President Joe Biden was scheduled to come to town this week for some serious talks with top executives of companies fighting the coronavirus. The visit was cancelled, but early reports said Biden was not slated to mix with any True Baltimoreans.
Too bad.
Once you get to know us, we’re a charming bunch of folks here in Bawlamer, as proven by some of our traditional idiosyncrasies, which the president might have noticed if given the chance.
To wit:
Your True Baltimoreans take pride that the national anthem was written here, even though they couldn’t find Fort McHenry without a GPS if their lives depended on it.
Your True Baltimoreans are students of politics. They actually know that Ben Cardin and Pierre Cardin aren’t related.
Your True Baltimoreans see a pothole on any street in town and automatically think, “This would never happen if William Donald Schaefer were alive today.”
Your True Baltimoreans see big clumps of trash on streets around town and automatically think, “This would never happen if anybody at City Hall was alive today.”
Your True Baltimoreans still haven’t forgiven the Orioles for giving up on Nick Markakis and Nelson Cruz and Jake Arrieta.
Your True Baltimoreans love to attend the running of the Preakness at Pimlico Race Course every spring. Those who sit in the grandstand dress like it’s their senior prom. Those who sit in the infield dress like they’re going out to swipe hubcaps.
Your True Baltimoreans love their steamed crabs. They remember when a dozen crabs meant a Saturday night party, and not a second mortgage on their homes.
Your True Baltimoreans have about $1,400 worth of tattoos on their arms but can’t pay this month’s gas and electric bill.
Your True Baltimoreans visit the finest museums in the world and think, “I haven’t seen so much great art since the last time I dined at Haussner’s.”
Your True Baltimoreans heard that Chris Davis struck out with two men on base in his first spring training at bat and declared, “Hey, he’s already in mid-season form.”
Your True Baltimoreans turn on the local TV news just to hear the inventive ways anchors try to pronounce local landmarks such as Auchentoroly Terrace and Chizuk Amuno.
Your True Baltimoreans remember them hiding the hard-core stuff under the counter on The Block.
Your True Baltimoreans heard Joe Altobelli died last week and recalled his leadership in the last gasp of Orioles’ greatness 38 years ago, and realize what a bad deal Joe got when Edward Bennett Williams fired him.
Your True Baltimoreans remember riding the roller coaster at Gwynn Oak Park, believing it was the ultimate test of courage — and once you did it, never in this lifetime got on it again.
Your True Baltimoreans hear the names Fat Daddy, Hot Rod, Rockin’ Robin, Louie and the Bear, The Flying Dutchman and Commander Jim, and don’t need any last names to remember when disc jockeys playing phonograph records on the radio were a real part of local pop culture.
Your True Baltimoreans can find their way downtown without using the Jones Falls Expressway.
Your True Baltimoreans see any ground ball get through the left side of the Orioles infield and still say, in the local patois, “Brooksie woulda ate that up.”
Your True Baltimoreans hope Joe Biden comes back sometime soon. It’s nice to have a president who doesn’t trash our town when he talks about us in public.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books. His most recent, “Front Stoops in the Fifties: Baltimore Legends Come of Age,” was reissued in paperback by the Johns Hopkins University Press.
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