A Different Neighborhood

 

So your kid goes away to college and learns things. Better than that, they want to share what they’ve learned. That’s how my husband and I ended up at a place on Route 40 called The Hub last summer. And yesterday brought a text to meet up at another place we had never been: Opie’s.

Opie’s is on Edmondson Avenue in Catonsville and their website proudly proclaims that they were established in 1984. For those of us who feel that 1984 was just yesterday (wasn’t it?) it may take a moment to appreciate how long ago that was. Opies Soft Serve & Snowballs is widely known in the area and you may very well have been there already.

It was an entirely new experience for me but it felt like a bit of time travel, too. I could have been back in my own childhood as I enjoyed an icy cold treat while sitting at a shaded table on the generous lawn behind Opie’s. At the table next to ours a very happy dog was enjoying a small cup of something cool and delicious.

I had a root beer snowball with vanilla ice cream, in honor of the first snowball I had when I came to Baltimore in…1985. (Ooh.) At Opie’s this is called a Snowcream. It was exactly what I was hoping it would be. 

The part of Edmondson Avenue where Opie’s is located is a pocket of commercial properties surrounded by what we in Columbia would call “old houses.” It was the old houses combined with the ice cream place just a short walk away that reminded me of my childhood. Oh, what a dream it would be to live in the house that sits behind Opie’s and have all that ice cream joy in your front yard. 

The history of Opie’s describes how it all came to be:

John Corbitt – aka Opie – who was 20 at the time, decided to start selling snowballs from an 8 ft x 8 ft “shack” that he built in a weekend with his ole friend Beansie, who lived in the house behind the stand.

So many questions are running through my mind. What did Beansie’s parents think of all this? Did they have to get planning/zoning permission? Were there multiple hearings? Did people turn out to protest the change to the quiet neighborhood character? Did he have to pay rent to Beansie’s folks? They make it all sound so simple. 

Of course, this isn’t Columbia/HoCo. Not everyone gets worked up over things like this.

My recommendation: if you pop on over to Catonsville to Opie’s this summer, spend some time really looking at and enjoying that neighborhood and its combination of gorgeous old houses and modest small businesses. (Yes, one of them is a 7-11 but there’s a very cool mural painted on the back.) You will definitely know you are out of The Bubble and you might even feel like you’re on vacation in a place near a beach or some other vacation locale.

It’s so different from what we are used to. I’d love to know the history of that particular part of Catonsville. How did it come to be the way it is today?

Finish your trip by driving back through Old Ellicott City and just drink it in. That’s what we did yesterday. Main Street was just so beautiful and welcoming decorated for Pride. People were out and about and it gave me such a happy feeling to see how alive it was. I wish I had taken some pictures to share here but you will just have to go and see for yourself.