by Peggy Robin
We save the best for last. POST OF THE YEAR can be a message in any of our previous categories -- animal story, query, advice, giveaway, or comment within a longer discussion -- or it may cross over categories, or it may be impossible to categorize.
Let us know what you think! The next in our 2025 CP Listies Show series -- coming right up! -- will have the instructions for voting in this category and in all the previously posted categories.
....And the nominees are.....
Rabbi Resnicoff: Coming back to life
Eleanor Oliver: The Best Prop
Don Clarke: The Secret Elevator
Farida W.: Uncovering the Gift Card Scam
Laura S.: CP Branch Manager of BofA Saved Me from a Phone Scammer
p.s. My comments on the messages (if any) are in italics.
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Coming back to life by Rabbi Arnold R., Message #221551 on January 17:
I’m a big walker, and sadly watched as more and more businesses, especially eateries, closed, many during the height of COVID — but some more recently, perhaps partially affected by COVID-linked losses?
I just want to share my happiness to watch more and more places open. (Still need more, but I’m happy about what I see.).
I think Buffalo & Bergen in Cleveland Park (open by the end of the month, we hope) will be a game changer for this area. Across from the zoo, the upcoming Jersey Mike's sub shop and Falafel Inc will be welcome additions. The changing news about Cleveland Park Bar and Grill — not closing, but rather combining with Fat Pete’s — is great to read. The new Ethiopian restaurant in Woodley Park — and the soon-to-come Capitol Market, in the old Ace Hardware space, long empty — are wonderful additions, replacing shuttered businesses.
And, most recently, the announcement that The Diner in Adams-Morgan will once again operate as our only 24-hour restaurant (not including McDonalds) is one more sign to me that we’re coming back to life. IHOP used to be 24 hours, but no more — although perhaps back to that in the future?
In any event, I’m enjoying my walks in a new way, watching for signs of new neighborhood life!
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Our next nominated message began with a reply to a message about the film crew working on the production of the Gordon Ramsay show about the Parthenon on upper Connecticut Avenue. That part of her message was short - but the poster followed it up with a long postscript about another, long-ago production, and how a particular stage prop became a neighborhood landmark (of sorts) on a quiet sidestreet in Cleveland Park. Here's just that part of the message:
For a number of years, a group of volunteer Cleveland Park moms kept their children busy for the first half of summer vacation by producing a Broadway musical. The group was called The Summer Theater Workshop for want of a better name. We lovingly called ourselves STWM -- not very original either. I did backdrops and an occasional prop.
For Bye Bye Birdie, we sliced a sheet of plywood in half the long way, fastened the two haves together end to end, and I found an ad in an old magazine for a ’57 DeSoto, about when Birdie takes place. My Dad always had his heart set on a DeSoto, but my practical mother kept him limited to a Plymouth Fury. 1950s magazines were filled with slick car ads, so after a moment of nostalgic reverie, I turned my attention to turning that plywood into my late father’s dream car -- a DeSoto, Fireflite! I made her a convertible. The DeSoto was leaned against a few kindergarten chairs for the actors to sit on while the wind blew through their hair. A a few screen door handles were added to the back so the stage crew could carry her off the stage. Why didn’t someone think of a fan off stage to really make the wind blow through their hair?! We get old too soon and smart too late!
After our final performance, a bunch of kids ran to claim the car. There was a bit of a a squabble. That’s when it hit me. That was my Dad's car! I can’t remember how we got it home. The only place we could stash it was the front porch where a good rain would wash off the poster-painted DeSoto soon enough if we didn’t cover it with a coat shellac -- which we did.
The winds whipping around the corner of the block where we lived were pretty rough on the DeSoto as well. Finally she was was ripped completely in half but not along the original seam. She (all beautiful cars are feminine) looked like she had been in a terrible crash. Time to take the two pieces of the DeSoto around back for the next trash pick-up.
Halloween came and went, Thanksgiving came and went. Since there was little reason to go into our dark, unfinished basement I rarely did. Anything could be living down there! On Christmas morning after we had opened all our presents the kids ran out onto the porch and called me to follow, my husband brought up the rear. Ham actor that he was, he pretended that it must be urgent. Urgent, yes -- it was December and those crazy kids were just in their pajamas! I was annoyed and in no reason to hurry. I put on my coat.
There she was! The DeSoto Fireflite, in all her splendor. Lovingly restored by the children and my husband, the guy with two left thumbs, who prided himself on being handy because he took “shop" in eighth grade, where he learned to wire a lamp, nothing about woodshop! She was bolted to the front of the House. She was beautiful. The wind would never harm her again.
