Hello, my name is Leslie and I am the host of the Why Not Today podcast.
This is a podcast to celebrate people who have been courageous and said, Why Not Today?
I started this podcast in honor of my father, Patrick Kane, who often said, Why Not Today?
I am based in Reston, Virginia, a planned community right outside of Washington, DC, and thanks
for joining us today.
And I'm excited about my guest, Dawn.
Croson, is that how you pronounce your last name?
It is.
Okay.
I've literally just officially met her a few days ago, but I've heard of her and kind
of seen what she was doing.
And it was one of those things I have thought about reaching out to you a gazillion times
in the last six months, Dawn.
And then, you know, life is just busy and somebody shared something like, you know what,
I'm just reaching out where I saw something on social media.
And you know, sometimes those things on social media, they catch you at the right moment.
Yeah.
So reach out, met with you, got to know you, and I'm super excited.
So Dawn is publisher, editor, CEO, founder of the, I don't know all the titles, but you
can explain as we go on, the Reston Letter, which is a cool newspaper, like physical touch
newspaper that is published in Reston.
And since I'm a kid of Reston and grew up in Reston and been here pretty much my entire
life, it really interests me and caught my attention because I think it's a super cool
idea to share what's going on in Reston.
And I know the first issue you came out, one of the things you said is, you know, we'd
like to wear kids cutting our picture out from our soccer game or, you know, the different
things and I've got boxes of articles cut out from everybody in my family.
So I'm excited to have you and kind of share about the Reston Letter and then kind of a
little bit, you got some other courage things going on in your life.
So, Dawn, if you wouldn't mind, introduce yourself a little bit who you are, and then
a fun fact and then we'll get into your courage.
I'm excited to have you.
All right.
Well, thank you for having me.
I've never been on a podcast before.
Oh, wait.
Yay.
This is your first one.
Yeah.
So my name is Dawn.
I'm actually, I'm from Idaho, but I have lived in Reston, Virginia for 20 some years.
I have three boys, some a boy mom.
Everything is very loud and smelly.
And I'm a teacher.
I'm an English teacher, have taught English and journalism over the past few years.
I think about 10 years.
So I guess a fun fact about myself.
I don't know that it's that fun, but I love baseball.
So baseball has been a big part of my life since I was little.
I used to listen.
I have such fond memories of listening to baseball games because we never had, we barely
ever had a TV growing up.
My dad would be out working in the garage and he'd be tinkering around and he'd turn
on the radio and we'd listen to the Mariners as the, as a team that was closest to us.
So collected baseball cards.
My brother's played baseball.
My sister and I played baseball.
So baseball is very much a part of my life.
That's awesome.
And did you play baseball or softball?
I played softball.
Yeah.
Okay.
Gotcha.
Well, that's kind of fun how it's a very much a full circle moment.
And I think we talked about this initially when we connected is John Pinkman, who has
a baseball academy in Reston.
You don't know him, but his son.
Um, because I guess your boys played baseball.
He is the one that originated the first thought about this doing this podcast because he's
Oh really?
Yeah, because he shared some social media.
It was on next door, which I never go on and he had a picture of himself with an eye patch
on because he'd had some surgery done eye surgery and, um, he picked, he talked about
every time he looks in the mirror, he thought about my dad and he talked about things my
dad had done and the community, but he also said, we both always said, why not today?
And that was kind of, I remember exactly where I was.
And it was actually, um, it was September of 2020.
So two years ago, 2021.
And I remember exactly where I was sitting when I saw that I'm like, huh, interesting.
So here we go.
Full circle, baseball.
Let's talk about courage, Don.
What does courage mean to you?
Oh, well, to me, courage is like courage is looking at a decision, maybe action or inaction,
I guess, um, and understanding why you should be afraid, probably being afraid, um, of,
you know, making this decision.
And also, so recognizing the risks, but recognizing the rewards and, you know, basically choosing
to roll the dice and say, I understand what could go wrong, but I understand what could
go right and I want to do that.
So I want to risk that.
