From the daily archives: "Tuesday, February 26, 2019"

On The Wild Side

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by Christine Maccabee

To De-Ice or Not to De-Ice, That Is the Question

I was a bit shocked, but not really surprised, when I read of the harm that is being done to the environment by the salt we throw on our sidewalks, steps, parking lots, and roads. After the Second World War, when the economy began to boom and more cars were manufactured—and, of course, more roads were built—the salt industry began to expand as well. Keeping people safe was the premise, but the environmental consequences became increasingly dire, and over many decades of use, has led to consequences most people did not see coming.

Until I began digging into some facts and figures on the subject, I worried a bit as to how the streams and rivers—the watershed, generally—was able to handle large influxes of salt during icy, snowy winters such as the one we have been experiencing this year. Increasingly over the years, I have used less and less salt on my walkways and porch due to this suspicion, and now I have some facts to support my concern that I thought I would share with you.

According to a 1991 study made by the Forestry Commission in the UK, 700,000 trees were killed annually in Western Europe by salt. Studies made by our U.S. Geological Survey has estimated 19 million tons of salt are used annually on our roads and other impervious surfaces each year. The increased use of salt since the 1950s has created long-term salination in 44 percent of 284 freshwater lakes in the Northeast and Upper Midwest. According to this study, lake ecosystems, human drinking water, fisheries, and certain aquatic lifeforms require pure, fresh, water. Our fresh water is increasingly being attacked on all sides by other pollution sources, such as overflow of coal and animal holding ponds, herbicide and pesticide run-off from farms and lawns, oil spills, other chemical spills, etc.

A pretty gloomy picture, eh?  Well, there are solutions, at least to the salt problem, and everyone can help out, if willing, especially caring homeowners and store owners and town and county officials. This winter, I have noticed a different approach to my road up here in the mountains, where the salt is applied in stripes, not thrown out loose. This may help. Also, there is salt with an additive called “deicer,” which is a combination of beet juice, alfalfa meal, or calcium magnesium acetate. However, it is still  recommended to use it sparingly.

One suggestion by National Wildlife is to shovel or sweep sidewalks early and often. I know I do, and it works quite well as melting can then occur more quickly, and sometimes even drying, all without the use of salt. Guess you might say I am on a low-salt diet!

When there is truly dangerous ice, however, I will sprinkle a bit of salt only on the area of the steps I plan to walk on. Otherwise, I am just careful, and sometimes I just rough it without any salt. I suppose roughing it, however, is not very popular anymore in this age of convenience, yet there are likely less broken bones and sprains.

Living lightly and with less is always best, as many of us are learning. As Hilary Dugan, a freshwater scientist from the University of Wisconsin said, “Chloride is an environmental problem that we could solve by purely stopping putting so much of it into our environment.” Most of us know that globally fresh water is increasingly less available as human populations increase, and this is becoming more and more of a problem every year.

So, the next time you begin to overdose with salt on your sidewalk or driveway, stop and think about where all that salt will ultimately go as it flows into our storm drains and further into our streams, rivers, and lakes.

If not this year, then next…stop and remember. Our precious Earth thanks you!

Looking Back -1917

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Trolley Beheads Woman

by James Rada, Jr.

The Hagerstown and Frederick Railway trolley car ran north along the Thurmont line out of Frederick on the morning of October 16, 1917. The car left Frederick City heading to Montevue and Yellow Springs and onto a crossing at Charlesville. When it reached Thurmont, it would head back on its U-shaped route to Shady Grove on the MD/PA line.

“When the car was hardly half its length away, Mrs. Wastler sprang from the bushes by flinging herself straight out from her position, and placing her head on the rail,” the Catoctin Clarion reported.

Motorman Luther Horine braked the passenger car, but he wasn’t quick enough. He wasn’t supposed to be.

The trolley ran over the woman.

Once it finally rolled to a stop, Horine and Conductor Albert Kefauver jumped to the ground to try and help the woman. It was quickly obvious that she was dead. The trolley had beheaded her. “The upper part of the skull, minus the hair, was found a short distance from the body. A large portion of the brains was found at another spot,” the Clarion reported.

Someone notified Sheriff William C. Roderick and the coroner.

Traffic on the Thurmont Line stopped as the sheriff sought answers. He soon identified the woman as sixty-three-year-old Sarah Wastler from Yellow Springs. She had waited alongside the track for the trolley to arrive to commit suicide.

