Under the Sea For the Halloween Parade at Patterson Park

My oldest friend L. has been in town this weekend, and it was so, so good to see her. She’s the kind of friend who is totally happy to just sit and watch a zillion episodes of some crappy television show she’s already seen, eat at the same restaurant two nights in a row because it was just so good the first time, and watch me clean and lube and shine my bicycle for the ride I was going to take after she was gone, and that’s what I did after dropping her at the train station. Continue reading

Historical Sign Marking Where Frederick Douglass Lived as a Slave in Fells Point at Durham & Aliceanna

I spent my lazy Saturday at home, reading a little of this and a little of that and then watching a documentary about the life and times of Bayard Rustin as I ate my lunch. What a remarkable man, and he said, “We are all one. And if we don’t know it, we will learn it the hard way.” Think about that. Seriously, seriously deep, and not in some facile way where we should all just get along, or we don’t have differences because we’re all just human, but that we are in this thing together, and if we don’t figure that out, and if we just abandon huge swathes of ourselves, we are in serious trouble; we’ve got plenty of evidence that Rustin’s right, all over the place. Continue reading

View From a Bench in O’Donnell Square in Canton

The sun was out today, and oh my, but that can lift a girl’s mood. I took the bike and headed down the hill to the Hippodrome for volunteer usher training (yes, I’m already acting like a retiree). I’ve been through downtown, but I’ve never been through that neighborhood, and today it was bustling with people shopping, street-preaching, waiting for the bus, and just generally enjoying the sunshine. Continue reading

A Ship at Dock From Across Fells Point

image

I spent most of my day on foot, running errands and killing time before J. picked me up to host me for my last couple of nights in Baltimore. My evening task? Get my rental bike from Charles Village to Linwood. Don’t mind if I do! As a biker of habit, I already have a preferred route to downtorn, so I pedaled down Guilford to Falls Road and then along whatever that street is, avoiding the steel plates. I took a left at the harbor and stopped at the Civil War Trail sign at Jones Falls. I think. I followed the signs to Fells Point, because everyone keeps telling me to go there, and they were right. I stopped along the way to read about Civil War history and the Katanya Massacre–the Poles are an impressive people–and then I was in Boston. Or Fells Point. I snapped this picture at the end of the pier, happy to have a view unimpeded by the Rusty Scupper, the Ritz Carleton development, and those dragon boats–an excellent reminder that Baltimore is still a working harbor for the military and industry. I was wilting, but there was Christopher, selling two bottles of water for a dollar, and I chugged them down in front of the building where apparently some bright minds dreamt up the television programme, Homicide. Maybe I should watch that. Anyway. Then it was time to ride in the general direction I thought I was going, and suddenly I was at Patterson Park, so I did a loop. My host lives just past the park, so I figured I would make it home if I just kept riding. Yeah, a rectangle has four sides, which means eight ways to be “just past the park,” and all I remembered was that I was looking for a street whose name had historical resonance that I found interesting–I need to write stuff down! I rode around hoping I’d find my bearings, eventually giving up and checking my smartyphone’s map. Yeah, it’s the other way. I pedaled slowly uphill till I made it to Potomac Street, took a right, and was home for the day. I have so much getting lost in my future. Lucky, lucky me.