Elinor and Joe Stewart

The recent discussion of WTF from Obama’s Win the Future comment made me think of Elinor Cofer.  I’ll explain why in a minute but let me first tell you a little about Elinor.
She and her husband Bill lived on Airedele Road.  Bill was one of Buzzy’s patrons and friends and I got to know Elinor from serving on a couple of committees with her back in the 70’s.  
I liked her some but her tree huggery and “fragile peninsula” ideas left me cold.  Elinor was one of those kind of people who old timers used to call “come here’s.”  Come here’s were those who settled in the County and then set about to preserve it by not allowing anyone else to move in.  That and her approach seemed to be that County folks were not smart enough to appreciate how nice our community is and therefore enlightened people such as she needed to save it for us.  (Elinor was not the first and surely not the last “come here” guilty of that as his/her perceived mission in life.)
But back to why I just thought about Elinor and always do whenever I hear WTF:  she told a story how early in her career as a young nurse she went to work for the Navy.  As her first assignment she was handed and told to read a batch of instructions and policy statements for the Clinic where she worked.  As she read through the documents and did not understand the many acronyms used, she frequently interrupted a young Corpsman to ask what they stood for.  After several interruptions the Corpsman advised, “Just circle what you don’t understand and write WTF in the column and send it into the Commander for him to look at.”   Thinking this was the procedure used to clear up questions, Elinor did as instructed.  Later when the Commander called her in, she found out what WTF actually meant much to her embarrassment.

 I found the following link with some info on Elinor’s environmental efforts click here.  And in a small world kind of irony, the Joe Stewart in the picture with her is the founder of the Potomac River Swim click here that I’ve discussed in a previous blog post click here.

Elinor and Joe Stewart

The recent discussion of WTF from Obama’s Win the Future comment made me think of Elinor Cofer.  I’ll explain why in a minute but let me first tell you a little about Elinor.
She and her husband Bill lived on Airedele Road.  Bill was one of Buzzy’s patrons and friends and I got to know Elinor from serving on a couple of committees with her back in the 70’s.  
I liked her some but her tree huggery and “fragile peninsula” ideas left me cold.  Elinor was one of those kind of people who old timers used to call “come here’s.”  Come here’s were those who settled in the County and then set about to preserve it by not allowing anyone else to move in.  That and her approach seemed to be that County folks were not smart enough to appreciate how nice our community is and therefore enlightened people such as she needed to save it for us.  (Elinor was not the first and surely not the last “come here” guilty of that as his/her perceived mission in life.)
But back to why I just thought about Elinor and always do whenever I hear WTF:  she told a story how early in her career as a young nurse she went to work for the Navy.  As her first assignment she was handed and told to read a batch of instructions and policy statements for the Clinic where she worked.  As she read through the documents and did not understand the many acronyms used, she frequently interrupted a young Corpsman to ask what they stood for.  After several interruptions the Corpsman advised, “Just circle what you don’t understand and write WTF in the column and send it into the Commander for him to look at.”   Thinking this was the procedure used to clear up questions, Elinor did as instructed.  Later when the Commander called her in, she found out what WTF actually meant much to her embarrassment.

 I found the following link with some info on Elinor’s environmental efforts click here.  And in a small world kind of irony, the Joe Stewart in the picture with her is the founder of the Potomac River Swim click here that I’ve discussed in a previous blog post click here.

Elinor and Joe Stewart

The recent discussion of WTF from Obama’s Win the Future comment made me think of Elinor Cofer.  I’ll explain why in a minute but let me first tell you a little about Elinor.
She and her husband Bill lived on Airedele Road.  Bill was one of Buzzy’s patrons and friends and I got to know Elinor from serving on a couple of committees with her back in the 70’s.  
I liked her some but her tree huggery and “fragile peninsula” ideas left me cold.  Elinor was one of those kind of people who old timers used to call “come here’s.”  Come here’s were those who settled in the County and then set about to preserve it by not allowing anyone else to move in.  That and her approach seemed to be that County folks were not smart enough to appreciate how nice our community is and therefore enlightened people such as she needed to save it for us.  (Elinor was not the first and surely not the last “come here” guilty of that as his/her perceived mission in life.)
But back to why I just thought about Elinor and always do whenever I hear WTF:  she told a story how early in her career as a young nurse she went to work for the Navy.  As her first assignment she was handed and told to read a batch of instructions and policy statements for the Clinic where she worked.  As she read through the documents and did not understand the many acronyms used, she frequently interrupted a young Corpsman to ask what they stood for.  After several interruptions the Corpsman advised, “Just circle what you don’t understand and write WTF in the column and send it into the Commander for him to look at.”   Thinking this was the procedure used to clear up questions, Elinor did as instructed.  Later when the Commander called her in, she found out what WTF actually meant much to her embarrassment.

 I found the following link with some info on Elinor’s environmental efforts click here.  And in a small world kind of irony, the Joe Stewart in the picture with her is the founder of the Potomac River Swim click here that I’ve discussed in a previous blog post click here.

Elinor and Joe Stewart

The recent discussion of WTF from Obama’s Win the Future comment made me think of Elinor Cofer.  I’ll explain why in a minute but let me first tell you a little about Elinor.
She and her husband Bill lived on Airedele Road.  Bill was one of Buzzy’s patrons and friends and I got to know Elinor from serving on a couple of committees with her back in the 70’s.  
I liked her some but her tree huggery and “fragile peninsula” ideas left me cold.  Elinor was one of those kind of people who old timers used to call “come here’s.”  Come here’s were those who settled in the County and then set about to preserve it by not allowing anyone else to move in.  That and her approach seemed to be that County folks were not smart enough to appreciate how nice our community is and therefore enlightened people such as she needed to save it for us.  (Elinor was not the first and surely not the last “come here” guilty of that as his/her perceived mission in life.)
But back to why I just thought about Elinor and always do whenever I hear WTF:  she told a story how early in her career as a young nurse she went to work for the Navy.  As her first assignment she was handed and told to read a batch of instructions and policy statements for the Clinic where she worked.  As she read through the documents and did not understand the many acronyms used, she frequently interrupted a young Corpsman to ask what they stood for.  After several interruptions the Corpsman advised, “Just circle what you don’t understand and write WTF in the column and send it into the Commander for him to look at.”   Thinking this was the procedure used to clear up questions, Elinor did as instructed.  Later when the Commander called her in, she found out what WTF actually meant much to her embarrassment.

 I found the following link with some info on Elinor’s environmental efforts click here.  And in a small world kind of irony, the Joe Stewart in the picture with her is the founder of the Potomac River Swim click here that I’ve discussed in a previous blog post click here.