Today marks the four month anniversary of our departure from our home in Glen Carlyn. I find myself on the lookout for differences between our former life in northern Virginia and what we experience on the North Shore of Massachusetts that I can record in this blog, beyond the obvious presence of a NFL team that can win games. (Go Pats!)
A few doors down from Rosa Bros. is Newman’s Bakery, where you can get a mean pumpernickel bagel with whitefish spread, or fruit strudel if your looking for something overpoweringly sweet. Its décor is definitely preserved ‘50s vintage. Bernard and his sister Jessica, who are no spring chickens, took over operation of the bakery from their father at some point. I’m not sure if they have a succession plan in place, but it would be a pity to see this great family Jewish bakery close its doors.
We also have encountered family businesses among the tradespersons we have hired to do work on our new-old (circa 1895) house. Steve our plumber, has done a number of projects for us and brought along his nephew as an assistant. Apparently, his nephew was in the music business (Steve shared this with a significant roll of his eyes), but now needs a more steady income. When I mentioned to him that I was looking for a mason to repoint our crumbling stone foundation, Steve encouraged me to talk with his brother-in-law, Cal, who has been in the business for 40 years and learned the trade from his father. Cal didn’t do much more than supervise a couple of his men on the job, between runs for coffee, but we now have a “tight” foundation. Our roofer, also Steve, has the support of his wife Tammy who does all the scheduling and billing for him. And when we talked to Paul, to set up an appointment to clean the dryer duct, he assured us that either he or his son-in-law would be there promptly the next day.
A related theme to the family business, is an emphasis on the importance of longevity in place. Paul’s assistant, a tall goofy-looking but very sweet guy gave us the once over for moving up here from the South, and then proceeded to share with us that Monte’sPizza had the best pizza on the North Shore, and that his mother went to Monte’s every week since she was a little girl. A Yelp review of Dube’s Restaurant, a nearby fried fish house Trudi and I have eaten too much in a couple of times, includes the following commendation: “ I'm 43 years old and I've been going to Dube's for 43 years and in 43 years, other than finally excepting charge cards about a year ago, it hasn't changed one bit”.
Folks we have met seem to need to determine where we live and how long we’ve lived there, and at the same time need to let us know the depth of their own local roots. Now, I know that there is tons of history and pride in the past in Virginia, hell, Glen Carlyn was established as a neighborhood in 1887 and included the oldest house in Arlington that was once inhabited by George Washington’s tailor, but somehow it feels different up here. Maybe the drive to keep things the way they have always been is stronger. Maybe the strength of local ties and kinship have kept the large businesses and impersonal franchise operations at bay. Or maybe I’m just enjoying the sense of stability that these observations provide, given that everything we encounter is still so new to us.
To all of you kind people reading this blog, I wish you and your families a happy Thanksgiving.
Great post! We loved running into places like these when we were on the road - the Italian bakery down the road from "our" place in Sarasota where the owner would load you down with a month's worth of bread if you came in near closing. Now of course, we live in what a friend in Bellevue, Washington used to call "Plasticville, USA." Everything is new.
ReplyDeleteWell not everything. First question of new friends at Ashby Ponds are almost always:
How long have you been here?
Where do you live?
Where did you come from?
And finally, and perhaps a little darkly, are you the first occupant of your unit?