Liz Bobo, dear readers, has underwear glasses.

Now that I have your attention, allow me to explain. I went over to see her at her house the other day to chat about her political career. She offered me water in the most adorable drinking glasses  made from a thick, wavy glass with a (Democratic?) blue rim. She said that on the way to the airport to come home from Mexico, she and her husband, Lloyd Knowles saw these and bought them. They needed to pack them with care at the last minute, and they had no choice but to wrap them in Lloyd’s underwear.

“They’ve been washed a few times since then, Colleen,” she said as we both erupted in laughter. She extended her glass toast me. Clink!

Liz suggested we make our way to her basement office to chat. We did, and on the way I marveled at all the gorgeously arranged–with care and artfulness–pieces of furniture, decorative items, and art in her home. No, seriously, readers, her home is a museum and an art gallery in addition to a sanctuary for her and Lloyd. I told her if I were her I’d never leave. She thought this was very sweet, but I wasn’t being a butt-kisser, I swear. I just really think it’s so charming and stunning and o-m-g.

Dr. Zee Beams, a local pediatrician and Democratic politico who knows Liz, put it best when we met her outside the Florence Bain Senior Center during Early Voting. She said, “Her house is freaking amazing.” You can read more about Zee here!

Meanwhile, we arrived in Liz’s office, and I kid you not: it glows. Light doesn’t just pour in from the windows, it emanates forth from its center. Perhaps it’s a function of the ingenious Old Columbia architecture, or the teak wood furniture, or the deeply loving souls–Liz and Lloyd–who live in it,  or all of the above. I can’t be sure. Nevertheless, it does glow. It reminded me of Liz’s childhood church. That’s St. Bernadine’s Church on Edmondson Avenue. It has that unforgettable gold dome on top. That’s the kind of warm color palette that Casa Bobo-Knowles is based on, too.

A Life of Unpretentious Heroism

After Barbara Mikulski, Liz’s name is the one that inspires most adulation from both fellow politicians and Democratic HoCo-ans. She was HoCo’s only female County Executive from 1986 to 1990 and then served in the House of Delegates representing District 12B (now subsumed into 12) from 1994 until 2015.

When I asked Liz to tell me the piece of legislation she was most proud of, I almost wanted to backtrack. She’s had such a long career advocating justice in HoCo, I felt like who could pick just one bill.

“It’s a bill based on economic justice that I was successful in getting passed about ten years ago. It protected low income people in Maryland from predatory lending,” I nodded. I offered that while all kinds of justice were so very important, economic justice seemed like the most essential. When people are paid fair wages, then we can have a just society. Liz nodded and said she agreed wholeheartedly.

As Liz told me about the legislative wrangling that led up to the passage of that bill, I could tell it was a contentious battle. Even the Democratic party wasn’t totally comfortable with Liz’s refusal to capitulate on it.

“I knew my goose was cooked at that point,” she said, smiling, of her refusal to back down on certain aspects of it.

Another local Democratic politico and friend of ours Becca Niburg, an immigration attorney who lives in Elkridge, told us an anecdote about Liz that spoke to her humble grace. The kindness the same thing that informs her political vision was on full display one night just after the 2016 election.

“I have had tremendous amount of respect for her since a Town Hall after the election,” Becca told me in a phone call later the same day I interviewed Liz. Becca’s daughter, then eight, wanted to ask Liz a question. She got nervous, and Liz encouraged her right then and there, lovingly, to continue.

All You Need Is Laughter

I had to tell myself to stop gazing at her adorable decor and get to my questions. So I glanced down at my notes and asked her what she’d say her political mission had been, her HoCo Dem raison d’etre. She’s skilled at delivering her message in pithy, succinct phrases. But even so, I could tell she’d thought about this a lot and that shaped her answer.

“I can tell you that in three phrases: economic justice, social justice, and environmental justice she said,” in her gentle voice. I went boom-boom-boom in my head. The true blue Democrat and social justice warrior in me wanted to get up and high-five her. I held back, because I thought that was too goofy, even for me.

“The right thing to do can seem complicated sometimes,” Liz said, “But I just remember that it’s always the choice that comes from love and not hate.” She recounted a story about Lloyd that made me see some of why she fell in love with him: they both share a passion for politics inspired by kindness.

Lloyd had advocated in the sixties for an amendment to the county’s human rights law that made Howard the second county in America to codify legal protections for its gay citizens by reference to their orientation and not preference. Painting sexual orientation as a glib, cavalier choice–or preference–is a common tactic of anti-LGBTQ+ crusaders. She asked Lloyd what had inspired him to do it. He said he’d been watching Harvey Milk’s early LGBTQ+ rights work in San Francisco.

“It was just so clearly the right thing to do,” Liz said Lloyd told her. I actually said “aaaaaaw,” but just as much in response to the look of  affection on her face as she recounted it as to the anecdote itself.

“I’ve never had a problem speaking my mind,” Liz told me of one of the qualities, clearly one that she and Lloyd share, that’s made her a HoCo Dem legend. And then as if anticipating my next question, she said, “I don’t know where that comes from.” When you’re interacting with Liz you get the feeling she simply knows right from wrong and then acts on it–plain and simple. She’s not overly cautious, as she put it. An advocate as passionate as her couldn’t be, lest’s face it.

Love Is Eternal

Liz’s a student of meditation, Eastern philosophy, and general pursuits of advanced consciousness. She’s too down-to-Earth to put it in overly hoity toity terms, of course. But that’s what it is. Transcendental Meditate teaches that space and time are simply restrictive ways of thinking, and if we look beyond that and realize the mind that experiences them is only open to so much spiritual growth, we can move to a higher level of being. I thought of that when Liz told me about how her grandson, Zach, died of cancer at 20.

