26 posts tagged “brunswick maryland” (page 2)
A neighbor found a stray cat today and somehow the stray cat ended up with me for care while we seek out its owner, or owners. I don't have a photo to post yet but will do so as soon as I get home and recharge my camera batteries.
In the meantime, here's a description of the kitty:
- Black and white in color
- Medium hair
- Under 10 pounds in weight
- No collar or tags
- Seems to be a very young female (although we did not have enough time this morning for a close inspection, so we might be wrong)
- Cat was found near the corner of Delaware Street and Brunswick Street on December 4, 2007.
We plan to put up posters, canvas the neighborhood, and then take the cat to the vet for a microchip scan on Saturday if we cannot locate its owner before then. I do hope we find the owner because as much as I adore cats, I don't want to become The Cat Lady of Brunswick.
Wow, I am so happy to report that our missing cat, Redbud, appeared this morning--after two weeks of hiding outside through freezing temperatures and pounding rainstorms. This is definitely something else for me to be thankful for at Thanksgiving time later this week--Redbud is back, and aside from having lost a lot of weight, she looks fine! A vet check up will happen anyway, and we'll make sure she's always wearing a collar inside in case she ever breaks out again.
Thank you so much to everyone who sent encouragement and support, to everyone in my neighborhood who kept their eyes open in case they saw Red, and special thanks to Drude, who sent me some very informative and true articles about how indoor cats behave when they escape outside. Check out my previous post below about Redbud running away in the Comments section--that's where Drude linked to the two articles (for reference in case your cat ever runs away.)
Thank you everybody!
When Red feels more at ease and calm I will take some photos to show you she's OK!
Red the Cat has been missing ever since she bolted out of the house at midnight last Sunday night/Monday morning. We miss her, and I am so sad she ran away like this. Red (who also answers to "Redbud" and "Buddy") is orange and white, 3 years old, and spayed. She is not wearing a collar. She is a medium sized female who often raises one front paw in an uncertain pose when she is confused or scared. She scares very easily and is not easily touched. Please contact me if you have seen Red! My email is: annamatt at gmail.com
If you are thinking of visiting Brunswick, this would be a great weekend to do so: the annual Railroad Days Festival is underway all weekend long. There are carnival rides, train rides, crafts, funnel cakes, music and entertainment, and all kinds of autumn fun.
Ironically, after a particularly harsh week at work, I am feeling somewhat antisocial and will most likely spend most of this weekend holed up in the house avoiding crowds. I had enough of crowds over at the Crafty Bastards show in DC last weekend, something I plan to blog about later on.
Our local Brunswick gym recently closed down for remodeling and transformation into an Anytime Fitness location. I can't wait until it reopens! The equipment will be all new, and the gym will be open 24-7 with full time security personnel and key card access. Many of the machines should have televisions to make the treadmill and stationary bike experience more exciting. The gym is expected to reopen later this month, and the rates are pretty affordable--you might be running out of excuses to exercise if you are a Brunswick resident. For a peak at what the gym will be like, check out www.brunswickfitness24.com. (The site claims the remodeled gym is open now but I have not called yet to confirm that this is true.)
Compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) are energy savers, but they contain small amounts of mercury and thus should be recycled rather than being thrown away. The Common Market in Frederick is now opffering CFL recycling. Simply drop off your spent bulbs at the information desk and The Common Market will make sure they are recycled safely. It's just another reason to love this place!
The Common Market Coop
301-663-3416
5728 Buckeystown Pike
Frederick, Maryland
Arcadia Publishing and author Mary H. Rubin have come out with a new Images of America historical photography book for Brunswick as well as a companion Postcards of America edition that reproduces select photographs from the Images book as tear-out cards for scrapbooking or mailing. I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Rubin and her mother/research assistant over at Book Crossing last night, where she graciously signed our family's copy of the Images book.
I am having such fun looking through the books, seeking recognizable Brunswick landmarks and marveling over how particular buildings have changed--or not changed--through the decades. There's several (partial) images of my 1910 house in the book, and it looks much the same to me, which I find to be quite amazing (but then again, my home still has many of its original doors and doorknobs intact, so I guess its past residents have tried to preserve it).
