Memories of Baltimore (1 of 2): General impressions.

You know, the longer I think about it, the more I realize what a completely special place Baltimore is, and I'm so glad that I had a chance to visit there for my conference this past fall.

From my time there, I loved:

1) The name "Charm City", esp. since I first saw it on a park bench that was falling apart.

2) Haphazard zoning so downtown is like Times Square in the 1970s, where strip clubs and sex shops are next to stores are next to bars are next to residential and university buildings.

3) The density of old architecture and historical sites (it's unbelievable, better than D.C or Boston).

4) Their "Mencken Day", in celebration of their journalist curmudgeon who's fallen out of fame in the rest of the country...  A local library has a whole room dedicated to him that they open up once a year, which came through the initiative of a local woman named "Betty", I think, who they had a picture of: big 50s hair, horned rimmed glasses, looked like she loved life (she may have been in a bathing suit on a beach lounge chair holding a martini glass in the picture, or I may be adding that detail in in retrospect).

5) Weird shit just seems to happen there...  At one reception for people who study cults, there was this (middle-aged) (black) lady and her out-of-it skinny teenage son with a big unkempt Afro, and they didn't seem to be associated with the conference at all, but were tentatively taking food here and there from the hors d'oeuvres that had been set out...  When pressed, the woman said she was a real estate agent and they both said they belonged to a Baptist church and were from there (since they confused study of religion with the practice of it? and they knew someone on staff who told them about the reception and said they should come get free food?).

6) The big old market, which is this huge building full of dirty cheap food stalls where you can get $2 chili dogs right away...  "Dinner and a show," a (young) (black) (female) security guard at Camden Yards ballpark called it, when I was chit-chatting with her and I said I'd been there.

"A lot less junkies go there now than there used to," she then added.