While resting at my sister’s home in Baltimore (recovering from the crud from the road), I’ve found some bits of media flotsam/jetsam from the last few weeks. The time here near the place I spent my first 18 years has brought up some nice and fuzzy memories.
Three weeks ago, my sister and I took a drive through our old neighborhood, just outside the northwest corner of Baltimore. When people learn where I am from they ask “is it the Wire?” and I say, no it is all about The Beltway, Interstate 695 which encircles the city. I was just inside the Beltway, but pretty much life was defined along it.
Anyhow, we drove down the streets to our old house, and also took a look at the school fields across the strett, laughing at the hill we used to go sledding on in winter. The hill must have had much removed since than as we called it “Suicide Hill”.
We also ventured into the woods at the top of the hill to find the giant rock which was a place kids hung out at (and eventually snuck in booze and weed to consume here), but as a kid it was some mark of age to climb the “Big Rock”, which again, seems to have been shrunk much since then
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It was also re-assuring to see that Pahls Farm was still in business. This spot was the remains of a larger family farm the suburbs took over, but they clung on to this portion, and it was a normal thing to walk up the road with a dollar from Mom to pick up a dozen fresh eggs or 6 ears of local grown corn
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
When we visited my Mom’s house in Florida, I was ecstatic to find she had kept my collection of vinyl from high school years. This will be going home with me; in November I am driving to south Florida to pick these up with the other memorabilia Mom had carefully saved and kept.
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
I did a live ds106 broadcast as I opened the footlocker and read off the albums I had there, many of them forgotten, several of them embarrassing.
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
And of course, along the road of nostalgia, was last week’s re-living the 25 year old story of Dominoe’s disappearance/discovery. That is still lingering with me as a powerful experience.
Tomorrow, the road opens up again, for the journey to Fredericksburg and a week of mayhem and who knows what with friends in and descending upon Jim Groom’s place for “bavastock”. It will be epic-ly epic.
cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog
Alan,
You are such a master storyteller through your blog. This post is tidy, pretty, and recaptures your most recent adventures beautifully. I love to see the audio and video components in here along with the photos and text. So good.
GNA
p.s. Iron that shirt you wrinkly hippie!