Viewing 1 - 8 out of 8 Blogs.

Living in a historical district in downtown Baltimore, I am surrounded by both the joys and pitfalls of city life.

Baltimore had a motto several years ago - "Baltimore - The City That Reads". Taggers quickly changed it to "Baltimore - The City That Breeds" and "Baltimore - The City That Bleeds", a testament to much of the urban blight that plagues us.

Recently, a new program began - BELIEVE. It is an anti-drug campaign. Believe your child won't become the innocent victim of a drive by shooting. Believe the grandchild you've raised won't be lost to a drug overdose before their 30th birthday. Believe you won't be held up by knife or gunpoint walking to your house from the car. Believe your vehicle won't be broken in to for the fourth time by addicts looking for a stereo to pawn. BELIEVE. They have a simple black bumper sticker with white lettering. BELIEVE.

Charm City. It can be. There is hope. Some of the Hon fans (it's a B'more thing) have altered the bumper sticker to read "B'lieve, Hon" Many in my neighborhood sport an "I [heart] City Life" bumper sticker on their car. There is also a "Visualize Whirled Peas" and "God bless the whole wide world. No exceptions!". And one that suggests we stock our schools with books and qualified teachers and let the state department hold a bake sale to purchase weapons.

A neighbor recently commented to me that the most common injury of residents in my neighborhood was the strained shoulder, acquired from reaching around to pat themselves on their back for being so liberal.

Apparently, someone made available city issued BELIEVE trash cans. Black sturdy plastic with the simple white BELIEVE on it's face. Several dozen can be seen when walking the alleys near my house.

A few weeks ago, Greta and I were walking to the hardware store. We took a shortcut through an alley to enjoy a glimpse of some of the beautiful courtyard gardens. I smiled at the whimsy of one neighbor who'd altered their trash can, which now simply stated "MAKE BELIEVE." I took their message as innocent, which I'm sure it was intended, rather than one of sarcasm which I am sometimes a fan of. It lightened my step as we continued with our errands.

From two weeks back...

I just returned from taking Greta to a fabulous park a few miles up the freeway from our house. Robert E. Lee Park has trails that wind around a lake, with picnic tables scattered through the woods and grassy areas. While not an official dog park, it's dog friendly and everyone has their dog off leash without anyone getting all anxious about it. It is frequented by dog friendly people and they chat happily with other dog parents much the same way I imagine parents of people children do at a playground. It is the most un-uptight place I know of in Baltimore.

The temps are in the low 70's. It is slightly overcast and sprinkling mildly, which I love.

On the way home, I listened to an interview on NPR with Les Paul. Now in his 90's, he's performed two sets each Monday night for the past two decades at a jazz club in New York. As I pulled off the freeway and made my way the few short blocks to my house, they closed the interview with Les plucking out Over The Rainbow.

Perfect.

Living on a second floor condo, I have no yard or outdoor space of my own. When I return home from work, I take my dog Greta, a 12 year old Airedale, out for a walk. Having spent the majority of her outdoor life on a leash in the city, she is very social and well mannered. Greta makes friends with everyone, from babies in their strollers to seniors, to any of the art students residing in our historic district. She is a Pets On Wheels volunteer. She once charmed a pizza delivery guy out of a pizza and many a toddler out of a cookie or cracker. If she hasn't gotten someone besides me to pet her during a walk before we return home, she starts dragging her feet in protest until I allow her to wait on the corner for someone to amble by and visit with her.

We are fortunate to have a dozen or so little parks and plazas in the neighborhood where I can take her off her leash and she can be a dog, sniffing the grass untethered to decipher it's invisible scents, finding the perfect spot to enjoy a roll on her back, exploring every shrub and bush. In the summer it's much cooler outdoors in the shade of a tree than in our un-air-conditioned home. I usually bring a book to read while Greta does her thing. One little plaza is two blocks from our house, with a WWI memorial and a nice patch of grass on a tree studded hill. It is right next to the private tennis courts, pool and playground and Greta is usually lucky to score a tennis ball that lobbed over the fence and became lost in the thick tangle of English Ivy bordering the courts. She carries it with her proudly until we reach our destination, where she can play with it.

Recently, a homeless person has set up camp on a bus stop bench just on the other side of a low brick wall that borders the square on one side, along a major street that leads to the freeway. He's been there for several weeks now. He's got a small mountain of stash piled up beside him. He's marked off his territory with orange traffic cones, a hub cap balanced on top of one. Recently an assortment of broken cinder blocks have further defined the perimeter of his space. Last week I noticed that they are now wrapped in foil.

A small break in the brick wall is positioned next to his bench providing one of several means of egress from the triangular plaza, this one being on the narrow end of the space. We spend our time on the wider opposite end of the space, further from the busy road. Greta does well off the leash, but I do not want her to venture in to the narrower end where she could slip out of the park and end up in heavy traffic.

