Reading the Gazette from my home in the U.K., I am constantly reminded how things were when I arrived in Sussex County in late 1989. My first few months in Bethany Beach – the grocery store closed for the winter, as did all the boardwalk businesses – just the restaurant and video rental by the totem pole were open. Looking for houses, I viewed several in Country Club Estates for less than $200,000. Lewes on a Sunday in January, there were no cars on Second Street. The house I finally bought was on the market for six months. Old Landing Road was fields of corn and soybeans from Rehoboth Mall down to the bay, except for The Landing partially built and a few in Arnell Creek.
On my drive to work in Millsboro, a handful of cars were going west and virtually nothing was coming to the beach. It was pretty much fields all the way, a light at Long Neck, nothing at Warrington Road, Peddlers Village or Angola.
No problems finding a doctor and any major procedure was done within a month or so. Individual homes on Route 1, around the location of the Burger King. The McDonald’s with a walk-up window on Rehoboth Avenue down by the beach and, of course, the Renegade and dance bar on Baltimore Avenue that drove the neighbors crazy! I doubt I could even find my way around now. Though, of course, coming from here now, I would be fine with all those roundabouts!
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