That's awesome.
And I know you've done several courageous things in your life, kind of burn the boat
kind of situations we talked about.
So let's talk about the rest and letter.
So what motivated you to do this?
Start this.
Um,
Sure.
So it's a pretty, pretty big undertaking.
And I don't know if you've done a newspaper before.
Yeah.
So I taught journalism when I went to the high school, started teaching at the high school
that I'm at now.
There was a small journalism class and it was only online.
They only did online publishing.
And then it was got to be so small that they shut the program down.
And then a few years later, my department chair came and she was like, or said something,
you know, to everyone, do you anyone interested in this?
And I said, yeah, I am.
Um, I, I did minor in professional writing and I did an internship at a newspaper in
college.
I was the opinions editor for the college newspaper.
And I'm just a writer.
I've done freelance writing, you know, over the years and I love to write.
So I was like, sure, you know, I'll give it a shot.
And I was able to get a recruit about, I think it took seven kids to get a class.
So we got seven kids.
And what I saw over those four years, we went from seven kids to, I believe it was 30.
We can't, we, the class closed at 30 the last year I was there.
But what I really, what I saw from that experience and I learned a ton.
But what I saw was the way that the, the physical copy of the paper brought the students together.
You know, they were proud of what they created because it's a lot of work.
And I just, I just made phone calls, did Google searches and figured it out because
there was nobody whose place I was taking and the there hadn't been a physical paper
there for a long time.
Anyway, so I saw this, you know, this camaraderie among the, and just feeling, feeling of, you
know, accomplishment for having this in your hand.
And that was the whole thing too.
I didn't want to do something online.
I wanted them to hold it.
And I wanted them to take it around the school and show off their work.
And so the kit, the students came together.
And then the school community related to, because, you know, the, the teachers that
were being written about and quoted and the athletes and the, you know, different clubs
and all of these, all of these parts of the, of the school came together.
And I mean, distribution day when we were, we were taking the papers around to the school
became, you know, a huge deal.
I mean, my kids love to do it.
And, you know, working together just, it takes a lot of coordination to get, you know, pictures
and just all the articles written in, you know, so it, it was really an awesome experience.
And I think everything this day is online and having that physical thing to touch.
I still, like, if it's online, I'm not going to read it, but if I can, and a lot of times
things that are online, I'll print them out so I can read them.
Because yeah.
And so then how'd you jump from a high school paper to your idea of the rest in letter?
And I know you did some research and cool stuff around that.
Yeah.
Well, it was, it was actually, and my husband doesn't even remember this, but it was his
idea.
He said something, and this was last summer, he said something like, you should do a rest
in newspaper, you know, and, and that was very flippant of him and he didn't think about
it again, but, you know, I was like, yeah, I know.
That seed was planted.
I don't like John Biggsman and the why not today.
The seed was planted and I went down and I went to the computer and I Googled how to
start a community newspaper and, you know, like 10 things to do, whatever it was, and
started researching things like, you know, printers and just all kinds of things that,
you know, I've learned along the way I had to start from scratch.
So but the thing is, I had the right connections because I'd been in the community for, you
know, I think it's 23 years and three kids.
So I know, you know, tons of parents and kids from sports teams and different schools because
my kids have been in a couple schools since we moved once.
And then, you know, so you just end up with, you know, you're knowing people on all kinds
of different circles.
And so, you know, the more I thought about it, I was thinking, I think, you know, I think
I could actually do this or even this was a shot at least.
And then, you know, it was like, well, I did get actually I have a story.
So before I printed or, you know, actually not before I printed, I printed out a mockup
of the newspaper just as has to see what the printer was like, the printer I eventually
settled on.
And the mockup explained my vision for the paper.
And you know, my main point was to get advertisers with it because this was, you know, not doable
without advertisers, of course.
So I went to a, I won't disclose the place I went to a business close by a bunch of businesses
close by.
And I got one specific place I got, you know, and the gentleman was not rude at all, but
he just said that'll never work.
That's not people.
