Charmed by Charm City

I live in Baltimore, and I like it.  Yes, that Baltimore.  The one with the riots.  Remember the TV show The Wire?  The setting of The Wire is now where I live.  They call it "Charm City" here in town.  I used to find that funny, but I've come around to a different attitude.

The Marine Corps sent me here to work at a reserve battalion headquartered in the city.  I wasn't crazy about it, but the Marine Corps calls them "orders" for a reason, so here I am.   It's a command position, and I was happy to get it,  but still.

For some reason, I had the idea there might be violence.

I mean I'd driven through the city a few times, while living in Virginia.  I even had a previous girlfriend who tried to get me to like it, but I was having none of it.  I found it dirty, crowded, and noisy.  So when I found out I was moving to this dangerous and dirty place, I had a bit of a bad attitude about it.  When I saw the riots on TV (two months before moving), I developed an even worse one.


The approach most previous Marines in my position have taken is to just avoid the problem by commuting to Baltimore and living someplace else, and this was the path I intended to take as well.  But then there was this little niggle...  I was a country boy from the Deep South.  I have never lived in a big city.  The Marine Corps was offering me an adventure, and I would be a real fool to pass up an experience like that by living in the freaking suburbs.  So I did it. I rented a row house in the Canton neighborhood with a rooftop deck, and proceeded to fall in love with Baltimore.

One of the two pistol bullets
 I found on my deck.

It wasn't all rainbows and unicorns, I'll admit.  There's a police helicopter that flies overhead constantly.  There's a couple of seedy bars frequented by ancient alcoholics nearby, so sometimes they'll decide to pass out on your front stoop, leave an empty bottle of Wild Irish Rose on the steps, shuffle slowly down the center of the street, or some other such hilariousness.  Once a drunk, scrawny old geezer with no shirt and a carpet of dirty gray chest hair pounded on my front door at 2 in the morning demanding that we "fight it out."  I hear gunfire, every once in a while.  I try to convince myself it was fireworks, but I've been in the Marines for 26 years, and I know damn well it's gunfire.  I even found a 9mm pistol projectile on my rooftop deck.  Twice, that's happened, actually.  My truck has been broken into several times, and it was stolen last Thanksgiving.  It was recovered a few weeks later, with an empty gas tank, a partially used box of condoms, and some baby socks (not kidding).  Visiting the Baltimore City impound lot is an experience, by the way.  Not an experience like at Disney World, either.  

60 acres of sadness.

Condoms and baby socks?

At least they left my safety glow belt behind.
Thank God.

But even with all of this, I have to admit, I like living here.  I have a great rooftop deck, with views of the whole eastern part of the city, all the way to the harbor.  I have never much enjoyed jogging, but I do it now because I can run from my doorstep along the waterfront and it's just beautiful.  Unless you look closely at the water of course, where there's often so much trash floating that I can't stop picturing the old crying Indian commercial from the '70's.

But even the trash has a silver lining.  I learned about a thing called Mr. Trash Wheel, a funny little invention that picks up the trash from the water and is just as charming as shit.  I was so charmed I donated a bunch of money to the fund to build a second one in my neighborhood, and those of you who know me know how rare that is.  So then there I was, being a part of things...

Mr. Trashwheel
I mean, whoever thought of adding the eyes--GENIUS.

This new job I took in Baltimore, it's working as the Inspector-Instructor of a reserve Marine battalion.  The Marine Corps Reserve is pretty well known for its Christmas charity, Toys for Tots.  Perhaps you've heard of it.

It's a pretty popular charity and a lot of businesses and civic groups donate to it.  When they hold their big publicity events, they all want a few Marines in dress blues to show up.  So we get inundated with requests for Marines to do all sorts of terrible duty, like going to NFL games, attending parties, etc.  Of course at those events you're treated like a celebrity, with free drinks, lots of female attention, etc.  But believe it or not, I have a hard time finding enough Marines to cover these events. Anyway, it came to pass that I finally got on one of these difficult assignments personally--judging the Parade of Lights in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, which if you've never heard of it, is when a bunch of people decorate their boats for Christmas, get drunk, and drive around the harbor.  Yes, it's as fun as it sounds.

I'm the really attractive one.  

My job was to show up at the Polish Home Club in my dress blues, mingle with some old Polocks,  and then to go out and stand on a little boat while all the drunks come by in their boats, dancing and singing and being drunk.  A unique experience, I think.  

The most handsome judge of lighted boats.

 I drank hot cider spiked with rum, I gave my completely unqualified opinion vis-à-vis boats decorated with Christmas lights, and had a great time. So, Baltimore was starting to win me over.

There's also a festival every time you turn around in Baltimore.  There's HonFest, The Running Festival, the Baltimore Whiskey Festival, SpringFest, Beer, Bourbon and BBQ Festival, Saint Patrick's Day (big here), Fells Point Pirate Festival, Kinetic Sculpture Race, Wine Festival...the list goes on and on.  Add to that an almost total lack of the kind of douchebags that DC is overrun with--You know the guys I mean--the ones in salmon-colored pants and popped collars.

If you see me in salmon pants,
please kick me in the balls.

Baltimore scares these kinds of people away, I think.  And for that, I thank you.

Couple all of this with the many great restaurants where you can always find a table, that an Uber shows up at my door 3 minutes after I order it, and the fact that I can walk to something like 50 bars from my house, and Baltimore succeeded in winning my heart, in spite of my prejudices (and the grand theft auto).

So gracias, Baltimore.  I'm gonna hate to leave.