Home
You couldn't beat home for the convenience. It was cheap, and most of my best friends (my brothers and sisters) were already there.
Mother created an enormous library of books at home, so there was always something to do. We made up games, like jumping on old mattresses like they were trampolines. Maybe Mom and Dad couldn't afford a real trampoline like our friends' parents could, but that didn't keep us from biting our knees and bloodying noses trampolining on an old mattress.
We had long talks, and fights, and TV marathons.
Swimming Pool
Garside Middle School had an Olympic-size pool we could go swimming at every day in the summer...and we did. It was the best. Started out with a very gradual slope into the deeper water, so there was very little fear of drowning. Taught myself to swim there when I was twelve. Burned there on a very regular basis.
Libraries
Libraries were always and forever my second home, no matter where we lived. When things got bad at home, I could always escape to the library. Was always there in Vegas. The library in Maryland was right next door to the high school, and I practically lived there. Great music collection there.
Devil's Church
This one needs a little explanation. It wasn't a regular hangout, but a very memorable one nonetheless.
The first weekend I'd moved in, there was a party for drama people. I'd just met several people who would become my closest friends - Russell, Lore, Lynn Bierman, and possibly one other person.
They offered to drive me home, but first...they wanted to make a stop.
By way of the Satanic Church.
Now, I barely knew these people. It was nighttime. I was probably already late getting home.
So, like the mature and responsible child I was, I told them, "Sure, why not?"
And they started driving into the woods.
If you've ever seen "The Blair Witch Project", then you know just how scary winding roads, with no lights, with trees that seem to close in around you can be. They filmed that movie in Maryland, just because those woods are that scary. No joke. I was petrified.
We started scaring each other, whatever would make us jump. Goatman stories. Is that a light I see? AAAAAAAUGH!
As we pulled up to the church...which turned out to be nothing more than a small abandoned wooden building with a steeple, and a lot of stoners hanging out around it, we drove around it, and then screamed and peeled out for home.
Once was enough for me.
Marketplace Mall
Before it was torn down in 2015, it was a terrific hangout for after school, or even during lunch. It was just up the street from the high school, and just down the street from my parents' house.
My favorite video rental store was there - and a great bookstore when we first moved in. The movie theater at the other end of the mall was playing 'She's Gotta Have It' and 'Dirty Dancing' the weekend we moved to Bowie.
The pizza place across from the movie theater had some great pizza and calzones. My brother Mark worked there for a time. Later on after high school, my hubby worked at the movie theater part-time. We saw Toy Story there, the day after I gave birth to my oldest son (he slept through the whole thing). We even got to watch Independence Day from the super-secret balcony seats above the rest of the crowd one time.
The martial arts studio I would always stop and watch when I passed by - had one brother who got classes there. My favorite Chinese restaurant ever was in that mall - Baskin Robbins - and the Peebles store. My first bank account I opened there. The craft store they had in there was a lot of fun when I was a young wife. I used to commute to work, waiting across the street from the mall at the bus stop.
After we left, the mall deteriorated, and was torn down, as shown in the video above.
Annapolis Docks/Chick and Ruth's Delly
Those of us with cars liked to branch out farther than the local malls for hanging out. If you were serious, you went to the docks on Friday and Saturday nights.
Annapolis didn't have a lot to do, really - it was fun to see the boats on the water, and watch the new recruits from the Naval Academy walking around in big groups of Donald Duck outfits. My friend Stephanie in particular was smitten with the midis (midshipmen).
We loved to go to Chick and Ruth's Delly, and get a sandwich named after a politician. There were always new combinations for whatever president happened to be in power at the time.
Then we'd just wander the streets and talk until we got bored, and then drove back home.
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