People don't want that, you know, some, you know, I've tried it before and it doesn't
work, it just doesn't work and so it's like, okay, you know, but every month I bring him
a copy.
And the other day I walked into his shop and he looked at me and he's like, we need to
talk.
So I think we're going to be, you know, doing a story on him and he might, you know, there
will definitely be a relationship there.
So that was a rewarding little experience.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Anyway, so another thing I wanted to do was I was, I wanted to be, I want to be free.
And I don't want it thrown on yards and on sidewalks.
I wanted it in mailboxes.
So then I had to do all the research about the postal service and the different mail
rates, you know, and then I sat down with a friend of mine who's a realtor and we knew
we couldn't afford to ship to all residences in Ruston at least to start.
So we sat down and we tried to pick different routes, you know, in different places, kind
of cover Ruston north and south both equally.
And so we picked these routes out and, you know, so we had to do that.
At this point, it's not all Ruston yet, is it?
Oh, it's right.
It's not, it still isn't.
No, it's advertisers.
I do.
It's a little over half.
So, and, you know, this was another thing that made this more reasonable or doable,
I guess, in my mind was that I didn't need much overhead for this, right?
I just needed, you know, the software.
I needed to get the LLC, you know, I researched all that stuff.
And it, you know, the website and the email, you know, there's not much expense there.
And so as long as I could get the monthly advertising, you know, I could print and ship
and shipping is what's more expensive.
Right.
Well, we can talk about trying to get you some advertisers, but I want to go back to
the Ruston letter, like where the name comes from, because I know there's history behind
that, which I love.
There it is.
I love history and I wanted the logo to be meaningful.
And you can see it up here sort of.
But I looked at the logo and kind of looked at, I looked at, you know, a bunch of old
stuff.
I went to the Ruston Museum.
Which a lot of people don't know there is a Ruston Museum.
And it's amazing.
It has all kinds of great things.
And that's actually, I think I mentioned the other day, George Mason University has an
extensive area of Ruston.
Yeah, it's so interesting.
And you're right.
A lot of people who live in Ruston have no idea of this rich history.
That's what I love so much about the Ruston letter and the message is that I think you
mentioned to me that somebody that lives at Ruston Town Center and those anybody listening
that doesn't isn't familiar with Ruston.
Ruston Town Center is the new part of Ruston.
Ruston is a plant immunity.
But somebody at the Ruston Town Center said they learn more about Ruston reading your
newspaper than they did and how many years they've lived in Ruston.
Yeah, he said he'd lived, he picked it up and he read, you know, the whole thing in
probably half an hour, 20 minutes and said he learned more during that time than he had
living at Town Center for five years.
Yeah.
So many valuable things in it, which I love.
So the Ruston letter, that was the original Ruston newspaper.
I think it was even before.
So yeah, so I'm there in the archives, you know, rummaging around.
I sat there for hours.
I probably really annoyed whoever was there.
But it was just fascinating.
And I found that there was a newspaper that was published in Ruston called the Ruston
letter from 63 to 66, 67, something like that.
And it was more like a newsletter and it was when the community was being built.
So it was kind of an update on, you know, like the latest building projects and things
like that.
They had a big thing about the dedication of the town.
But yeah, so I looked up all the copyright, you know, information and the, you know, the
reddit on the name told my friend who's a graphic designer, you know, kind of go with
the mid century kind of, you know, lots of triangles, lots of angles.
And then I went with the red and blue because of the two high schools.
Oh, I did kind of say that.
So and I love too what you mentioned is how you're doing this.
It's not you by yourself.
And you said you've got a lot of students that you're using as interns, a lot of people
in community and I think we talked about this the other day, the resting community is very
community focused and wants to help.
And I know that in a lot of people, I'll help promote it.
I'll help you find advertisers.
I'm not going to write for you though.
I'll help you with a podcast if you want to do that.
Everyone has their thing.
Exactly.
But yeah, I, you know, for the first issue, I, you know, kind of convinced some of my
friends to write some things for it.
