I was browsing the front section of The New York Times earlier this afternoon and came across an article entitled, “A Place Just Like Every Other Place.  Only Not.”  To my surprise and glee, the article was about my hometown of Laurel, Maryland!  Apparently, the place in which I spent my formative years typifies the ugly landscape that exists along Route 1 (which stretches from Florida to Maine).

I spent many hours at the strip mall (and the subsequently built enclosed mall next door) that is described in the article as follows:

Sitting here, suppressing the urge to flee, you begin to notice how the shopping center’s off-white walls and copper-colored top recall a minimum-security prison.

Awesome!  I am swelling with hometown pride!

The author also mentions the shooting of Democratic (yes, I know the party is different now, but you still get to claim him) presidential candidate George Wallace in the parking lot of the strip mall described above.  Perhaps a violent attack that results in paralysis is not the greatest association for a city, but it’s what we’ve got.

If you read the story on the internet, you can be treated to an accompanying audio slideshow of the “visual pollution” that dominates this main road through Laurel.

I loved growing up in Laurel, if only for the stories I can now tell.

We had Delaney’s Irish Pizza Pub, with a father and son who dressed as leprechauns and made balloon animals and a minister who dressed in Scottish regalia and walked down the center of the restaurant playing bagpipes every night at 7:00pm.  (This restaurant burned to the ground several years ago … apparently a plot by the owners to get insurance money)

Laurel is home to the Montpelier Mansion.  George Washington spent the night here and, perhaps of slightly lesser national significance, Nathan and I exchanged our vows on its grounds.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the Laurel Race Track, which is surrounded by seedy bars and cheap hourly hotels.  I spent the first part of my bachelorette party at The Starting Gate Lounge (before my friends and I got all snotty and headed to D.C.), and the staff there knows how to treat a bride-to-be with class!

Finally, my neighborhood has a great sewer system through which you could take a walking tour!  My friends and I often dared one another to walk further into the damp cement tunnel.  Once you stopped seeing the graffiti along the sewer walls, you knew that you had travelled further than most teenagers and that was a feeling of unparalleled pride.

So, Mr. New York Times Writer, you might have assumed that you could judge Laurel just by sitting in the parking lot of a strip mall.  My hometown, though, has so much more to offer.  The beauty that I mentioned in the paragraphs above only scratches the surface of Laurel, Maryland.  Our (sewer) waters run deep with culture, diversity and pride!