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grandparents My grandmother is south west Baltimore personified. She grew up on Schroeder Street, back in the day when it was an Irish Catholic ghetto and not a drug-infested slum. In the summers she goes "downy-ocean" and sometimes she has an "eye-dee-er" or two about how the Mayor might improve. Her father came to the US in the 1890s. His portrait, a stern-looking face, hangs in the house she shares with my grandfather. The same sea-green Landsdowne house they've lived in since they were married. A sailboat in the driveway and a bevy of oddly friendly squirrels in the backyard. From my grandfather I have a love of sailing and a curiosity of all things military. He was in World War II in Italy and his father was a sharpshooter in the Marine Corps. I have his medals in a musty cardboard box in my closet, tucked away in a corner. When we were kids, he'd take me and my brother down to Fort Meade or up to Aberdeen or to the Inner Harbor to tour the old submarines and ships in port. We'd go sailing in the summers. Launch the boat down off Hanover Street and sail around Fort McHenry. He'd take us up close to the big ships in the places the roads wouldn't go. Our little sailboat would ride the wake of giant Japanese car carriers, bouncing about like a toy as we gripped the rails and laughed. |
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