“He’s definitely with me–always,” she said. I told her I knew exactly what she meant, as I feel the presence of loved ones I’ve lost too. She didn’t need to lose a loved on to make her compassionate, obviously. Just look at her legislative record if you need proof! It’s clear too, though, that her affection for her grandson and his untimely death inform everything she does. In fact, I almost feel like she’s doing her good work for  him, to honor his memory.

“Grandma, I realize that I’m in a position to inspire people, and I intend to use it,” he said to her and she recounted on her website, lizbobo.net. Liz told me a story about Zach that said all I needed to know about what a magnificent, as she put it, young man he was. He spent time as an adult in a pediatric cancer ware based on his age when he was diagnosed. He would dress up as Superman to entertain the kids, and they simply adored him.

Zach’s passing is still raw in many ways to her I could see. It’s a wound that’s still healing. I felt deeply honored that Liz would share stories with me about him. He seemed like a magical soul. In fact, I even felt a little angry for a moment that I’d never get to know him in person. Perhaps it’s just as great, only different, that I got to know a little about him through the mementos–the most important of which is the memories Liz shared and will hopefully continue to share with me–that Liz keeps of his life and their love.

To make a donation to the memorial fund in Zach’s name, click here. Zaching Against Cancer Foundation (ZACF), as it’s called, “improves the quality of life for cancer patients and their caregivers by providing support through direct patient services and programs, scholarships, and grants.

County Council on Hilarity

You can’t talk about Liz without talking about Lloyd, whom I’ve mentioned. As we’d come into the Bobo-Knowles earlier, Liz had called to him, “Honey, come down and see us in a bit.”

“I’m shy!” he’d yelled back. Neither Liz nor I could contain our laughter.

Lloyd was a member of the Howard County planning board and on the county council, too. He shares Liz’s passion for Columbia’s founding ideals. Liz told me she and Lloyd often thought of Columbia founder James Rouse’s saying about his vision for Columbia. Rouse had said he wanted Columbia to be a place where the janitor and the senator could live side by side.

Lloyd showed me a beautiful book of essays and photographs about Columbia for which he penned an essay. He suggested I buy it, and it’s on it’s way to our P.O. box at the Glenelg post office (we’re getting more rooted here every week) in the mail now! He’d moved to Columbia when the town’s founding ideals of equity and thoughtful planning inspired him, as I mentioned.

“He just loved it,” Liz said of Lloyd’s time on the planning board, closing her eyes and nodding. “He ran one of Ed Cochran’s campaigns,” she said of that famed HoCo politician, the area’s second County Executive. Cochran appointed him to the Council’s planning board, and Lloyd loved that, too. During Lloyd’s time on the Council was when he advocated for the change in terminology regarding LGBTQ+ legal protections.

Both Liz and Lloyd’s careers had been proof that while democratic politics requires consensus, that doesn’t mean it requires moral capitulation.

Moral Minority

As regular readers of this site know, Guy Guzzone is one of both Robert’s and my heros. Liz recounted sitting on her front steps and talking to Guy about their political careers. I don’t know why, but I got a little choked up at this. They’re that rare person–who’s actually not so rare here in HoCo, we’ve found over the past six months–that’s just so deeply moral. It’s quite moving. Whenever we hear Guy speak, we get a little choked up. He cares so much about doing the right thing, and it’s so apparent. It’s the same with Liz. I had a fleeting fantasy of two of them running for president and vice president. That’s simply too good to be true. Or is it? Liz’s 20-year career of speaking out on important issues no matter the consequences reminded me that anything–anything wonderful–is possible.

The Personal Is Political

That’s one of the unforgettable slogan of 1960s, second-wave feminism. And it’s true

Later the same day I interviewed Liz, I was back at our RV in the kitchen area making a quick dinner for me and Robert. It was the day before Election Day 2018. I thought about all the incredible HoCo Dems RoCo had met this year, four of him we’ve profiled on this site–Sen. Guy Guzzone (D-13), Del. Eric Ebersole (D-12), Del. Frank Turner (D-13), and now Del. Liz Bobo (D-12B). I thought about how Johnny Castle said in the final scene of one of my favorite movies, Dirty Dancing, that Baby had taught him there are people who are willing to stand up for other people no matter what it costs them and how that was the kind of person he wanted to be.

All the people we’ve met this year have inspired RoCo more than we could imagine anyone would when we headed out for the area from Manhattan earlier this year. If we were still on the fence at all about making HoCo our permanent home, I asked myself, we needn’t be. These is an amazing place full of amazing people. Sure Liz is retired now, a full-time “lover of life,” as she put it. But she still calls HoCo her home, and she’s an unofficial Democratic political consultant, pretty much. That speaks volumes about the area.

I looked over at Robert in the sitting area  and said: “Let’s move here.” He gave me a crooked smirk and winked. I walked our plates of food over to him. We ate in silence, taking it all in. This was our new home.

Sure, we’re moving here, but that doesn’t mean the story of Robert and Collen (RoCo) in Howard County (HoCo) is by any means over so neither will our interviews, articles, and website be. They’ll just be different. Stay tuned, dear readers!

Thanks for reading! Check back with us here at rocoinhoco.com every week as Robert, Colleen (and pup, Moses) get to know the many facets—one each week–of this prismatic place called Howard County. We want to take you along with us, so follow us on Twitter at @rocoinhoco, join our Facebook group, and follow us on Instagram at @rocoinhoco.