Honk Country - B'more & the Maryland Historical Society

Our visits to Baltimore have been brief, but always packed with information. This visit began with having breakfast-lunch in Hightown, which has a lot of Mexican businesses, as well as Dominican and some Cuban, even. Thus many restaurants. A perfect old-school Mexican food meal, which I haven't been able to get for a long time. The young owner (the place was celebrating its first anniversary this week, which observances include Santa coming for the kids in the evening) even printed out directions to help us get to the MD Historical Society the easiest and quickest way.


I am slowly getting an impression that Baltimore, if not exactly booming, is not anywhere near the economic melt-down that people like to think it is. There are jobs here, a lot of them, and they are white-collar jobs perfect for the late-twenties, early thirties, still unencumbered with small children, kinds. Though I did see a lot of young white couples with young children in the very pricey, gentrified Fells Point area, when we went there later.

I like Baltimore more every time we go there. Yes, I could live there very easily, now that its got latinos and latino cooking and music! (The white kids' music is dreadful, though.)

The MD Historical Society is located in old 'monumental' Baltimore. It's more like a museum, which it includes, as well as the library. It's large and friendly. We got initiated (paid our membership fees) and oriented. Ned did some work with the la Trobe papers in the archives. I looked up figures active with the shipyaqrds. I was able to learn more in those three hours than all my research here had accomplished so far. It's easier to drill down in dedicated special collections. Still, the information I'm looking for is really hard to find, because the word 'slaves' just isn't used when talking about ships, shipowners and routes. "Merchandise" can easily be slaves, but to find out, woo, they obscure that carefully, even from themselves, those who are buying, shipping, selling, insuring, etc. I took many notes.

After the library closed, we wandered about the museum galleries. We looked at pictures, maps, a vast hall of silver, and other things. What impressed me most was a large oil painting of the gap between the Shenandoah and Ohio Rivers, named Harper's Ferry. The artist deliberately chose this spot, to contrast its idyllic beauty, with two row-boats filled with beautifully dressed pleasure-seeking young men and women, its forward-looking attitude (on one side you see the tracks laid down for the first railroad of the region, and on the other, a trade road) with what happened there. The painting is a memorial to John Brown.

We'll be going back, soon. But next I want to go to the Baltimore Historical Society because I believe I'll learn more about shipping companies, shipbuilders and insurance companies in their collections.

After the museum closed we cruised on down to Fell’s Point, the old waterfront where the Fells Point shipyards used to be also, where was built many of the clippers (via Haitian refugee owner with his slaves) and privateers -- and slave ships. The connections between Baltimore -- the region as a whole -- New Orleans and Haiti are old, strong and many.

Talk about Williamsburg (Brooklyn) hipsterism gone much further, with a lot more room and a lot more fun! This is the consequence, then of Annapolis's choice to not live up to the Dock Union's bribery (season 2, The Wire) and dredge the harbor and make the improvements that would allow it to compete with the ports like Los Angeles and China. I took a photo of the plaque on the Fell's Point Baltimore Police District HQ in honor of David Simon and his and Burns' Homicide -- this was the cop HQ in that earlier television series they did.

The architecture at Fells' Point is a dream, a local continuation of what you see in southern Pennsylvania like Harrisburg, in Annapolis, in Delaware. Just beautiful, so beautiful, so intelligently and elegantly constructed that you can imagine the area at any season and its seasonal varieties of light and weather. You can also fairly easy imagine yourself back into the past here, when it was a roiling, broiling waterfront of freemen, slaves, an international cast of watermen and sailers, and ships from all over the world. It still reeks of those days in those now-too-hip-to-live waterfront bars. Live music in all of them too, all of it reeked as well. Thank gawd for hiphop and salsa. How many times can anyone stand folky covers of schlock?

The Christmas decorations were brilliant but – well, how can you say this? tasteful. They really are, which seems to be the case all over this region. Not blow-up balloon santies and frosties here, thank goddness. Beautiful lights, but nothing in your face or uncomfortable to your eyes. Big flashers are evidently not popular around here.

In the meantime, while we were gone, the late middle-age, verging into elderly docents, made merry in the House, which was on C’town’s Historical House tour for the benefit of Children Without Winter Coats. el V put up the U.S., the Maryland and the Washington College flags over the portico of the House before we left. The flags are one of the indicators that this residence is open for touring (there are maps that the Kent County Museum and the Visitors Center, where the tours gather, give out, so you can make the tour solo if you want too.) I have no idea what the docents did in here all day, but there were many glasses washed and huge unwashed tray covered in cookie crumbs left behind ... this was not a ‘House’ platter, I’ll have you know ....

Also, they managed to 'break' the downstairs toilet, so they trekked upstairs to ours off the master bedroom. I did not like this, btw. I'd moved office into the sunny room up here, so my computer and so on were not downstairs where surely nothing would happen, but I'm just not leaving my digital life open to access to anyone. I don't think they came in the sun room though. In any case, however, I'm just glad that nobody got hurt going up and down those dangerous stairs. These are not young people. In any case, there was nothing to see in the bedroom, the dressing room or the bathroom, as all was tidy, orderly and very clean, because that's how I roll! Well, there was an ankle-length fuzzy cardigan on the bed, which I wear in this season as my 'housecoat.'

Normally, someone from the Starr Center would have been here all day too, but this benefit tour wasn't on the annual schedule, it's the end of the semester, and everyone's insanely busy and had made plans, so it was just the ladies yesterday.

I got the impression the docents approved my holiday decorations, at least. All were still in place when we returned, except for the huge silver platter-tray, that I’d loaded up with greens and holly and candles and ornaments. The center candles had been removed to sit on either side of the tray, while evidently a big pitcher of something sat in their place. Acorns have been sown broadcast throughout the house, as I gathered some from the ground these last weeks whenever I spied likely ones. Golly, you can get holly and acorns just outside the door when you want!

Coming back we got caught in a rainstorm, which was unexpected. That was a bit of hairy driving, over the Bay Bridge, with such strong winds. I worried about the rain freezing, but to his gratitude and my own, i worried entirely in silence. No need to distract him, that was for sure! el V performed heroically, and even more so, for when we got home, he made dinner himself.

We lit candles all over the dining room, ate, and enjoyed our conversations, while Phil Schapp on WKCR played great jazz. Drank wine with dinner, and had a brandy for dessert. Shoot! it was 11 PM!

Now it's a dank, dark, windy and frigid Sunday morning.  But we're cozy and have ample occupation.