Category: Crozet

Competition makes the strong stronger, makes the efficient that much more so and forces needed changes and evolutions.

In Crozet, the Old Trail development (ultimately 2200 homes in a New Urbanist development) is a force to be reckoned with. They have plans for a fitness facility. Likely a grocery store. A pool next year. They have plans to provide “affordable” housing (which may have a different definition of “affordable” than many of us are used to).

The time for arguments about whether Old Trail should have been approved at such a scale, has past.

Crozet Park faces some very real competition. Currently, they have one of, if not the, best soccer field in the County of Albemarle. They have two very nice baseball fields, two playgrounds and an outstanding pool and swim team. When it comes to nuts and bolts, they are providing a product, and for the past forty years or so (a great history is here, provided by Crozet’s Brian Campbell) have held a monopoly in Crozet on these facilities.

But they won’t keep the reputation as having the best product if they don’t innovate and embrace their position as the hub of Crozet. Competition, by its very nature, takes advantage of the complacent.

Nostalgia can carry only so much; human nature causes people to go to the newer product. That’s why people buy new cars, new houses and new toys. “Used” items aren’t as much fun (and often not as valuable either).

Let’s hope that the Park Board sees fit to compete – the possibilities are endless.

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Ed. Note: One of my favorite parts of running RealCrozetVA is the reader submissions I receive from time to time. Should you ever want to write a story for the blog, please submit it here.

I wonder if anyone else who grew up in Crozet ever feels this way when they drive through Crozet today. I read that some feel the old Crozet was an eye sore, the old buildings and store fronts, etc. Maybe you need to go to Charlottesville to live. Crozet was a village.

The old bank is gone. Crozet Superette, run by Mr. Moses Sandridge and his wife is gone. The Crozet Shoe Shop is gone. The old Crozet Drug store, where Jimmy Robinson use to dip out the biggest ice cream cones for 10 cents, is gone. Old Seals’ gas station is gone. I remember Mrs. Seal well, sitting out in the front, helping out. Tomlin Grocery – long gone.  Sandridge Gas Station where the road to IGA begins. Morton’s Frozen Food, with the TV dinners, Ice box pies, etc – gone. Acme Visible records where my mother worked, closed. The Red Front Super Market and Nannie Wagner’s 5 and dime, just a sweet faded memory. Coffee Jackson selling Christmas trees in the parking lot beside the old bank, I just smile to think, “how did he make anything for his efforts?”

Crozet had a theater at one time. Crozet had a drive-in too. Crozet Pool was where most all of us kids stayed from sun up to sun down and then rode our bikes home, or walked. We all had swimming lessons too. Vacation Bible School at the old Crozet Methodist Church, and oh! the popsicles handed out at the end. All the fun sleigh rides down the hill in Orchard Acres. Christmas time was something else.

Fourth of July at Crozet Park was beyond excitment for us kids. We could barely sleep the night before it started. Starting first grade and Mrs. Sara Wyant. I loved her and she loved me. The train ride from Crozet Station to Charlottesville and then to McIntyre Park to play. Trick or Treating and our home-made costumes.

I rode through Crozet recently; it’s not the Crozet I remember.

Nothing like it. It has a feeling of not being sure who or where it  belongs. I felt sad when I rode to old Crozet Elementary School, I got out and walked around and went to the back of the school where I started first grade so many years ago. I walked through the play ground. I looked over and I spotted something that I knew could not  possibly be the same sliding board that I nervously slid down in 1962.

It sure looked the same. I went over and stood beside it. It still seemed larger than life to me. I looked underneath the sliding board and was so surprised to see stamped just under the steps it read, “Property of Crozet High School”. For all of you former Crozet residents you will know what that means.  I had found one thing they had not taken away from us. You know what I mean. I left with a feeling you have when you go back to a place you haven’t been for many many years and you find something that holds so much memory for you.

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