The Way I See It

by Dennis J. Lane



Grape Expectations"How many guys were in the apartment?"

"Thirteen."

Some things never change. I was talking to my nephew at his high school graduation party last month. He and his buddies had just gotten back from the ritual high school graduation trip to Ocean City. They rented a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment for a week.

"We slept in shifts."

During the day of course. It is comforting to know that this still goes on.

I still remember my high school graduation Ocean City trip. The best meal I ever had was during that week. If I close my eyes I can still taste that meal. It was at the Paul Revere Smorgasbord in the Plim Plaza Hotel at 2nd Street and Boardwalk.

The Paul Revere Smorgasbord?

Of course you have to take it in context. I was with my buddies and fellow Wilde Lake High School graduates, Jim Binckley, Dave Krausz and Jack Wooden.

Jim, Jack and I had a hotel room at the old George Washington Hotel at 10th and Boardwalk. Dave was staying in the same hotel with his Uncle Johnny who was in town for his annual Veterans of Foreign Wars convention.

Towards the end of the week our discretionary funds had gotten a little low, and we were faced with making a choice between beer and food. Eighteen-year-old males full of post high school graduation euphoria don't always make good choices. We were no exception.

We opted to go without food. We figured that we were only going to be there for another day and a half, and when we got back to Columbia we knew that there were refrigerators and cabinets full of food in our parents' houses waiting for us.

No big deal, right?

Wrong.

Twelve hours after our fast we began to seriously question the wisdom of our collective decision. The beer was gone, too. We were starving. We were starving while sitting on the boardwalk smelling the sweet smells of French fries, caramel corn and hot dogs. It was torture.

Uncle Johnny came to our rescue. Since it was everyone's last night in Ocean City, Uncle Johnny decided to take all us boys to dinner. He wisely chose the "all you can eat" Paul Revere Smorgasbord.

We thought we had died and gone to heaven. Four teenage boys can do some serious damage to an "all you can eat" smorgasbord.

The adventures of my nephew and his cohorts bought that fine memory back to me last month. The more things change, the more they stay the same, as the saying goes.

That thought occurred to me as I pondered the battle being waged over the new Iron Bridge Wine Company on Route 108 in Columbia. Long before I was in high school, and long before Columbia was even conceived, a little roadhouse bar opened up on what was then referred to as the Clarksville Pike. Most recently the bar was called the Crown Pub. It was a redneck bar in a yuppie neighborhood. Kind of a fish out of water.

No more. Earlier this year the old Crown Pub was sold, and the new owners transformed the place into a unique restaurant/cafŽ/wine bar called The Iron Bridge Wine Company.

This place is the polar opposite of the Crown Pub. It has ignited a full-scale protest from the neighboring community known as Beaverbrook. Beaverbrook is one of those pre-Columbia subdivisions. I am not sure when exactly it sprouted up among the cornfields of Howard County, but it was before Jim Rouse started buying up all of the surrounding land.

When I was growing up around here we always thought of the people who lived in Beaverbrook as being a bit hostile towards the newcomers. We called the kids who lived there "Beaver brats."

Of course much of that has now changed, and at first glance it would appear that Beaverbrook is now fully assimilated into Columbia. Columbia surrounds it, and its roads are linked to the Columbia neighborhood of Longfellow.

But dig a little deeper and you will find that some of that old animosity toward Columbia and change still exists. How else would you explain the residents' anger over the Iron Bridge Wine Company? This is a very nice place. Steve Wecker and his partners have invested a great deal of money and energy to create a place that caters to the tastes of the surrounding community. They have bent over backwards to address the concerns of traffic and noise.

It's actually funny that the neighbors in Beaverbrook are concerned about the noise. Remember that this used to be a redneck bar where an occasional fight in the parking lot was not out of the norm. Nowadays, the only noises you are likely to hear in the parking lot are departing patrons discussing the merits a Shiraz versus a Zinfandel.

It is also interesting to note that the Beaverbrookians did not seem to object very loudly when the Clark family opened a petting zoo right across the street.

"We were flabbergasted at the negative reaction," Steve Wecker told me.

I wasn't. This is Beaverbrook after all.