The authorities notified her husband, David E. Wastler of Yellow Springs. David said his wife had a mental illness. Not only had she tried to commit suicide previously, she had also threatened to kill him and some of their eight children.

David had sworn out a warrant against his wife a few years earlier, saying Sarah was abusive and a public nuisance. He told the judge “she had threatened to kill the members of her family if not allowed to spend the money of her husband in riding upon the cars and enjoying herself in Frederick,” according to the Frederick Post.

David said his wife had abused the customers in his shoemaking shop and scared them away. “He said conditions had become so bad in the last year and that ofttimes he would sleep in his shop rather than go home and be tormented by his wife,” according to the Frederick Post.

Because of her “insane” actions, he could not hire someone to watch her while he was at work.

David told one story of how he had purchased lard to be used for cooking. However, Sarah took half of it just to waste and use for something other than cooking, so he locked up the other half because it was needed for cooking. Sarah took an axe and broke into the locked room just to take the rest of the lard and also waste it. Another time, she wasted their firewood, meant to get them through the winter, by building a large bonfire.

Then David said Sarah threatened to kill their son, Lee, and went after him with a knife. Lee was able to get the knife away from her, though, so he hadn’t been injured. Lee told the judge that “his mother had thrown knives and forks at him and that she was continually saying she was going to have him sent to the House of Correction.”

Justice Anders corroborated this and added that Lee was a good kid who did not belong there.

Other witnesses testified that Sarah would scream so loudly that it could be heard a quarter mile away, and she was always trying to have warrants served on different people.

Sarah is buried in the Faith United Church of Christ Cemetery in Charlesville. Even after death, she left one last headache for her husband. Sarah apparently ran up a large number of bills, buying things she didn’t need. David only found out about this after her death because he ran notices in the Frederick Post that he wouldn’t be held responsible for bills Sarah incurred unbeknownst to him.

The Hagerstown and Frederick Trolley traveling through the countryside on its way to Thurmont.

The Supermarket Gourmet

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Cook Like a Man

by Buck Reed

I heard a story of a woman who started her career at sixteen at a popular chain restaurant, and after working her way up the ladder, was passed over for CEO. Not to be beaten, her next move was to seek out and obtain the head position in a rival company. Then she went on to buy out the first chain restaurant, just like boys do it. Women have come a long way, from housewife to CEOs, professional sports, and most every profession that was reserved for the men. I saw a girl driving a fork lift today and it didn’t even faze me. So, if the women abandoned the kitchen, why is it a surprise that men have taken it over? For the purpose of this article and admittedly my complete lack of knowledge of such things, let’s just work with the basics of the stereotypes. I will not be able to cite studies and I don’t have time to get a degree in Gender Studies. My apologies ahead of time.

Men do not ask for directions. Now, this might make you late for your appointment, but this trait actually makes men very good cooks. They do not need recipes to produce delicious meals on the fly. Give a man a limited number of ingredients and you might be surprised at the clever way he is able to produce something to eat.

Men like to figure things out. From the engine of a ’69 Nova to the latest fishing reel, men enjoy taking things apart and figuring out how they work. The male of our species has a solid need to understand how and why things work. So, in cooking, instead of memorizing recipes, men try to understand the ingredients and mastering the methods needed to prepare them.

Men want women to be proud of what they have done. Why do you think young men ride their bikes off cliffs or jump skateboards over oil fires? To get girls to notice them. Kinda makes the whole motorcycle thing make sense now, doesn’t it? Men are willing to produce a perfect souffle or roast a pig if he can get the approval of that one woman or as many women as possible, depending on the man. Heck, if mastodons still roamed the plains, menfolk would not only be hunting them down, but also cooking them whole and serving it to their 800 friends with the perfect sampling of their signature sauce.

Where women cook out of a sense of love for whoever they are cooking for, men feel it is a task that must be mastered and want to be admired for it. It is why we do not stop at meat loaf but go on to working out pate en croute. We men now want to not only cook the bacon, but also cure it and smoke it ourselves. For better or for worse, if you have a man learning to cook, you are just going to have to get used to tasting the same sauce over and over again.

Veteran Spotlight

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Bernard “Bernie” Fink, Sr.

Moonshine to Ship Shine

by Priscilla Rall

One of the few remaining WWII Veterans from Thurmont is Bernard “Bernie” Fink, Sr.

