The Washington Post - 29.08.2019

THURSDAY, AUGUST 29 , 2019. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 B3

Mark Holmstrup

confesses that

there was a time

when he bought

cars with his

heart, not his

head. In 1979 —

when most young

men dreamed of a

Trans Am or

Camaro — Mark’s

heart was set on a fire engine, a

1939 Ford/Howe triple-

combination pumper, to be

exact.

“I was looking for a car but

saw the pumper in a Washington

Post classified ad and just had to

have it,” Mark said. “No doors,

no roof and a 95-horsepower V8

under the hood.”

Mark answered my call for

stories about favorite old cars.

Or in this case, trucks. At the

time of his purchase, Mark was a

volunteer firefighter in Burke.

“To say I lived and breathed all

things fire department was an

understatement,” he said.

Forty years ago, Mark was 19

and living in Falls Church. A

lieutenant at a Rockville fire

department was selling the fire

engine. It had a double-clutch,

which Mark had never driven

before, but with a quick lesson

from the seller — “and the

bravado of youth” — Mark hit

the road.

“Traveling mainly on the

Beltway, I managed to get the

fire engine — and me — home in

one piece,” Mark said.

Mark had dropped $1,900 on

the red pumper, which was all

he’d set aside for wheels. That’s

why the firetruck became his

daily driver for a while.

“I lived in an apartment at the

time,” Mark said. The fire engine

took up two spaces in the

complex’s parking lot. Mark

would drive it on errands and to

Northern Virginia Community

College in Annandale, where he

was going to school.

“One time I had a class and I

was running late,” he said. “The

only place left was in the fire

lane.”

So that’s where Mark parked.

When he got out of class he

found that a police officer had

stuck his card on the fire engine.

Written on it was “Nice try.”

“But I didn’t get a ticket,”

Mark said.

The vintage fire engine proved

useful. Mark’s fire department

used it for fundraising. He

earned cash on the side doing

weddings, the bride and groom

perched in the hose bed as Mark

drove them from the church to

the reception.

Said Mark: “I ended up selling

it a few years later, the only time

I ever made a profit selling a

vehicle.”

Mark’s a lawyer now and lives

outside of Dallas. “I have a 10-

year old Subaru, for the record,”

he said.

A sleek little MGA is probably

as far as one can get from a fire

engine. That’s what

Judith Miller drove in 1956,

when she was 17 and living with

her family in To ronto.

“My father, who loved cars

and driving, was fascinated by

the MGs that my male friends

were driving — typically the MG

TD,” wrote Judith, who lives in

Falls Church. “He suggested I get

one at least partially because of

his fascination, and partially

because he was tired of having

me borrow our car.

Unfortunately, the T body design

was no longer being produced,

and I had to ‘settle’ for its

successor.”

Judith put a lot of mileage on

the roadster, becoming very

familiar with its quirks and

asking the question that has

puzzled many a North American

MG owner: How could a country

as famously damp as England

produce a car that wouldn’t run

in the rain?

“I became an expert at drying

off spark plugs, particularly after

a heavy downfall or after passing

a truck,” J udith wrote. “A nd, of

course, the windshield wipers

were less than reliable — even

when they did run. And, don’t

ever get caught with the

convertible top down in a

rainstorm! The MGA carried its

own top behind the seats, but

trying to get it out even with two

people tugging was a chore that

could not be rushed. How did

the British do it?”

The car was ill-suited for

Canadian winters. “I could

forget about getting out of a

parking space after a snow —

which it seemed to do a lot when

I was in school,” J udith wrote.

“My long-suffering father kept a

large plank in the garage that

had straps on either ends so that

he could hang it quite low from

the bumper on his car and push

me out of snowdrifts.”

It was her father’s curiosity

about the car that had prompted

him to buy for it Judith. He

drove it, too, but only after dark.

Wrote Judith: “Being a fairly

prominent businessman in the

city, he did not think it was

‘becoming’ to be seen in the

MGA.”

[email protected]

Twitter: @johnkelly

 For previous columns, visit

washingtonpost.com/john-kelly.

Fo r a teen volunteer, driving a vintage fire engine daily had its perks

John

Kelly's

Washington

MARK HOLMSTRUP

For a time in 1979, Mark Holmstrup drove a 1939 Ford/Howe triple-combination pumper to school and

on errands. He earned cash on the side doing weddings, driving the bride and groom to the reception.

MARYLAND

Montgomery Co. eyes

Amazon warehouse

Montgomery County has

expressed interest in hosting a

giant Amazon warehouse after

the tech giant announced last

week that the fulfillment

center would no longer be

located in Prince George’s

County, officials said

Wednesday.

