Bowie has been home to me for just over 33 years. As the editor of the Blade-News, I have been proud to bring you information about your city of 54,000 and its residents for more than three decades.

If you are new to Bowie, welcome to a great city in which to live and work. If you have lived in Bowie for a while, I'm sure you'll agree that there are many things to like about our hometown.

What do I like about Bowie? Topping the list would be the people of Bowie themselves. Never have I lived anywhere where the people respond so quickly and willingly to the plights and sorrows of others. How many times have we run stories of family tragedies when within hours of publication Bowieites were asking where they can send donations or what they could do to help?

For instance, this community has donated $15,843 to the Bowie Tsunami Fund and the Tsunami Relief Concert "Heart To Heart" has raised over $7,000.

We constantly get letters to the editor thanking unknown good Samaritans who stopped at accident scenes or car breakdowns to help.

This good-heartedness of local people doesn't go unnoticed. This newspaper has honored hundreds of them over the years during recognition events, and mobs of city residents have come out to pay tribute to these volunteers and good neighbors. Our governor, U.S. senator, congressman, state and county legislators and assorted other officials regularly sing the praises of city volunteers, heroes and the talented and gifted among us.

Believe it or not, I like our city government; well, mostly. This community is efficiently run despite the gripes you see in our Readers' views section. The elected city officials are a decent lot, sincerely interested in doing something useful for their constituents. Sure, I know it doesn't always look that way, but it's basically true. Of course, one has to differentiate between the flaws of the ego and the truth of the heart.

There are lots of little things I love about Bowie: the cleanliness, the well-maintained streets, the twice-weekly trash collections, the pride of the majority of homeowners in their property (which shows), the green space not paved over by avaricious developers, the glorious Allen Pond, Whitemarsh Park, the city recreational facilities, the great little museums we have, the varied and talented arts and drama groups, the charm of Old Town Bowie. I even like the odd City Hall that was once a school. I think it adds a certain something to the community. I'm not sure what that is yet, but I'm working on it. The list goes on and on and on.

I'm a big fan of Free State Mall for far more than its stores. I like it for its community involvement. It has been the site of more fund-raising activities over the years and during the tenure of two mall managers for more organizations than any other place in town, save the Bowie Golf and Country Club, which is the local hot spot for political events. But the club was also one of the first sites for our occasional annual Citizen Awards. If only all local malls were as generous to the community as Free State. It just paid the Bowie Guild of Artists to preserve the murals that graced one of its walls, which is to be demolished under its expansion program. Nothing unusual for Free State.

I also have nothing but praise for the fantastic youth sports teams that give our kids so much. The Bowie Boys and Girls Club, the South Bowie Boys and Girls Club, the Bowie Soccer United, the cheerleading groups and ice hockey club have to be among the most active anywhere. And these teams are all run by volunteers, folks - parents just like us. They emphatically make Bowie the super community it is.

I always loved the sandwiches from J-Mart on old Route 450. I had eaten my way through at least a ton of them, and the quality never diminished one iota. I just hope the eatery that will replace it later this year, Miss Vicki's Kitchen, will be as good. But I'm sure it will be.

Speaking of food, I love to celebrate special occasions at Grace's Fortune restaurant at Free State Mall. I have been going there for ages, and Grace has to be the friendliest, most obliging restaurateur on the face of the Earth.

I am a big fan of Bowie High School and its accomplish-ments. It has had its ups and downs, to be sure, but it still has a dedicated principal, John Birckhead, and produces scholars and good sports teams, some of which occasionally go on to win state and regional titles.

I'm always impressed by the dedication and spirit of most of our local principals from all the schools, public and private. We detail weekly a plethora of projects at all our schools. These kids are involved, and that takes great teachers and principals.

I also think it's great we have Bowie State University in our midst.

I'm pleased to see that county government often displays a new angle to county politics - officials actually pay attention to us. County Councilman Doug Peters is the most energetic and involved councilman I've seen in that job for decades. And speaking of politicians, I'm more than pleased to see that state Sen. Leo Green, like that battery bunny in the commercials, keeps going and going and going. And I'm also grateful that our trio of state delegates - Mary Conroy, Jim Hubbard and Marvin Holmes - represents us well in Annapolis.

Now for a shameless plug. I'm thrilled (and thankful) at the fact that people have made us their community newspaper, a fact that's proven weekly. We have received nearly 1,400 letters to the editor and published more than 1,000 of them over the past year alone. People send us their vacation pictures posing with our paper. We tried this as an experiment more than five years ago and have now published more than 2,500 photos of families at play in the weekly series. We hear from you all the time - either by phone, fax, mail or in person. OK, sometimes you complain. But complaints are good - they keep us on our toes.

Sure, there are annoyances in Bowie just like everywhere else. But there is a limitless amount of good. I like being able to go to the Giant or the Safeway and know the clerks well enough to joke with them. I like the fact that if I mess up my checking account, I get a phone call from the bank manager.

Where else but Bowie would you get a barber (Angie at Town and Country) selling you a pair of barber shears because it would be cheaper to do my own disappearing locks than have her do it? I could go on and on about the hundreds of people I know in Bowie who I rate right up there with the best of the species.

So, yes, I do tend to go on a bit about the annoyances of daily life here, but hopefully I've shown you that I can just as easily rave about what makes this community the place in which I love to live and work.

Published 03/17/05, Copyright © 2005 The Bowie Blade

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