For those of you who have other Brunswick books in your collections, there's still a reason to get these: many of the images have never been published before, and most of the photographs are remarkably clear and sharp. In addition to shots of the city itself, historic images from the Civil War and the C&O Canal are also included.
Although I am a relative newcomer to this town (having lived here only 5 years), paging through the book makes me proud to be a Brunswick resident, and I feel like a part of its ongoing history. I'm excited to have these books to remind me of all the hard work and community spirit that went into building this little railroad town.
If you would like your own copies of these books, head on down to Book Crossing, where the Images of America book is about $20 and the postcard set is about $10.
If you Google "Brunswick, Maryland," one of the links leads to a compendium page showing all of my Vox posts that I tagged with my town's name. Unfortunately, near the very top of that page is a negative blog entry I had to make about my one neighbor who is a mean person--the exception rather than the rule in this town. I don't want that negative post to color newcomers' images of Brunswick, so, I decided to publish a huge, long list of reasons why Brunswick, Maryland is a wonderful place to live. Here it is, with items listed in no particular order:
1. Housing is still relatively affordable in Brunswick and if you don't mind putting in a little work and renovation, you can buy a historic single family home from the 1910s for $200K or less here.
2. Brunswick is conveniently located on the MARC train line to Washington, DC, and you can reach the train station on foot from most homes in town.
3. The social center of Brunswick has to be the Beans in the Belfry coffee shop and cafe, a beautifully renovated former church that hosts everything from local club meetings and New Years' Eve murder mystery parties to musical performances by local jazz and folk artists.
4. The best place in Brunswick to pick up your daily newspaper or a magazine for your daily commute by train is the newly-expanded Book Crossing book store. This is also a great spot for gifts such as candles and gourmet hot chocolate.
5. If you are furnishing your new home and you need some affordable yet solid vintage furniture, spin by Antiques 'n' Ole Stuff once a week to see what great pieces turn up there. (Antiques 'n' Ole Stuff, 27 Potomac Street in Brunswick; 301-834-6795.)
6. Thinking about antiques, historic downtown Brunswick has its own antiques district. Cripple Creek Antiques (where I once scored a vintage designer Scandinavian bowl for under $20) has a good list of Brunswick antiques shops on its website.
7. If antiques aren't your thing and you much more prefer to hunt for surprises and scores in thrift stores, try one of Brunswick's consignment stores. Phoebe's Travel Trunk specializes in clothing, accessories and gifts for girls and women, and the newly opened Pixie Dust has both new and used items available for little ones. (Pixie Dust also has an online eBay store so you don't have to live in Brunswick to peruse the treats they have for sale.)
8. There's lots of good food to be found in Brunswick. The Emerald Garden Chinese Cookhouse specializes in using fresh veggies to make its tasty Chinese dishes. King's is locally famous for its pizza and garlic knots (read reviews of their pizza and pasta and find their address and phone number by clicking here.) Brunswick Meat and Deli serves more than 24 flavors of yummy soft serve ice cream.
9. In the autumn and winter, when you walk the streets of Brunswick you can smell wood burning stoves and fireplaces and hear the sounds of the trains.
10. The parents, teachers, and students at Brunswick High School comprise a fairly close knit community that is extremely supportive of its sports teams. Go Railroaders!
11. Every night there is a beautiful sunset or twilight view available from the bridge that connects Brunswick to Lovettsville, Virginia, making the commute home a little more bearable for us all.
12. The best part about the changing seasons is seeing what's in bloom and ready for eating over at Lowry's Farm Market--currently showcasing fall mums and asters, fresh picked apples, pumpkins, gourds, and mini-hay bales for your autumn decorating, and more. (800 Petersville Road; 301-834-8303).
13. Brunswick is a very giving community full of citizens who support various charities and rescue stray animals.
14. Get your Brunswick pet groomed over at Muddy Paws Pet Grooming, which is owned and operated by animal lovers who have engaged in animal rescues (721 East Potomac Street, 301-834-6631).
