Home Sweet Home

October 10, 2015

Childhood home on Brookwood  Road in Baltimore

My childhood was full of wonderful experiences. The whole world was full of adventure at every turn. Our home in West Baltimore on Brookwood Road was right on the edge of Leaken Park. I would walk down my street and enter into the dark mysterious deeply-wooded park and set off on many adventures. When I wasn't busy venturing off on a trail, or riding my bike around the neighborhood, I was putting up street signs all along our street. My signs were done with chalk and they were on the sidewalk. I named every neighbor's driveways, walkways, and then drew very detailed maps about all of the intersecting roadways. My mom thought I would become a cartographer and plot out maps as a career because this activity was something that I spent a lot of time with.

Ditto Printing Press

But then, there was my newspaper: The Hunting Hills Gazette. One year, I asked my parents to buy me a printing press, and they gave me a ditto machine. This was the machine where you would create a backward carbon of a document, then spread a thin layer of alcohol across the carbon as a piece of paper was fed through the drum. In school, they used them to print tests and newsletters, with that famous purple ink. I found that you could buy different colors besides the purple, so my newspaper used black ink, and even had splashes of color. I had a few of my neighborhood friends that would contribute articles and stories, I drew the weekly cartoon, had extensive neighborhood news and weather reports, and of course Sports stories following our Baltimore Sports teams. I sold display ads (mostly to my Uncles), so you would see ads for Yoo-Hoo (bottled by my Uncle Tony), or for the Nixon campaign (managed by my Uncle Gus). Then, I sold the papers throughout the neighborhood for a penny.

Caravelle Broadcasting Center

Let's not forget about my radio station - WDSC. One year I purchased a Caravelle AM radio transmitter. It was a toy that was designed to broadcast through the house. I hung the antenna out the window and it might have covered two or three houses. Every day when I came home from school, I would sign on the station at 4:00 and broadcast two hours of rock and roll, complete with jingles sung by my sister Chris. I had a studio set-up with two turntables, tape machine, microphone and a mixing board. And to promote the station, I put together a weekly top 40 list. I'd print the list on my ditto machine and put them in the neighborhood record store at Edmondson Village.

Esther, Diane, Dennis, Jimmy, Evan, Ted, Chris

This brings me to my family. I am blessed to have been born into an amazing family. My Mom and Dad each had four siblings. All of them stayed and raised their families in the Baltimore area. They each had families of up to five kids, which meant I had a lot of cousins. We would get together quite often for holidays, vacations and other family events. My cousin Diane was a little older than me, and she was into Elvis Presley. She would play me his records. My cousin Jim was the philosopher of the family, and he had the most amazing stereo system I ever heard. Stanley was into folk music. Gay Lynn was Miss Maryland and went to the Miss America pageant. Valerie was into writing. Everyone of my cousins was special and it was always so joyful to be with them. Because this was my life, I just figured this is the way everyone's life was. Surrounded by a large, loving family. Of course, as I ventured out into the world, I learned this was not necessarily the case.

So, it is with great joy when I can come back to Baltimore and see my cousins. Most of them still live in and around the Baltimore area, and getting everyone together at one time can be a bit of a challenge. We ended up having three dinners out with various factions of the family during our stay in the Baltimore area. It was wonderful to laugh about the fun times we had, love what's going on in their lives now and dream about what's to come. 

Annapolis, Maryland's Capitol City

Besides the family gatherings, Cheri and I got to do a little bit of touring. I took her to Annapolis so she could see what a charming town it is. I lived there for close to five years while I was at WYRE. The town has grown up a lot since the '70s, but it still retains its character. We walked around the downtown docks, up and down Main Street and around the Maryland State Capitol. The downtown area was buzzing, as the United States Sailboat Show was taking place right on the harbor.

Food Carts are the rage!

Cranes over Washington DC

Washington DC was also a destination, and I got to see how the city is changing. Much like many other cities around the country, many parts of Washington are gentrifying. There's a building boom going on, with cranes all across the landscape. New, expensive apartment buildings are going up. And the street food scene is alive in Washington. I saw it proliferate in Portland while I was there. Now there are blocks of food carts lined up outside buildings for workers to find great street food. The craze has happened so fast, that city regulators haven't been able to fully control the boom. Oh, wait, isn't the city of Washington run by Congress. That explains it.

It was wonderful spending time with family in my hometown. Now, it's off to the Blue Ridge Mountains, where Cheri and I and the dogs will discover Autumn in the hills of Virginia and North Carolina. 

Cousins: Gay Lynn, Marina & Diane

Cousins: Nick, Michael, Arthur, Jim

Cousins: Phil, Ellie & Valerie