ravens_nest (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ravens_nest) wrote2007-04-22 01:26 pm
ravens_nest) wrote2007-04-22 01:26 pm
B-More Blues
I finished a three day meeting in Baltimore as one of the people representing students on my Community College's Presidential Search Advisory Committee. To explain, our college's President is resigning at the end of this fiscal year, so we've got to find a new one to take over. A committee of representatives from all the internal constituencies and external community sectors was formed to whittle down the numerous candidates to 3-5 for the Board of Trustees to hire from.
While at the BWI Marriott, (Simply fantastic! The pool was magnificent. There was a tiered waterfall at one end that fed into the rest of the pool. Beautiful. $480/night to stay there.) I was approached by the Concierge. She wanted me to come mentor at her newly started Youth Program with her church. I explained that I'd only be able to do it Saturdays. We exchanged contact info.
That aside, my conversation with her really got me thinking about my time in Baltimore. Up until about three years ago I'd lived in B-More for roughly sixteen years. I came from the commonly known area between North Ave. and White Lock, thus named "White Lock City" by the city youth.
I have a real Love-Hate Relationship with Baltimore.
It's the place I grew for nearly sixteen years, all of my family memories are there. I had a fantastic nuclear family. For a long time in my pre-teen years I was really socially and emotionally awkward. I was trying to discover who I wanted to be. In middle school I tried really hard to fit in and be "black." So I listened to a lot of rap and r&b and tried to use slang, not letting it flow naturally if it was there. And there's one example of this. My first CD I bought was a "Southern Rap" artist whose name escapes me. (He was a one-hit-wonder of the rap world.) And I remember unconsciously thinking, "This will bring me closer to Dove. Dove'll like me for listening to this." She's my sister who at the time, and still does occasionally, listened to this genre of music. I listened to the CD once and never picked it up again.
I figured I was meant for the other end of the spectrum and catapulted myself into what I thought that was: country and lots of it. I stopped trying to be "cute" with my wardrobe and moved in to comfortable, functional polo shirts and khakis kind of clothing. (This was also the time I'd begun to gain weight and a lot of styles didn't fit anymore.) I began to speak "properly," whatever that means. This was about the time I started being called "White" in B-More, not helped by my light skin. By this time I was commuting to PG County for high school and there was less time spent hanging with the kids in the block. I acquired rock as a new genre to add to my collection and I started really digging Anime. I tried really hard to drop my association with "ghetto" things. I now know I was overcompensating. I thought I had to be one or the other. Then the incident I mentioned in "Meaningless Malice..." happened in tenth grade and I started to realize I could be both or neither or something completely different.
I acknowledged my love of R&B and hip-hop, though "Southern Rap" never found a home in my heart. I let my urban habits go where they wanted...sometimes. Not in my papers, but around the lunch table. Not during Speech Class, but at home with family. Where it felt, not appropriate, but natural. Then I started building a better relationship with my sister, Lark (Dove and I are still a little shaky.)
These experiences along with a lot of my childhood, especially when my grandmother was alive, made me love Baltimore so much. It is such an old city. The neighborhood I'd lived in was right next to the reservoir which is right next to the park, so it was a high-class area back in the day and the architecture showed it. The buildings were built tall and long with buttresses and the like. And I remember climbing to the roof of my house with my cousin and his friends. And we would run across the rooftops of the buildings, cause they were all flat, and come down into one of the abandoned buildings. These things were really dilapidated, beer bottles from camped out homeless people, uneven floors with gaping holes in them, rusted fire-escapes. I'm surprised I'm not dead or had a broken bone. But this was the fun we had. Yeah, we went to the Baltimore Zoo and the Park both up the street, and yeah, we went to the Aquarium Downtown, but those were special days. The every day fun was usually baseball/football/basketball in the back alley. Rollerblading/biking up and down the alleys and through the streets. This is what we did for fun, in hindsight a lot was dangerous, but it was fun. And it still feels fun. This is what makes me love Baltimore.
Then in those same streets and alleys you had drug dealers and users up the wazoo. And some of them were my family in one way or the other. Not all of my family, just a select few. I don't mean just weed or pot or whatever you want to call it, Mary-Jane. I mean the harder stuff like cocaine and heroin. Then my cousin, the previous one's uncle, stealing habitually from us to feed his habit. (I'm still griping about him stealing my first ever CD player, a hand-me-down from my brother, before I'd even listened to it. We're not even going to go into the SegaGenesis or the Playstation that had my Parasite Eve still in it, although there's debate over which cousin actually stole those.)
Every day you hear about somebody getting shot two blocks over or something. People we know, family, in and out of jail so frequently it's routine. What's the usual comment? "Oh, so-and-so's in jail again. That's a damn shame," or "I thought somethin' like that'd happened. I hadn't seen him in a while. I thought he was on the run, but I guess he got caught, huh?" or my personal favorite "He got his own cell down at the bookins. He got his own personal room. His name is on it; it's reserved." That last was a joke that was said, but the fact that we have a joke like that is ridiculous.
