I ran into Sonny Burch owner of Burch Oil Company (click here) the other day and he asked me how business was going. I gave him the answer Buzzy used to say about having been in business for years and just like the Federal government, lost money every year. I told Sonny that I used to think that Buzzy was kidding when he said that, until I took the place over and learned that he wasn’t really exaggerating by too much. Sonny laughed and said “But J.Scott, as long as you can break even, you got to keep Buzzy’s going. It’s a County icon and we don’t have too many of those left.” (I started to tell him that maybe he could discount my oil bill and thereby assist in helping to keep the Buzzy icon alive!)
Later I saw the picture above of D.C. and it got me thinking about those icons that you see and know immediately what city it is. New York’s Statue of Liberty, London’s Big Ben, Rio’s Jesus statue, Seattle’s space needle are some prominent ones that I can think of right off the bat.
But then there is D.C. which as you see here has not just one but several images. In addition to those above, D.C. also has the White House, the Jefferson Memorial, the National Mall, the World War II Memorial and just across the river there is the Pentagon and Arlington Cemetery. The only other city that I can think of that even comes close to having as many defining icons may be Paris with the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Notre Dame Cathedral etc..
But back to icons that define our County, naturally I’m partial to Buzzy’s Country Store being considered one, but there are also cases to be made for the St. Mary’s City Statehouse and St. Clements Island.
Then again we could always just go with our most defining icon – the 10 ounce Budweiser! (Click here for history of the 10 ounce Bud.)