The 2014 Letter

The short story on us this past year is that we are well and adjusting to life in Baltimore, which compared to Seattle, feels not just like a different city but a different planet. We have grown accustom to a number of places and people here who have made us feel at home. Thanks to the staff at the Bolton Hill Bistro (www.b-bistro.com) who almost know us by name which reminds us of the hospitality of Corino at Mondellos in Seattle. Thanks to Neal and Joey at Neal’s the Hair Salon (nealswebpage.com) who provide the boys with a pair of ready made “Uncles” and provide endless entertainment. Thanks to the Ladies at The Spirits of Mt Vernon (www.spiritsofmtvernon.com) who provide us with smiles and a lovely Seattle-esque place to have drinks and to buy nice wines. Fortunately, the Mariners play the Orioles. So, we can catch them there and if we don’t mind a bit of driving we can see the Seahawks when they play the Redskins in Landover, MD. I even found an amazing Pale Ale made in Mt Vernon, which is the neighborhood next to ours and where the first statue of George Washington (mvpconservancy.org/history/) in the country stands, called The Brewer’s Art (www.thebrewersart.com/#!/page_home). 

 Graham at the Sesame Tavern in Dubrovnik July 2014

As for the family, Graham is in his junior year of high school learning the rigors of study in an International Baccalaureate (www.ibo.org) program with physics bringing new meaning to what it means to understand the world. It’s an intensive program that will see him take an international standardized IB exam during his senior year. If passed this will help with scholarships beyond the state of Maryland where his tuition is covered. He has also continued to work hard in the weight room. Even with some set backs due to lower back problems that prevented him doing some of the heavy lifts he had been doing early in the year, no one on the beach in Croatia, where we were in July for MSBM VIII (www.msbm.org), thought he was in high school. This might have in part been due to the combination of beard and six-pack. Regardless, to the astonishment of his Mother he has consistently moved his body weight (with % body fat being the goal) between 135 to 150 lbs on command by controlling his diet. 

 David's 18th birthday

La Famiglia @ David's High School Graduation

David, the budding graffiti artist, just finished his first semester at Towson University in the art program. About a week ago he said he was contemplating taking a semester off. This led to some simple calculations regarding how much money one needs to pay for cell phone, wifi, food, clothing, insurance and rent. That in turn led to the coefficient of friction on the wheels of reality being exceeded and the train leaving the station. As I recall from the early 80s when life was cheaper and I was finishing my nearly useless degree in chemistry. Useless because the economy was not in good shape and there were few jobs to be found. At the time I decided to go to graduate school because the pay was good or at least better than not being paid. Still it was shocking when I first realized what life cost. Now, David has to go through the same exercise. Hopefully, he can figure out how to make money with a hopefully not so useless art degree. He'll figure it out, but again as I recall I couldn't really make up my mind until I was about 25 and met Donna, which sort of helped with the process.

 Graffiti - pink

In truth the uncertainty that David has is not his fault. Science has shown that the male brain does not mature enough to make important (IFTTT = if this then that) decisions until the mid-20s. Finding this out made me feel better about the malaise I felt in the first half of my 20s. Donna though didn't have time to struggle with any of this and women probably sort it out much more quickly. In her case she worked two jobs, paid her Mom rent and paid her own tuition.

 Graffiti - gray

The boys each spent part of their summer of 2014 back in Seattle with friends, while we - in honor of Donna’s 5 January 50^th birthday - spent New Year’s Eve there.  While there, we managed to pull off a surprise appearance at the annual 29^th Avenue West New Year’s Eve soiree held at la mason de la Lallaison. Was good to see many of our former neighbors and friends. While we won’t make it this year, we probably will visit at some point. We even made it to Alabama this year for my niece’s wedding in April. That was the first full family trip in years and was nice as we stayed in downtown Montgomery (aka Moan-Gumree) where Donna and I met. 