And I say this, but there's what came before, and the landmarks around the city. I find myself wanting to live there again, at least for a little while. Yeah it has it's bad parts, but really, is there any place that doesn't have a drug or a crime problem of some sort? Is there a place in the world I can go that is bereft of such? I don't think so.
Well, I'll wrap this up now.
Ja, ne?
While at the BWI Marriott, (Simply fantastic! The pool was magnificent. There was a tiered waterfall at one end that fed into the rest of the pool. Beautiful. $480/night to stay there.) I was approached by the Concierge. She wanted me to come mentor at her newly started Youth Program with her church. I explained that I'd only be able to do it Saturdays. We exchanged contact info.
That aside, my conversation with her really got me thinking about my time in Baltimore. Up until about three years ago I'd lived in B-More for roughly sixteen years. I came from the commonly known area between North Ave. and White Lock, thus named "White Lock City" by the city youth.
I have a real Love-Hate Relationship with Baltimore.
It's the place I grew for nearly sixteen years, all of my family memories are there. I had a fantastic nuclear family. For a long time in my pre-teen years I was really socially and emotionally awkward. I was trying to discover who I wanted to be. In middle school I tried really hard to fit in and be "black." So I listened to a lot of rap and r&b and tried to use slang, not letting it flow naturally if it was there. And there's one example of this. My first CD I bought was a "Southern Rap" artist whose name escapes me. (He was a one-hit-wonder of the rap world.) And I remember unconsciously thinking, "This will bring me closer to Dove. Dove'll like me for listening to this." She's my sister who at the time, and still does occasionally, listened to this genre of music. I listened to the CD once and never picked it up again.
I figured I was meant for the other end of the spectrum and catapulted myself into what I thought that was: country and lots of it. I stopped trying to be "cute" with my wardrobe and moved in to comfortable, functional polo shirts and khakis kind of clothing. (This was also the time I'd begun to gain weight and a lot of styles didn't fit anymore.) I began to speak "properly," whatever that means. This was about the time I started being called "White" in B-More, not helped by my light skin. By this time I was commuting to PG County for high school and there was less time spent hanging with the kids in the block. I acquired rock as a new genre to add to my collection and I started really digging Anime. I tried really hard to drop my association with "ghetto" things. I now know I was overcompensating. I thought I had to be one or the other. Then the incident I mentioned in "Meaningless Malice..." happened in tenth grade and I started to realize I could be both or neither or something completely different.
I acknowledged my love of R&B and hip-hop, though "Southern Rap" never found a home in my heart. I let my urban habits go where they wanted...sometimes. Not in my papers, but around the lunch table. Not during Speech Class, but at home with family. Where it felt, not appropriate, but natural. Then I started building a better relationship with my sister, Lark (Dove and I are still a little shaky.)
These experiences along with a lot of my childhood, especially when my grandmother was alive, made me love Baltimore so much. It is such an old city. The neighborhood I'd lived in was right next to the reservoir which is right next to the park, so it was a high-class area back in the day and the architecture showed it. The buildings were built tall and long with buttresses and the like. And I remember climbing to the roof of my house with my cousin and his friends. And we would run across the rooftops of the buildings, cause they were all flat, and come down into one of the abandoned buildings. These things were really dilapidated, beer bottles from camped out homeless people, uneven floors with gaping holes in them, rusted fire-escapes. I'm surprised I'm not dead or had a broken bone. But this was the fun we had. Yeah, we went to the Baltimore Zoo and the Park both up the street, and yeah, we went to the Aquarium Downtown, but those were special days. The every day fun was usually baseball/football/basketball in the back alley. Rollerblading/biking up and down the alleys and through the streets. This is what we did for fun, in hindsight a lot was dangerous, but it was fun. And it still feels fun. This is what makes me love Baltimore.
Then in those same streets and alleys you had drug dealers and users up the wazoo. And some of them were my family in one way or the other. Not all of my family, just a select few. I don't mean just weed or pot or whatever you want to call it, Mary-Jane. I mean the harder stuff like cocaine and heroin. Then my cousin, the previous one's uncle, stealing habitually from us to feed his habit. (I'm still griping about him stealing my first ever CD player, a hand-me-down from my brother, before I'd even listened to it. We're not even going to go into the SegaGenesis or the Playstation that had my Parasite Eve still in it, although there's debate over which cousin actually stole those.)
Every day you hear about somebody getting shot two blocks over or something. People we know, family, in and out of jail so frequently it's routine. What's the usual comment? "Oh, so-and-so's in jail again. That's a damn shame," or "I thought somethin' like that'd happened. I hadn't seen him in a while. I thought he was on the run, but I guess he got caught, huh?" or my personal favorite "He got his own cell down at the bookins. He got his own personal room. His name is on it; it's reserved." That last was a joke that was said, but the fact that we have a joke like that is ridiculous.
And I say this, but there's what came before, and the landmarks around the city. I find myself wanting to live there again, at least for a little while. Yeah it has it's bad parts, but really, is there any place that doesn't have a drug or a crime problem of some sort? Is there a place in the world I can go that is bereft of such? I don't think so.
Well, I'll wrap this up now.
Ja, ne?