Last week, I pointed out that Pennsylvania Avenue is the Hidden Gem of Lovettsville. My focus on Back Street Brews Coffee & Tea House was low hanging fruit. It’s like doing Eyewitness Weather when you walk outside and witness the weather. Backstreet Brews is a fantastic local GEM.

Another Gem you might be missing is Kristen Swansons’ White House Ceramics Studio. A Pennsylvania Avenue staple for years and always a popular stop on the Western Loudoun Artists Studio Tour and the Catoctin Holiday Art Tour.

Tucked in behind a gorgeous, 18^th-century colonial farmhouse, White House Ceramics is “hidden” if you aren’t looking for it.  Look for it on the south side of Pennsylvania Ave. at S. Loudoun St, what you will find will amaze you.

Bringing her unique sense of humor and a smile to everything she takes on, Swanson says opening the studio was an education in incrementalism, having expanded three times from the original shed studio. “We ran into so many issues along the way!” she laughs, “And had to problem solve in really creative ways.”

Even the addition of water lines was a drawn out town regulatory issue. But for all the challenges she encountered along the way, White House Ceramics Studio is already pulling in people from all walks of life, interested in learning a new skill and a creative outlet. The shop is cozy with a woodstove cracking a warmth that only supplements the natural warmth of the welcoming atmosphere.

In addition to selling gorgeous finished products, Swanson offers classes for people at different levels of skill. Had years of experience with throwing pots on the wheel in high school? Have you only taken one ceramics class back in middle school? Or maybe you’ve never touched clay before.

There’s a space for you at the White House Ceramics. “I wish I had a dollar for everyone who comes in here and say they don’t have a creative side, then find something they love to do, maybe discover a creative outlet they didn’t even know they had!”

Kristen’s other passion is also about bowls, but not the ceramic ones. Loudoun Empty Bowls started from a conversation in this very studio, providing hunger relief awareness in Loudoun County.

Partnering with Stone Tower Winery, they will have a major fundraiser this summer with all receipts going to the various charities providing hunger relief. In exchange for monetary contributions, attendees select a beautiful, handcrafted bowl and a meal.

So, if you’re interested in a new artistic hobby, or a unique one of a kind gift, stop by the White House Studio, a Lovettsville hidden gem, and chat with Kristen. She will probably be there prepping for a class, firing a batch of mugs, or hunched over the wheel creating something beautiful. And maybe, if you’re lucky, you will be joined by artistic kindred spirits. There’s nothing like a little clay, and a little music, to get the creative juices flowing!

East Broadway is the perceived main street through Lovettsville. Traffic runs quickly on Broadway, and most of it has been widened with a nice sidewalk installed on the north side. But, in a way, the real heart of the town is one street over.

When I first moved to Lovettsville, I thought Pennsylvania avenue was an alley. It is one of the oldest streets in town, originally connecting Frye Court and Berlin Turnpike. It is narrow and not VDOTS best work when it comes to repairs.

Pennsylvania Avenue now starts at Andy’s restaurant and ends at S Locust Street at the back door of the 1856 Pub. In a few months, Pennsylvania Avenue will extend beyond S Locust Street back to Frye court, which is the original connection.

Between Fry Court and S Church Street, there are some businesses you should be frequenting. A few you may not know are even there. Andys and the 1856 Pub bookend Lovettsville’s hidden gems of Pennsylvania Avenue.

In a public survey conducted in conjunction with the 2016 Comprehensive Plan update, a coffee house ranked high on the types of business Lovettsvillians wanted to have in town. The thinking was a Starbucks or Dunkins would do well.

If you want a quick cup of coffee or a milkshake or soy latte, do you have to leave town? The answer is no. It amazes me how many people in Lovettsville do not realize there is a coffee shop on Pennsylvania Avenue, within sight of the town hall.

Back Street Brews Coffee & Tea House has been opened for nearly a year and a half and is already THE place where the town movers and shakers meet. Its ideal location is within a 10 to 15-minute walk for nearly 3/4 of town. (but there is parking in rear).

Sharing half of a former duplex with The Painted Pig gift shop, Backstreet Brews oozes small-town charm. Owner Maureen Morris serves her customers with a smile from behind a counter that can also include yummy baked goods like muffins and cookies.

I have been to Back Street Brews a half dozen times or so and have zeroed in on the hot chocolate (winter) and milkshake (summer) as my anchor drinks, always accompanied by a muffin. The quality of this Shoppe’s fare is honestly without peer.

