Skip to main content

Route 108 Both Ways


 

It’s cold out there! You’ll need to bundle up if you’re headed to the Clarksville Cars and Coffee event this morning.




Location: Parking lot of Clarksville Commons

Time: 8-10 am

More information: Clarksville Cars and Coffee Facebook Group 

In August I wrote about car meets and the struggles of one particular local group trying to host Cars and Boba in the parking lot of Normandy Shopping Center. The concept of “car meets” was new to me. I’m not finding signs of any resolution to that in an online search. I’ll reach out to organizer Vincent Harris to see if their petition yielded any positive results.

If you’re curious about the origin of Cars and Coffee, this article from 2019 will fill you in.

“California’s granddaddy Cars and Coffee revives for a one-time (maybe) reunion”Aaron Robinson, Hagerty Media

If you’re not that into cars, or you’re not eager to embrace the return of low temperatures, may I suggest the new lineup of indoor performances at the Common Kitchen? Live music will be Friday nights (with a couple of Saturdays) from 5 to 7:30 pm. It looks like Trifecto is running some Happy Hour specials as well. 

1/6 – Calvin Thomas

1/12 – Richard Rowe

1/20 – Janine Wilson

1/27 – Calvin Thomas

2/3 – Drew Cline

2/10 – Janine Wilson

2/17 – Calvin Thomas

2/24 – Michael Walls

Saturday 1/14 – Jeff DeBonis

Saturday 2/18 – Evan Behre (PENDING)


*****

Finally, a bit of historical context to that renovation I wrote about in December. Remember Columbia Station? 


Image is a screenshot from Loopnet.com


Thanks to Ilana Bittner of HoCoMoJo, I learned that one can consult Google Maps/Street View for historical images of particular sites. Here’s a series of photos taken of this address from 2009 - 2018.


Images from Google Maps/Street View 


It was clearly a residential property at some point - - maybe two? There really aren’t many homes on that stretch of 108. I’d love to know that story.

Speaking of Route 108, my husband came home on one of those really cold days before Christmas with his eyes all atwinkle. It seems that a large puddle in the grassy area on the side of the road near Glenmont had frozen over and there were kids playing ice hockey. Over to the side, away from the action, one lone girl was ice dancing.

My husband offered to take me over so I could see for myself. Alas, I turned him down. I regret passing up that opportunity.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday.  Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was  "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018.  2018 .  But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest.  In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...