Busboys and Poets

A couple of months ago I discovered Busboys and Poets for the first time. I was in Hyattsville on a work assignment and came across their newest location in the Gateway Arts District. I had heard the name before but I’d never been in so I decided to check it out.

 My first reaction was that Busboys and Poets would rock in Columbia. That was only further reinforced when I read how they describe themselves on their website.

“Busboys and Poets is a community where racial and cultural connections are consciously uplifted...a place to take a deliberate pause and feed your mind, body and soul...a space for art, culture and politics to intentionally collide...we believe that by creating such a space we can inspire social change and begin to transform our community and the world.”

Am I crazy or does this sound like it came right out the Jim Rouse playbook?

I decided to see if I could make a Columbia location happen so I sent an email to Andy Shallal, the impresario behind Busboys and Poets. I refer to Andy as the impresario because, as Judith Rosen writes in Publishers Weekly, “I’m not really a restaurateur,” says Shallal, who opened his first restaurant in 1987. “I’m an activist with food. We all eat. There’s a commonality.” 

He responded to my email in relatively short order, thanking me for the “vote of confidence” in his venture. Regarding downtown Columbia he wrote that he’d “keep this in mind.”

Now the real work begins. 

Not Yet

“How were the cherry blossoms?”

“We didn't go to the Tidal Basin.”

“You were on the Mall weren't you?”

“Yeah, but I don’t recall seeing any cherry blossoms.”

“Then they weren't blooming.”

Mama Wordbones was right as usual, particularly when it comes to the ways of nature. I went back and checked my camera. I had taken the typical tourist pictures. Standing in the middle of America’s front lawn I took one shot towards the capital and one towards the monument. Bing. Bang. Boom.

If you look closely you can see the beginnings of color. I wasn't looking closely. It was cold.

Peanut and I took a day trip to the National Museum of American History , my choice not hers. Someone is not doing well in US History and I was hoping for some sort of inspiration. I don’t think it took. Hard to tell though, teenagers are notoriously hard to read.

On the ride home I heard on the radio that peak bud time has now moved back to this Saturday, two days above the average.

We're planning on going back on Sunday, with the bikes. It would be nice if we didn't have to wear ski hats and gloves.

Buzzard Rock March 2013

One of our favorite loco trails is the hike up to Buzzard Rock from Bloede Dam in the Patapsco State Park. Yesterday, at the trail head on Ilchester Road, the road was lined with cars as locos streamed into the park for the best day of the weekend.

It was a perfect day for a hike, not too cold, not hot.

Buzzards Rock sits atop the Simpkins Mill side of the Ilchester Tunnel and rewards your climb with a nice view of the valley below. It’s also a hangout. Though I don’t particularly care for those who introduce spray paint into an otherwise bucolic setting, I do find some of the art to be oddly compelling.

Perhaps of more concern was the number of people we could see milling about on the CSX rail tracks below. I immediately thought of this video my friend Mickey Gomez shared on Facebook earlier this week.

Train tracks are dangerous places.

On the descent to Bloede Dam, a cyclist passed us on the way up and greeted me by name, breathing hard as he attacked the steep incline. I acknowledged the greeting but I have to admit I did not immediately recognize him in the brief moment we passed. I felt bad but he was wearing a helmet and I was sporting non prescription sunglasses, a bad combination for me on a good day. As I continued down the trail trying to figure out who I just said hello to I turned back and saw him taking a break next to a tree. It’s a very long hill and he was about three quarters of the way up. Who was that guy?

Arriving back at the Grist Mill Trail was like merging on to a pedestrian freeway. Runners, bikers, dog walkers, and all walks in between were out in large numbers getting a much needed dose of medicine for cabin fever.

You can find more Buzzard Rock Trail pictures here. 

Short Walk on a Short Trail

A couple of weeks ago, while driving through Catonsville, I spotted this sign for the Short Line Trail. Yesterday, Mama Wordbones and I decided to check it out.

