I’m walking mile two of my almost-three-mile daily lunch loop, and I’m on the trail next to Needwood Road. The midday traffic is zooming by, despite the speed humps. The cars and trucks are only a couple of feet from me, and I can see what kind of day each driver is having if I want, as they speed toward me.
There’s a smile on that landscape truck driver’s face. The other two guys in the cab are cracking up too.
Lady lost in thought, not emoting anything.
A teenager singing along to god knows what, glancing at her friend in the passenger seat, who isn’t joining in.
Lots of blank stares. What are you looking at, the drivers inside seem to say to me.
It could be that one, I think. The Amazon truck coming next. That could be the one that gets me. Is he paying attention?
It’s a thought that pops up often on this stretch, because there’s no curb, nothing between me and these powerful machines. All it would take is one second of inattention and I’d be gone. Or painfully, expensively injured. I can picture the paramedics pulling up, strapping what’s left of me to a gurney, loading me into the ambulance and then calling Susan from the back. “Mrs. Keane, we have some upsetting news.”
Haha nice try, downer brain! I don’t even carry my wallet when I walk, so they wouldn’t know who the hell I am. Think of something else!
I look down. At the surface of the trail. It reminds me that the first time I touched this trail was in the 90s, on a bike. My neighbor and I had just ridden around 10 miles from our rented townhouses, and we were on our way to the Rock Creek Trail, which starts near here. That trail takes you all the way in to DC.
After fighting with cars and dust on Route 355 from Germantown, you get here and you can relax. A nice wide hiker/biker trail next to the road. You can stop worrying about drivers passing you too close. And there’s so much less development here. Single-family houses on big lots. No townhouses and condos with dozens of cars parked out front. People who live here can walk to the park.
I was biking with my neighbor Greg, a big guy who was a physician’s assistant in the Navy. He had two small kids and I had none. It was his idea to make this trip, and he’d been bugging me for a few weeks to take a day off and check out the trail to DC. I was really glad we were finally doing it.
After we got home, Needwood Road stuck with me. It felt like a revelation, that we could live in the same general vicinity, but have our own lawn and garage and be close to the park. We didn’t have to move to Potomac or Bethesda to get that. We could live in Rockville.
I filed that day away. Greg and his family transferred out west, and Susan and I bought our own townhouse down the street. Then we had kids. And then it was time for us to trade up, to buy a single-family home. We asked our Realtor, Chip, to find some places for us, and one of them was in a tiny area of the county called Derwood. Near Rockville. Never heard of it. But the house was big, on a decent lot with a great hill for sledding, with loads of trees in the neighborhood, and a school within walking distance. Susan liked it, I liked it. Let’s think about it, we said.
On our second visit to the house on the hill, before we put in an offer, Chip picked us up in Germantown and drove us a different route to Derwood. He turned right and there it was! Needwood Road! You could walk to that road from the house we were considering. And from there to the lake, and the park. This is the place.
Now I walk Needwood Road a lot. Sometimes twice a day. Some days I dread it. Same old same old. I force myself to notice details that have escaped me. There’s the weeping willow house, with a different springtime flag flying from their porch. There’s the old lady’s massive brick home with the falling-down garage. I think her trees need trimming. There’s the tiny ranch house with the huge flower garden out front, and the people who seem to tend it all day long. Don’t wave. Not friendly. The yellow and brown birdhouse yard with the swing set. The yappy collie house.
I stand in the crosswalk now, waiting to cross the road into my neighborhood. In the past several years, I’ve evolved from a “fuck-you-I’ve-got-the-right-of-way” pedestrian who would dart in front of approaching cars to a “by-all-means-pass-me-right-by-I-can-wait” old guy, not willing to risk any injury in the name of asserting my rights.
The car stops. It’s one of my neighbors, smiling at me. I wave. And keep walking.
