Today’s inspiration:
The land around Maryland. Severn River. The country. All around this place.
Today’s joy:
Rolling around Central Maryland, seeing a lot of places I hadn’t seen in a very long time. Seeing these old places anew. Seeing some new things. Ritchie Highway. Crain Highway. Solomons Island Road.
A past joy:
Going down to Freetown, Maryland and seeing Kess Circle for the first time.
There’s a scene at the beginning of “Ocean’s Eleven,” where Danny Ocean and Rusty Ryan are trying to talk Ruben Tishkoff into joining them in their planned casino robbery caper. Ruben is hesitant at first, but is happy to join in once Danny and Rusty explain that they’re planning to rob the casinos of Ruben’s nemesis, Terry Benedict, who had recently bought Ruben’s hotels from under him and was planning to demolish them “to make way for some gaudy monstrosity.”
Despite the good feelings engendered by Ruben’s joining the plan, he makes an important warning. Stealing from Terry Benedict like this is especially dangerous. “At the end of this, he better not know you’re involved, not know your names, or think you’re dead, because he’ll kill you, then he’ll go to work on you.”
Since the movie is older than at least one of them, almost as old as the other two involved, I guess the young men who pulled off the Twitter hack had never seen it, or at least that scene. And perhaps nobody told them leave their names fully out of online activities like that. And that means anywhere along the lines.
What’s the point of using a “hacker alias,” a VPN, TOR, an airgapped machine, Kali Linux, or any of that other stuff, if you’re going to use your real name on your bitcoin account that you use to receive stolen Bitcoin?
I only ask because that’s apparently how guys in the caper got caught. They’re described as the middlemen, but, if you’re the kind of person who involves themselves in such activities, you’ve probably taken a lot of other precautions, such as the ones listed above, to protect your identity, as much as possible. They might even use burners phones and such. But if you’re going to be receiving stolen bitcoin, why on Earth would you receive it in such a way that can be tied back to you? There are ways to transact with Bitcoin anonymously and I was surprised to hear that this is how law enforcement was lead to the two.
In Ocean’s Thirteen, when discussing that film’s caper, the specialist Roman Nagel asks Danny and Rusty possibly the most important question of any caper, “what’s your exit strategy?”
These guys must not have given much thought to theirs. Now, they’re facing multiple felonies.
The other night, Twitter was ablaze with the news that the President of the United States planned to ban the short-form video content creation app, TikTok. If you’ve been living under a rock or perhaps spend the majority of your social media time on Facebook and therefore don’t know what’s going on, TikTok has been controversial because it is owned by a Chinese company with ties to its government and the app has come to be considered to be spyware. India’s government has banned TikTok, but they’ve also been having other issues with China this year.
This, and perhaps other issues (like, really, who even knows?) have prompted the President to make the move to ban the app in the United States. But, if the comments on Twitter are any indication, there might be some trouble enforcing that.
As a baseline, the government would need Google and Apple to remove the app from their app stores “in the U.S.” Even so, the moment the app is removed from those locations, what’s stopping someone from hopping on a VPN and changing their location to another country, like say, Canada, which has not banned the app, and getting the app?
It’s possible on both Android and iOS without rooting, and it’s super easy on Android.
But even so, for those who might be unable or unwilling to do that much, there are alternative app stores out there. And even if one does not trust those, what’s stopping people from going to other websites and getting the app(s)? It’s pretty easy to sideload an Android app. And while it doesn’t seem as easy to me to do the same on iOS, it’s possible. A quick web search will reveal a bunch of possible ways to do so.
As this tweet says, pretty much nothing sort of the government building a “Great Firewall” is going to stop the app from coming into the country. They’d have to enlist every ISP, including cell phone companies and home Internet providers. Would they do it by blocking the DNS of known places where the app might be? Still, people can use DNS in other countries and even Cloudflare, whose 1.1.1.1 DNS service is encrypted. VPN providers have their own DNS servers, so if someone connected to a VPN, if that VPN provider were outside of the country, then they’ve already circumvented things. They’d have to ban VPN services.
