We need lunch.

We’re about to hit Bel Air, Maryland.  There’s a Main Street with restaurants.

Main Street in Bel Air, MD.

Main Street First Presbyterian Church
The Harford Mutual
Shamrock Coffee Shop
Main Street Tower

Welcome to Main Street—Bel Air, MD

Bel Air’s Main Street is another commercial center in small town Maryland.  We want crabcakes or a crab sandwich or crab something in Maryland.

Bel Air is a boring, suburban town, the kind of place that if I were a teenager I would want to leave quickly….as soon as my diploma was in hand, head east or west or north or south, anywhere but here.

I talk to the young hostess at the restaurant.   Serena Buontempo is 18 and grew up here in Bel Air.

Serena Buontempo works as a hostess at her father's restaurant on Bel Air's Main Street.

Her father owns the restaurant.  She works at three different places on Main Street in Bel Air.  Serena just graduated high school.

“What do teenagers think of Main Street?”

Not much.  It’s not the place to go and have fun.  It’s where the older people go.  It’s a place for dates and working.  Serena lives three blocks away, but the roads are more like highways, so it’s not safe to walk.

But Serena loves this place.

“I want to raise my family here. I want them to know where I grew up. Just like my father takes us back to Italy to see where he grew up.”

She must really get along with her family.

We say good-bye to Serena.  “It was very nice to meet you Ann.  Have a wonderful summer and trip.”

That girl has grace.

After lunch it’s time to get the hell out of Bel Air.  I don’t know what it is, but I just feel like there’s not enough tension on this Main Street.  Although there always seems to be some kind of repressed tension in suburbia if you stay long enough.

Teenagers skate down Main Street in Bel Air, MD.

Getting out of Bel Air feels good.