my first summer in washington, dc was a fun, exciting one where i got to know my new city. this was 1995 and i lived for about 4 to 5 months in the wonderful neighborhood known as 'eastern market' which lies in the shadow of the u.s. capitol but really has a complete neighborhood feel to it. one of the biggest pieces of that neighborhood feeling and community sense was the local eastern market (which created the name of the neighborhood) housed inside an historic beautiful building with incredibly high ceilings and big windows and many, many local farmers, seafood sellers, merchants, and so forth that had been selling their wares for some 80 years or so. my favorite time to go was on the weekends in the morning when people would line up for hours around the block just to wait for some of the best waffles with fresh fruits from the farms around the area for their early morning weekend breakfast, meet friends and other locals, and enjoy the day in the historic building. so it comes as a sad bit of news to hear about how the building itself was ravaged by fire this last weekend. and i hope and pray they can restore it soon. it's an inconic neighborhood institution and i will always have fond memories of my time there.