Then, what’s stopping someone two people, one inside the US and one outside, away from known VPN services, from setting up their own site-to-site VPN and just sharing the app between themselves?
All of that aside, it’s being reported that Microsoft could buy the American arm of TikTok and I guess that, along with making sure the apps aren’t like … spying on people, will could make this issue go away? Hopefully, the kids will take their lessons on Internet privacy seriously, regardless of what happens.
Pleasantly surprised is a good way to describe how I feel about this MLB season, so far. Despite coronavirus diagnoses on several teams, MLB is pushing through. Now, Rob Manfred has told the union that too may more players testing positive would mean he’ll have to shut it down, and has told their television partners to get ready for that possible eventuality, but so far, they’re pressing on. And the O’s are near the top of the AL East. I do want baseball, not because I have this sense that it’ll be providing “normalcy.” Normalcy would be the season starting early spring when it’s cooler and fans would be in the stands and no fan noise would be piped in. But, baseball does bring me joy like few other things in my life, so I’m happy to have it. But, if the health situation becomes unmanageable, then it’s time to shut it down.
The NFL needs to be paying as much attention to how things go with MLB. In fact, while I’m pretty sure they’d never do this, were I in control of the NFL, I’d have done my best to have health and operations officials from my league working closely with some counterpart in MLB to monitor the situations and the decisions being made, to relay that information and to help us make better decisions moving forward.
The two leagues are in similar situations, in that they both decided to contest games in each team’s home stadium. However, while no fans are present in MLB games, the NFL has decided to leave the question of fan capacity, ultimately up to teams and local governments. The Ravens announced several weeks ago that M&T Bank Stadium would have a capacity of no more than 14,000 fans (PSL holders were given priority ticket purchase rights since they wouldn’t all be technically able to use their PSLs this season), but ultimately, the decision is up to the City of Baltimore to decide whether that number of fans will be allowed into the ballpark, or fewer, or none at all.
The challenge of preventing a breakout in any team’s locker room is magnified for the NFL, as NFL rosters are basically double the size of MLB rosters this season. NFL teams pretty much always have more coaches than the typical MLB team. More players play in closer quarters on every single play in any game, than in MLB. The NBA and WNBA have distanced players sitting on the bench, so it’ll be interesting to see how the NFL deals with that particular issue because there are a lot more players along the sidelines at any time during an NFL game than there are in any basketball game.
It’s a logistical challenge and I think the NFL should have decided upon sequestering players, officials, and such in one or more places across the country and I’m surprised they did not. The NFL had lots of time to think about it. They planned and executed a physically distanced, and quite fun, in my opinion, draft in a relatively brief time.
Now, on the chance that both the MLB and NFL seasons successfully complete, I do hope the O’s and Ravens do end up on top. I usually do, obviously, being from Baltimore and having been a fan for such a long time, but want to see the win for Mo. Baltimore superfan and child cancer patient, Mo Gaba, passed away this past week. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an outpouring of love or care or concern for anybody in the Baltimore sports community. Tweets came from current and former Baltimore players. Even whole sportscasts have been dedicated to him and his memory. Understandably so. He didn’t just love Baltimore sports, but that was part of his love of life. In spite of all of the challenges he faced. I never met him, but like so many of us, was touched by him and his story. The Orioles put him into their Hall of Fame hours before he passed and I hope that gave him peace and joy in his final hours. I’m glad the O’s and Ravens, and others, did so much for him, rallied around him. These are my home town teams, but we’re also part of a community that I’m grateful to be part of. At least one championship would be a great tribute to a life lived briefly but bravely.
Tropical Storm Warnings have gone up in this area, and we’re hours from the forecast arrival of Isaias. Hopefully it will be just a Tropical Storm when it arrives in this area. From the looks of it, the storm will be here with us from sometime late Monday night through Tuesday afternoon/evening. It’s done quite a bit of damage down in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, but thankfully lost some intensity last night and was downgraded. But tropical cyclones are anything but fully predictable, so we’ll have to wait and see how things turn out.