And I wrote, you know, an article about a promise to the community is what I called
it that I'll keep this rest in.
And anyway, so I, you know, I started with people I knew, obviously just writers I knew
and that first issue that came out in January after it hit and I print 15,000 copies after
it hit mailboxes, I got so many people are sending me their resumes, you know, they want
to meet so they can talk about what they want to write about.
And that's just kind of been the way it's gone since I started, you know, I mean, after
that January issue, I met, you know, probably two days later with a couple, two retired
journalists who live here, you know, and just other people who want and been here for a
long time and people who are new for one of the retired journalists.
So it was, she was moving to the area during COVID and she didn't know anything about it.
And so, you know, she, and she's, like I said, retired journalist, so she knows exactly
how to go out and find those stories, make those contacts, get the press, press releases
and the press kits and all that.
So she has learned a ton and she's been able to write and, you know, similarly, a gentleman
who is a retired journalist as well, started his own newspaper years ago, like, I mean,
just people coming out of the woodworks.
Yeah, there's probably so many more.
Somebody else that might be a fun connection for you.
There's a person who's a couple of years older than me, his name is Tom Jackman and he writes
for the Washington Post.
But I don't know if you ever said, I'm not sure what, I don't think it's sports.
I don't remember what he writes, but he writes for the Washington Post and been around for
a long time.
But he grew up here in Reston, went to high school, went to Harvard, but he might be kind
of a fun person.
Actually doing something I heard this morning, they're doing famous people of Reston, Restonians
are doing an event the museum's putting on.
Yeah, I saw that.
Yeah.
It's like the top Jeopardy winner who water rubrics with his mom.
So it's just fun, all the connections.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, I am excited about helping you promote this because Reston is near and dear to my
heart and sharing what's going on in Reston.
And I met with somebody this morning, talked all about you and your mission.
So we're going to find your average person to get to all of Reston.
But it'd be awesome.
Yeah, I mean, it took courage to do this.
But when we were talking, I think the bigger courage part, I mean, it took courage to do
this, but I think your past really gave you the courage to step out.
And as you said, because of your past and medical issues, it's giving you the space
to do this.
So share, I love the story of, and this is, I think, a bigger courage is how you got to
Reston from Idaho.
Yeah.
So when I was 21, I was in a car accident.
I was my senior year of college, really bad car accident.
I was alone on the road.
It was early in the morning.
I hit a sign, a building finally stopped or came to total the car on a telephone pole
and I broke seven bones.
My left, every limb except my right arm and my skull, my, like the orbital bones around
my, one of my eyes.
And so I had to drop out of college a semester before I graduated and I'd been playing softball
and so that part sucked.
But mostly I was a semester away from graduating.
I just finished my student teaching and I had to move back in with my parents and I could
do nothing.
I could do nothing.
Yeah.
And so, you know, I spent then, I didn't walk for six months.
I had several bone graft surgeries and, you know, physical therapy and I mean, during
that time so many people showed so much kindness and compassion for me that, you know, I would,
I tried to, I try to replicate that whenever I can because it didn't mean so much to me.
But I recovered and then I, a year and a half later, I was about ready to graduate because
I did get to go, I went back to college and I got to minor in professional writing and
that's when I started working at the newspaper and I wasn't planning to do that, the minor,
but I had an extra semester so I did that.
And anyway, I, a couple weeks before graduation, I was in a car accident again, same, pretty
much the same thing.
I went through a four-way stop and hit a retaining wall this time and a biker saw me and I was
having a seizure.
And so, but you didn't know that you know, and we still don't know why I had the first
accident, but we can only assume it was a seizure, you know, but also I fractured my
skull so I could be having seizures from that.
So we don't, we don't know.
And I did not break bones in that, in that accident, I heard my back, but mostly, you
know, I was then diagnosed with a seizure disorder and got on medication and so I couldn't
drive, you know, and that was a big deal.