15. Check out some of the front yard gardens on the 300 block of Brunswick street, including one with a gorgeous pink hibiscus in full bloom now. These are just a few of the beautiful little gardens sprinkled all over town.
16. The new CPL Youth Center is dedicated to educating, mentoring, and inspiring our children and teens. Underprivileged kids are able to participate in youth center activities for free or at reduced cost.
17. If you visit our town you should take a few minutes to get some exercise on the historic C&O Canal Towpath, which follows the contours of the Potomac River. Historic Harper's Ferry, West Virginia is just a short 4 mile bike ride away via the towpath.
18. The Brunswick Citizen is a great, affordable community newspaper that will keep you updated on all the important goings on about town. The newspaper encourages community participation, so go ahead and submit a letter to the editor or one of your photographs of local events.
19. Brunswick is a hot spot for train enthusiasts, who can learn about railroad history at our Brunswick Railroad Museum, the "Home of the Iron Horse." Brunswick's biggest street party of the year, Railroad Days, is happening soon: the weekend of October 6-7, 2007. Come on down and get your funnel cakes!
20.The first Friday of every month is also a street party in historic Brunswick; each month there is a different theme. Click here to see what the theme is for the current month.
OK, so I hope that these 20 items equals a "huge, long" list in everyone's book, because I am running out of writing time! I hope this post demonstrates that the good things in Brunswick, Maryland far outweigh the negatives. For every crochety old man in town who will yell at you to get off of his lawn, there's about 10 more good people here who are more likely to welcome you with a big smile or a hug.
Brunswick's Book Crossing shop debuts its newly-expanded digs on Saturday, September 15 during an Open House from 10 AM until 6 PM. Light refreshments will be served. Check out the expanded gift selection and the new children's corner.
For years now I have wanted to blog about this topic, but I have refrained from doing so out of fear that people would think I was crazy or paranoid. But the events that occurred in my neighborhood yesterday have left me no choice but to publish this post.
If you are from Brunswick, Maryland, then this post might be of interest to you. If you do not live in Brunswick, you may very well wish to skip this post entirely.
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Most of the time, I try to post about positive topics and highlight the positive aspects of living in Brunswick, Maryland. Generally speaking, it’s a great little town and I would typically recommend it to anyone.
Unfortunately, there is one bad thing about living in Brunswick that I am powerless to stop: my next door neighbor, who has executed a 4-year-long campaign of harassment against me and vandalism against my property.
The sad thing is, according to the Brunswick police, under Maryland laws, there is nothing that they can do to protect me or my property. Unless someone witnesses my next door neighbor committing an act of violence against me or an act of vandalism against my property, then our police can do nothing to stop this man.
So, for 4 long years, my next door neighbor has conducted this relentless campaign of:
¨ Poisoning my plants in my yard, including ones that I eat (which I believe is a direct attempt to sicken me);
¨ Trying to kill my crepe myrtle tree and hacking away at its branches (over the property line), because once a year it drops messy berries onto his sidewalk that he does not want to sweep up;
¨ Bumping the rear end of my car with the front end of his (burgundy red Silverado) truck, thus chipping off paint on my back bumper in numerous spots;
¨ Playing a radio at such a loud volume that I can hear it loudly and clearly in my house at 3 AM most nights of the year;
¨ Reporting me to the city every time he thinks I have committed some kind of code violation (such as not scooping up my snow within 6 hours of the first snow fall. Considering that I work in another state and can’t always drive home within 6 hours of the snow first starting to fall, I get fined $25.00 by the city each time he calls me in).
¨ Blocking access to my home’s foundation with fencing so that I cannot conduct simple home maintenance without setting foot onto his property (which in turn makes me vulnerable to charges of trespassing).
Even though this man has done this stuff to me for 4 long, stressful years, he gets away with it, always.
Even though the police have been called to assist me at least 4 times since September 2003, they say they can do nothing to get him to cease.