Baltimore City is offering free sandbags for local residents on a first-come, first-served basis.
.@BmoreCityDOT will have sandbags available for all city residents on a first-come, first-served basis.
Please see @mayorbcyoung’s full release here: https://t.co/sFPfDiOXNa
— Brandon M. Scott (@CouncilPresBMS) August 3, 2020
Providing these bags is a great service, but I think in future storms, this needs to be done on the basis of living near one of the City’s waterways. The City has neighborhoods that flood almost regularly, like Canton and Fells Point and ones right next to the Patapsco like Cherry Hill and Westport. Those neighborhoods, and ones like Clipper Mill, which sits in the Jones Falls valley, and Mount Washington, are the most at risk when a storm threatens to rain hard and consistently for hours. There are also other smaller waterways, which can become hazardous during a huge rain event. These are the places the city needs to focus on, as well as areas with poor drainage. The City knows about these issues and can focus resources better itself than relying on citizens, who might come from neighborhoods at less risk, and come more out of fear than out of a sense preparedness. With the pandemic going on, city agencies like schools (yeah, yeah, I know how it runs and how its funded, but it serves Baltimore children and it’s located in Baltimore) have faced logistical issues in serving people. The last thing we need is people unnecessarily showing up places for something they probably don’t need. Hopefully, the City will correct this and do a better job in the future. This isn’t a condemnation, but advice, as I know that Baltimore, like pretty much everywhere else, is under unprecedented pressures at this time. Whatever happens in the next couple of days, I hope that we make it through, as unscathed as possible because the logistics around sheltering people during the pandemic would be a major challenge. I know the City has many good people working for it, but again, there’s a big strain going on.
Baltimore Magazine recently published an article by senior editor, Ron Cassie, with some bold proposals to, as the title says, fix Baltimore. The article recounts some of the historical reasons for why Baltimore has come to be in the position that it’s in. It’s not what most people would think, especially outsiders, who most likely think the issue is crime, because they’ve watched The Wire; they’ve maybe even binged it during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. It’s true that Baltimore, as it is now, is a product of the decisions made about its governance.
Whether one agrees with the ideas presented in the article, the article is a great starting point for discussions about what Baltimore needs to become in a post-Covid-19 (hopefully) world. The office of Mayor is up for grabs this year with a bunch of candidates. There are other offices up for grabs, though right now, those are not nearly as powerful as the Mayor’s office, which is touched on in the article. Yet, these ideas need to be on the forefront as leadership changes in the City.
One of the ideas presented in different ways in the article is that there needs to be more regional governance. I agree and I’ll be discussing the ways in which I agree, below. For that reason, I think this is an important read, not just for residents of Baltimore City, but of the entire Metro area, not just because some of the ideas, if ever implemented, would bring changes to the lives of non-residents, but also because the Baltimore suburbs, long intended to be bulwarks against urban ills, are experiencing some of those same ills and because the way that other areas around the country and the world are developing, the lines between Baltimore City and the surrounding Counties, are hindering, not helping. Baltimore specifically and Maryland in general, are stuck in 1950’s thinking in 2020.
Below are my responses to a few of the ideas presented.
Knock down I-83
This gets a hell yes from me. I first came across this idea a little over a decade ago. If I remember correctly, it’s been discussed on the old Envision Baltimore listserv I lurked on for a long time. As the article states, the idea entails knocking down the elevated portion of I-83, which spans several blocks before it terminates at Fayette Street.
While Baltimore might lose the charm of having its farmers market underneath the JFX anymore, it is past time to get rid of this. As local business captain MJ Brodie, is quoted as saying in 2007, “Let’s plan now to demolish this elevated, archaic section of I-83.”