I lived in this neighborhood until I was around ten years old. I can recall when the trains still used this line, servicing what once was the John S. Wilson Lumber Company on Frederick Road (now Bill’s Music House). The line was abandoned in the early seventies and since 1998 Catonsville Rails to Trails has labored to restore the former right of way to a 2.5 mile rail trail.

We picked the wrong spot to check it out. After walking only a short distance we discovered that the rail tunnel that used to run under Bloomsbury Avenue no longer existed. The most complete part of the trail is found further down the line at Maiden Choice Lane. The section we explored is still a work in progress.

Standing above the trail on Bloomsbury Avenue we decided to go and explore the Lurman Woodland Theater instead. This outdoor theater, tucked in the woods adjacent to Catonsville High School, hosts free music concerts on Saturday and Sunday evenings during the summer months. Yesterday it played host to an Easter egg hunt sponsored by the Catonsville Men’s Civic Association.

Former Prez Pushes Pot

Last night at the Baltimore Speaker Series, Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, called for the legalization of marijuana. He said that the best way to marginalize the drug cartels that are wreaking havoc in his country is to remove the $50 billion market for their products.

He also was quick to point out that Brazil actually has a higher murder rate than Mexico. He wants everyone to know that it’s really okay to visit his country.

This news comes on top of the news that the Maryland Senate has just passed a bill to decriminalize pot in the state. According to this story by John Wagner in The Washington Post, under the senate bill (SB 297) getting caught with about two joints will only cost you a hundred bucks. No arrest, just a fine for the state’s coffers. A tax on joints is another way to look at it..

Further demonstrating his progressive libertarian credentials HoCo Senator Allan Kittleman co-sponsored the bill.

It’s still not a sure thing to pass this year, or at all. According to this story by Erin Cox in The Sun the bill “now moves to the House of Delegates, where proponents said it will be a tougher sell.”

“House Speaker Michael E. Busch said he doesn't like the idea of diminishing the consequences for possessing pot.”

Even if its for only two joint...he's a hard man.

Last night was the second to last night of this year’s speaker series and Sheila Kast took the occasion to announce the line up for next year. The 2013/2014 speakers will be Bill Bryson, George Papandreou, Robert Gates, Steve Wozniak, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jon M. Huntsman, Jr. and DaveBarry.

Sounded good to us, we’re re-upping. 

Cracker Barrel Rolling Into BWI

Nothing says road trip to me like Cracker Barrel for breakfast. I can’t even imagine what it would mean if there were one close by where I could get an artery clogging fix of sourdough French Toast lathered up with a Marion Blackberry topping and real whip cream anytime I wanted?

They open at 6:00 AM….every day.

Right now, according to their website, the closest Cracker Barrel to me is in Stevensville.

But not for long.

According to this story in City Biz Real Estate, the gastronomic giant of the interstate is building a restaurant in the BWI Business District “adjacent to the intersection of West Nursery Road and MD Route 295..." It "is scheduled to open in the third quarter of this year.”

You've been warned.

Ready. Fire! Aim.

Count me among those who believe that Governor O’Malley’s proposed gun control legislation will do little to nothing to curb gun violence in the state. Short of an outright ban on gun ownership, nothing can stop a determined person from procuring a firearm and wreaking havoc with it. I don't believe you can legislate against madness.

On the other hand what the gun bill may accomplish is to drive a major employer to leave the state, putting 300 Marylanders out of work. According to this story by Aaron C. Davis in The Washington Post, Berretta USA, which had been planning to expand its plant in Prince George’s County with a new line is now “weighing whether the rifle line, and perhaps the company itself, should stay in a place increasingly hostile toward its products.”

“Concern that the company will leave, and take its 300 jobs with it, is palpable among state lawmakers who worry it could be collateral damage from Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proposed gun-control bill.”

It's not an idle threat. The last time Maryland introduced new gun laws the company moved some operations from Maryland to Virginia.

