My Dad and his car in 1955 (as you can see from the license plate). In the other pictures it has black plates, so they are from a different year. I wonder if I took this picture. We lived here for three or four years before we had a car. My Dad walked to Old Dominion Drive to catch the bus to work in DC, which was fine, but we had no way to go shopping for anything except whatever the very small Chesterbrook Market happened to have, and even then they'd have to deliver. But with the car we could go to the Safeway in McLean, to department stores in Washington, and to special events like fireworks at the Lincoln Memorial, or to visit relatives in Maryland or on the Eastern Shore (across the Cheseapeake Bay, which in those days was a long ferry ride). By this time my Dad was earning enough that we could buy a TV and a toaster, have our own phone, and even go to Howard Johnson's or Hot Shoppe for an occasional treat. Plus the swimming club was open and we could go swimming any time we wanted, which in the summer was almost always. In the background is the newly paved and raised Kirby Road, and behind it the large, dense forest that had always been there. About where you see the mailbox there was a massive oak tree that was toppled by Hurricane Hazel in 1954.