People who work in more northerly reaches of Baltimore City, as well as those who live in the suburbs, would probably lose their minds at the prospect of not being able to speed into, and out of, Downtown (or crawl, whichever the case may be), 83 is a scar Downtown. Getting rid of it would not just re-stitch together neighborhoods, as the article says, but doing so might also help lead to two more changes in the urban environment that might lead to some good: daylighting the Jones Falls and figuring out something with the stretch of I-83 adjacent to Woodbury/Hampden and Clipper Mill.
Yes, a river flows through the middle of Baltimore, but you’d miss it if you didn’t know it’s there, because once it passes by the Harbor, it gets encased in concrete all the way through to parts of North Baltimore. But that’s a topic for another blog post.
With respect to that more northerly stretch of I-83, they need to do something. There seems to always be an accident there; traveling northbound, there are major curves and the speed limit drops to 50, but drivers often ignore this, which leads to the accidents. And on the southbound side, we’ve even had cars leaving the highway and dropping into the valley below. Maybe once we’ve figured out how to live without the highway stretch of 83 south of Penn Station, we may figure out what to do with that stretch, which leads to congestion and delays so frequently because it’s so dangerous.
Other cities are learning how to live without some of their highways and freeways. As the article discusses, San Francisco’s Embarcadero Freeway suffered damage in the Loma Prieta Earthquake and then they tore down the rest. Seattle buried their Alaskan Way Viaduct. Boston’s Big Dig built a highway partially underground at its start. Will Baltimore follow?
Car-Free Streets
One of the days that New York closed Broadway to cars, I was there. I loved it. Plenty of space to move around and not be close to people (that sounds like something that we may want to do moving forward for at least a while anyway). Restaurants set out extra tables. There was so much life on the street.
Not that I discussed the idea with too many people back home because Baltimore is often dismissive of outside ideas (aside from former Mayor Martin O’Malley, who seemed like he couldn’t get enough of them and the people who had developed them), even ones that could be adapted to make Baltimore better, so married to the status quo are so many Baltimoreans. And any idea that threatens car culture in Baltimore is going to be especially derided.
Yet, as the article reports, Councilman Ryan Dorsey suggested closing Charles Street to cars. No matter what the benefits may be, it’s an idea that would probably need a ton of support because those voices afraid of losing every single inch to speeding up to the County would be loud. But still, I think it’s a good idea. Not just because I think the City needs to be focused more on the needs of its own citizens until such as time as true regionalism is achieved, but because there are some stretches of Charles Street with restaurants and all that could use the freedom to expand into the outdoor environment, especially in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, but also because doing so might bring some life to those parts of Charles Street. Now, ideally, Charles Street would be closed to cars and the once-proposed Yellow Line light rail would run on it, but the Yellow Line is another topic for another blog post. Or, perhaps another section of this one.
Charter Reforms to Mayoral Power
I could just say “Healthy Holly” and be done with an argument for why this is good, but it goes further than that. I agree that the mayor in Baltimore’s system has too much power. Cassie outlines some of the ways in the article, but I want to add that Baltimore needs to get rid of the Board of Estimates, which puts way too much spending power into the hands of too few people.
While we’re at it, I agree we need ranked choice voting. Anything that’s nonpartisan. A lot of people complain that Democrats have had too much power for too long in Baltimore. This is only a surface read. Baltimore’s politics don’t always follow national trends. There are people registered Democrat whose politics don’t necessarily follow the center-to-left-center (or even left-leaning) politics most associated with national Democrats. It’s a hodge podge and some of this is probably attributable to the desire of people in some circles desiring to be close to power and some not wanting their vote to be disregarded entirely, since other political parties are marginalized in Baltimore City. Baltimoreans need to hear from other voices and some other form of elections would help to make that a reality instead of the Democratic primary more or less deciding most elections within the City.
Long term, I think Baltimore needs a City Manager, in conjunction with a Mayor (out of the norm of either governmental form, I believe). In this scenario, the city manager would be in charge of the day-to-day management of the city and the Mayor would focus more on “big picture” things. Ideally, the City Manager would be elected on their own. Perhaps, if we were to maintain partisan elections, the City Manager would legally come from a party in opposition to the Mayor. Just an idea.