The best quote in the story was that made by Ugo Gussalli Beretta, the patriarch of the five hundred year old company during a recent visit to the plant, ‘There always seems to be a problem with Maryland.”

Nice.

A Task Force on Hippness

Montgomery County is establishing a task force to figure out how to make the county more hip. According to this article by Bill Turque in The Washington Post, “County Executive Isiah Leggett wants to make Montgomery more competitive with the District and Arlington County for the coveted millennial demographic, or “Generation Y” — roughly defined as those between ages 18 and 34.”

“The county’s concern is reflected in the data. According to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, 36 percent of Arlington’s population is between ages 20 and 34. Montgomery’s proportion is 19 percent, trailing the District (31 percent), Prince George’s County (23 percent) and Fairfax County (20 percent).”

It’s an even bigger problem here in HoCo where only 17% of the population falls in that age group. Even more disconcerting is that this is a drop from the 2000 census when it was 19%.

“We are aging faster than we probably anticipated,” Leggett said. The traditional, suburban Montgomery will not disappear, he said, but for the tax base to grow — and to help support a burgeoning aging-in-place population — a new county has to take root alongside the old.”

HoCo EDA Chief Becomes AA Exec

After three rounds of balloting tonight, Laura Neuman, the CEO of the HoCo Economic Development Authority was elected to fill out the remainder of John Leopolds term as Anne Arundel county exec.

The victory stunned many AA politico observers. Shortly after the vote Allison Bourg, a reporter for the Capital Gazette, tweeted “I think it's fair to say no one saw this coming.”

The top three candidates were thought to be Delegate Steve Shuh, former first lady Kendel Ehrlich and interim exec, John Hammond. Ehrlich didn't even make it to the final four.

Neuman won by sweeping the three Dem votes on the council while three of the four Repubs split their votes between Shuh, Hammond and Annapolis Alderman David Cordle. The lone Repub voting for Laura was council chair Jerry Walker.

Divide and conquer...it's an old cliche but this evening it served Laura well...

Crate & Barrel Coming to Hanover

The home furnishings retailer, Crate & Barrel has leased 78,000 square feet of warehouse space in the Parkway Industrial Park in Hanover, just across the HoCo border.

Could a HoCo store be far behind?

The location of this new link in their supply chain puts Crate & Barrel right in the middle of its existing Maryland stores in Towson, Annapolis and Bethesda. A store in Columbia would seem to make strategic sense.

Crate & Barrel is owned by Otto Group, and also operates the CB2 and Land of Nod retail brands. The closest CB2 store is in Georgetown. Land of Nod, a children’s furnishing concept, doesn't have any stores on the east coast.

Happy Purple People

The Baltimore Sun posted this snapshot on Facebook of last nights celebration on Fed Hill. It appears that no cars were harmed  in the making of this video

Time Lapse Video: Fan reaction to Ravens Super Bowl Win from The Darkroom on Vimeo.

Max’s Redneck Christmas

A couple weeks ago, driving through Catonsville on my way home, I spotted a house at the corner of Ridge Road and Rolling Road that had almost every square inch of yard covered with inflatable holiday stuff. It was so over the top it made me laugh out loud.

Today I took Peanut by to show her and we met the homeowner. “I call it Max’s Redneck Christmas,” he told us.

Max had just finished adding yet another inflatable holiday dog to the mix. “I picked it yesterday. It was marked down,” he explained.

He told us that he actually has five more that he still needs to put up.

“I put one at the front door because people kept knocking on my door to ask if they could take pictures.”

No need to ring the bell. Max doesn't care if you take pictures.

Post Proposes DC Annex Columbia

In a parting gesture to the citizens of the District of Columbia, retiring Senator Joseph Leiberman has introduced a bill in the Senate to make DC our 51^st state called New Columbia. The bill would redraw the existing boundaries of the city by carving out The Mall, most federal government buildings and monuments from the proposed state.

