Today, I had a beverage with our illustrious poster, Sammy G, and his beautiful girlfriend at the Starbucks across the street from our old High School.
It came as a surprise to Mr. G that there was indeed a starbucks there.
You see, when we went to school, there was a crappy pizza place, a wendy’s, a “High’s” convenience store, a McD’s, a CVS, and a Pizza Hut within 2 blocks of the school, on opposite sides of Darnestown road.
Today, there is the same Wendys and McDs, CVS, and pizza hut, as well as a Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Subway, Comic Book Store, Sushi, Fuddruckers, Chinese Food, Mexican Food, Papa Johns (where the Crappy Pizza place was), Deli, Bagel Shop, and a host of other stores.
When we were in high school, the new Movie Theatre and Arcade was a building called the Rio. Now that is a whole plaza with RioGrande, 18 movie screens, A 2nd Mex Restaurant, hamburger Hamlet, Target, Borders, Galyans, Pier 1 Imports, Joe’s Crab Shack, Macaroni Grill, Starbucks, Taco bell, and a host of fancy outlet stores.
This can go on and on.. Shopping centers and movie theatres are popping up EVERYwhere here.. (there are literally 4 Multiplexes of over 10 screens within 10 miles of my house… and at least 15 Starbucks).
Frankly, I like it.. yup.. call me nutso.. but its cool for me. I hold little nostalgia of having to drive to Bethesda for decent food.. but there is an environmental and cultural cost.
The Small towns are going away. Frederick, the next burg up in the north, looks much like this now, and there is nary 15 miles of unadulterated highway between us and them. 10 years ago, we were the boondocks and they were a backward town. No longer.
So, Those of you here and there.. what do you think about the Sprawl. I’m divided, to be honest.
Oh, And Sammy looks much trimmer than I would have thought. The years have been kind.
Good Seeing You As Well
It truly is a Starbucks Nation…
—
Sammy G
BTW:
Time has been kind to Mr. Sammy. I remember a chunky guy in HS, but he is Thinner than Jared.
Remember when…
The Frudruckers used to be a Safeway. The Safeway shopping plaza that is now Johnson’s nurserys neighbor used to not be there at all. There used to be a family owned hardware store behind the McD’s that I worked at all through H.S.. I remember when Great Seneca Highway was first built. Matt and I thought it was cool to be able to ride our bikes down it before they opened the road to vehicles. The way the Rio has changed is amazing too. When it first opened it was strange to go out there because it was this complex in the middle of farm land (just enough off the beaten path). Now it is part of this HUGE Washingtonian Center. Surrounded by lots of money and business’s.
I moved to Harpers Ferry, WV in January 2002. I often compare it to what Frederick, MD was about 10 years ago. It is a city that is see it’s population explode due to the sprawl from Frederick and Virginia cities like Reston, Herndon, and Leesburg. The cost of housing is still really cheap in comparison to the cost of housing in areas such as Gaithersburg, Frederick, Reston, and Leesburg. The housing prices are on the rise as well though. We signed the contract to our house in April / May of 2001. When we went to closing in the end of January 2002, we would have been priced out of our house. The prices of the houses are going up that quickly.
I personally am torn on the Sprawl issue. In one sense I am looking forward to it because I can’t wait to have the stores more convenient to me. As the area booms, my investment in my house will go up, and I like that. Although it is hard to see so much of the scenic land in the historic area of Harpers Ferry / Charles Town be eaten up. If I had to make a vote one way or the other, I would definitely vote for sprawl with planning. They have definitely tried to keep the plots of land near me large enough (3/4 acre and larger) so the houses are not right on top of each other.
Happy Monday!
~Jon
Memories
You know, nostalgia ain’t what it used to be…
I worked at the same hardware store as Jon for a while. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t my “thing” for very long. I’d also worked at the People’s Drug store (what’s there now? It was the drug to the left of Safeway). The greenhouse is still there, right? I bought ten out of eleven prom corsages there, and used to buy flowers for dates a lot. Having a job at the hardware store paid for the dates, and girls went crazy over flowers at that point 🙂
I’d totally forgotten about racing our bicycles down Great Seneca highway, Jon, that was an excellent memory 🙂 I remember that, a few years later, rather than bicycles, I was racing my Volvo stationwagon against Bryan Gregg’s old conversion van down that highway. 98MPH in the rain. Mmm, good times. I remember we used to joke that his van had much better acceleration, but that I would drive crazy fast in my wagon to beat him…
So did they ever put in a crosswalk at QOHS that didn’t require kids to walk a quarter of a mile more to get to something across the street? I knew the seniors that drew the fake crosswalk, but I kept my mouth shut. I also remember Laurie McDermott carefully super-gluing pennies over most of the doors in the school. There was a massive manhunt for the person who did it, but I kept mum on that too 🙂
Thinking of Laurie, I just called her mom a few weeks ago. She’s pretty well unavailable; I wrote her a letter, but the email bounced and her phone’s disconnected. Gotta figure out how to get in touch with her. I guess there’s always snail-mail…
A part of me mourns the loss of farmland, and yet, if it weren’t for that loss, I’d never have been there. We had an old historical landmark Baptist Church in our backyard, replete with a tiny graveyard. I remember several parties where that was a standard schtick for the guys to hook up with the girls — take them back to the graveyard and scare them into clinging onto you. We had a large, empty field across Jones Lane from us, where the owner would periodically fly his plane out and land it, flying within a few feet of our housetops to land on the tiny strip. It was a killer way to wake up on a Saturday morning at 7 AM 🙂
So did they ever make bus stops closer to the Darnestown area, anyway? I remember the nearest stop was at the high school, and I’d have to walk 2.25 miles to reach it, then I’d catch a bus so I didn’t have to walk 7 more to get to Lakeforest Mall.
Makes me think I really, really need to buy a plane ticket one of these days or arrange a road trip back. It’s only a 44-hour drive…
—
Matthew P. Barnson
It’s Crazy….
Yes, there are a couple crosswalks that go across that stretch of road between Q.O. and the shopping center across the street. There is also a new (from what i know..) library right behind that shopping center too.
I am not sure about the bus stops going into Darnestown, parts of which became North Potomac. I drive through there a couple days a week since i went to work in the QO theatre. There are a couple new developments that sprang up near Darnestown Elem. which was near my house during those years. The thing that floors me is that the signs for these places are advertising that the houses start in the Mid 800’s. Holy bat dollars. I know when my parents moved away from there in mid ’92, they sold there house in the mid 200’s which was a profit for that time. I could only imagine what that same property goes for now.
Speaking of vans, I still miss my mini van. I remember putting in all kinds of fun little gadgets, lots of speakers, and having fun customizing it. I remember spending many afternoons in Matt’s driveway working on the van installing stuff (Making up the wiring as we went along). :0)
Cheers!
~Jon
Oh Yeah…
People’s Drug Store was taken over by CVS….
Scars
I still have the scar on my hand from our attempt to wire the amp straight-through to the battery. The wire began to burn, and in an attempt to stop the fire, I grabbed the wire and yanked.
That was, erm, thirteen years ago, I think. My hands are a little more wrinkly, so I don’t think anyone but me would ever recognize the scar as not being part of my natural skin folds, but every so often I notice that the line on my right hand is a little weird. It’s a nice mate to the scar I bear on the middle knuckle of my left hand from an accident with the key-making machine at the hardware store…
—
Matthew P. Barnson
harpers is just a great place…
Awesome move…