This man is apparently threatened by Greta, though she displays absolutely no interest in him whatsoever and has never ventured beyond the brick wall into his domain. Occasionally she trots down to this lower portion of the plaza to retrieve her ball or in search of a stick that may have fallen from one of the trees. On the rare occurrence when she approaches the area near him, the tall and thin bearded man resembling Osama Bin Laden rises, pointing a long crooked finger at her and starts yelling at me to put her on a leash.

There is nearly a city block of distance between he and I. Greta, after retrieving her ball or selecting a stick, returns to me and lays down with her cherished yellow prize or to make work at devouring the stick. He continues his shouting, his arm outstretched and targeted on Greta like a scene from Invasion Of The Body Snatchers where one of the aliens realizes you haven't been snatched, she oblivious to her violation though she has never actually infringed upon his personal space.

Now I appreciate that some people don't like dogs or have an initial fear or apprehension before meeting one. We live next to the Symphony Hall and Opera House. Often our walks take us in front of those venues before or after an event, when people are en route to or from a performance, often dressed to the nines in formal evening wear. We yield on the sidewalk to these cultural attendees, many of whom stop and bend to greet Greta while telling me of an Airedale that once was part of their life.

I really should set things straight with this man (or bring him a batch of cookies or something), but life's got me itching for a fight as of late, so I haven't responded yet as gracefully as I probably should. Technically, Greta should not be off her leash. But then technically, camping overnight in downtown Baltimore certainly is in violation of vagrancy laws. I pay taxes to pay for the upkeep of the plaza. He contributes by sweeping the sidewalk in front of his space. I don't want to displace him. But then I don't want to be displaced. "Build a moat," I want to tell him. But my tendency to avoid confrontation trumps my itch for a fight, so we continue to struggle in our effort to co-exist.

This past weekend, I did something I haven't done in over 30 years. I went to a drive-in! 30 years ago, I saw Young Frankenstein in a yellow Roadrunner in Clarkston, Michigan. This past Saturday, it was a triple feature in Baltimore, MD: Surfs Up, Evan Almighty and Oceans 13. I'd known for years there was a drive-in in near where I lived, but it was on the other side of town. I always said "someday..." Well, someday came Saturday.

Bengie's has a great playground beneath the screen (which their web site boasts is the largest in the US) and a fabulous untouched-by-time concession stand. Best of all (for me) is that they allow dogs! We enjoyed a fabulous sunset while we waited for the show to begin, and after it did a full moon shined down on us from overhead. Didn't get home until the wee hours of the morning after three films, but Greta and I will definitely be going back again soon!

What a wonderful step back in time. If you have a drive-in near you, ENJOY IT!

There are two units below mine. One with...ahem...grown ups. The other with art students. There's a handful of girls (I couldn't tell you how many as there has been a slight rotation of occupants) but they are sweet and kind and pure and have a very nice well behaved yellow lab and they actually LIVE. They play music. They have Christmas lights on their deck which ALWAYS has people on it in the evenings, they sit of the front porch steps en mass. They inspire me to enrich my own life.

Well, it appears that most, if not all, of them have graduated and are moving on to bigger and better things. They've been cleaning house and packing for the past month. Some parents showed up with a UHaul trailer and took a lot of stuff away. They've been carting boxes and suitcases back and forth for weeks. Sunday they had a little yard sale. And yesterday, it appears that whatever they hadn't gotten rid of yet was hauled out to the street for the trash man.

Of course, this upset one of the grown up neighbors as this evening when I arrived, there was a Baltimore Public Works Trash Calendar taped to the mirror in the entry hall with the dates of the bulk trash pick up circled.

The heck with them. These girls were delightful neighbors.

Anyhow, Greta and I were returning from a walk when we came upon the (quite a huge) trash pile. (There actually was an issue to be raised - the neighbors just didn't have to be their usual uptight selves to make it.) It was quite an interesting lot, with picture frames and glass doors (presumably from some old cabinets), furniture, paint, LOTS of plywood and some no longer loved school assignments. Nestled in a box of debris was a 2x3' oil painting of a lovely green winged naked fairy. She had a less than runway model figure and must have been having a bad fairy day, though I can't imagine what that would be, because she looked, well, melancholy. Her shoulders are slouched in defeat and her face seems to say "What's so good about it" in response to a third party declaration that it's a great day. At one time after the painting was completed, someone had set a can of paint down on the canvas, so it is stained with a three inch ring of paint and splatters from another project. Greta and I adopted her. She now lives in the sun room where I hope that her *hrmph* expression will give me the inspiration to pick myself up out of the doldrums when I'm feeling blue as she should, for she is really quite lovely and I'm sure that with just the hint of a smile she would be beautiful.

