At some point between now and 1/1/2026 I will change the look of this website and Inshaw.com. This may mean it might go through a couple of looks before I settle on one. You’ve been warned.
I know I need to update Truxtoncircle.org, which is also in the Inshaw family of websites. Maybe 2027 for that.
In order to prevent spam, which pops up in my notifications from time to time, I had closed comments after 365 days, or 1 year.
This made sense when I was writing on more topical topics. But now that I’ve shifted to writing about the history of the neighborhood, I see that I am missing the opportunity to connect with people. These can be people whose ancestors I write about or others who have an interest in the topic. For good or ill, because, yes, I do throw shade.
So I am extending the comment period to 2.5 years. If that goes well, I’ll expand to 10 years.
There are a lot of things going on with me professionally and personally this Summer so from July to September 2025, there will be one post per week.
Thanks for your patience.
Mari
So I’m thinking about retirement. From the thing that pays me, not this. However, the thing that pays me supports the work I do here. It pays for the web hosting, the domains, and a bunch of other stuff.
One of those is a Pro Flickr account, where I have a slew of photographs hosted on the site. I haven’t used Flickr that much to host new photos since 2022. And though $75 a year isn’t that much, I need to start making this hobby cheaper.
I have downloaded my photos, but I need to start deleting some of the photos from the site. I think the limit is 1,000 and I have somewhere above 3,000.
Starting now I will begin mass deleting photos.
I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be presenting at the 2024 DC History Conference and I’ll be talking about the Black Homeowners of Truxton Circle.
So if you are available Saturday, April 6th at 10:15 at the Neighborhood History and Housing panel, come see me. Ask some questions.
You can register now for the April conference, and take a look at the program here.
So in order to get ready for the conference I’m going to slightly ignore the blog for a bit. Also I have some personal things I need to deal with. Even once the conference is done, there will still be some personal things that will need to be dealt with, maintained? So I’m thinking of a schedule of one researched post a week with a few Memory Lane posts. I’d like to get around to actually getting something published outside of the InShaw blog about Truxton Circle and that’s going to take some focus and time, in addition to some of those personal things I’ve been ignoring.
Well, the newspaper search was very tedious and right now I am Washington Sanitary Improvement Companied out.
There is more to explore.
I was telling a friend who doesn’t live in the DC metro area about this project and about the WSIC. It started as an experiment in housing, mixing charity with capitalism. She asked if WSIC achieved their goals. Answering that question is something I’d like to take a stab at. Unfortunately, the answer would involve other areas of the city that I am less knowledgeable about.
So I’ll get back to it. If I don’t remind me would you?
I’m also going to slow down on posting on the blog. I want to garden, do stuff with the family, yadda, yadda. Blogging and researching are great when it is cold and horrid outside. I’ll probably ramp up when it is too hot and sticky and buggy to go outside.
Last year I moved out of Truxton Circle after selling my home of 19 years to the wilds of PG County. Despite that I am still the world’s expert on Truxton Circle History and it is not a skill I will be giving up anytime soon.
Speaking of skills, doing the Black Home Owners of Truxton Circle series, has helped me get a new job. Nineteen seems to be a magic number, as I worked in the same Bureau of Fight Club (they are funny and don’t want me to talk about them) department for 19 years. This weekly, sometimes daily, habit of hunting down people, possibly long dead, and writing up a quick biography has developed a skill of a quickie genealogist. It was a skill I could point to in my job interview, semi paraphrasing Liam Neeson in Taken:
I do have a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career. If you are obviously still alive, that’ll be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will protect your privacy. But if I’m not sure, I will look for you, I will find you, and I make sure you are dead.
It’s easier to do the job if the persons in the document are dead.
However, the new work environment will be a bit more restrictive. I don’t know how much attention I can pay to this site. I do know that I will no longer have access to the primary records related to Shaw and Washington, DC history, as I did with the old job.
I hope that I can work on a few new projects. I have warned that I will look at Squares 552 and 615, the core Bates area of the TC, and because my past research has been used for historic preservation/landmark, I want present owners to make the changes they can now before any restrictions come. There is also a journal article I want to write, but I have to figure out what story the data I’ve cobbled together actually says.
I’m a little sad that my job move means I won’t be exploring the history of DC public housing. Once upon a time public housing didn’t suck, and wasn’t shorthand for crappy crime ridden living conditions. But now it is, what it is.
The new job does pay more…. so I could conceivably hire someone to do the leg work of scanning those records.
Well. We sold the house last year. We looked at a bunch of houses in PG County Maryland, and after 4 months of serious searching, we’re moving out next month.
We are moving to a place I have jokingly called Ward 9, for the Marylanders in Prince George’s County who mistakenly act as if they are DC residents. We will be unenrolling Destructo-kid. The Help should be doing less driving in our new location (he can walk/bike to work) so no worries about a MD driver in DC. And my goal is that we don’t act like Ward 9 residents getting over involved in DC matters.
So what of this blog? I’m the world’s expert on Truxton Circle history and I get pleasure from discovering what the data and evidence reveals. I’m not giving that up.
What I am giving up is a lot. I’m giving up wonderful Michelin reviewed dining within walking distance for generic Red Olive Steakhouse a mile away. I’m giving up a place with a Walkscore in the 90s (grade A) for one in the 70s (gentleman’s C) and I still have no intention on taking up driving. I’m also giving up seeing you wonderful people in real life. I will miss you.
I started this blog on Blogger and then due to some changes regarding URLs I moved to Moveable Type and then my host no longer supported that and so I’m using WordPress. I thought I added the Blogger posts but discovered the only posts that migrated over were from an announcement page I had. I have the main Blogger posts at dcinshaw.blogspot.com, but I have finally imported those posts, images and comments to this blog. Now there are over 2,500 posts here.
Sadly the Moveable Type (2010-2013) posts are still in limbo. Right now I can’t seem to locate those files. I’m sure they are on an external drive somewhere.
I’m going to try to limit the posts relating to parenting at InShaw and decided to join a local mom’s blog. So a month or so ago I joined DC Area Mom’s Blog and I am one of 12 new contributors.
I already have a post up, “3 Upsides of Being an Older Mom/Dad“.
However there are parent related issues that will remain here. Such as my support for the concept of charter schools in DC. I’ve seen too many neighbors vote with their feet soon after the postive pregnancy test. DCPS should not take the children (and their parents/guardians) for granted. And I remember the bad old days. Also there are things that are just too hyperlocal like the Florida Avenue park, the Kennedy Playground and the like that wouldn’t be a good fit. Which reminds me, there is a certain style that I’m learning for the other blog, so thing with a harsher tone would probably stay here.