Even though this man scares me, and possibly tried to run over my bare feet today, and called me a bitch today, and told me he will cut down my tree and throw it into my yard today, apparently no one can stop him from harassing me. I tried to file a peace order against him tonight (a document that instructs him to stay away from me and my property, as well as my workplace and my son’s school), but because he has not slapped me in the face (yet) nor burned down my house (yet), my request was denied.
So, even though this type of blog entry might make me seem like a crazy person (after all, how do you know if I am a sane and logical person?), this is my only outlet and the only form of protection I have: to publicly declare that this man is harassing me and has been doing so for the past 4 years, and to describe him as closely as possible so that my fellow citizens can be vigilant in case they come across this person vandalizing my property or trying to hurt me.
I can’t give out my neighbor’s name or address here, but I can describe him as closely as possible:
¨ Male
¨ Caucasian
¨ Old—senior citizen
¨ White hair
¨ Balding
¨ No mustache, beard, or glasses
¨ Overweight, round-ish in form, possibly 200 pounds in weight
¨ Kind of short, perhaps about 5 feet and six inches in height
¨ Walks with a slight limp sometimes due to knee replacement surgery
¨ Korean War veteran, used to be in the Army
¨ Used to be an appliance repairman
He drives a burgundy red Silverado with Maryland plates (the first numeral in the license plate is a 7, and there is a stainless stell lockbox in the flatbed), even though his primary residence (where he spends most nights of the year, and the most hours of every day) is actually in Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. His wife drives a burgundy red SUV, also with Maryland plates; sometimes he shows up here driving her vehicle. Their first names rhyme. Their last name is printed on a sign that hangs in front of their blue house. There’s almost always a distinctive yellow snow blower on his front porch.
Please note, my dear neighbors: he has bumped other cars with his truck before, so take a look at your own bumpers to make sure that you don’t have any scratches or chipped paint. I’m not this man's only victim.
This man and his wife are only my next door neighbors in that they own the house next door to mine and come by to visit it about once a day (usually between 9 and 10 AM on weekdays) to cut the lawn, deposit the trash, and pick up mail. The man grew up in the house and is so emotionally attached to it that he can’t sell it. He doesn’t actually live in it anymore (except on snowy days when the roads to his West Virginia house are too treacherous to drive and he can subsequently call me in to Brunswick city for not picking up my snow fast enough). (A side note: I have always paid my fines and cooperated with the requests of the city, because I know they are not trying to harass me--the workers are just doing their jobs. But I hope our city employees are aware that certain citizens are using the city ordinances as a means of selectively persecuting and harassing and targeting other citizens, a practice which is unjust and unfair and should be stopped.)
Most of the day, my next door neighbor has the radio in the house turned on to volume eleven so that I can hear it all day and all night from inside my house (sometimes even when my own television set is on), a subtle form of audio torture. My neighbor is not around to hear this noise pollution himself—he is safely ensconced in his West Virginia home, blissfully reveling in how he has gotten away with harassing a woman and vandalizing her property for 4 years.
A little side note to the police officers, city employees, and judges in this county: this neighbor of mine thinks he owns you, and he thinks he owns this town, just because he is old and he has “lived” here all of his life (even though he really lives in another state these days). How do I know this fact about him? Because he told Officer C--- this stuff on September 4, 2003, when I was within earshot to hear him say all of this to her. That type of language sounds like a threat, but I guess under Maryland law, Officer C--- could do nothing about this because such verbal threats aren’t actionable in this state.
In other words, this man thinks he is above the law. He thinks he is better than me, and he thinks he is better than the police, and he thinks he is better than you. I guess because he thinks he is better than all of us combined and above the law, that’s why he feels he can poison my raspberries and damage the bumper of my car repeatedly with complete impunity. And so far he has done exactly that--destroyed my property with impunity. That makes me sick—literally nauseated. I think it should make some other Brunswick citizens feel a little sick, too, because one day this man might turn his unbridled wrath onto one of them. (This man also used to harass the former owners of the house I now occupy, so harrassment is a longstanding pattern with him.)