 Aubree, Graham, Donna and David at the Red Barn post-wedding shindig

As expected our house is looking great thanks to Donna’s sense of style. All ready for Christmas here. What follows are four vignettes on our experience with Baltimore’s finest this past year. It is a tough job the police do and we would not want to live in a world without them. After the most recent riots, deaths and police actions, moving forward let's hope for dialogue and respect from all parties.

Happy Holidays from Ballmore! Dave, Donna, David, Graham and Trixie.

Jesse James Gang of Baltimore. In February in Finland there only a few hours of daylight and given the cloudy/snowy time of year one is unlikely to see the sun for weeks which can make for a depressing visit. Waiting for the sauna to warm up I was about to get some depressing news to go along with the mood there when a text from Donna came in. “Call me. Graham got jumped at the bus stop”.  

Cell phones are easy to pawn. So they are an object of thieves every where. These days most kids don’t wear watches. So, when six kids loitering outside the YMCA asked Graham what time it was, he didn’t look on his wrist. He pulled out his iPhone which led to immediate excitement in the “we wonder what time it is” gang.

Making it to the bus stop at the end of the block Graham found a couple of other kids with Baltimore City College Uniforms on whom he didn’t know but who confirmed his suspicion “yeah, those kids want your phone” … Fortunately, the bus arrived at that moment and they piled on.

However, before the bus could leave the curb, the “Jesse James of Baltimore” gang jacked a panel open on the back of the bus disabling the hybrid. The bus driver, not knowing what was going on, called for a backup bus. In the meantime Graham calls Donna, “can you come get me? I think I’m gonna get robbed when I get off the bus.” Before she arrived though the second bus arrived and they were all forced off the first bus.

As Graham and the two other City College kids tried to enter the second bus the “would be phone jacking” gang attacked them. There was no “gimme yer phone or you’re gonna get whacked”. They just started beating on the three of them. This caused the second bus driver to close the doors to the bus because of course he doesn’t want any of those kids on his bus. As the six on three melee ensued at the side of the bus with bars and fists flying, Graham escaped into the street. Once there a stranger in a pickup truck who watched the whole melee transpire shouted “hey kid – get in!”. Realizing he couldn't out run the kids, he jumped in and this very kind man delivered Graham to the house. Unfortunately, Graham was too stunned to ask his name. So we couldn’t thank him, but we were able to thank the two City College kids who took a beating with Graham.

In one action, Graham, the only white person in this story caught a glimpse into the good and bad of Baltimore. Kids he did not even know from his school stood with him and a complete stranger drove him home. The kids who wanted his phone fumbled the robbery because assuming they would beat it off him never even asked for it. At least one was caught by the police, but not surprisingly Graham failed to recognize any of them in a police lineup. So, Graham, a white kid from a very white city – Seattle - learned that people can be good and bad no matter their skin color.

 Graham relaxing on Lokrum July 2014

The Graffiti Body. I’m not sure if the police are aware of it, but the graffiti street code states that if a building is abandoned then it’s OK to tag it. This certainly happened in Seattle with abandoned buildings in good neighborhoods being tagged in broad daylight. Here life is a bit rougher than there and we worried that the police might not care about the code. Still after months of looking for an appropriate abandoned building to tag, David found one not too far from the house. He had been several times when one day he decided to exit via a new route through the woods that looked closer to the light rail he needed to ride home. Shockingly, there in the low grass and just a few feet off the trail was a decomposing human body.

Once home he mentioned to his Mom what he had found and they decided he should call the 311 non-emergency number. I mean it's a decomposing body. So it is not exactly an emergency. Right? Well the 311 Operator only heard “dead body” and transferred him to the 911 Operator who asked if he could meet the police at the site. So away they go with six police cars, a fire truck, an EMT truck, and the fire Marshall passing them on the way. After repeating his story to half a dozen people each in turn, which must be police protocol to make sure they story does not waiver, he was allowed to leave. That was a few months ago and still no news about what happened to this person. The detectives were granted an early Christmas wish when he agreed not to report this to the news agencies. Not sure we will ever know what happened there.

