosenthal, publisher of the Beacon Newspapers, a group of 4 regional newspapers that also cover issues of interest to the 50+ audience. He’s here to tell us about the paper’s Celebration of the Arts program... READ MORE
Chandra Wilson talks advocacy, acting and award
Chandra Wilson spends her days acting as formidable Dr. Miranda Bailey on the hit ABC medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy” and recently made waves for her moving and thought-provoking performance during her portrayal of her character’s heart attack. In the episode, titled “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” Dr. Bailey checks herself into an ER at a different hospital and attempts to... READ MORE
A call to action by all drivers
My friend Ted is a solid citizen and a dutiful sort. He pays his taxes on time. He does the family grocery shopping cheerfully. When his 90-something parents need something, Ted arranges it, even though he and they live 1,500 miles apart. But sometimes your true nature pops out at moments when you don’t have time to think about it. So it went for Ted one recent evening. He was... READ MORE
D.C. insider turned film writer
As Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, K.C. Bailey never imagined she’d one day be writing and producing a feature film. She spent her days working on nuclear weapons nonproliferation policy during the waning days of the Cold War, wrote books on arms control, disarmament and UN weapons inspections, and regularly testified before Congress. “Every week, I’d brief Senate and House ... READ MORE
Artist examines the subconscious and art
Columbia artist George Sakkal, known for making dynamic collages out of little bits of torn paper, is now concentrating on what he considers the biggest of pictures — how seeing and the subconscious interconnect in the creation of art. Sakkal, 76, said in a recent interview that he has laid aside his paper-on-canvas work to explore through written words the true nature of great art... READ MORE
A philosopher explores the midlife crisis
We’ve probably all been there. That question we ask ourselves when we hit our middle years: Is this all there is? For some of us, the so-called midlife crisis can hit in our 30s, for some not until their 40s or even 50s. No matter how successful we may be, personally and professionally, the realization that there are fewer years ahead of us than behind us, that our waistline may be... READ MORE
Energetic cast enlivens Disney’s Newsies
The ragtag group of orphans and homeless youth who hawked newspapers on street corners in 1899 never could have dreamed how the delivery of news would be transformed 120 years in the future. Nor could they have imagined that their story would be danced across stages throughout the country. But the story told by Newsies has quite literally leapt from a dusty corner of history into an... READ MORE
Reducing opioids’ heavy toll
Ellicott City resident Barbara Allen — who lost a son, a brother and a niece to drug addiction — has become a key player in Howard County’s battle to stem the growing opioid crisis among its citizens, which includes many victims 50 and older. She has been appointed chair of the newly formed Opioid Crisis Community Council, intended to help the county rev up its fight against the... READ MORE
Bringing a lifetime of experience to writing
It’s never too late to become a published poet (or a writer of any genre, for that matter). Just look at Shirley Brewer. The 70-year-old Charles Village resident wrote poetry while she was in high school and college, but then put her writing aside as she worked as a speech therapist for 32 years. “I used poetry with my clients to help them with their pronunciation,” Brewer said. ... READ MORE
