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All right, so just confirming I have your permission to record and everything. Yes. Good.

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And then can you state your name? My name is Mitch Kramer. Awesome. Then you talk a little bit about your involvement in the community

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and the band in Petworth. Sure. I've lived in this neighborhood since 2006, and I've got two kids in school in the area.

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I recently joined the Uptown Community Initiative board and part of the organizing committee for this little festival, and I'm also playing in the opening band, a promising local band, and we're a collection of musicians who

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we've been friends, some of us since college. And, yeah, so I helped set it up and I'm out playing and I'm looking forward to the day. Awesome.

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And you said you moved here in 2006. Are you a DMV native at all or did you move from somewhere else? I actually grew up in Capitol Hill when I was little. And then my parents moved.

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We moved to Arlington when I was ten. And then I sort of traveled around a bit after college and then moved back in 2006.

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So. So I am a local. What kind of made you choose to settle down in Petworth? A girl. My wife.

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I wanted to move— I always wanted to move back to D.C. since I was little. I loved the row houses and just sort of the tight communities and how D.C. is a city, but still has kind of a, not a rural feel, but,

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a suburban feel to it with all the tree lined streets and, you know, not very big buildings. So I'd always wanted to move back and and then I did meet a girl, and now she's my wife, and, yeah.

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So the rest is history. Awesome. Well, since you've been here since 2006, I mean, you've probably seen a lot in the neighborhood.

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Is there any like really big changes you've noticed being here over the years? There's certainly a lot of changes. I mean, of course, everything was cheaper before.

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But I think a lot of changes for good. There are a lot of fun restaurants and bars to go to, iInteresting shops, that I don't think were here in 2006. Most of them sure were not.

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So, and we've always liked the diversity of the neighborhood, just really interesting people being in a city and a lot of people coming from different backgrounds in addition to local people.

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So it's just been—It's always been an interesting place to live. But yeah, it's certainly changed a lot as far as the housing being constantly upgraded and small houses turning into condos. So lots of change.

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But then, my karate coach likes to say the only thing that stays the same is change. So. So it's to be expected. Are any of the changes you've

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noticed— Would any of them, would you categorize them as kind of more negative changes or like not so great, or do you feel like most of the change has been for the better in the neighborhood? I think it's all been for the better.

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Maybe 90% of it has been for good. I think the schools are constantly getting better. There's always room to improve,

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but I do think that it's sort of been on a constant improvement incline since we moved here. Awesome. Yeah.

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Awesome. What's kind of your favorite place in Petworth, or where do you feel like the community is kind of the most vibrant in the neighborhood. I mean, events like this are always nice.

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Just, uh, but really, anything that gets people out of their houses and into the community, out in the streets, I always find fun. I'm a social person, so, having a good excuse to get out and see other people in the neighborhood has always been good.

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I think Covid actually was there were a lot of benefits to that in meeting our neighbors who weren't— We weren't going on trips and leaving the area, so we were getting to know our immediate neighbors a lot better.

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But yeah, I mean, a lot of the restaurants around here, our house was in walking distance to multiple really good, authentic Mexican restaurants. And it's so easy just to say, oh, let's just go out and we can walk

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a half a block or a block and we've got different choices. So it's been good. Absolutely. If you could kind of think about Petworth in the next five to ten

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years, what do you think it'll be like or what do you hope to see in the neighborhood? I hope to see kind of other areas of Petworth improving, like the Upshur Corridor has, has changed a lot since we moved here.

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I'm looking forward to Fourteenth Street over where the bus depot to that area, kind of improving with the new construction going in there. I think that could really help our neighborhood and will.

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It's just a matter of time. Yeah, I guess that's the main one that I see coming up. And I hope there's still

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continuous improvement of schools and infrastructure and things that are offered to the, to society. And then to close, I'll just ask, do you have like a favorite memory of Petworth?

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I have a lot of good memories here. I know I mentioned Covid, I think was a good thing for the neighborhood. Some of my favorite memories are

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from that. My kids were in a learning pods with a small group of kids, and we got to know the parents really well.

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And some of them became kind of best friends of ours. And, we've since visited them on the other side of the world.

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And so I think that that learning pod in Covid was one of the best memories that I have. Awesome. Thanks so much for sitting down

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with us. Sure. Thanks for having me. Yeah.

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Good luck on your set.