Because the police say they are unable by law to stop this man, and because under Maryland law I am not eligible for a peace order telling him to stay away from me and my home (I know this because I tried to file for a peace order tonight and was denied, because no physical assaults against me have occurred--yet); I am posting this blog entry in the hopes that it will help to stop him.
I hope that by alerting my neighbors to this man’s behavior, I can make them aware and vigilant, so that if they witness him harming my property or threatening me, then they can call the police about it and serve as a witness. If someone actually witnesses my next door neighbor doing these things, then some action can finally be taken to stop him. But until there is a witness, all of the photographs I have taken of the damage he has caused, all of the video clips I have filmed of how he has mutilated my plants and marred my car, all of the times I have called the police and asked them to help me, have been futile.
Apparently it doesn’t matter how threatening my neighbor’s actions and his words have been; it doesn’t matter what names he calls me, or how scared of him I become. No one can protect me until he knocks out one of my teeth or breaks my arm or slaps me in the face. This saddens me greatly, because I don’t want to get hurt, but I am afraid over how these events are escalating, and I worry that one day he will physically harm me because he cannot control his temper and he believes he is above the law.
I should note that this man typically executes his acts of vandalism whenever I am at work or otherwise away from the house and thus unable to protect it. He strikes my car in the mornings when I am either asleep or in the shower, unable to videotape his truck making contact with my vehicle. Also, the only times this man yells at me and says rude things to me and calls me names is when my husband isn’t around to help me. I truly believe this man likes to pick on women and other people whom he feels are lesser than him; he only acts on his bullying impulses when other men are not around to watch what he is doing. I don’t think he would have yelled at a male police officer, for example, but he felt he could threaten Officer C---, a female, in 2003. My husband would protect me if he was around me when these incidents occurred—but what can I do in the future when my husband is not around to help me?
I guess if my neighbor finally hits me or runs me down with his vehicle and kills me one day, then this blog post will serve as a testament to the fact that Maryland laws need to be changed to protect people from harassment before someone else gets hurt or dies. I think the definition of what constitutes criminal harassment needs to be altered to encompass multiple-year campaigns of property destruction like the one this man has waged.
That’s why I am posting this, too: so that if anything happens to me and I can no longer speak out about all of this, then at least some kind of public record of my problem exists (because the request for a peace order I filed tonight will most likely be disposed of, leaving no documentation that I ever tried to stop this harassment).
I am truly saddened that the actions of one lunatic like this makes me feel like moving away from Brunswick. I’d move away (to another state with more protective laws) this very instant if I could afford to do so, but I can’t afford it right now, so all I can do is blog about this pattern of events and “out” this neighbor for his immoral behavior. I am sad that for all of the great, wonderful people and things that exist in this town, one crazy, unstoppable vandal is coloring my feelings about living here and is making me want to leave.
I hope that my descriptions of this man have been significant enough to “out” him for his devious and malicious behavior and to stop him so that he never succeeds in vandalizing property or harassing people again. At least if my fellow Brunswick citizens know who he is, then they can watch out for him, because he will harm my property again, and I do believe he would gladly mutilate the property of others, too. After all--he knows he is unstoppable, and he has already stated in front of a police officer that he owns all the police officers and judges in this county. Does that sound like a man who will respect the property rights, peace and privacy of others?
I just want my neighbor to leave me and my stuff alone. I just want peace and an end to the incessant fear and worry. How much longer do I have to deal with this? Is 4 years going to turn into half a decade or more of this harassment and property destruction?
Every time from now on that this man threatens me or harms my property, I am going to post a detailed blog entry about it here, revealing every detail and fact about the events that I can. I will also post any relevant photographs, even if it inadvertently reveals where I live. It’s the only thing I know of that I can do to protect myself, ironic as that might seem.
(Postscript dated August 27th: Any interactions between me and my neighbor described in the paragraphs above as occurring “today” occurred Sunday, August 26, 2007, at approximately 6:10 PM, in the street in front of our houses. My house modem is down right now so I could not post this blog entry until Monday.)
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