Mark williams
from
Burtonsville, Md June 11, 2016 at
12:06 pm
I lived in Birchwood city and went to Potomac Sr High school graduated in 1976. Best time ever alot of good memories looking forward to seeing everyone at are reunion
Jan Hensley Bentley
from
West Melbourne, Florida January 25, 2016 at
5:01 pm
Hi Chuck, I just joined your Marlow Heights group and in one of your post you asked, "Whatever happened to the Blocks?" In my opinion it was drugs, the summer of Woodstock and Vietnam. I went to Potomac in 70 and 71 (in 72, my parents sent me to live in Florida for my senior year). I lived at Marlow Madison apartments and went to Hillcrest Heights (4th & 5th) and Silver Hill elementary (6th), Benjamin Stoddert Jr. High (7th) and then John Hanson Jr. High (8th & 9th), when we moved to the Alpine apartments. In my opinion, things started changing when we saw the older guys, who we had looked up to and emulated, go from recreational drugs (pot) to Quaaludes, Reds and shooting heroin. Driving a friend to the Methadone clinic was an everyday occurrence back then. Things got really bad drug-wise in Hillcrest around 70-72 and I believe the younger ones, like myself, saw it as a dead-end street and we wanted out. I also believe that our parents, most of whom were blue collar workers, wanted us to go to college and create a better life for ourselves. Both of my parents worked outside the home and we lived in a rented apartment! After the summer of Woodstock (August 1969), when the infamous Life magazine issue came out and going forward to the Kent State shootings (May 1970) things really started changing. Literally overnight the Blocks and Collegians merged. We started listening to rock in addition to our beloved Motown. The school dress codes were dropped and we (girls and boys) were allowed to wear jeans (before girls had to wear dresses). With Viet Nam raging, going to anti-war protest in DC took center stage over rumbles/fights in front of Murphy's with baseball bats. We weren't really becoming hippies, but we'd found a new way of expressing ourselves and we started channeling our teenage angst in a different direction. The world changed and Hillcrest Heights and Marlow Heights changed with it (we were no longer an insulated little neighborhood). Personally, I believe we remember those times as the best years of our lives because it's the only time in our lives when our friends knew us for who we truly were and still accepted us. You can take the girl out of Hillcrest Heights, but you can't take the Hillcrest Heights out of the girl!
Jan Hensley Bentley
Sharon "Bates" Dvorak
from
Maryland September 13, 2015 at
2:09 am
Marlow Heights was such a great place to grow up. We stayed outside as much as possible and neighbors were really neighbors. Summer evenings we visited from porch to porch...no one had A/C and it was cooler and more fun that way. We rode bikes and roller skated out on the street our doors were not locked with fear of crime ever.
More memories....Woolworth spending allowance with a friend to share a strawberry sundae, Hot Shops on Sunday, Hobby Shop...The park making summer crafts with friends, walking home from school in the spring from Hillcrest Heights...it was the kind of childhood everyone should have!
Gary Grissett
from
Waldorf, Md. September 8, 2015 at
8:09 pm
Before Iverson mall was there I remember the circus elephants were kept in the field tied to tree stumps.
At Easter, the baby ducks and chicks at G.C.Murphys.
Sandymount Elementary. We made a time capsule and buried it under a tree in the yard.
Clive Lugmayer
from
south carolina July 27, 2015 at
4:34 pm
Lived in the area from 1971 to 1996. I worked at the K Mart at Marlow Heights center 1975 to 76 and if you walked in there you most likely saw me as I was the assistant manager of the midway and often stood at the security podium at the front door... pumped gas at the Amaco across from the pizza hut and the kenneys shoe store just down from the fire dept on Woodyard road in clinton and its sister station down 301 where rt a and 401 joined up, just on the right across from the Sunoco station. K Mart was its' own little Payton Place.... we dated, loved and hated each other over the 1 1/2 years I was there and I am sure it didn't change! We went streaking down at Tantalon Estates near Ft Washington... did a lot of necking there,too. I remember in 72 when we marched from Decatur Jr High to Crossland HS to demonstrate against bussing... we burned a small bus in protest. I was on the bullhorn a few times to rouse up the crowd. Got a 3 day suspension from Decatur too! If you remember the Donkey Basketball Game in 76 at CHS then you saw me score the winning basket against the faculty! I was looking for a few good names on here, but this is cool to wander back in time.
