Marien Helz is originally from Gaithersburg and began writing the Growing Up in Gaithersburg column for an HOA paper in 2003.

She published fiction in college, and later, four books of poetry under her married name and decided to continue publishing prose under the pen Helz and poetry with the pen Perry.

She holds a Master's degree in English and American literature from the University of Iowa, a Master of Fine of Arts degree from the world renowned Iowa Writers' Workshop [the only organization to receive the National Humanities Medal, presented by the U.S. government in 2003], a Master's degree from the University of Buffalo Reading Specialist Program, and a PhD in English Research from the University of Buffalo.

She splits her time between Kentlands and a classic village in the Buffalo-Niagara region of Western New York state where she is a college professor–a  profession she began at the age of twenty-two.  She lives with her husband, Franklyn (Lyn) Perry, and their Belgian Malinois Shepherd and is devoted to her four children, a daughter, a son, a son-in-law, and a daughter-in-law, and especially to her new grandson.

Marien Helz's past columns are available here in Adobe files.    Click on the links below to access the Adobe files.    If you do not have Adobe on your computer, you can download a free copy here:

1. Happening   September 2005
2. Wedding   October 2005
3. Figurine   November 2005
4. Gifts and Giving   December 2005

17. Treasures.  January 2007 in Commentary
18. Paperboy.  February 2007 in Commentary
19. The Final Snow and The Follies. March 2007 in Commentary
20. Renewal. April 2007 in Commentary
21. Scouting. May 2007 in Commentary
22. Trains. June 2007 in Commentary
23. Woods. July 2007 in Commentary
24. Dogs and I’m-so-Fine-the-Law-Doesn’t-Apply-to-Me People  August 2007 in Commentary
25. Magic Soil. September 2007 in Commentary
26. Mean Teachers. October 2007 in Commentary
27. Sound   November and December 2007 in Commentary
28. Childhood Friends   January 2008 in Commentary
29. Nosy Neighbors   February 2008 in Commentary

...continued from the Commentary page:

Shell did not occur to me at the time, however, and I was convinced that it was the bone of some poor, hapless chick that I was crunching down on.  I was terrified to think that as an egg was cracked over the hot frying pan, some poor chickie would fall in pain and agony onto the scorching skittle.

It seemed obvious that most eggs were simply, by chance, at the early stage of development, and when I was desperate for a pet which I was not allowed to have, I hatched a plan to hatch a chick.  I would take one of the eggs right after my mother had shopped and keep it in my room under a pillow so that it would stay nice and warm until the hatchling emerged. I couldn’t resist, however, revealing my clever idea to Mrs. Federline who lived across the street when we were playing with her children, Jimmy and Beverly.

“How will you know that the egg has been fertilized?” she inquired.

“What?”

“The rooster has to fertilize the eggs, or they won’t hatch.”

This was in the 1950’s, and things were never very fully explained. I sort of imagined the rooster passing by nests of eggs and, using his wing feathers as fingers, dropping fertilizer over all the eggs.  It was enough to discourage my plan, nonetheless, and to prevent me from having a very rotten egg in my room after several weeks.

When I got to high school, I dreaded science classes—knowing that I would have to come up with a project. I can’t remember what I did for biology in the tenth grade (it probably had something to do with microscopes and protozoa), but I remember clearly my projects for eleventh grade chemistry and eighth grade general science.

Even though my father was a physicist, he didn’t believe in helping with home work or science projects much more than making a suggestion.  When I needed a chemistry project, he simply remarked that solutions for developing film could be made with common household products.  I had to go to the library to find out which products those might be.  To my surprise, I found the information fairly quickly. Then I took pictures, developed the negatives, and then made prints in our make-shift dark room that consisted of trays on boards over the laundry tubs, with only a very dim red bulb which wouldn’t affect the prints but gave enough light so that we could just barely see.  After that, all I had to do was explain it all on a few well-displayed, typed pages.  I even got a ribbon.

In the eighth grade, my father had given me a bit more help.  He told me that you could take pictures with a pin-hole camera—that is a camera that you make yourself.  In this case, he actually made the box.  It had a three-quarter inch hole in one end and a board that could be slid behind braces on the other end.  I had to paint the entire box, inside and out, with  a dull, flat black paint so that no light would enter or reflect.  Then we poked a tiny point in a small square of aluminum foil with a pin, and taped it over the hole in front.  Film had to be tacked onto the board and put into place and the box covered in the dark.  The pin hole had to be tightly covered until I was ready to take the picture.  I chose as my subject, the church on the next block.  I experimented with the length of time to leave the pin hole uncovered, and then developed the film.

I had the camera box for a very long time although it finally disappeared.  I still have the picture that I took with it.

It’s an amazing thing to start out knowing you need a project and to have no idea of how to get one, feeling as though it is a chasm that you have to cross with no knowledge or equipment—and to end with a product you’ve created from the most basic materials.  In the elementary grades, the science fair was a thing of wonder.  It turned into something to dread when facing the project and finally into a representation of accomplishment and victory.

Quarterly March, April, May© 2008 Maryland 20878^®