Facebook reviewers give it five stars out of five, as did Yelp. Why don’t more people know about it? Simple, its strongest asset, its location, is also its liability. Very few people randomly drive down Pennsylvania Ave to stumble onto it.

Small-town, local coffee shops and cafés are full of so much character and personality and this is no exception. Morris truly cares about her customers on a more personal level than you would get at a coffee chain shop. 

If you have not taken your family to Back Street Brews Coffee & Tea House, you are missing out on low hanging fruit. An entirely family friendly place to meet friends and neighbors. Backstreet Brews has precisely the small-town feel that you would expect in a town that begins with LOVE!

“Every so often, in the midst of chaos, you come across an amazing, inexplicable instance of civic responsibility. Maybe the last shred of faith people have is in their firemen.” ― Kurt Vonnegut

The Lovettsville Volunteer Fire & Rescue was formed in April 1967 and the organization incorporated as the Lovettsville District Fire and Rescue Company, Inc. Originally an all-volunteer company, volunteers staff the station weekdays from 6 pm to 6 am, and all weekend. Loudoun County provides professional firemen during weekdays.

Take the “fire” out of the fire department, and local volunteers would still be donning their turnout gear. Our rural fire departments get emergency calls for everything from traffic control at car accident scenes to medical emergencies to clearing downed power lines and trees, water rescues and lost children.

I trained and served on a rural VFD a few decades ago and can tell you that being a fireman in your community is the ultimate form of helping your neighbors and making a difference. I’ve watched volunteer EMT’s revive a heart attack victim and seen an exhausted volunteer firemen walk out of the woods after an all-night search carrying a lost 3-year-old. These type stories occur every day all across the country.

Being a volunteer firefighter has its rewards, but it also requires courage, dedication and many hours of training. In a typical year, more than 100 firefighters are killed in the line of duty, and more than 5,000 are injured, according to federal statistics.

Despite the inherent risks of firefighting and the time it often takes away from one’s job and family, there are those among us here in Lovettsville who feel called to volunteer for this noble undertaking, which saves countless lives and spares countless homes and businesses from destruction each year.

The personal rewards and satisfaction received from the volunteer emergency services are often beyond description. There is a sense of accomplishment after controlling a building fire, joy, and delight when a child is born, and compassion for accident victims.

The LVFR spends a tremendous amount of time and effort training their volunteers; there was ambulance driver training going on the evening I visited. They never ask for anything in return. They don’t do it for the glory or recognition, awards, applause or getting to wear a uniform. They simply want to help in a way they have been trained to. This is volunteerism at its best.

While everyone at the station has their own personal motivations for being a part of the LVFR, there seems to be a bigger calling. Beyond personal fulfillment, volunteers at the station genuinely like to help people in need.

A man or woman, volunteering for a fire or medical service will answer calls for assistance today and tomorrow, day and night. Lovettsville is not exempt. There are probably a few volunteers on your street. Ask them, and there is not a hero among them. But the rest of us know better.

Find the time to be a volunteer. If you cannot, dig deep when fundraisers come around. It’s up to us to be the answer to someone’s prayer when they dial 911. If you can save one life, won’t it be worth it?

NEXT WEEK: Local Shops You Should Be Supporting!

“In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.” ― Mark Twain

In 1731, Benjamin Franklin, the twenty-five-year-old American “Renaissance Man” helped found the Library Company of Philadelphia, with the progressive idea of lending books to the public, thus improving upon the classical ideal that comes down to us from antiquity, an institution designed to serve a class of elite scholars but closed to the masses.

Libraries have been part of the small-town mosaic for nearly two century’s, along with the town square, volunteer fire departments, and the small town diner. While the library here in Lovettsville doesn’t harken in style back to the 19^th century, its charm makes up for its longevity.

As a child of the sixties and seventies, I have “baked-in” respect and reverence for libraries that just might be out of style, and I’m not sure I understand why. It seems that quiet public libraries have gone the way of typewriters and rotary dialed telephones. The problem is both cultural and technological.

In the bigger towns and cities, public libraries seem to be crowded with people who don’t have a clue as to the function of a library as envisioned by Benjamin Franklin. My forays into libraries in Rockville, Centreville, Purcellville, and Lovettsville left me with a wide gap of understanding.

In many places today, libraries function as daytime homeless shelters, video game arcades for youth, and craft fairs and vocational programs, all conducted at close quarters with thousands of unread books. Many, the classics of western civilization.