Today, in the Style section of The Washington Post, Monica Hesse and Dan Zak have shared their own thoughts for redrawing the capital city’s lines. Number one on their list was making our Columbia part of their Columbia.

1. To eliminate confusion, the town of Columbia, Md., shall become part of New Columbia but be known as Old Columbia.

In case you might mistake this for anything other than satire, consider that one of their other suggestions was to make Georgetown part of Connecticut.

Still, it’s always nice to be number one.

Laser Lights

Last New Years Eve we stumbled into the Holiday Light show at the Power Plant in downtown Baltimore. It was pretty impressive.

It’s even better this year. They've added fireworks.

The six minute shows goes off at regular intervals from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM. The New Years Eve show will continue until 11:00 PM.

You can find the complete schedule here

Finding the Fun in Dysfunction

The first time I ever heard of Jeannette Walls was this summer when we committed to this years Baltimore Speakers Series. She was the October 30^th speaker, which ended up being postponed until last night because of Frankenstorm. Mama Wordbones had never heard of her either

Obviously we didn't buy the subscription series because of Jeannette Walls.

Two weeks before her appearance, I found myself between books. Her bio in the program said that her book “The Glass Castle” had been a New York Times best-seller for over four years so I figured I'd check it out. I mean, it had to be good, right?

Those To2C readers who've already read this book know the answer to that. I couldn't put it down. I finished the book in less than ten days.

The Glass Castle is Jeannette Walls real life memoir of an absurdly chaotic childhood with absurdly dysfunctional parents. That alone wouldn't necessarily distinguish this book from thousands of others with similar themes but the way Jeannette spins her tale with humor, grace, grit, and hope is masterful.

In other words, I liked the book, a lot. Last night I had the opportunity to hear her talk about her life, then and now. She was terrific. Chalk up another reason I've come to love the Baltimore Speaker Series.

The next writer in the series is Peter Warren. Singer on January 15^th.  Peter is described as a “leading expert on changes in 21^st century warfare." I've started reading his “Wired for War” but I have to admit, it’s a lot slower going than The Glass Castle.

Wedding Weekend

Regular readers may have noticed that I took a blog break this weekend. My nephew got married in Baltimore on Saturday and it was the first time that all my siblings, a brother and five sisters, have been together at the same time in almost ten years.

It seems that the older I get the more quickly the years go by.

We had a blast and it was picture perfect fall weekend in Baltimore.

 Even though I took a little blogging hiatus, I was still thinking about To2C, particularly when I saw the 1936 Rolls Royce 20/25 that the bride and groom hired to shuttle them from the church to the reception.

This beautifully restored limo is owned by Dean Ray who is also a professional photographer. He even wore white gloves for the occasion.

Brain Food

Instead of watching the debate Tuesday night we headed into Baltimore for the first lecture in the Baltimore Speaker Series. I've often described these evenings as brain food. It’s not as if we escaped an evening of politics either, the featured speaker was Bill Clinton.

It is not all that uncommon for protesters to show up at some of these lectures. A few years ago when we went to hear Pervez Musharraf, a sizable group of protesters in the park across the street from the Meyerhoff greeted attendees. Tuesday night a handful of protesters were on hand for the 42^nd presidents appearance but their cause was much more benign. The signs they held read “Don’t Blame Me, I Voted for Hillary.”

Even if you don’t agree with the mans politics or find his presidential behavior to be abhorrent, you probably would have enjoyed his lecture. He spoke at length about the work of his foundation but also offered his perspective on current affairs, um, I mean events.

As reported in this story by John Fritze in The Sun, the former president told the audience “he is confident Washington will work quickly through the nation's looming fiscal crisis after the election despite predictions that partisanship will continue to leave the federal government gridlocked next year.”

It’s easy to forget that before the impeachment mess he actually enjoyed a pretty good relationship with Congress, much better than Obama has. That being said, he was hopeful that things would soon improve.