Wow this site was a special find. I lived in Hillcrest Heights and Marlow Heights in the late sixties early seventies. My brother Mackie Jenkins met many friends that he kept even when he moved away. My first job was at Steak Ina Sack owned by Zack and his son and Ray and Eric were the cooks there. Ray was also of Arabian descent as the owner was and they found him a wife who became a waitress there so he could legally become a citizen. Wonder if they are still together. Oh lord or even alive since that was over 40 years ago. Kind if went back in time there for a minute. I use to hang out at Iverson Mall a lot and loved those pickles in a barrel at International Food store there I dated a few times Steve Youmans and one if those leather jacket cool guys name Murphy and forgot the other one. Lol. I went to Potomac High but have no memory of that school at all. I hung out at the bowling alley a few times and almost got in trouble there big time. Won't even go into that one. Lol. When I lived in Marlow Heights ran away from home to Michigan and when I came home to help my mother they were living in Hillctest Heights at that time. I use to miss my mountain home and would actually jump on St Barnabas Rd(i think that is the name)and hitch hike several times to go there which was a hundred miles away. Crazy now that I think of it. Don't think I liked the city much but I made a lot of good memories there with a few bad ones. Such is life. Thanks for the flashback
Great site! Lots of memories. Anyway, I now work a part-time retirement job delivering and picking up equipment for major construction sites. The job has me going everywhere. I went by, what used to be, Landover Mall. Gone! Evidently it got torn down around 2008 or so. Even the sears is gone. It was built in 1972! That brought back a lot of memories. The Farrells (sp?) Ice Cream shop, the 6 movie theaters, Spencers, etc. We would have birthday parties up there. Parents would dump us off and we'd run amuck then catch a movie. It got us out of the house for at least half the day. So, within my lifetime of 56 years, I've seen the Cap. Center go up and go down, along with Landover Mall. But, Iverson Mall and Marlow Heights are still there. Don't know what's inside, but it still stands. Has anyone been in Iverson Mall? Thanks (again) for the memories. Allen
Paul Thompson
from
San Diego, CA July 12, 2015 at
2:48 pm
I remember racing cars down Pennsylvania Avenue and going to the Hobby Shop in Marlow Heights. I knew some friends that lived in the apartments at Dennis Grove. I also remember driving to Raymond's Liquor in DC to buy beer because you only needed to be 18. When I turned 21 they lowered the age to 18 in Maryland. I couldn't win. On the way there we passed the Quonset Hut, some sort of nightclub.
Ken kulluson
from
Roseburg Oregon July 5, 2015 at
11:53 pm
So funny to have found this site,I have not thought about this place and those good times for quite awhile .Just a few thoughts anyone remember The old Eastover shopping center how about the old McDonalds on Livingston Rd ,Indian Head Hwy. Used to live right off Livingston Rd how about Jiffy sub shops you could roll up a 11pm and grab a steak and cheese.Someone mentoned SAMs car wash I worked there for a couple of months one of my first jobs lots of crazy times and people they used to pay you once a week in a little brown envolpe cash with the withholding taxes hand written on the envlope. The mall I think was the only indoor one around.We used to hang at the public library on Oxon Hill Rd great place to meet chicks.Man I wore out lots of shoes walking and hitchhiking around PG county, thanks again for this site it's funny how it's hard to remember everything. ,
Max Stubbs
from
Fripp island SC June 28, 2015 at
9:48 pm
I grew up in. Marlow Heights in the mid 50s. We played baseball at the location of overdo mall. Wa Jed to school, played golf at Oxonian run golf course, got ice cream at Highs. Great friends that I have list contact with.
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