This essay is part of our December cover story, How the Last 6 Decades Transformed Northern Virginia.
My Northern Virginia story started with a move from Florida in 1976 when my dad’s job brought him to Arlington. I was 15 and hadn’t traveled much. My only knowledge of Virginia was based on schoolbooks about Colonial history and the television show, The Waltons.
As soon as Daddy pulled off on the Capital Beltway, I realized this place was not what I imagined. Instead of country roads and farms, I found tall glass office buildings, crazy traffic cloverleafs, and some awesome shopping malls. The biggest surprise, though, was our home in Reston. It was an ultra-modern townhome located near the elegant fountain, sculptures, and shops of Lake Anne Plaza.
Herndon High School was somewhat rural then and had its own surprises, like a smoking lounge and a rifle club. I signed up for horticulture and joined Future Farmers of America. When it came time to learn to drive, my instructor taught us on the always empty Dulles Access Road (there wasn’t a toll road yet), where we could practice changing lanes without fear of hitting other cars.
Next came two years at Northern Virginia Community College. The Loudoun Campus in Sterling was located beside a farm. Cascades, CountrySide, and modern Ashburn didn’t exist. The only thing separating the school’s parking lot from grazing cows was a barbed-wire fence. On weekends, I sold movie tickets at Roth Theatres at Tysons Corner Center. I wanted to buy more embroidered Mexican blouses and Swedish wooden clogs at Georgetown Cotton.
Through Mary Washington College, I interned at WMAL Radio, fetching coffee for on-air personalities Frank Harden and Jackson Weaver. Navigating new toll roads, highway ramps, and Metro lines, I felt proud of officially becoming a NoVA commuter. A few years later, my boyfriend (now husband), a computer science major from New York, couldn’t wait to move here and join the Beltway Bandits during the digital revolution.
We raised four kids in Reston. We watched Reston Town Center get built and the skyline grow tall with big-name corporate offices and high-rise condominiums. As companies and people inched westward, so did we, moving to Loudoun County, the data center capital of the world. More changes and innovations are surely coming, in NoVA and in life, and I can’t wait to learn what’s next.
Feature image courtesy Jill Devine
This story originally ran in our December issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