Montgomery County

Executive Marc Elrich (D)

revealed at a virtual town hall

on Monday that he was

reaching out to Amazon about

its plans to relocate the center.

Amazon declined to confirm

or deny whether it was

considering the county as an

option. (Amazon founder and

chief executive Jeff Bezos owns

The Washington Post.)

— Rebecca Tan

VIRGINIA

2 shot at Crystal City

office are in hospital

A man alleged to have shot a

woman was also shot at an

office building in Crystal City

on Wednesday, according to

police. Both sustained critical

injuries.

The man and the victim

knew each other, police said.

They did not offer details on

who shot him.

Arlington police identified

the man as Mumeet

Muhammed, 47, of Washington.

He was charged in a warrant

with aggravated malicious

wounding and weapons

charges.

— Rachel Weiner

Opening date set for

U.S. Army museum

The gleaming new National

Museum of the U.S. Army, at

Fort Belvoir in Northern

Virginia, will open to the

public on June 4, 2020, the

Army announced Wednesday.

The 185,000-square-foot

building is being outfitted with

state-of-the-art exhibits and

immersion rooms that will take

visitors through the history of

the Army and its role on the

world stage.

Admission is free, but tickets

must be requested online, the

museum said.

— Michael E. Ruane

THE REGION

Vaping-related illness

reported in Md., Va.

Maryland and Virginia are

among 22 states reporting

cases of vaping-related illness.

Maryland announced

Wednesday that officials have

identified five people who have

developed severe lung illness

after using e-cigarettes. All

required hospitalization,

according to a news release.

Virginia had reported three

cases as of Monday, state health

officials said. They are

investigating other possible

cases.

— Laurel Demkovich

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LOTTERIES

BY RACHEL CHASON

Jerome Segal, a philosopher

and progressive activist, an-

nounced Wednesday that he is

running for president as the nom-

inee of a party he created — the

socialist Bread and Roses party,

which Maryland certified this

year.

That means Segal, a 75-year-

old Silver Spring resident, will

appear on the Maryland ballot for

the 2020 election. He and his

nascent party are trying to quali-

fy for the ballot in other states, he

said.

Segal, who unsuccessfully

challenged Sen. Ben Cardin in the

Democratic primary last year,

said he does not “have any fanta-

sies about actually being presi-

dent” but wants third parties to

have a larger role on the national

stage. State officials certified the

Bread and Roses party in Janu-

ary.

“This is really about ideas and

about adding something to the

current political discourse that is

lacking,” Segal said in an inter-

view ahead of his announcement.

He said he doesn’t know how

many people identify as members

of Bread and Roses, but he noted

that he gathered about 15,000

signatures on his petition for the

state to recognize it as a political

party.

Segal, who last year sold his

stock in Apple to finance more

than $250,000 in newspaper ads

that called him “Maryland’s Ber-

nie Sanders,” said he thinks the

Democratic Party is too focused

on finding short-term solutions

to existing problems, rather than

thinking more broadly about cul-

tural changes. Segal, the author

of a book titled “Graceful Simplic-

ity,” said he wants Americans to

have more free time to spend with

their families and less time at

work.

He said that part of his plat-

form is that every citizen should

have “a legal right to employ-

ment” and that he would also

look to shorten the workweek

and require paid vacation.

“This is an extraordinarily

wealthy society, and we have

missed our potential,” Segal said.

“We are a society that is anxious

and competitive, and there is a

resistance to equal opportunity.

... Our vision is of a society that
has more winners.”
The Bread and Roses party
takes it name from the famous
labor strike of 1912 by immigrant
textile workers in Lawrence,
Mass.
He said that despite some dis-
agreements with the Democrats
running for president, he shares
their desire to replace President
Trump and does not plan to
campaign in swing states, where
it might cut into votes for Trump’s
opponent.
“We are not going to be a

spoiler,” Segal said of Bread and

Roses.

He said he differs from the

mainstream Democratic Party on

foreign policy, including the be-

lief that the United States should

immediately recognize the Pales-

tinian territories as a state and

support its admission to the Unit-

ed Nations.

Segal, a longtime critic of Isra-

el’s occupation of the Palestinian

territories, said the United States

should cut funding for Israel if

the country annexes the West

Bank. Segal condemned the

Trump administration’s opening

of a U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem

and said he would support recog-

nizing a Palestinian capital in

East Jerusalem.

[email protected]

BY DANA HEDGPETH

A newly discovered bloodsuck-

ing, olive-green leech with three

jaws and as many as 59 teeth has

been found about 40 miles out-

side of downtown Washington.

