Day 110 - Fox Chapel

The first house we lived in, for about
a year. The side yard to
the left is totally gone.

Today's walk was more about memories than anything else, which is appropriate, considering Christmas time often is about memories, especially those we had as a child.  So, today I took a walk through the neighborhood my family lived in when I was 13 and 14 years old.

The second house we lived in,
which looks very much the same.

In 1964, Fox Chapel was a new subdivision in Germantown, Maryland, with only about twenty homes, and many more of them under construction.  Germantown was considered out in the country, back then.  A ride north on Rt 355, then a two lane road, took one out of Gaithersburg and into the country, past fields and farms and woods.  My family moved there from Chevy Chase, Maryland, when we were having some financial difficulties, and my mother worked for the developer, who let us rent first one, and then another house in the new development.

Today, the area around Fox Chapel is developed to the hilt.  There are shopping centers, apartment complexes, professional office buildings, more single family home developments, and public transportation to serve it all.  It is just part of the massive corridor of metropolitan sprawl that is making its way north to Frederick.

Little has changed in original portion of the neighborhood, other than the fact that the trees are now mature and the neighborhood is more diverse.  However, the development has grown quite large, and so has Rt. 355, the expansion of which gobbled up nearly the entire side yard of the first house we lived in, which was the first house on the corner.

Oh, deer!

The old sledding hill is gone.

As I walked through the neighborhood, I passed by the Garrison's house.  Robbie Garrison, who was in my grade, used to take delight at the bus stop in throwing wet worms that emerged after rainstorms onto us girls.  And when it snowed, we were definitely the targets for his snowballs.  I remembered another house, where I had my first paid babysitting job.  Farther down the road, in the cul-de-sac, was the house of Mike Esposito.  Just as I was getting ready to take a picture of it, five deer ran across the lawn, looking for bushes to chew on. The big hill where we used to sled for hours on our tobaggans is long gone, now covered by homes. 

On other walks, I will have to revisit some other of the places I lived as a child, and even some of my old neighborhoods where I lived as an adult on the Eastern Shore. 


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Cam's rules for the Daily Photo Walk:

1. walk every day
2. the walk must be in addition to any other planned activity for the day
3. post a photo every day
4. use my Nikon P7100 (it is a very convenient size and weight)
5. no weather excuses
6. walk only where it is safe to do so