Max Blob presents Blob's Park

8024 Blob's Park Road     Jessup, MD  20794

MD Rt. 175 @ Baltimore-Washington Parkway

End Of An Era

by Bill Miller

It was the very best of all dance hall places.

There was none around that could compare.

Located in Jessup, MD at Routes 295 and 175,

There was easy automobile access  there.

Great Hall, Pavilion, and a large Soccer Field,

Provided room for different kinds of festivities.

Oktoberfest, Fasching, and Sonnwendfeier

Were some of the better known activities.

Volleyball tournaments in the Summer time,

The fall Jazz Festival was an outside thing,

Many Family Reunions held in the Pavilion,

And Riding Lawn Mower Races in the Spring!

Open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays

At least fifty or fifty-one weekends a year.

Entire families would come out to party

Filling the Hall with laughter and cheer.

People came from untold miles around

To socialize or dance on the huge floor.

To circle doing the polkas and waltzes,

Then asking the Rheinlanders for more.

Many a "Polka Hall Of Fame" band leader

Came to play on Saturdays in the Great Hall -

Verne Meisner and Marv Herzog to name two.

There is not enough room to name them all!

Nothing that is good really lasts forever,

Change is inevitable as everyone knows,

And the Owners' made a difficult decision

After 74 years, Blob's Park would close!

New Year's Eve of Two Thousand and Seven

Was advertised far and wide as the last chance

To come to Max Blob's Bavarian Biergarten

And get out on the floor to do one last dance.

And hundreds of people came from towns around

For one last celebration of  New Year's Eve.

Closing Uncle Max's Park after all those years

Was very difficult for many a person to believe.

And celebrate they did - all the long night through

Dancing the polka like there would be no tomorrow.

At midnight kissing and hugging friends or strangers

And laughing and joking to try to hide their sorrow

One had to search to find a dry eye in the place

As The Rheinlanders played their last refrain.

Dancers formed a circle around the dance floor

As they sang with the band: "Auf Wiedersehen!"

Now the music is silent and the great hall dark.

The parking lot is empty except for the clutter.

No more dance music playing or cars in the park,

A shabby looking building with a hanging gutter.

But as long as the regular customers remember,

Let these words witness as future years advance,

How once there existed a very special place

Where people met and socialized and danced!