Bernie was born in 1923, one of the six children of Margaret Elizabeth and Clarence Fink. Clarence was a tinner who owned a plumbing and heating business. As the oldest son, Bernie often accompanied his father onto Catoctin Mountain to make or repair moonshine stills. Bernie remembers soldering the coils of the stills and recalls the local youngsters washing bottles to be reused for the ‘shine. He has tried “mint gin” and found the dark green drink very palatable.

Growing up during the Great Depression, Bernie saw many hobos “riding the rails,” who would stop by his home where his mother had dishes ready to feed them a meal, often in exchange for repairing umbrellas or sharpening knives. Like many others, the family lost all of their savings with the collapse of the Central Trust Bank, and Bernie lost the $36.00 he had earned delivering newspapers.

At age seventeen, Bernie left school to take over the family business, as his father’s health deteriorated. His “Pap” was a hard taskmaster, no after-school sports for his children. The children had to come home after school to do chores.

In the first years of WWII, Bernie had a deferment because the family business was in charge of the Thurmont Water Works, but he eventually joined the Navy in June 1943. After basic training at Bainbridge, he went to Little Creek, Virginia, for amphibious training.

After training, he was ordered to Pier 92 in New York, where he joined the crew of the LCT 1012 (Landing Craft Tanks) that was loaded on LST 1048 (Landing Craft Troops). It left port with a convoy of ninety-six ships to North Africa. After twenty-nine days, the convoy landed in Bizerte, Tunisia. LCT 1012 was then loaded with five tanks and troops for the invasion of Southern France on August 15. As Bernie’s LCT reached the shores of France, two of the five LCTs hit enemy mines, which “blew everything to pieces.” The action was fast and furious as German shells came in overhead from artillery hidden in the hills above the beaches.

Bernie wondered “Lord, am I going to get out of this?” as he manned the vessel’s only .22-mm gun. His only order was to “point the gun and fire.” It took an excruciating thirty minutes to unload the tanks and men before the LCT was finally able to get off that deadly beach and out of range of the deadly shelling.

Next, the ship went to Marseilles and Naples, where the sailors went on leave. They travelled to Sicily, where Bernie transferred to a ship bound for the states. There, 2nd Class Coxswain Fink boarded the AKA 97, a troop ship that carried a crew of 200 and 1,000 troops. He was in charge of the galley.

Before he headed out to the Pacific, his sweetheart, Mary Ellen Saylor from Motters Station, met him at Newport News, Virginia, and they married on May 10, 1945.

Bernie shipped out on May 11, going through the Panama Canal and then on to Pearl Harbor, where they were greeted with the news that the war was finally over! Bernie spent the next four months ferrying troops from Guam, Saipan, Guadalcanal, and Iwo Jima to Pearl Harbor for the final leg of the journey home. Bernie remembers being shocked to see Marines accompanied by their war dogs. The crew was never able to leave the ship when it docked, as the government wanted the troops home ASAP.

While Bernie was in the Mediterranean, his mother had a stroke that he only learned of when he returned home in December 1945. Later, when his father died, Bernie bought the plumbing and heating business and continued it until his eyesight deteriorated, forcing him to sell.

Bernie and Mary Ellen raised their four children in the house his father built on the corner of Frederick Road and Howard Street in Thurmont, which was called Late’s Alley after the butcher shop located on the alley next to the old stone jailhouse.

It was an honor to interview Bernie for the Frederick County Veterans History Project and record his service to our community and country.


Bernard “Bernie” Fink, Sr.

Ask Dr. Lo Silent Ischemia and Ischemic Heart Disease

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by Dr. Thomas K. Lo

What Is Ischemia?

Ischemia is a condition in which the blood flow (and, thus, oxygen) is restricted or reduced in a part of the body. Cardiac ischemia is the name for decreased blood flow and oxygen to the heart muscle. Ischemia often causes chest pain or discomfort known as angina pectoris.

What Is Ischemic Heart Disease?

Ischemic heart disease is the term given to heart problems caused by narrowed heart arteries. When arteries are narrowed, less blood and oxygen reaches the heart muscle. This is also called coronary artery disease and coronary heart disease. This can ultimately lead to heart attack.

What Is Silent Ischemia?

Many Americans may have ischemic episodes without knowing it. These people have ischemia without pain—silent ischemia. They may have a heart attack with no warning. People with angina also may have undiagnosed episodes of silent ischemia. In addition, people who have had previous heart attacks or those with diabetes are especially at risk for developing silent ischemia.

Having an exercise stress test or wearing a Holter monitor—a battery-operated portable tape recording that measures and records your electrocardiogram (ECG) continuously, usually for 24-48 hours—are two tests often used to diagnose this problem.

