Green Valley was right in my backyard all I had to do was hope my fence and I was on the school grounds. We used to play all of our football, baseball and basketball at the school.

Miss my childhood there. So many great memories!!

Miss the old days racing on RT 4 and 295 . capital raceway on Friday nights. Kids playing from sun up till sun down outside. Didn't need toys we had the great outdoors to keep us busy as kids. Later buying malt duck for the ladies and beer for the guys where we could get it . To many good times to list . Ready to retire and move away any time now ,sure do miss the simple life we had back then. Have to love the 60s,70s,80s was a time of happy and fun times. Still have an old 72 nova set up like in the day nose down a$$ up . Hit the road in it and brings back memories every time 🙂

I have fond memories of living in Marlow Heights (actually 29th Avenue, Hill Crest Heights) in the mid to late 1960's. My father had a real estate business in Upper Marlboro. My best friend Mary J. lived a couple houses down the street. I have not been able to locate her but have thought of her often over the years. I recall a huge snow one year and we all made snow forts and igloos. Everyone put up Christmas lights and, on Halloween, went trick-or-treating. It was sooo much fun. Everyone participated. We made our own costumes rather than buying them like they do these days. We had a cherry tree in our backyard with delicious cherries (if you could get to them before the birds). Iverson Mall was spectacular. I believe it was the first time in Maryland that an "overpass" was approved for a walkway. It was a very impressive structure for its time. I used to walk there with my sister. I haven't been to the old neighborhood since my family moved to Camp Springs in approximately 1970.