Build the Red Line
Fully in support of this. The City needs to have an east-west, fixed-rail transit line built. Regardless of what Larry Hogan might have thought when he canceled the line, transportation planners thought it was needed, not just in 2002, but in the late 1950’s (probably the only 1950’s era Baltimore idea that I do like). The reason cited to cancel the line was because of the tunnel under Boston Street, even though other alternatives had existed.
I think this project may be more crucial than ever.
The Maryland General Assembly has been recently working hard to craft the future of commuter/regional rail in Maryland. Among the ideas presented are service to Delaware to meet up with SEPTA Regional Rail and service into Virginia. Also presented is the need to connect the MARC Penn Line, which runs along Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, and the MARC Camden Line, which runs along parts of CSX’s Baltimore Terminal Subdivision and Capital Subdivision. A connection between the two lines could conceivably take the form of the proposed East Baltimore MARC Station as well as some other connection that could possibly route Penn Line trains into Downtown Baltimore.
If Penn Line trains were to meet their Camden Line counterparts, the connection would probably be right at Pratt Street, right at the Convention Center and Camden Yards. Red Line conceptions had the line traveling right along Pratt Street and meeting the current light rail line there. If I remember correctly, there were plans for it to run either in a tunnel or on the street. One of the reasons for the anger surrounding the cancellation of the 2002-planned Red Line was that the line was meant to, among other things, give people on the west side better access to jobs on the east side. But, with the Penn Line possibly making an appearance in this part of town, alongside the Camden Line, then a revived east-west line would give west side residents not just better access to the east, but improved access to the Penn Line (at two stations) and the Camden Line.
Overall, a new hub for fixed rail transit would be a net good for Baltimore as a whole. As the money and city’s focus has moved more towards “Inner Harbor East,” making a transit hub closer to the traditional Central Business District would bring relevance back to that area. It’s difficult to consider the idea of Maryland finally offering commuter trains that terminated in Downtown Baltimore the same way that it offers ones that terminate in Washington, D.C., and not support it. Especially if there were more connections to other areas of the City and surrounding areas at that point.
Cassie also mentions the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition’s push for a regional transit authority. It’s my position that the only way that a new Red Line, or any other line, will ever be built, is if it’s done in a regional transportation authority. The decision can’t be left up to Annapolis, no matter who the governor is. We rightfully decried Larry Hogan for cancelling the project, but it also sat for years under Democrat Martin O’Malley while he was governor. And while he was mayor of Baltimore.
This also goes to the regionalism necessary to make the project worthwhile. The Red Line didn’t end at the Baltimore City line, but extended to the park and ride out in Woodlawn. The history of transit projects is fraught with NIMBYism and outright racism but, before the Red Line’s cancellation, there was support from Kevin Kamenetz before his death. The next line will need to regain that support. A line that possibly terminated at Security Square Mall would help bring some relevance back to that area as it struggles to find some new use. A park-and-ride at the mall with access to the line would not just help get people from the western suburbs to get Downtown, but the mall there could become a real center of activity like it used to be before the growth of Owings Mills.
Any proposed RTA also needs to consider that we don’t need just lines, but a system. So, if the state is considering planning an East Baltimore MARC Station, then any future transit line on the east side needs to connect with it. And while we’re at it, if they’re going to build such a station, it would be nice if the current subway could be extended to it, since it terminates so closely to the Northeast Corridor. Ten years ago, we could have quipped about Joe Flacco being able to throw a football from the Metro station to the Amtrak tracks. These days, we can quip that Lamar Jackson could run from one to the other in a matter of seconds. Or throw the ball, since he has some arm too.
Create a Metro Government
The City and County of Baltimore? I need to think about how I feel about it more, but I’m confident that even if I lived to 120 years old, I would not see it. However, that does not mean that in the meantime, we can’t think and act more regionally. That needs to be done on transit and transportation. The City needs to reconfigure some of its streets to serve its immediate residents, but that doesn’t mean that the two can’t collaborate on common solutions like a regional transit authority and such. They’re already collaborating on crime along I-95.
