I moved to Northern Virginia in the late 70s from Prince Georges County. My neighborhood felt like the end of the line. If you continued west through Burke, the roads became winding country roads with signs of the old south all around. I was part of the vanguard of inner suburbanites pushing sprawling suburbs outside the beltway and encroaching on a land long occupied by farmers. The result was rednecks and government workers coexisting to create a community that had shopping malls and pool halls next to each other.

I moved the Burke as a youngster and I remember a house down the road that supposedly housed the local Pagans MC chapter right next to the local library branch. Muscle cars pulling up next to Mercedes on Burke Lake Rd. It was a weird world between the redneck past and yuppy future.

The housing boom killed most of this in Arlington, Alexandria, and Fairfax. Any piece of land was snapped up by the well off and blue collar folks sold their inflated property or were priced out. They headed south and west to places like Stafford and West Virginia.

I've found myself reminiscing about that lost past so I hope to find those lost fragments of the past. I hope to find the real Northern Virginia.