alternative hippopotamus

When I was living in Boston I found that most people I knew had some mistaken preconceptions about life in DC. The nature of these preconceptions varied widely, but there were a few themes:

• DC consisted of Chevy Chase, the Mall, and except for that, homeless people and drug overlords. Entertainment was mostly in the form of drive-by shootings.
• DC has a fine shopping mall at Crystal City, but there wasn’t much to do beyond that.
• DC consisted of a few acres of low-rise drab grey buildings, where mindless bureaucrats would watch the clock until the whistle blew at 5, at which point they’d retire to their suburban lives of quiet desperation.
• While the Mexican food in Boston is nothing to write home about, DC has the worst of any metropolitan area.

Lies, lies, lies, and okay, that last one may be true.

At any rate, when I moved back to Washington I wanted to be the eyes and ears for those who were interested in knowing more about life in DC, to paint a picture that may clear up some of these common misconceptions. I’ve fallen down on that aim, but there’s no time like the present to correct the balance.

I’ve also heard a certain old saw from folks moving here from the Northeast: that they could imagine living in Maryland, or DC proper, but never Virginia. Their conception of Maryland, and DC proper was just that different from surrounding Virginia. And, to be fair, you can’t just dismiss this completely. Many of the more vocal of the far-right, e.g., Rove, Norquist, Santorum, DeLay, live in Virginia. I’m just saying that sometimes where you live is more than just a question of geographics. Sometimes ideology gets folded in.

That being said, I’m a big fan of Arlington and Alexandria. I lived in Arlington for a year after grad school and loved it. Though, there’s no way I’d recognize Clarendon (a section of Arlington southwest of Georgetown) for the upscale area it is now.

Clarendon Boulevard integrates shops, restaurants, cafes, and apartments, in a way that matches the best urban planning of the UK or Europe, but does it in a way that pays respect to Virginia’s colonial style. I thought the way fountains, a playground, and trendy shopping (the Apple Store, EMS, Whole Foods, etc.) were combined makes it feel like a place that your home is part of a village.

But, for a second, back to the Virginia vs. DC/Maryland thing. There’s some old prejudices, and these things die hard with a vengeance. Originally, DC was composed of land from Virginia and Maryland, forming a square, ten miles on each side, vertices aligned to compass North and South, etc. Then in 1847, the land from Virginia was “retroceeded”. While this wikipedia article has more detail, basically Virginia took their land back. I’ve never understood why, exactly, but that’s what happened.

So, there was that. And there was the Civil War thing. While Virginia was part of the Confederacy during the Civil War, Maryland was neutral. Yes, you can certainly argue that Maryland would have seceeded, except for the inconvenience of Federal troops that kept them from doing so. Still, Virginia was, and to some extent still is, part of the culture of the South. Maryland, to the extent that it has a culture, is not part of the South.

Growing up and being educated in Rockville, Maryland, I can assure you that the history of Maryland’s neutrality vs. Virginia’s, umh, not so much neutrality in the Civil War, came up every so often. And, during the Civil Rights movement in the 1960’s, my elementary school years, Virginia’s not so much neutrality was frowned on.

The roles of the two states during the Civil War bears re-examining, however. I was reminded of this recently touring the historic home, described in the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. (See this Boston Globe article) As it turned out, we studied the book in public school, but no one mentioned in my years of the progressive Montgomery County school system that the actual slave home was located close by on Old Georgetown Road.

Imagine my surprise when, during the tour, the tour guide mentioned that the slave who had written the autobiography that was the basis for Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Josiah Henson, was bought at the Rockville slave auction.

The Rockville slave auction? How come this was the first time I heard that there was a Rockville slave auction? We studied the Civil War early and often. No mention of a slave auction in Rockville. My high school, Richard Montgomery, was a short walk from where the slave auctions were held. And this is the first time I heard about it. And, this was not just one of many slave auctions. This was where Josiah Henson, the basis for Uncle Tom’s Cabin was auctioned off. This was possibly the most famous slave of the entire Civil War, and the fact that Rockville was where he was sold into slavery, and where he lived in slavery, somehow got left off the curriculum.

I mention this so that you know that the history of DC and its environs, in this case Maryland and Virginia, is a bit more complex than may meet the eye at first.