SCRAPBOOK

a look into the past & an old box of photos

By David Roffman

August 2008

Here are three more of my favorite photographs I’ve saved over the past 40 years here at The Georgetowner. Each brings back a fond memory:

Here is the great Washington Senator’s pitcher, the Big Train himself, Walter Johnson, posing with none other than Tyrus Cobb, (pictured above) the Georgia Peach. The photograph is marked on the back “Courtesy of the Library of Congress,” and was part of a baseball memorabilia photography exhibit held at the Library over 30 years ago. But I’ve hung on to this reprint photo ever since.

Hey? Who is this guy and what is that contraption? It is none other than. Me, Dave Roffman of The Georgetowner newspaper posing next to an amazing machine called The Elephant Vac, which for over 5 years cleaned the gutters and sidewalks of Georgetown’s M and Wisconsin and all the side streets in between. It was before BID and its army of street sweepers. One guy, one machine, one hour, clean streets. It worked then, it could work today.

If there were a Hall of Fame for Georgetown, this lady would be a member. Her name is Martha Johnson and for over 30 years was the proprietress of the greatest little bookstore we ever had here in Georgetown, the Francis Scott Key Bookshop at 28th and O Streets. The building has been transformed into a residence today, but for a long, long time this was a popular place of business. And at one period in Georgetown’s history, a young man from Illinois named Adlai Stevenson lived upstairs.