“He reiterated calls for Congress to adopt a 10-year budget plan front-loaded with new spending to boost the economy that would then begin to impose cuts to reduce the nation's debt in the out-years. He said the Nov. 6 election would be a defining event that would force Republicans and Democrats to work more cooperatively.

"I think you'll be surprised after this election," he said.”

Next up in the speaker series is Jeanette Walls, author of The Glass Castle. I doubt there will be any protesters for her but we’ll still enjoy another healthy serving of brain food.

Healey Man

When I pulled into the Old Mill Bakery Café yesterday morning I spotted this restored 1961 Austin Healey 3000 in the parking lot. At an outside table nearby I spotted John Bassett, the owner of Carpe Vinum on Main Street in Ellicott City. John introduced me to cars owner, Gary Hemphill.

Gary told me he bought the car in 1971 for $350. “It was actually in pretty good shape with the exception of the interior,” he told me. He finished the restoration in 1972.  Today this car could easily sell for over $80,000.

Gary was the perfect guy for this car. He owns Hemphill’s Healey Haven in Catonsville.

Gary owns a few other classic cars as well. It turns out that he is the owner of the Morris Minor 1000 I saw in almost the exact same parking space back in June.

An Oella Morning

This morning I met up with Charles Wagandt, the president of The Oella Company. His company has been involved in the redevelopment of the former mill village along the banks of the Patapsco River since 1973. Oella was not served by public and sewer until 1984. Before then many homes still used outhouses.

               

It’s a different place today. The William J. Dickey & Sons Textile Mill was built in 1918 and ceased operations in 1972. It is now a 147 unit luxury apartment project offering spectacular views of the river. Homes dating back to the early 1800’s have been painstakingly rehabbed and new homes have been added that maintain the architectural integrity of the village. Oella is now a National Register Historic District.

It’s still a work in progress and that’s what bought me back to see Charles this morning. Earlier in the year he had asked me to come up and take a look at the old village Community Hall which he had leased to a technology company called SensorStar. The company had since moved their operations down the hill to Ellicott City and Charles wanted to find a new tenant. He asked for my advice.

At the time, the building was clad in asbestos shingles. It sorely lacked what we call curb appeal. I suggested to Charles that getting rid of the asbestos shingles might be a good start.

He actually listened to me!

Today, with the old shingles removed, the original plank siding was exposed. I only wish I had taken a before picture. The place looks great.

If any HoCo loco business is looking for something a little different than the standard suburban office fare, there is a 5,000 square foot building in Oella that’s well worth a look.

And yes, this was a bit of a shameless plug for my real job.

Instant Village

As we were leaving the Maryland Renaissance Festival yesterday, I stopped and asked a period dressed hostess how many people had passed through the gates that day.

“We had somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-five thousand revelers in the village today,” she replied.

I knew it was a big crowd but I didn’t realize it was that big. I wondered if that was close to some kind of record.

“No. We once got pretty close to thirty thousand,” and added, “that was a lot of people.”

I thought twenty-two thousand was a lot of people but the weekend period village of Revel Grove is spread out over 25 acres so it never felt claustrophobic. If anything, the large number of attendees made the overall experience more festive.

Some of those attendees go all out in getting into the whole medieval spirit thing.

There were lots of things that made us laugh too. Who knew the 16^th century could be so funny?

The wooded setting is perfect too. Yesterday it was cool under the trees yet warm in the open air spots near the Kings Field jousting arena. This is one of the few places you can go to enjoy Maryland’s official sport.

There is a HoCo connection too. The festival began in 1976 on what was then undeveloped land behind Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, some of which is now the Village of Hickory Ridge and the interchange of Broken Land Parkway and Route 29.  It moved to Crownsville in 1985 where it could finally erect structures that could stay in place year round.

The 36^th Maryland Renaissance Festival runs every weekend up until October 21^st. If you plan on going, plan on going early. The gates open at 10:30 AM and by 11:30 the traffic begins to clog up the two lane roads leading to the site.

If you haven’t been, it is well worth the price of admission, especially on those gorgeous fall days like yesterday.