I was living outside of Boise, Idaho and looking for a teaching job and, you know, I could
probably get a teaching job there, but I had a friend who lived out in Washington, DC,
and I have, and I'll call him, I live in Richmond and I visited out here, but she was working
on the hill with an Idaho congressman and she was like, come live with me, you know,
and I knew the metro and buses are way more effective here than, than in Boise and I know
that I could get, you know, have a good chance of getting a job, better chance where there's
the population is so much.
And so I love the courage component that you bought a one way ticket.
I bought a one way ticket.
I was like, you know what, just, I'm just going to buy a one way ticket and my dad thought
it was crazy.
He was not a fan, but I was like, well, you know, I'm just going to do it.
So I did it and I don't think that I thought about it very much really.
I did know that, well, if it doesn't work out, you know, I have family in Richmond and
I could go, I'll work it out, you know, it'll work out.
And that's what courage is, I think, you know, just taking one step and you don't know what
it's going to look like.
So did you move?
I know you got a job before you moved here actually, but did you move initially or somewhere
else?
Nope, I moved to Arlington first and I was teaching in Alexandria and then I ended up
in Ruston a few years later and I've been here ever since.
And I love, I was going to say, I love how you talked about being in Ruston and because
I didn't even know you didn't drive until the end of our conversation.
We're talking about this, how Ruston can support you and help you.
I mean, there's past, there's things close by, you can walk, there's underpass, but the
other thing I love the courage piece, I don't know if it's a courage piece, but you've had
to design your life around your, I don't know if it's considered a disability, but your
restriction of not being able to drive.
But what I love too is what she said is that you have the time on the paper and develop
that because you're not driving all over North Virginia and being Uber driver.
Your husband, unfortunately, has three teenage boys.
And so it's opened up, so it's a, it's interesting, the courage, you know, something that happened
in your life, you've been able to turn lemonade and lemons into lemonade and see the silver
lining.
And I think what I love about your story is it gives people hope.
And I think that's one thing that I really want this podcast to do is give people hope
that, okay, this happened, but okay, what can I do with it?
You know, what, you can be a victim or a victor and be able to shine a light.
And I think that's, I love that part of your story as much as the courage just to start
the newspaper is.
Yeah.
And Reston is just the perfect place to do, yeah, the paths to get around and it has this
kind of a small town-ish feeling.
And yeah, I mean, I was telling you this the other day too, what I've learned, I get to
know the best parts of people.
I was telling you this.
That's awesome.
I get to know the parts of the people who will just, you know, it's raining, let me go
pick up your kids for you.
You know, I had a neighbor once drive me to the emergency room because one of my sons
cut his knee open.
You know, these times when you feel, I mean, not driving is my least favorite part of my
life and that dependency on others is my least favorite part of my life.
And it has shown me sides to people that I wouldn't have seen before.
I wouldn't have seen if I didn't need them.
And just to be able to accept help from others, I think is, you know, it takes a lot.
I don't want to be, you know, I don't like being the mom who, you know, can't just go
run your, run her kid across town to a friend's house.
You know, I don't like that.
But I...
Your kids have their friends over at your house.
So you know what's going on.
What I've heard is important.
Yeah.
And I love how you shared that you get to see the better side.
And you probably, because you're riding a bike or you're walking, you have more time
to think and you're not like the machine of us being in a car and like, you know, the
horror stories you hear about people leaving a child in a car and not because they're taking
people, but because we're so distracted.
Like after a few places and I'm like, how did I get here?
I wasn't even, you know, because you're just in a static mode.
So we could talk forever and ever and ever, but I don't want, I try to keep it concise
for less.
So how would you encourage somebody else to live their dream and do the thing to say
why not today?
Let's see.
I think I know that people usually regret not doing things more than they regret doing
things in their life.
And you know, it's a short life.
I don't know.
I mean, take a chance.
You have a dream.
You know, go for it.
I don't know.
I mean, you can, you can, you can come up with as many excuses as possible and, but
also surround yourself by people who are affirming and who will believe in you.
