| Help!
We've Been Discovered |
| It's as if the Washington area just discovered Herndon,
Reston, Oakton and all of us country bumpkins who live out
here, at least according to The Washington Post. |
| In a Page 1 Sunday story built around the 2000 census, Post
reporter Dan Eggen writes: "The cachet that defines Washington
has spread westward across the Potomac ... to places like
Herndon, Reston and Oakton ... locales that not so long ago
were thought of as slow, semirural and often, just plain out
out of it." |
| That paragraph proves a point I've always had: Post writers
and editors generally live in the Maryland burbs and rarely
venture beyond their neighborhoods. |
| But all of a sudden folks in the District have discovered
Fairfax County, Herndon, Reston and Oakton. I would like to
remind the Post that it's been a few decades since we milked
cows out this way, and a number of years since our only restaurant
was a strip bar on Elden Street. |
| And in another typical Post ploy, they just had to mention
the Revolution Coffee Lounge on Pine Street in Herndon again.
The Post called it a "Fairfax hangout." |
| A Fairfax hangout? Hardly. |
| A 28-year-old woman who works at a Herndon technology firm
was quoted in the Post as saying, "This used to be the
sticks, but now it's the total center of it all." |
| Boy, where has she been over the past 20 years? Oh, I forgot:
She's 28 and wise beyond her years. |
| Maybe it's too bad the rest of the Washington area is finding
Herndon and Reston. Our traffic is bad enough, and who needs
more construction anyway? |
| Get the word out: It rains a lot around here, the mosquitoes
are bad, and the poison ivy is getting out of hand. |
| |
| State
Dems Rail on 'Gov. Gone-more' |
| The Democratic Party of Virginia, angered over the amount
of time Gov. Jim Gilmore is spending away from Richmond, this
week established a Web site with the address, www.wheresgilmore.com,
blasting the governor for being AWOL. They call him Gov. Gone-more. |
| "Governor Gilmore is falling down on the job Virginians
elected him to perform," said state Sen. Emily (Katie's
sister) Couric, general chairman of the Democratic party. |
| "Wheresgilmore.com is a tongue-in-check way to highlight
very serious and troubling questions about Jim Gilmore's fiscal
mismanagement..." |
| It's hardly tongue-in-check, and if the Virginia Democrats
continue on this course they just might bite off their own
tongue. Want to comment? The Democrats' e-mail address is
dpvahq@vademocrats.org. |
| |
| Year
26, Week Two |
| We at The Observer Newspapers are going through the same
argument that abounded during the millennium celebration.
Was Jan. 1, 2000, or Jan. 1, 2001, the beginning of the new
century? |
| On March 5, 1976, the first edition of The Observer was
published. It was marked, "Volume 1, Number 1."
Last week's edition of The Observer, March 9, 2001, marked
the first week of the 26th year of The Observer Newspapers. |
| That means we have just completed 25 years of successful
newspapering, and we are celebrating 2001 as the Silver Anniversary
of The Observers. |
| Because of this, our Herndon readers will find a little
change on Page 1. Every week in the upper right corner of
Page 1 we publish the year and week of the edition. Two weeks
ago it was "25th Year, Week 9." Last week it read;
"26th Year, Week 1." |
| Some time during the last quarter of a century we lost a
few weeks. But we've corrected that in the Herndon and Eastern
Loudoun editions. We've finally found those missing weeks. |
| The Reston Observer "year and week" numbers are
correct, and this week we will publish the "7th Year,
Week 49" of The Reston Observer. |
| Life is too short. I don't want to lose any more weeks. |
| And that's Our Town this week. |
