Out my car window: Main Street Winter Snapshots

Holiday Season, 2010

Confession: I was going to do something quite different for this wintry holiday season, with interviews, and interior views and products. But, on a hasty trip to Atwaters in Catonsville yesterday morning because of a sudden craving for that coffee, that country white bread, and that small tub of goat cheese with olives (you know how these sudden urges grab you!), the car literally drove itself into Baltimore County to Catonsville's Main Street.

Driving down Church Road, then turning left onto Main Street through Ellicott City Historic District, I shot as many photos out my car window as I could without being arrested.

Now that we can't use our cell phones, this...nevermind...

Getting ahead of myself, but you can follow, I'm sure, driving back up Main Street with the coffee, bread, and cheese, I took a few more photos, such as this one of a group of carol singers in action. I didn't realize until now that they were singing...I just saw the art work on the wall in a kind of blur.

The expressed rationale for changing my mind about the blog post: It was too cold to do a close-up and personal, anyway...and some of the folks I was going to interview were not "in the office," so to speak. No matter!

Here's the thing: I go back to Main Street over and over again for the same reasons--beginning with the strangely alive historic building materials, then the steep siting, leading to the Patapsco River...the architectureal features...granite, windows, display windows, then up to the roof lines, the tangle of telephone wires, and back down down to earth and inside the stores--the wonderful people I meet and talk to who become friends over time. See?

You, the reader, should take this walk down Main Street yourself, slowly, because I will not be identifying the stores I photographed out the car window...it would spoil the idea.

Also, many of the photos will be at angles and I am not straightening them out in a desire to be, you know, perfect. Because nothing ever is, and in their skewed angles, they speak to the spontaneity and perhaps success of this approach. The traffic slowed--Still Life Gallery...

A few more shots now and I encourage you to take this trip, but do it on foot and savor the district from upper to lower Main Street. You will enjoy the overall experience of walking through history, stopping to look, to shop, to eat, and to enjoy another day or evening on Main Street in Ellicott City Historic District!

A traffic light near this iconic toy store close to the Patspsco River on lower Main Street permitted me to photograph a wonderful angel

wind indicator.

Putting the camera away for now, then

continuing up Church Road. Going home.

Enjoy the season!

Kay Weeks

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December 6, 2010