My home town, Bel Air, is located 30 minutes northeast of Baltimore Maryland. It's a small right winged town of about 50,000 people established in the late 1700's. The most notable person ever to come from this place is John Wilkes Booth. The town, according to the 2000 census is just under 3 square miles in size.
When my family moved to Bel Air in 1983, there was almost nothing but ma and pa stores, movie theaters, schools, fast food restaurants, grocery stores, an arcade, farms and lots and lots of cow fields. I lived in a development called Marywood II, which sat next to Marywood I. I believe the name is a VERY loose reference to Robin Hood. I lived on Westwell Lane, but there was also a Friar Tuck Drive, St. Francis Road, Yankee Doodle Drive, and Vanderbilt Road. The developers couldn't seem to keep a common theme when naming the streets other then the fact that they were Mary Men, proud to be southern and loved money, power and God. There were probably 4 or 5 architectural designs for the houses in the development. Walk around the block and you could count 8 houses like yours, all with slight variations such as the color of the aluminum siding, the size of the garage, or the presence or absence of a chimney.
Bel Air is very VERY middle class, but I have come to realize that the people who live there are unaware of this fact, as was I until I left at the age of 17 to study design in Philadelphia. The small town people of Bel Air are unaware that there are much MUCH nicer places to live. Almost every other place I have ever visited, with the exception of Las Vegas, had more appeal, including the deep south and Queens. Many of the people who live in Bel Air have never lived anywhere else. Their parents have never lived anywhere else and despite this fact, the locals were snobs (and racist). Small minded families that shopped at the Gap and belonged to the town's swim club looked down at people who shopped at K-mart and swam at
Rock State Park. There were girls who's mothers ironed their coordinating outfits and there were girls who wore blue eyeshadow and hand-me-downs inspired by 90210 to their 5th grade picture.
I was the latter. I hated those other girls but still wished I could shop at The Gap. Either way, you still lived in a small 2-4 bedroom house with aluminum siding, wall to wall carpeting on a 1/4 acre of land. IN BEL AIR! There was nothing to do! Once a year, a carnival came to town. That was awesome. Also, once a year the town held it's annual Farm Fair, complete with face painting, horse rides, and inflatable castles. Other then that, families drove their vehicle, most likely a Dodge Caravan, station wagon, or Chrysler around town, to the movies, arcade, bowling alley,
the snowball stand, or to the McDonalds Playroom for entertainment. Also, the Denny's was open late for rebels who like to drink caffeine after 8pm.
Today, Bel Air is so congested. The fields are gone. Betsy the cow, who had inherited the land from her owner, finally died and
Harford Mall was built. The empty lot that once held the carnival was paved over to build a parking lot for Circuit City (ironically out of business now), Starbucks, Barns and Nobles, Target and a slew of other chain stores. The arcade and K-mart are gone. Now, TGI Fridays, Chilies, Red Lobster, Ruby Tuesday, Taco Bell, Apple Bee's, Outback Steak House, Lone Star Steak House, KFC have been built in it's place. New Developments have sprung up everywhere possible causing woods, old farm houses, and fields to disappear. There have been traffic light additions that make rush hour intolerable, schools are over crowded, and bars that serve sweet and weak cocktails in plastic cups have been established for the townies who have settled into their small lives. All the antique stores on Main Street have gone out of business, and the one thrift store (Goodwill) is so picked over I can NEVER find anything worth $4.99. Guess I have to go to Wal Mart for the good deals:(
I always knew that I would miss the carnival, but I never thought I would miss Bel Air, and I actually don't. However, I miss the way it used to be, before corporate America overpopulated my sleepy, racist, republican little town. And I thought it couldn't get any worse.
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