But creating a metro government? I don’t know. Baltimore is not a big city now and whole areas are being ignored. I can’t imagine then adding in, not necessarily places immediately adjacent to the City like Woodlawn, Catonsville, or Parkville, but places like Hereford and Middle River, and expect those places in the city currently that are ignored now to improve. The resources would be there, but along with that, would still be residents of those places that wouldn’t be keen to give up part of their way of life to live in those places. And to be honest, I’m sure there are more than a few who live out there, specifically because they don’t want to be inside of Baltimore City.
Maglev
So far as I know, it’s going to be built and it’s out of the hands of City leaders. Outside of the possible construction jobs, I’m not seeing much benefit, at least in the short term, until the full line is built. Some folks, who are able and willing to pay prices that may rival Amtrak’s Acela Express, will commute on it, depending on convenience, etc.
From what I understand, the station will be located in South Baltimore, if it’s not located at or near the Harbor. That may be a problem for those in other parts of the city and other areas that may want to use it for their commutes. It would probably be convenient for people living in or near Cherry Hill, Westport, or Port Covington, and Port Covington may be the target for their choice of location for the station. Commuting from, say, Parkville, might not even be an option. It would probably be easier to just hop on 95 and drive from there. If Port Covington ends up being built as envisioned –and with the pandemic, who even knows if it will be?– and the current Light Rail receives a spur across the water to Port Covington, then that may help with people coming from outside of the immediate area. But, this is a ways off and there are lots of questions other than what might happen with the current Light Rail.
Also, the stated goal of at least Northeast Maglev has never been travel between Washington and Baltimore, but Washington and New York. The phase to Baltimore, as I understand it, was meant to be the demonstration phase. If and when the project expands and moves towards full production, I don’t know if it’s clear what Baltimore’s role will be in the service. I think it might be a “nice to have” option for the area, but I think, at least in the near future, steel wheels on steel rails will be the way we go in the Baltimore region.
As I said before, I think the article is a great starting point for conversations about Baltimore’s future, along with ones about what’s going to happen in the neighborhoods, including municipal WiFi. Digital Harbor Foundation is working on that right now with their Project Waves, so hopefully that will be the start of a larger network around the city, since they’re handing Chromebooks to students these days. No one person or group knows how to fix Baltimore, so hopefully, it’ll be a large discussion.
Thinking forward to the next few months, I think I’d love a great snowball this summer. Yet, I doubt that’s going to happen. I’m not sure, no matter how good they are, that snowball stands will be allowed to be categorized as essential. Yes, they serve a food item, one pretty well beloved in Baltimore, but I don’t think they case can, or will, be made.
Snowballs are just one of my picks in one of the latest Twitter quarantine games: Baltimore and Maryland food polls. In this one, you had to pick just three to keep.
1, 4, 9#Baltimore #Maryland pic.twitter.com/UmXvzrxPlg
— Christopher A. Kess (@kesschristopher) April 14, 2020
As you can see, I chose 1, 4, and 9 — crabs, snowballs, and scrapple.
Yes, of course, I chose crabs. I would ask what Marylander wouldn’t choose crabs, but my younger sister might do so for the sake of being contrary. Who knows? Maybe a transplant might, but I don’t always count them. Unfortunately, I’m also having doubts as to whether crabs or crab cakes will realistically be on the menu this summer, as well.
Some will point out that scrapple might be more of a Pennsylvania thing, even more of a Delaware thing. That’s cool. New York and New Jersey both claim best pizza and recently, bagels. I’m willing to share scrapple. I’ve even heard that you can go to some places along the Chesapeake in Virginia and get some decent-to-good crab cakes. Now, again, this is a thing that I heard and can not verify personally.