In the early 80's, the hotel I worked at had a booth in two chili cookoff charity fundraisers in downtown Houston. I participated in both. Our breakfast cook Jesse tended the chili pot. The first year our booth had a M*A*S*H* theme, and was decked out in camo and all of us in fatigues. The next year Houston had gotten hit hard by the recession, so we did a rags-to-riches theme. We had folks dressed in sandwich boards and the maitre'd and I were outfitted in tuxedos and served chili to the spectators from silver chafing dishes. We participated in a good old-fashioned chili cookoff egg toss, after which we decided we should send the tuxes through the hotel dry cleaning service before returning them to the rental place.

It was here that I learned of the CASI event in Terlingua, held annually the first weekend in November. For those who don't know, CASI is the Chili Appreciation Society International and Terlingua (a ghost town in West Texas) is the home of their international chili cookoff championship. I had to go. I purchased Jerry Jeff Walker's Viva Terligua for the trip and lined up two Yankee guests from the hotel to take on the journey, circa November, 1984.

It was 752 miles from Houston to Terlingua. Our arrival was met by a two story inflatable Quervo Gold tequila bottle (had we arrived or what!) at the entrance where we were asked "Are you cookin' or lookin'?" Heck. I was there to do both! We didn't have CASI points to enter, but that didn't mean we couldn't turn up the heat!

Of course, I met up and shared a beer with Clay Henry, the beer drinking goat in Lajitas. He later became major. Unfortunately, he was allegedly castrated and later assassinated by a political rival, a sad end to my beer drinking buddy and great political figure.

We paid a Mexican a dollar to row us across the river, where we sat on a rock and ate tuna fish sandwiches we'd packed for the day. We paid another dollar to get back across. Lunch in Mexico. That was my first trip.

The cookoff was a blast and we enjoyed all of the booths and events. I've celebrated Terlingua every year since, with a pot on the stove of my own. It's difficult up here â€" all the damm Yankees want to put beans in it. When I was a kid, chili with beans in it was called goulash. I've held firm to a 'no beans' policy and continue to spread the chili gospel to this day.

I had the pleasure of meeting up with a local restaurant chain through work called Hard Times Café where I formed an instant kinship with the proprietors. It's a chili bar. Originally, they had three offerings: Texas style (meat and grease), Cincinnati (with cinnamon) and vegetarian (with a peanut base). They've since added a Terlingua version. Their restaurants are adorned in Texas kitsch, a welcome site for this homesick native.

My favorite line from London Homesick Blues:

"My mind keeps roamin', my heart keeps longin'
to be home in a Texas bar."

There's no place like home.

I got my first horse, Midnight Trumpeter ("Trumpet"), when I was nine, living in Novi, Michigan. He was a two year old Arabian/Standardbred black roan gelding with white stockings and a blaze. He came from a track where he was being trained as a trotter and was only green broke. My Dad and I saddle broke him together and my life on the trail began!

I love Arabians - they're the supermodels of the horse world, with their sculpted cheekbones, flared nostrils, slender necks and flamboyant tails.

I received a book, The Life, History and Magic of The Horse, as a gift from a family friend when I was eleven years old. (Thanks, Trish!) This excerpt comes from the book and has been treasured by me for years.

The Horse of the Koran

"When God created the horse, he said to the magnificent creature: "I have made thee unlike any other. All the treasures of the earth lie between thine eyes. Thou shalt cast mine enemies between thy hooves, but thou shalt carry my friends on thy back. This shall be the seat from which prayers rise unto me. Thou shalt find happiness all over the earth, and thou shalt be favored above all other creatures, for to thee shall accrue the love of the master of the earth. Thou shalt fly without wings and conquer without sword."

The KORAN (An English translation, London, 1880)

This explains a lot.

Greta and I just returned from a trip to the park, where I enjoyed another chapter in the book I'm reading on the history of Galveston.

Chapter 3 talks of the Karankawas Indians, of which I must surely be a part.

"La Salle's men referred to this tribe contemptuously as "the weepers," but these crying fits were not a sign of weakness. Indeed, they were as much a part of the culture as saluting or bowing or making the sign of the cross was in Western culture. Conversation within the Karankawa culture must have attained a high art: even a simple request or complaint among tribal members was preceded by the shedding of mutual tears. When a Karankawa visited the hut of a neighbor, the visitor and the host went to the middle of the room and squatted on mats. Without speaking a word, both wept bitterly for half an hour."

"Karankawa is not the name this tribe gave itself. Like most other North American Indians, they called themselves men, people, genuine people, human beings, or bodies. Other South Texas tribes assigned various names to these newcomers. The Lipan-Apaches knew them as "people who walk in the water," and others called them "wrestlers" or "without moccasins." But the name that stuck came from two Indian words - karan (dog) and kawa (to love). Since the tribe traveled with small, barkless, foxlike dogs, it became known as the dog lovers, Karankawas."

Most know me as a dog lover, and much of my family can attest that I am the "crier" in the family.

Think the next time I'm home I think I'll have to look for a Karankawa arrow head fashioned out of a seashell to add to my BOI necklace!