Inspiration from my father's journey: People often ask if I'm related to the Ross Boddy whose name is on signs in Sandy Spring, Md. 'Yes,' I say, 'that's my father.' If they want to know why the Ross Boddy Community Center is named for him, I explain that he worked many years in the community as an educator and director of the recreation programs held in the old school building.
The whole story can take a while, after all. But it starts with something he wanted his children to know.
In the mid-1920s, when my father was a teenager, his father was hit by a car and killed while coming home from work on the Conowingo Dam in Port Deposit, Md. My father knew he had to help support the family, but he was also determined to finish school. To get there, he walked 10 miles every day. After school, he worked in a mill for 10 cents a week - good money in those days, as he would tell us, when so many had nothing.