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The secret elevator by Don C.
Oct 22 Message #230294 by Don C.
Following weeks of dysfunction at the Catherdral Commons giant -- when all attempts to get the Giant or their landlord, Bozzuti, to fix the elevators had come to naught, an intrepid poster found a solution -- one that Giant management itself failed to recognize and publicize to its harried customers. This is pure genius! (I shoudl know, as I"m one of those people who had previously attempted to haul many bags of groceries down the (finally working) escalator -- and when one overfilled bag tipped over, I watched helplessly as all my lovely fruits and vegetable rolled down the moving steps in front of me. After that unfortunate incident, I gave up shopping at the Giant -- that is, until I saw this tip about the "secret elevator":
There is (at least as of Sunday) a working elevator at the opposite end of the store from the regular elevators. (In other words, turn left after the cash registers, not right.) It comes out beside the north exit from the parking garage, right by the handicapped parking. When I mentioned something about elevators to the cashier, she told me about it. Are all the other cashiers keeping it a secret? Weird!
Just to give the proper context to the above nominated post, here are two previous messages that set the scene. First came this one:
I am sorry to report that my trip to Giant just now (9:30 pm Sat), neither the escalators nor elevators were in service. I am 'this close' to not shopping there anymore.
And then this one:
My husband and I were at Giant yesterday, Monday, October 20 at 2:00pm and both elevators were still not in service and the down escalator was not working. There was no one to help on Newark to load cars and we had 6 bags of groceries. My husband has mobility issues so he pushed the cart outside and I drove around and loaded the car. It is the closest grocery store for us and the garage is very user friendly. I have always been a Giant shopper (along with Rodman's and Whole Foods) but I am considering not shopping there anymore too.
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Amazon gift card tampering problem resolved by good customer service rep at Giant
Dec 26 2024, Farida W., Message #220910
This next nominated message is the polar opposite of the one before. That one was about dysfunction at the Giant; this one is about Giant employees, alerted to a scam by a list member, doing all the right things needed to protect their customers. (A quick note on the date: Yes, it's Dec 26, 2024 -- but it's included in the 2025 Listies because the 2024 nominations were already closed by Dec 20, 2024, and so this one got held over for its overdue recognition in 2025.)
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| Photo by Giant Food on Instagram |
The next morning I spent another hour with Visa’s various fraud departments, but they, too, advised me to direct my concern to Giant. When I went to the store, I decided to pick up another $100 Amazon card from the stand and asked the customer service employee to check it out, just in case it was tampered with. Sure enough, that and subsequent cards he opened all had the claim code cut out! How that was possible is a mystery, but the person who helped me eventually get my refund, after long waits on the phone with the fraud department, asked one of his employees to remove all Amazon cards from the stand, just to be on the safe side !
I want to just say how thankful I was to José, who with so much patience and kindness on such a busy day, spent so much time to help me with this issue. I couldn’t have been more thankful. This incident was unbelievable, and I dread to know how many people opened their gift cards this holiday, whether Amazon or any other that had a scammer steal the code, only to find that their value was useless! I was very lucky to be able to send my grandchildren their gift in form of a direct money transfer to their parents.
Thank you José at Giant, you saved this very important day. Happy Holiday!
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For the last of our 5 nominations, we have another account of a consumer scam, this one thrwarted by employees of Bank of America -- concluding with the poster's words of caution that surely helped to save other Listserv members from falling prey to similar scam.
Saved From a Scam by Banker at Cleveland Park Branch of Bank of America
On Friday I almost fell prey to a scam. Part of the problem was my willful ignorance of technology. My main phone is my land line. I got a message on my cell phone asking to authenticate a purchase which I hadn't made. I responded, which I never should have. In any case I received instructions to take money out of the bank. The details now escape me , probably because they didn't make sense. When I went to the BoA branch on Connecticut Ave, the banker Hamallah Tounkan told me it was a scam. He saved me from disaster. I couldn't hug him so this is my hug.
The manager, Zizika Oduiskwe is giving a scam prevention seminar on September 9th @ 9am at the Cleveland Park branch of BoA. She plans to make it a monthly presentation.
Thank you Hamallah. Thank you Zizika.
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We've now come to the end of all the nominations for the 2025 Cleveland Park Listies Next comes the fun part! We want to hear from you! Watch for the next post in our CP Listies series: Your CP Listies Ballot -- and Many Ways to Vote,
You can find this post on the CP Listserv's associated blog, All Life Is Local, along with the previously announced nominations in the other categories.
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