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Monday Mystery

My daily commute these days takes me through Burtonsville. I know, how horrifying, venturing out of the Bubble daily, but that's the way it is. After two months of making this particular journey I have a few questions:

Did you know there's an actual Roy Rogers there? I thought they had ceased to exist. In my opinion, they have the only fast-food roast beef sandwich worth eating (not to mention the Free Fixins Bar). And they're offering free food to Moms on Mother's Day. What's not to like?

Why can I not walk into Dunkin Donuts and order "a large iced coffee, just cream" without ordering a donut? This is getting to be a problem.

A bigger mystery: why are there two shopping centers within a stone's throw of one another and one of them is a ghost town? On one side of the road you have Burtonsville Crossing, largely vacant except for a Starbucks, and on the other you have Burtonsville Town Square, which is fully occupied and hopping with activity. What happened here?

Also, didn't there used to be a thriving Amish market out here someplace?

There's got to be a story to this and I suspect someone amongst my readers knows it. My particular interest is whether what happened in Burtonsville could happen in Columbia or anywhere in Howard County. Possibly there are some lessons to be learned from this? I'm curious.

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