Just wanted to pass on obit of my dad Ray Shegogue, Jr. that should appear in tomorrow's Washington Post - May 16, 2017 Raymond H. Shegogue, Jr. (Raybo) Public Administrator, Civic Leader, Volunteer May 26, 1920 – May 11, 2017 Raymond H. Shegogue, Jr. of Winchester, Va. left us to be with the Lord early Thursday morning a couple weeks shy of his 97th birthday. He is survived by his wife of nearly 70 years Wauneta Fankell Shegogue formerly of Clear Lake, Iowa and his younger siblings John E. Shegogue of Alexandria, Va., and Shirl M. Keehn of Port Charlotte, Fl, two sons and daughters-in-law Raymond L. Shegogue (Joyce Ann Cissel) of Cambridge, MD and Michael W. Shegogue (Virginia Kemp) of McLean, Va. Ray is also survived by five grandchildren Tamra Lynn (Richard) Graham, Jennifer Ann Murphy, Nicole Marie Shegogue White, Kelly Christine (Scott) Schartner and Michael Brett (Tara Nemith) Shegogue, eight great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren. A member of the “Greatest Generation,” Ray’s life reads like a Horatio Alger novel. Born into poverty, as he liked to say “in strawberry time,” the middle child of seven to the late Raymond H. Shegogue, Sr. and Ruby Kerr Shegogue on a farm in rural Oxon Hill, Md., Ray grew up on tenant farms during the agricultural recession of the Twenties, coming of age during the Great Depression of the Thirties and serving his country as a Marine in the Pacific Theatre of the Second World War during the Forties. As a youngster, Ray helped on the farm, boxed for the Oxon Hill Boys Club, and served as altar boy at the St. John’s Episcopal Church in Broad Creek Maryland where founding father George Washington occasionally had worshipped across the Potomac River from his home in Mount Vernon, Va. Ray also played varsity basketball and baseball for the Clippers of Oxon Hill High School as a forward and shortstop, respectively. Ray left school after his junior year to help out at home, finding work as a roofer’s assistant and a counter man/short order cook at the People’s Drug Store formerly located at the corner of Pennsylvania and Minnesota Avenues, in Southeast DC, where it was his daily privilege to serve breakfasts to two renowned Washington Senators baseball players Bucky Harris and Cecil Travis. Though short of stature, Ray was a personable, handsome, barrel-chested man with wavy brown hair, twinkling brown eyes full of merriment and an engaging, rascally broad, white smile. In 1940, Ray was proud to obtain a position as a GS-1 messenger with the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) where spittoon-cleaning was one of his duties. Ray volunteered for the Marine Corps in March of 1943 and after completing Boot Camp at Paris Island, S.C. and advance training at Camp LeJeune, N.C., Ray served as a private first class sharpshooter, manning anti-aircraft guns on various islands in the South Pacific until his honorable discharge in December 1945. Upon his return to the U.S., though a decorated Marine war veteran, Ray had difficulty regaining a position with the U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and, though Caucasian, Ray was offered and proudly accepted a position at minimal grade with an all African-American USDA unit during that era of segregation. After a couple weeks Ray was transferred from that unit. Soon thereafter he met his future wife Wauneta, who worked as a personnel officer near him in the USDA’s South Building and they married on June 25th, 1947. Through the G.I. Bill, Ray obtained a G.E.D diploma then attended night school at American University for eight years where he earned a B.S. degree in Public Administration, while advancing his career at the USDA and supporting Wauneta, who had retired from civil service to raise their two sons and taking into their home in Hillcrest Heights, Md. his paralyzed mother, a stroke victim. Ray’s big professional break came under the Eisenhower Administration in 1954 when Congress enacted Public Law 480 and Ray transferred into USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) getting in on the ground floor of administering the law’s Food for Peace Program. Ray learned the program, rising through the ranks to negotiate trade deals for America’s surplus farm produce under Titles I and II of the law with countries in the Middle East during the era of the Six Days war, Southeast Asia during the Viet Nam War and South America and to testify in behalf of the Food For Peace program before the Agricultural Sub-Committee of Congress, always working in behalf of and looking out for the best interests of the American farmer. Ever choosing to remain apolitical, Ray declined higher ranking jobs as a political appointee in FAS to retire from federal service on August 1, 1975 at the age of 55, a GS-15 Deputy Assistant Administrator. Ray always found time to pursue his passion for sports on the ball diamond playing shortstop on the Ellipse first in a local semi-pro league with his older brother Paul and later representing the USDA Aggies in a Government interdepartmental league. Later, Ray pitched for FAS in a USDA departmental fast-pitch league, once hurling a one-hitter that was marred only by a dubious umpiring call on a close play at first base. Ray was also one of the area’s top duckpin bowlers, annually winning sufficient prize money for high average and high spares as anchor man on his league-winning teams to cover his bowling expenses in the Monday Night Men’s league at the Marlow Heights Fairlanes. As he aged, Ray took up golf and was known for having a deft touch around the greens. He’s also been a lifelong fan of the Washington Senators, Nationals, Redskins and Maryland Terrapins. As a Redskins season ticket-holder for thirty-five years, Ray rarely, if ever, missed a regular season home game from his front row perch in the mezzanine and attended all home play-offs and Super Bowls VII, XVII and XXII. In retirement, Ray served briefly as a consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and dabbled in real estate. In 1983 Ray and Wauneta moved from their home of thirty years in Hillcrest Heights to the retirement home they built in Winchester, Va. There Ray continued the legacy of civic leadership he pursued in Hillcrest Heights as Presidents of the PTA Of Benjamin Stoddard, Junior High and Potomac (MD) Senior High, and the Dad’s Club, the auxiliary arm of the Silver Hill Boys Club, where for nine years he coached Boy’s Club and Hillcrest American Legion baseball. In Winchester, Ray became president of the local chapter of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees (NARFE) organization where he was proud to have supported Joe Beaudoin to become world-wide NARFE president for many years. Ray also volunteered with the local Red Cross to chauffeur those less fortunate to and from medical appointments, enjoyed reading to pre-school children and with Wauneta entertained nursing home residents with their ballroom dancing. Indeed, Ray and Wauneta’s great passion was dancing to Big Band music in various venues on the Eastern seaboard. Ray served as president of many dance clubs. Their dancing skill landed them a role as dancing extras on the silver screen in the 1982 Patsy Cline bio-pic, “Sweet Dreams.” Noted for their fluid, graceful style, they were asked to dance back and forth before the camera in the film’s opening sequence. Ray took great pride in dancing annually with the Apple Blossom Queen at the Winchester Apple Blossom festival and was sorry his recent brief illness forced him to miss a ceremony planned in honor of him and Wauneta at this year’s celebration. Ray also managed to pen an auto-biography in 2012, shortly before experiencing a stroke the following February. By the blessings of God, Ray recovered amazingly well from the stroke through his inherent, characteristic force of will and self-discipline, regaining his mobility and his ability to speak and swallow, though his dancing in public had ended. A nurse who knew him marveled at the depth of his recovery, noting, “He’s a remarkable man.” In his life, Ray circled the globe a dozen times, traveling with Wauneta to six continents, dancing on most of them as well as on cruise ships along the way while winning many dance contests, and visited every U. S. state capitol. His philosophy could best be summed up by his black Cadillac license plate: “IOK UR2.” Reflecting on his blessed life after 41-plus years of retirement following a 34 and a half-year career in federal civil service, Ray mused, “I guess I beat the system.” Indeed. Ray passed in his sleep of congestive heart failure. We miss him already.

We lived on W Street. I remember a neighborhood where kids played outside all day. We walked to school every day, sometimes stopping for penny candy at the T street store on the way home. We went to Coral Hills shopping center to catch a movie or shop at the Ben Franklin store for cheap perfume and make-up. I remember the excitement when "A Hard Days Night" opened at the theatre. Although we left in 1964, I still remember the old neighborhood.

Clinton MD was block heavy when I moved there in 66. I was the worst ball player in gym so the Blocks didn't like me at all. Until they figured out I wasn't a "cleege" (collegiate) and that I was a prankster. By the time I graduated (71) a lot of Blocks grew their hair long and took up the hippie look. One memory I have is Benariamba playing outside in a yard in Oxon Hill MD. The high schoolers in the neighborhood were all Blocks and they all came to the yard to hear us play. Blocks loved soul music so we played songs like "My Girl" and "In The Midnight Hour" and a few other Stax and Motown hits for them. Our bass player Joe said "Let's blow their minds!" So we played "InAGaddaDaVida", "Incense & Peppermints" and "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night", not knowing how they'd react. They gave us a jolly rousing round of applause, God bless 'em! Thanks for bringing good old memories back, my friend!

Does anyone remember patting the upper level stair rails at iverson mall and it made a cool echoing sound? Got caught shoplifting a peace sign at sumis and owners forced me to buy a lot of love beads to not call the cops! This wa 1969. Age of Aquarius and tie dyeing parties!