I mean, I can't say enough about my husband and I really couldn't do, I mean, I've written
a novel, I've done this newspaper project and I'm all the while working or teaching
full time and I could never do that without him, you know, driving the kids all over town
without him, you know, doing the dishes all the time.
And all of a sudden, I love that you have the support of the community.
And so, you know, buy the one way ticket.
Yeah, just do it.
And that's often what my dad said, what's the worst thing that can happen.
And when I quit the job, it was the same kind of thing.
Like if it doesn't work, another job.
And you know, you just, you got to try.
And I think that's the thing.
I really want this podcast to share and the message to people to try it and to get involved.
And so, you know, if you're listening to this and, you know, you don't get the rest
in lettering, you want it, let us know.
And you know, if you want to be an advertiser, you want to help support her if you're a writer,
which is not me.
I'm happy to share my story and I got lots of help you with this.
So I always try to share, go back on my podcast and say, okay, what's the connection with
my dad?
Well, obviously you never met him.
But, or and, you know, immediately when you told me your story of your car accident, it
was like, oh, that's the connection.
So my dad, the night he graduated high school, got in a car accident and almost died.
And that's where he lost sight in one eye.
And that's why he's always black or an eye patch.
And so that's the logo of the podcast is an eye patch and a handle on mustache because
that's how we looked and that was his logo.
But he, you know, he had to do a similar thing to you, like you, he had to pivot, he had
to do plan B.
And actually at his funeral, my brother's talked about, you know, he always had plan
A and B, C, he was a planner, but the plans often went out the window.
So he was supposed to play football for USC and didn't happen.
And he ended up going to Notre Dame.
And that's where I met my mom.
And, you know, all these things wouldn't have happened.
And he wouldn't have been on the path.
And we probably never would have been arrested because it was in California.
Yeah.
That, you know, we wouldn't have been sitting here talking.
And so there's so many things that just that one pivotal thing that changes the trajectory
of your life completely, you know, where it's going to take you.
And I often go back to like, okay, what's that one thing or that one person you met
that led you to that other thing and whatever.
So so much cool stuff.
And as I said, we could talk forever.
And I know when we talked today, you were talking about maybe one do a podcast and I
would happily help you do that.
And lots, lots of people I connect can connect you with for the rest of the letter, but we're
going to get some more advertisers.
And I know your dream is to do this full time, which yeah, that's so possible.
So making a difference.
So thank you for your time.
So to find you will share all your contact information, the show notes, the rest in
letter is that online can people get an online copy or is it just physical?
Yeah, we've got well, I published the PDF version of the paper.
So it's not you can't look up an article.
It's not like, you know, vlog kind of format, but it's all online.
So you can look at it the way that it's laid out in the rest and letter.com.
Set your website, the rest and letter.com.
And you've got a Facebook and Instagram.
I'm assuming all the stuff.
Yes.
Yeah, all of the things.
Yep.
So this has been so much fun.
And as I said, we could talk forever and ever and ever and in closing thoughts on courage
or encouragement.
Um, I don't, I don't think so.
I mean, you know, well, actually, you know what, one thing real quick, one of the questions
you had, you had sent to me was, is you ever regret doing it?
And the, and, and my answer is yes, I do sometimes.
It's frustrating and it's hard.
You know, but that doesn't mean it was wrong.
And it doesn't mean it's not worth it.
So, you know, it's not, it's not always going to be, you know,
I'm trying to have unicorns and rainbows.
Exactly.
Unicorns and rainbows.
But yeah, but it is worth it.
And, you know, to see people be able to share.
Um, and it's amazing.
Yeah.
And you just never know whose life you're going to touch by something.
And that's kind of the motto I live by.
So the podcast is, you know, on all the platforms, um, we have a website.
Um, we can get the swag, the t-shirts, the cups, the vinyls, all the fun stuff.
So spread the word and encourage somebody else today to say, why not today?
So thanks again, Don, for being my guest and welcome.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
I'm excited to see what happens with the, um, the rest in letter.
Me too.
All right.
Thanks everybody.
Thanks for listening.
Thank you.