On my Facebook page (come join us!) I stumbled across a group called “You Know You’re From Baltimore when…”
They list 45 reasons. They are hugely clever. I joined the group and will now share their list of reasons, along with my elaborations. Nine per night…collect them all!
1. You could pick crabs before you could walk. And we love it when folks come in from out of town and we get to pick double and still guzzle.
2. From snow to hurricanes to heat waves, you've seen every kind of weather imaginable. Except an earthquake, heaven forfend.
3. 695 gets you everywhere. This is the Baltimore Beltway, the huge city-sized version of the service road that runs the circumference of every mall. Oh, it’ll get you everywhere … national Social Security Headquarters … Bethlehem Steel …the County Courthouses … 127 Paneras…
4. You stress the "Oh" in the U.S. National Anthem. A bit of an embarrassment, this one, begun by O!riole fans in the 70’s… worst when opera singers from out of town are wending their way through the Star Spangled Banner, and they don’t know about the roar that is about to meet their contralto, but we do.
5. It's "DC", not "Washington"; "Hopkins", not "Johns Hopkins", and "goin' downa' ocean" means you're off to Ocean City, Bethany, or Rehoboth. Yes, it’s “DC”, as in “Are you crazy? Don’t go to DC!” And you could travel to the ends of the earth - even to places where Matt Lauer dares not tread - and the locals could identify the great medical institution and university located here as Johns Hopkins. Here, though, even people who work there have been known to call it John Hopkins.
6. You've had relatives imprisoned at Ft. McHenry. That would have to date back several centuries, but every time I see Watergate figure John Dean on “Countdown” I remember when the Feds put him in the lockup at Fort Holabird, where the local Dundalk accent was no match for his Ivy League nasality.
7. Half your high school graduating class went to College Park. Fear the Turtle.
8. The opening of a Wegman's was the greatest thing to happen to your city in ten years. Peggy and I will drive past many a supermarket to get there, to this Valhalla of food, this wonderland with a huge parking lot. 135 types of cheese - that says it all.
9. You put Old Bay on everything. It’s the best spice going. Even if you can’t afford the seafood it was formulated to cook with, sprinkle some on potato chips or corn on the cob and presto! Fake crab feast!
More tomorrow!
1 comment:
Oh, these are great - can't wait to see what you have for tomorrow. And, I love Wegmans, my favorite food store. But the ride to get there is even lovlier, thanks to taking the long way around!
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