A team led by a researcher at

the Smithsonian’s National Mu-

seum of Natural History discov-

ered the new species, Macrobdel­

la mimicus, in the swamps of

southern Maryland’s Charles

County. It’s the first time since

1975 a new medicinal leech spe-

cies has been found in North

America.

Anna Phillips, the museum’s

curator of parasitic worms, led

the team that made the discovery.

She waded in murky waters for

days wearing shorts — with bare

legs and sandals — looking for

leeches under wood, grass and

trash in swampy, algae-covered

ponds near Nanjemoy, a small

community southwest of Waldorf.

The researchers’ findings of the

new species, which is about the

size of a cigarette, were published

this month in the Journal of Para-

sitology.

Leeches are parasitic worms,

and some feed on the blood of

their hosts. In the 1700s and

180 0s, doctors sometimes used

them to treat fevers and head-

aches by “ridding a patient’s body

of ‘bad blood,’ ” according to

Smithsonian experts. There are

more than 700 species of leeches

in the world.

About four years ago, Phillips

and her team started to dig into a

well-known leech species known

to live from the East Coast to the

Rocky Mountains, including Can-

ada and the southern United

States. The researchers, from uni-

versities across North America,

wanted to determine whether the

same species lived in such a large

geographical area.

“You see a broad distribution

with a different geography, and

we were suspicious,” Phillips said.

“Leeches don’t crawl across dry

land, so we wanted to see if there

was more going on.”

They collected hundreds of

samples of leeches, including six

found in swampy ponds in south-

ern Maryland. Using DNA se-

quencing and comparisons to

more than 100 leech specimens,

they discovered the new species.

The leech looked like the well-

known M. decora species, but

something was different.

To distinguish among species,

parasitologists usually look at the

way pores are arranged on the

bottom of a leech. Leeches are

hermaphrodites and have what’s

known as accessory pores that

secrete mucus, which helps them

stick together while mating.

Scientists noticed these leeches

had four accessory pores grouped

in two rows, like other leeches,

but these sets of pores were far-

ther back on their bodies. They

named the new species Macrob­

della mimicus after the Greek

word for “imitator” or “actor.”

“They were overlooked,” Phil-

lips said. “It was unrecognized

that these were different.”

The species lives primarily in

the Piedmont region of the United

States between the Appalachian

Mountains and the Atlantic coast.

Phillips said she spent hours

with ticks, flies, mosquitoes and

chiggers around her, walking in

squishy, m ucky water while trying

to find leeches in ponds. She was

unfazed when a leech would grab

on to her leg. Leeches bite only

when they’re hungry, she said.

Indeed, when a leech attaches

itself to her, Phillips “gets pretty

excited,” s he said.

“They come in very stealthy,”

she said. “They use their tail suck-

er, which is a muscle, to attach

and then spread their mouth out

and bite.”

The encounter doesn’t hurt —

“nothing like a bee sting,” s he said

— and she uses a fingernail to lift

them off. A fter a leech finishes, “it

will just itch a little.”

“Ticks and mosquitoes are way

more scary than leeches,” she

said, adding that in her 15 years of

studying leeches, she has been

bitten many times.

The leech uses its teeth to bite

and siphon blood from its prey —

usually frogs, fish and tadpoles,

along with the occasional human,

Phillips said. It can suck two to

five times its body weight in blood

because of pockets that expand in

its digestive system. Leeches can

go u p to a year without eating, and

blood meals can take months to

digest.

To declare a new species, the

team followed standards set by

the International Commission on

Zoological Nomenclature, which

keeps rules and makes recom-

mendations for the scientific

naming of animals. Phillips said

she and her team are presenting

their findings at conferences and

spreading the word on social me-

dia.

Michael Te ssler, a postdoctoral

fellow at the American Museum

of Natural History in New York,

said the new species is unique. He

compared it to the feeling of hav-

ing an “amazing find of anything

new in your backyard.”

“This is really quite close to

major metropolitan areas where

people have professionally stud-

ied leeches,” Tessler said. “People

have had this under their noses

for so long and not known it.”

[email protected]

MARYLAND

Progressive activist enters 2020 race

MARYLAND

New species of bloodsucking leech found in swamp near D.C.

MANDEL NGAN/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Jerome Segal, the Bread and Roses party’s 2 020 presidential

nominee, will appear on the Maryland ballot. He and his nascent

party are trying to qualify for the ballot in other states, he says.

ANNA PHILLIPS/SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION

These leeches have four pores,

like other leeches, but they are

farther back on their bodies.

Bread and Roses party

founder says presidential

campaign is ‘about ideas’

“They were overlooked.

It was unrecognized ...

these were different.”

Anna Phillips, Natural History

museum’s curator of parasitic worms DONATE YOUR CAR

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