Sweet And Becoming
Raving Dove Literary Journal, October 2006
Walking early this morning, I make my usual loop through the Baltimore County Courthouse grounds. I pass the fountain with its wrought-iron fence, and arrive at the old green cannon with its perfect pyramid of cannonballs. I know that old cannon well. Once, when I was a child, my father surprised me by hoisting me up onto the barrel. Over the years, I have brought my children to the courthouse to watch the parades on the Fourth. They too have clambered around the cannon, and smacked their hands against the cool surface of those fourteen cannonballs. My children are grown now; they are old enough to serve in the armed forces.
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Shorty, Master Escape Artist
The Baltimore Sun, Real Life, October 15, 2006
The week I was preparing to put my house on the market, I found a stray dog.
When he emerged from the hedge along the sidewalk, I thought " Whose little
black cat is that?' But then he yapped. Though I didn't want a dog at that time
in my life, I took him in anyway. I killed all his fleas and named him Shorty.
According to the vet, Shorty's breed was Pomeranian. You could have fooled
most people. He had that silky Pomeranian hair on his head, but the rest of
him was patchy baldness. His tail looked exactly like a rat's, except that it
was continually whirling. Once, after a friend met Shorty, she called me
on the phone. "Turn on the TV," she said. "I just saw Shorty on Animal Planet."
It was a program about vampire bats. The resemblance was unnerving.
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Illustration by Penelope Dullaghan
Braving Hurricane Hazel With A Little Sister In Tow
The Baltimore Sun, Real Life, August 27, 2006
August, hurricane season. We're all out on the porch with a pile of
steamed crabs, swatting mosquitoes and telling stories. I tell the one
about Hurricane Hazel in 1954, and how I had to walk a mile through 50
mph wind gusts with my little sister Corinne in hand. Corinne, who is a
grandmother now, rolls her eyes and accuses me of "creative recall."
Everyone laughs. My husband quips that I have joined the ranks of
oldsters who tell exaggerated "walking miles in bad weather" stories.
Everyone laughs again, my children the loudest.
Really, I tell them, it's true.
You could look it up: On Friday, October 15, 1954, after a freakish
heat wave, with temperatures well into the nineties, Hurricane
Hazel struck North Carolina and turned furiously north, up the coast
toward Maryland.
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Illustration By Penelope Dullaghan
Visiting the Very Quiet Baltimoreans
The Baltimore Sun, City Diary, October 9, 2002
A friend who was in town for genealogical research needed to get to Mount Carmel Cemetery. I located it on the map--5712 O'Donnell Street, right across from the Baltimore Travel Plaza--and on impulse offered to drive her there.
We arrived late on a Saturday afternoon in a light rain. Unfortunately, my friend's research on her lost relative had yielded nothing more than an obiturary mentioning interment at Mount Carmel.
"So, we're just looking for her name on a stone?" I asked. The caretaker's house was vacant, the front window broken.
"That's right," she replied. "We'd better spread out." She popped her umbrella and headed off on her own.
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