Think of an adolescent sitting at a desktop computer and engrossed in a mindless video game within sight of shelves containing the University of Chicago Great Books collection or the Library of America and ignoring them as if they were just part of the décor, eschewing Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Melville, Twain, et alia.

“The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man” ― T.S. Eliot

I guess the noise is the worst of it. No matter where they happen to be, people talk in elevated tones nowadays, whether it’s in the library, church, or theater. It’s somehow considered politically incorrect to insist on a silent atmosphere anymore. And this is much worse since the advent of the cellphone. People wander around the library making dentist appointments or boorishly yelling at their kids, while others are trying to read.

In the last few decades, public libraries have become havens for the homeless (tragic, as is homelessness itself). This is certainly true of urban libraries, and during the summer months, it is not unheard of in Lovettsville.

We are fortunate in Lovettsville to have such learned librarians. That is not a universal truth in libraries. My experience in the Rockville library last year included overhearing this exchange;  “Do you have The Great Gatsby?” Answer: “Well, let me check our online file of books about magicians.”

Plato, Aristotle, and Milton are waiting for the mind looking for enrichment. Yes, they can be accessed on phones, Kindles, and Ipads. It’s not the same. I read books on those devices. I read the classics on paper.

Our smalltown library is an invaluable community resource. The books are waiting, but there are other activities. Family Story Time, Harry Potter Club and the Adult Book Club (not adult books, a club FOR adults) are fantastic ways to share a passion for reading with Friends and family.

Go to the library in 2019. Take the kids. Your friends and neighbors will be there. It may be a bit louder than when we were kids, but the library is still special. Be quietly reverent; maybe it will come back in style.

“The only thing that you absolutely have to know is the location of the library.” ― Albert Einstein

NEXT WEEK: The Lovettsville Volunteer Fire Department

Small towns are truly the best. I don’t know that I always thought that, but it’s true. I guess subconsciously, I’ve been gravitating toward them all my life. Downsizing all along the way.

Both of my parents’ families were from small towns in West Virginia. So, visits there were comfortable incursions into the heartland of America, the small town. When I was ready to buy a house in the DC metro area, My wife and I started on the far end of commutable distance to our jobs and worked our way in.

With a lot of driving and research, we ended up in Lovettsville, Virginia. It was everything we hoped for in a small town. Formed in the early 1800’s, Lovettsville is an idyllic rural small town, the northernmost municipality in the Commonwealth.

The population of my hometown is a little over 2000. There are no traffic lights and one gas station, the only Bavarian themed 7-11 in North America outside of Disney World. There is no mall, no movie theater and no supermarket. There are chickens, though.

The town square is straight out of Norman Rockville. An iconic clocktower visible from most of town. A flag pole on the South end is anchored by paver stones engraved with the names of those having served in the US military. The town gathers there 3 times a year, Memorial Day, Veterans Day and for a 911 remembrance and it is standing room only.

The sense of community and support makes up for any lack of shopping or entertainment hubs my small town might lack. I can always count on running into a friendly face at Velocity Wings or Lovettsville Style and Shave. Everyone asks how my family is doing or if I finished my new coop.

Friends, relatives and neighbors are always pleasant and willing to lend a hand. The subdivision townhouse community we moved from was nice, but we only knew 3 or 4 neighbors by name. We knew every Lovettsville neighbor by name before we even moved in. Its that kind of place.

And when times got tough, I knew I could always count on my small town to pick me up. My nearby friends are always willing to be my confidants, my shoulders to cry on, and bottomless sources of a rare commodity, a sincere smile.

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a huge Hallmark movie fan. Those movies are mostly set in small rural towns. In almost every one I’ve seen, I have seen Lovettsville in some form or fashion.

Whether the rows of homes in the subdivisions with children playing in the street or the stately older homes on Loudoun Street or East Broadway. The sense of community is palpable.

 

I used to think small towns were boring and living there would only keep me from living my dreams. But I know now that without the love and support of my small town, I would not have had the foundation I needed to start closing in on those dreams.

As the seasons change, I look forward to the indicators, Mayfest, Summer Movies On The Green, Oktoberfest, and Wintertainmentfest. All run by townspeople for their neighbors and families.

I am so grateful for my hometown and the people I know and love here. The thing I will look forward to most is when my sons and their families visit, immersing them and our grandchildren in this culture and hoping that it impresses them enough to migrate to this or another small town. These are the true heart of merica.

NEXT WEEK: Lovettsville Library, Not Your Parents Library, Maybe Better!