Baltimore: History, Culture and Pride

Several people asked me before I left why I was going to Baltimore. Fewer still understood once I tried to explain. I've been here before, I've got friends here, and it's a cool place, despite its setbacks. Now, after two fun-filled and enlightening days, I have come to the realization that these words don't even come close to encapsulating what it is about Baltimore that I find so fascinating. It's so much more than just the friends and familiarity... it's the Pride that the citizens show toward their hometown. It's the complex diversity that permeates every facet of the community. It's the life and breath of the city. It is wondrous, unique and awesomely inspiring.

Yesterday morning, after a restful night on Meg's antique pullout couch, we went out to a nearby service event helping homeless by assembling lunch packs and blankets to be delivered to a shelter downtown. It was a fun 45 minutes of sandwich-making, and even though I did not get a chance to interact with any homeless directly, I did get a chance to mingle a bit with some Baltimore locals and get the first feel for the local community. Above all, I felt an enormous sense of compassion and neighborliness among the volunteers, and even though that attitude is pretty much to be expected at a service project such as this, it still impressed me and left an endearing impression. These people weren't just doing this to feel good about themselves once a year, they were just performing another service for their community, something they seemed to do every day.

That afternoon, Obama came to town to give a speech at the local war memorial plaza. It was bitterly cold outside, so Megan and I elected to stay in, but we caught the speech on the tube, along with all the people speaking before Obama came on. They really milked it too, bringing out speaker after speaker, all saying the same thing, using the same buzzwords, it did get repetitive after a while. Nevertheless, I did notice a few very impressive aspects about the event that left me speechless. First was the Star Spangled Banner. As you may or may not know, our national anthem was penned right here in Baltimore, by a guy hunkered down in the fort on the harbor, holding out against the shelling of the british navy (or something like that). For Obama's speech, the powers that be chose an extremely deep-bass black man to deliver the national anthem. His voice was so deep and so powerful, his character so strong and deliberate. He delivered the anthem in the city where it was written, where race relations have boiled and cooled countless times, a city dwarfed by its neighbor but steeped in much deeper history and culture, for a President who is about to change everything. The performance, for me, represented the extremely powerful moment in history that we are in better than any other performance of the Star Spangled Banner I have heard, and I found it indescribably moving.

After the song began the speeches. I have no idea who the first guy to speak was, but his attitude just made me love Baltimore even more. He had an air of joyous exultation of the event, enormous pride in his City (which was heartily echoed by his crowd), and a glimmer in his eye that said, "This is it, Baltimore. This is our Future, and it is wonderful!" His ramblings led into some other person's ramblings, and this went on for 3 or 4 more people. By the time Obama came on, neither Megan nor I were paying much attention, and the bits we did catch really didn't sound much different from any of his other recent speeches. It's no big deal though, he will be giving much more important speeches in the next couple days.

That evening we went to a curry cookoff at Katy's house--er, sorry, Katherine's (KT for short). There, we met a slew of friendly new faces, ate some delicious thai curry and had some very interesting cucumber-chili martinis. It is an event better remembered in picures, suffice to say it was yet another experience affirming my love and respect for Baltimore and its people.

Today Megan took me on a tour around the Johns Hopkins campus before heading over to the Baltimore Museum of Art to meet up with Katy. I found the campus very beautiful in its uniformity and elegance. Schools with strict guidelines for architecture have always fascinated me. I like to look at the newer buildings and think about how the architectural design styles of the time they were built affected the design of the buildings, especially when having these strict guidelines to work around. It often leads to subtle and interesting touches that take a trained eye to notice. Other times it just leads to a boring, monochrome campus, but I try not to think about that.

The BMA was pretty awesome too, they had a really great modern art exhibition that had lots of interesting pieces. My favorite was the video projection on the wall of about 2 dozen mouths humming a tune. Afterwards, we went out to the Golden West Cafe for brunch and conversed about Baltimore, Marilyn Monroe, and churros. It was a great morning with great friends, and these are the times I treasure the most.

Tonight the Ravens are playing for the AFC championship (football, for the uninformed). We may or may not head out somewhere exciting to watch it, but at this point I don't feel that I need to do anything else, I've already fallen in love with this City, I don't need football fans to convince me. Tomorrow I'm off to DC, more excitement to come!

Baltimore: It's like what I've always wanted Detroit to be.