My Two Cents is a weekly opinion column from Bethesda resident Joseph Hawkins. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of BethesdaNow.com.
I do not tweet. However, there are a few people who tweet who I check in with periodically to see what’s up. One person is Dan Reed, the guy behind the Just Up the Pike blog and a new contributor to this site.
Last week, Dan tweeted the following, “… former mayor of Chevy Chase seemingly admits he’s never been to Silver Spring.”
I wish this surprised me, but frankly, it doesn’t. If I’ve learned nothing else living and working in Montgomery County, I’ve learned this: There are a fair number of county residents who rarely venture beyond their own neighborhoods, period.
Years ago, when I worked for Montgomery County Public Schools, there was an annual requirement that all MCPS employees participate in diversity training. For the most part, my accountability office, roughly 50 people, would do some kind of activity that centered around a day trip.
The office once did a day trip to the Holocaust Museum, followed by lunch at an Adams Morgan ethnic restaurant. Such an outing satisfied the requirement. The Museum visit focused employee attention on anti-Semitism and racism (a good thing) and the ethnic restaurant opened eyes to a different culture via food (again, a good thing).
I organized the Adams Morgan outing, and 20 years later, I remember a few of the questions about the lunch location. Was Adams Morgan a safe neighborhood? Was it safe to park in Adams Morgan? Yes and yes were my answers.
But what I could mostly tell from the questions was the reality that many of my office mates, who lived in places like Rockville, Gaithersburg, and Germantown, hardly ever ventured away from their own ‘hoods.’ And going into D.C. for a few hours was like visiting a foreign nation.
So, even though Chevy Chase is barely a five-minute drive to Silver Spring, I’m not surprised or shocked that someone from Chevy Chase doesn’t go there.
Years ago, when Montgomery County was heavily focusing redevelopment efforts on downtown Silver Spring, I was told by several elected officials that the area would become such a hot restaurant destination, I’d leave the comforts of Bethesda and go there frequently.
That sounded like a pipedream. So far in 2014, I’ve been to Silver Spring twice to eat out — once at Jackie’s and once for Ethopian food (Addis Ababa). That hardly counts as frequently, and I like to think of myself as a serious foodie.
Let’s face it — people rarely venture beyond their own neighborhoods, even if there’s plenty to see just a few minutes away.
Joseph Hawkins is a longtime Bethesda resident who remembers when there was no Capital Crescent Trail. He works full-time for an employee-owned social science research firm located Montgomery County. He is a D.C. native and for nearly 10 years, he wrote a regular column for the Montgomery Journal. He also has essays and editorials published in Education Week, the Washington Post, and Teaching Tolerance Magazine. He is a serious live music fan and is committed to checking out some live act at least once a month.