Supposed to only take 3, but I’m taking 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9. pic.twitter.com/R8lUSyx7UX
— Christopher A. Kess (@kesschristopher) April 14, 2020
Crab soup, #8, can be really good, but cream of crab is so much better. Imagine that fishy, pungent, spicy taste of crab with Old Bay, not within a thin broth, but a silky, creamy one. A soup understated as it first hits the tongue, but gives you all of its crabby goodness on the back end as it goes down. That’s cream of crab. First time I ever had it was in a small deli in Annapolis. I fell totally in love. The next time I had it, I ordered a bowl and ended up dipping a couple of chicken fingers in it. I’m pretty sure few others will find cream of crab to be so versatile, but those chicken fingers were so good. I should have reviewed that meal.
Yesterday, I was out taking a few pictures and decided to drop by RD Seafood for a fish sandwich. RD, located in Elkridge, looks like a food truck, but it’s a trailer and it’s in the same exact place every day. The food is pretty good, especially the aforementioned fish sandwiches, even if their default bread choice seems to be a bun and not white bread. They must be good, as they’re always sold out of whiting when I show up.
After I placed my order, I went back to the car and grabbed my camera. The order was going to take 5-10 minutes, so I figured I’d get a few shots of Washington Blvd and Troy Hill while I waited. I’m still getting back into the swing of shooting again and it felt good to just have the camera in my hand again. I walked over to the edge of the property. As I did, a small car turned onto the property and did a circle, ending up facing me. The driver didn’t stop too close, but I could see him looking at me the whole time. As he got out, he said something inaudible. “Excuse me,” I said as he approached me.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“I just ordered some food, may I help you?” I asked him back.
That was the planned answer. I’m long used to being asked by a certain type of person why I’m in any particular place. I’ve experienced that many times in my life, especially in and around Baltimore. Plus, this was in Howard County. Some might scoff at the notion because it’s Elkridge, but it’s still Howard County and my presence has certainly been questioned more than a few times in Howard. It’s perhaps not as bad as White Marsh or Essex over in Eastern Baltimore County, but I did notice the one or two houses on Loudon Ave where the Confederate battle flag and the Gadsdon Flag both fly from time to time.
“Oh, no. It’s just that I get photographers in here taking pictures of my trailer,” he said, “from Grubhub and places like that, taking pictures, then they want to charge me $200 and stuff.”
“Ohhhhhh, I’m not here for that,” I said, gesturing as if to throw away that idea. “Just taking a couple of pictures of Troy Hill while I’m waiting for my food.” Which I was. I’d been looking catty corner down Washington Blvd. as he approached me.
He walked back towards his car. I only noticed only as he walked away that his shirt had a logo with the name of the place printed on it.
In the end, I’m glad it was just a minor misunderstanding. I didn’t see the store’s logo on the front of his shirt. I don’t think there was one. He also didn’t specifically identify himself as the owner, or a manager, perhaps thinking that just asking if he could help me would be enough for me to have figured out who he was. Still, with my order having already been taken, a guy walking up to me not appearing to be with the restaurant, and having lived in a “Permit Patty” world, long before there ever was a name for it, I wasn’t sure what was going on. So far as I knew, he was some guy from the area who didn’t approve of my presence there for one reason or another. Thankfully his concern was just the camera and not wanting to deal with somebody looking to out him a couple bills. I get that. Many folks in this area are out here hustling hard.
After I snapped a few pictures, my sandwich was done. I picked it up and went around the corner to Troy Hill Park to eat it. Snapped a few pictures around there, too. My only regret was not using my telephoto lens when I was shooting in front of DR. I could have gotten a closer pic of this plane on approach to BWI-TM.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw5oivTIM8D/?igshid=1urejvrh523r2
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I was an adult when I learned about Kess Circle.
I’d learned a ton about my mother’s side of my family growing up as I spent the majority of my time around them. While there were mysteries and gaps and tales that more properly should be known as legend than history, I at least knew about it. All I knew about my father’s family was about our specific branch starting with my grandparents. My father and his numerous stories (he should have been a writer. His Baltimore stories were awesome). My uncles and their love of boxing. And obviously, family drama. But not much more. Even as I developed a deep love and study of Black history while I was in high school, my own origins were still vague and even more mysterious.