 David at the final Baltimore City College Concert

U Cain’t Fix Stoopid. While in Seattle the police will write you a ticket for jaywalking, in Baltimore if you aren’t jaywalking then you stand out like Graham at the bus stop near the YMCA. Here when a local decides they want to cross the road, they don’t walk to the corner and wait for the light to change. Instead, they just head across the road.

It works like this. If it's a two-lane road then you wait for the lane closest to you to clear and then move to the middle. Never mind that traffic is zipping by now in both directions (behind and in front of you) just wait in the middle of the street until the next lane clears. If it's a four-lane road, same protocol. Wait for one lane at a time to clear and move ahead. In neither case does “clear” really mean clear in a normal sense. Rather, it just means that once you are in the road anyone who hits you is now responsible for hitting you regardless of the fact that you are too stupid to use the light at the corner. This behavior is so much a part of culture here that a local once asked me as I pushed the button to trigger the light to change for pedestrians to cross “whuh duzz dhat doo”? As I started to explain, he moved on into the road dodging oncoming traffic. Ugh!

This cross the street whenever it suits your mindset coupled at times with a Baltimore shuffle that can break into a stiff legged hobbled run can give the impression you are in an episode of the walking dead. It also means that drivers are so accustom to having pedestrians in the road and not the cross walks that the rules of the cross walk are not obeyed or even considered by drivers. So, when I complained to the campus police about drivers speeding out of West Baltimore – a one way street - on to MLK while I was in the cross walk with the right of way, I was told to use the other side of the street. Really? The other side is safe? Well, yes because there is less traffic and drivers cant get up as much speed when they come through the cross walk. Remarkable, but it is quite apparent that neither the drivers nor the campus police care about pedestrians. I once approached the cross walk with a pregnant woman who even though she had the right of way was so afraid of the on coming cars she wouldn’t move off the curb even holding on to my arm. Only when she didn't have the right of way, but the way was clear, did she venture across the street.

Unfortunately, the campus police refuse to monitor this intersection because MLK is a city street crossing campus. Actually, across the entire city the police have abdicated control to drivers many of whom appear to have never passed a driving exam. Not long after my complaints to the campus police one of our pharmacy students was hit in the intersection and hospitalized with nonlife threatening injuries. Later in the year another pedestrian who yelled at a driver who almost hit her found herself chased and beaten by the driver who then tried, but failed, to steal her phone while she was calling the police. This is the pedestrian life in Baltimore where I walk three miles round trip every day to and from work. So far, so good.

 

 David, Dave and Graham at the Red Barn south of Montgomery

Donna and the Judge. At the beginning of December Donna was chosen for jury duty. It’s a murder trial where jurors were selected only if they had never heard of the case. Having been here only a year and a half made her a perfect choice. Plus, she failed to take my sound advice “behave rudely and go off about your believe in the death penalty”, but Maryland doesn’t have the death penalty and even if we did she doesn’t believe in it.

For the first 11 days she was alternate #1. However, the very pregnant woman that had been selected before her did not last. So now, Donna is juror #8. She of course can’t talk to anyone about what is going on, but says she is learning a lot about criminology. Fortunately, she received the jury duty request in early November and decided to finish 90% of her Christmas shopping by the day after Thanksgiving. Still it's a bit much right at the Holiday season to be called on to serve the community. ...  As of this morning though the judge declared a mistrial. So you can now read comments in the Baltimore Sun from Donna and the other jurors who were questioned on leaving the courthouse; see http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bal-second-trial-in-phylicia-barnes-murder-ends-in-mistrial-20141222-story.html

There’s more, but that is probably enough to give you a flavor of the Baltimore life. It's a patchwork of good and bad. Where some cities practice effective socio-economic segregation, the nature of Baltimore does not allow this. I'm not complaining. Diversity is good, but would the nut job who broke the brass water faucet off the front of our house leaving water squirting out into the street please return it?

 Dave and Jace celebrating the Seahawks 2014 Superbowl win.