What Should Women Know?

Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women. Women who have symptoms of ischemic heart disease are less likely than men to have obstructive coronary artery disease. However, they may be at greater risk for coronary microvascular disease and for serious complications of coronary artery disease, including blood clots in the heart’s arteries.

Why Does Ischemic Heart Disease Affect Women Differently?

Ischemic heart disease is different for women than men because of hormonal and anatomical differences. Before menopause, the hormone estrogen provides women with some protection against ischemic heart disease. Estrogen raises “good” HDL cholesterol and helps keep the arteries flexible, so they can widen to deliver more oxygen to the tissues of the heart in response to chemical and electrical signals. After menopause, estrogen levels drop, increasing a woman’s risk for ischemic heart disease.

What Conditions Affect Risk Differently for Women?

Eighty percent of women, ages forty to sixty, have one or more risk factors for ischemic heart disease. Having multiple risk factors significantly increases a woman’s chance of developing ischemic heart disease, and they are more likely than men to have medical conditions or life issues that raise their risk for ischemic heart disease. Some of these conditions are: anemia, especially during pregnancy; the use of hormonal birth control; endometriosis; high blood pressure after age sixty-five; inflammatory and autoimmune diseases; and lack of physical activity. Mental health issues, such as stress, marital stress, anxiety disorders, depression, or low social support; overweight and obesity; problems during pregnancy, including gestational diabetes and preeclampsia and eclampsia; diabetes; low levels of HDL cholesterol; and smoking are also risk factors.

Can Symptoms Differ for Women?

Although men and women can experience the same symptoms of ischemic heart disease, women often experience no symptoms or do not have the same symptoms men do.

Activity that brings on chest pain is different in men and women. In men, angina tends to worsen with physical activity and go away with rest. Women are more likely to have angina while they are resting or sleeping. In women who have coronary microvascular disease, angina often happens during routine daily activities, such as shopping or cooking, rather than during exercise.

In addition, with location and type of pain, women are more likely to describe their chest pain as crushing, or they say it feels like pressure, squeezing, or tightness. Men say their pain is aching or dull. Women more often say they have pain in the neck and throat. Men usually describe pain in the chest.

Other common signs and symptoms for women include nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath, abdominal pain, sleep problems, fatigue, and lack of energy.

The severity of symptoms can also vary. They may get worse as the buildup of plaque continues to narrow the coronary arteries. Chest pain or discomfort that does not go away, occurs more often, or while you are resting may be a sign of a heart attack. If you have “silent” ischemic heart disease, you may not experience any symptoms until you have complications, such as acute coronary events, including a heart attack. Women are also more likely than men to have no symptoms of ischemic heart disease.

What are the Signs, Symptoms, and Complications for men and women?

Signs, symptoms, and complications will vary based on the type of ischemic heart disease you have. An acute coronary event, such as a heart attack, may cause symptoms such as angina, which can feel like pressure, squeezing, burning, or tightness during physical activity and usually starts behind the breastbone, but it can also occur in the arms, shoulders, jaw, throat, or back. Other symptoms are cold sweats, dizziness, light-headedness, nausea or a feeling of indigestion, neck pain, shortness of breath, sleep disturbances, and weakness. Chronic ischemic heart disease can cause signs and symptoms such as angina, anxiety or nervousness, fatigue, and neck pain.

Can Ischemic Heart Disease Cause Serious Complications?

Some complications may be acute coronary syndrome (including angina or heart attack), arrhythmia, cardiogenic shock, heart failure, stroke and sudden cardiac arrest.

What Do Women Need to Know About Diagnosis and Treatment?

Doctors are less likely to refer women for diagnostic tests for ischemic heart disease. When women go to the hospital for heart symptoms, they are more likely than men to experience delays receiving an initial EKG, are less likely to receive care from a heart specialist during hospitalization, and are less likely to receive certain types of therapy and medicines. Younger women are more likely to be misdiagnosed and sent home from the emergency department after cardiac events that occur from undiagnosed and untreated vascular heart disease.

If you struggle with health issues and would like a free screening, call the Advanced Chiropractic & Nutritional Healing Center at 240-651-1650. Dr. Lo uses Nutritional Response Testing® to analyze the body to determine the underlying causes of ill or non-optimum health. Free seminars are also offered and are held at the office on rotating Tuesdays and Thursdays. The office is located at 7310 Grove Road #107, Frederick, MD. Check out the website at www.doctorlo.com.