Some time around 1997-1998, I received an email from someone claiming to be a relative. He’d been online looking for other Kesses and had come across my then-website. We struck up a conversation over email and as it turned out, he was indeed a relative, part of the extended Kess family that I knew pretty much nothing about. Kevin shared information with me about the larger family, our origins, how many of us there were. What seemed like a smallish family, centered around Yale Heights where my grandparents lived, was just a small part of a much larger family with a rich history.
This eventually lead to a meeting.
I was able to convince my grandfather to go down to Glen Burnie with me to see Kevin’s immediate folks. PaPa, one of my uncles, and I piled into my grandfather’s minivan and made the trip where we met Kevin and his father. The two older men were cousins who had not seen each other in a very long time. They talked about so many things — our history, our ancestors. We made plans to get them back together at some point, but unfortunately, we never did that. I fell out of touch with Kevin. His father passed. My grandfather did.
Fortunately, the family history hasn’t. If anything, it’s spread more. A lot of the extended Kess family is online. I don’t know them well, but I’m at a time in my life where I can change that. I plan to. And not on online, but in showing my face some down Route 100 soon and wherever else we may be.
1.
Maybe it’s because summer session is going, but the college used to be much more strict about where people could park their vroom vrooms.
Yeah, they don’t want the workshop participants parking behind the townhouses at night, but as Public Safety explained to me, that was because the grounds people couldn’t get back there easily last time (which I saw first hand).
Still, I parked right outside of the circle at DPC to walk around the “central” part of campus and take pictures. Then I went a couple other places and just parked wherever I wanted while I took more. I had a good time just putting the vroom vroom any place I could.
I did get a bunch of pictures, even a few from Historic St. Mary’s City (I never went over there as a student). They’re not uploading from my phone, so I transferred them to my Chromebook to upload to Google Drive. If they’ll upload from my Chromebook or Google Drive (via my Chromebook) into the site later, we’ll be in business.
2.
I decided after my campus picture taking to drive down to Point Lookout and get a few shots down that way.
The drive was much shorter than it seemed the last time I was there. The Confederate Cemetery also seemed much further from the state park last time. And the huge Confederate battle flag was absent this time. However, I got a couple of shots of the flag being flown elsewhere along the road.
I didn’t feel like paying to enter the state park for just a few minutes of picture taking, so I turned around. Maybe I’ll come back down here one day for at least a few hours, perhaps to fish, and get some pictures of it there. The confluence of the Bay and the Potomac is really beautiful.
More on this in a future essay, I think.
3.
After my quick jaunt down to Point Lookout, I needed to go to CVS and I wanted to get a quick, small bite to eat since I’d skipped lunch in the dining hall to go out and get pictures.
Halfway between campus and Lexington Park, I figured I’d make the left onto Great Mills Road and see what new I might find there, whether it had become as built up as the rest of the county I’d seen thus far (save everything south of campus along Route 5).
And it was. More gas stations, shopping plazas, all that stuff. There was even a place selling ox tail and curry chicken, as well as a Latino market further down back towards Leonardtown Road. Even a car dealership. Way different than I remember.
4.
Back here on campus, I noticed that with one of the newer buildings there, vehicular access from the back of campus near Mattapany Road to the Dorchester Circle (which I’m not even sure that area is even called that anymore — and that’s weird because so many areas on campus are named circle or quadrangle or something). There were a couple of young, student looking guys on a Club Cadet (seriously, where do they get those from; they weren’t the only two people using one that looked like students) riding around the still-paved driveway near Dorchester and Prince George’s dorms, but I have no clue how they got there other than driving across the grass.
I do have pics of all this.
5.
I kinda wish I had the time to drive to Leonardtown and back and see how things have changed out that way. Unfortunately, no time, and I wasn’t planning on going that way when I leave out of here on Saturday. If I do come back down this way again (perhaps, next year for the conference), I’ll go all the way down Route 5 that time. Hopefully it won’t be the 6th Borough by the time I get there.