Kenneth Merritt served as the Chief Clinical NCO for the Department of Nursing at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He retired as an E9 after serving 29 &1/2 years. He is currently Fisher House Foundation Manager in Bethesda. Fisher House is a non-profit organization that builds and donates homes to Military and VA installations to have a place for the family members to stay while their love ones are receiving medical care at the Military/VA Medical Center. The Federal Government will pay for 30 days at a hotel for visiting families. Fisher House extends the housing for visiting families for up to 3 years. When the demand is more than Fisher House capacity, they use donated frequent-flyermiles for local hotel stays.

Glen Echo Park began in 1891 as a National Chautauqua Assembly, which taught the sciences, arts, languages, and literature. By the early 1900’s to 1968, Glen Echo Park had become a premier amusement park. In 1971 the US National Park Service began managing the park and collaborated with artists and arts organizations to create a rich arts program in the spirit of the original Chautauqua movement. Each year, more than 400k people come to the park for arts classes, festivals, exhibitions, dances, children’s theater, music performances, and nature programs, etc. To get a schedule of events go to www.glenechopark.org.

While a DC librarian, Bill DeCosta researched the life of hoboes in the 1890’s local news papers and wrote a short book. Hoboes valued travel over living and working in one place. They would work and live off the land for a while and then move on, usually by freight train. Hobo camps were once common, especially after 1893, when a severe depression gripped the U S. Rock Creek Park had several hobo settlements. The space behind the Corcoran Building at 15th and F streets NW (now the Smithsonian’s Renwick Gallery) was known as “Heat Alley” for the warmth that gusted from the boiler room and made it popular in the winter. “Hobo Hollow” was the name for a camp at Dyke Marsh south of Alexandria.