Dear Henry

I ran into an old friend this morning when I was walking home from the gym. We worked on a campaign together. We tried to get a man named Walter Mondale elected president in 1984. The campaign headquarters were in Glover Park and Mondale was from Minnesota. My favorite places.

I hadn't seen my friend in a lot of years. You can guess how many when I tell you that he asked how you were.

I said that you had died. Four years ago, though I am so not counting. I thanked him for asking about you.

I like running into friends from the past. A lot of our friends are moving out of the neighborhood. They just opened the first Ethanol gas station in Washington at the Chevron station on the corner. Ethanol is gas that has corn in it. It is supposed to be good for the environment or something. They had a film crew there the other night when we walked over to get ice cream at Max's.

Here is the news story.

Ethanol arrives in D.C. at $2.55 a gallon
June 29, 2007

By Adam Terese - The first ethanol fueling station in the District opened for drivers yesterday, joining a small — but growing — group of stations nationwide selling the biofuel.

The Georgetown Chevron on Wisconsin Avenue will sell VeraSun's branded VE85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, in addition to regular gas. The price yesterday was $2.55 a gallon, 62 cents cheaper than $3.17 a gallon for regular gasoline.

The Navy Exchange Gas Station near the Pentagon in Arlington also sells E85, as do stations in Rockville, Annapolis and Fort Meade, Md., according to the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition.

The cleaner-burning ethanol fuel is an environmentally friendly way to move toward energy independence, said Patrick Farrell, an Enterprise Rent-A-Car spokesman.

"We view this as an opportunity to bring some exposure, to jump-start the initiative," Mr. Farrell said.

I am sad that our friends are moving away from Glover Park. Even though I told you we'd never ever move, Mom and I looked at a house in Maryland last week. It was in Garrett Park. I really like it there. It feels like a 1950s neighborhood. There are so many trees, there is a commuter train station and they don't deliver the mail to your house - you have to pick it up at the post office.



What is nice is that Jack has friends from school who live there. That is why we looked at the house. It is hard to be a kid growing up in the city. Especially when there aren't many or any other kids living nearby.

I've told you before that we never want to leave our house because of all of the memories of you there. So it was good that when we drove on Wisconsin Avenue near Garrett Park there was a ton of traffic, and when we looked at the house it smelled like cats. That was an easy "deal breaker" for us. We didn't fall in love with it, so we didn't have to make any hard decisions.