Hero Worship

Augustus Theodore Bowen was born a scant two months after Lee surrendered at Appamatox.  The oldest son of Elijah and Martha Bowen lived his entire life in Maryland.  He married Kate Caldwell and fathered a dozen children.  Some of the family archives say there were 13 children.  Those of us investigating the lineage have only been able to account for 12. 

He buried four of those children before they reached age two.  Like his father before him,  Gus, as he was known,  worked for the Roland Park Company.  They were developers  in Roland Park, which became part of Baltimore City after annexation in the late 1800's.  Roland Park boasted a Country Club, including a golf course and stables.

Pap worked in the stables with the horses and the mules.  He  was part of the crew that laid the roadway on Roland Avenue and again on Falls Road in the Hampden section of Baltimore.  According to my grandmother, his daughter Mary Elizabeth, he worked until he was  eighty years old.  I was told that one day representatives of the Roland Park Company brought Pap home in a company car.  He was in tears.  They told my grandmother as kindly as they could, that Pap had worked long enough.

My first memory of Pap was the man in the blue sweater, denim shirt and brown fedora sitting on my grandmother's front porch.   He always seemed to be  there when our car pulled up in front of the house.  He had white hair, what was left of it, and a white moustache.  Previously, when it was fashionable, this was a handlbar moustache.  ( I would certainly have liked to have known him back in the day!)  He must have been quite the man!

 There was a pipe and a can of Prince Albert on the table beside the  green glider.  Sometimes the bag of Red Man chewing tobacco made its appearance also.  On those days,  a rather disreputable Van de Camps baked bean can materialized.  I soon came to know its purpose and noticed the exchange when my grandmother swapped it out for a clean one.

Like a sentinel, he manned his post on the glider every day from the first blush of spring until the chill of autumn sent him indoors.  As I grew old enough to play on the sidewalk in front of the Baltimore rowhouse, he took over monitoring my welfare and behavior.  He also, without knowing it, undertook some of my earliest education.

If  no neighborhood children were available to build forts in the backyard, or dress the Fox Terrier in baby clothes and attempt to push her down the street in the pram,  Pap was recruited to keep me occupied and out of trouble.  This he did by spinning tales of the "old white houseon the hill" filled with animals.  We had Puppy, Kitty, Booby (the owl) and Mousie and Polly.    He had a white horse and I had a black and white pony.  There were cud chewing cows ( which he demonstrated until I fell over with laughter) calves, a donkey  and rambunctious and ornery cowboys.

When the chores of the farm were done, we rode our horses down the hill to the Picnic. That is where they had rides and entertainment behind the white fence.  Occasionally,  we were accompanied by the cowboys. They always got into trouble at the Picnic.  Then, the sheriff was summoned to quell the disturbance.  The cowboys always wound up incarcerated in the city jail.  Sometimes, when they had been particularly unruly, the sheriff would turn the water on and they were showered in their cell.  

On other occasions, we went for walks together.  He wore his fedora and carried his "stick" as he called it.  Arthritis had rendered him bent and slow but had not yet stopped him.  It was not unusual to see the once robust man and the short, chubby, blonde child walk the four blocks to the Wyman Park ballfield on Beech Avenue.  We had dubbed this "the old wire fence".  We spent many summer mornings watching the morning glories on the chain link backstop behind home plate open to meet the sun.

He mystified me with the  feats he could perform seemingly at will.  He always carried a pocket knife.  The purpose of this eluded me until the day that the boy down the street, my secret crush at age 5, named Billy,  decided he wanted to play cowboys with his friend Leonard.  No girls were allowed.  HUMPH!

I was desolate.  My tears were unstoppable and my  moans and wails threatened to wake my grandfather. He worked the graveyard shift at Black and Decker and slept during the day.  Waking grandaddy in the middle of the day would not bode well for my enjoyment of the afternoon.

Pap took me by the hand and led me sobbing into the house.  He produced an apple from the refrigerator and the knife from his pocket.  He admonished me to keep my eyes on him as he made a slice at the stem end of the apple and began to peel the shiny red and yellow orb. 

I was astonished!  My tears dried as I watched  in amazement as the red stripe of skin began to get longer and longer as the apple turned whiter and whiter.  In a minute, the apple was denuded and the single, intact, perfect piece of red skin lay curled like a snake at his feet.

Well, that definitely changed my outlook on the day.  Who needed Billy?   Bet me Billy could not have performed this feat of legerdemain. I had Pap.  Who needed Billy?

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

No Crabby Patty today.  We ( spouse and I) are doing a little personification to the website.  By the time we are finished, it should reflect the all that I can be!

MURDER WE WROTE, OR THE COLD CASE CHRONICLES

The story you are about to read is true. The names have not been changed to protect the innocent. Nor have they been changed. so as not to indict the guilty.

This happened one lovely day in June, 1966. My graduation from high school was history. Searching for a job was in the future. the present was spent kicking back and just enjoying the fact that after 12 long years of Catholic School, I was FREE AT LAST! GREAT GOD ALMIGHTY! FREE AT LAST!

Sometime in Sophomore year, when pondering on the history of World War II, someone in my group of cohorts commented on Hitler's book burning. Wondering if the man had something going for him after all, we decided to have a burning of our own at the end of the year. Once begun, this became the annual rite of passage at the end of the school year.

For the past three years, my friends and I had saved all our written school assignments, workbooks and handouts, anything that was deemed to be ours from high school. This amounted to a considerable sum of paper from each one of us. There were four participants at the beginning.

Each summer after the semester ended, we would gather at some one's home, have a party, and burn the year long collection of papers and junk we had accumulated. There would be burgers on the grill, soda in the cooler and chips in hand. This final party, the one after graduation, was the most special and splendid conflagration of all.

If I recall correctly, the crew had grown by three by the end of senior year. Along with Betty, Mike, Kathie and myself, we were joined by Colleen and Kathy W. The party was held at Mary's house on Moravia Road across from Holy Redeemer Cemetery.

For the final blast, there were not only the obligatory cook out foods, but a bushel of steamed crabs to boot. The afternoon started with the ceremonial laying of the newspaper and progressed with the eating and drinking and picking of crabs, hot dogs, hamburgers, sweet stuff and soda. The Beach Boys, Beatles and Rolling Stones were on the radio. Of course, there was the burning of the books. It was Nirvana.

As the sun lowered in the sky, we began the final, closing ceremony of our high school careers. It would include a candle lighting and a funeral of sorts..

Those in the Honor Society, had the candles from their induction ceremony. We began our funerary liturgy with the candle lighting. Then the uniform jumpers, blouses, berets. and finally the ugly, wear like iron but look like hell sandals were produced by each participant.

The school had changed the traditional beanie for a softer, larger beret style hat. The things actually had two (one was not enough?) stickpin like objects that were supposed to hold the hat in place. In the four years I wore the thing, those infernal pins pierced my scalp every time I put the hat on. Adding insult to injury, the beret slid off more than once.


We decided that the burial of the uniforms and shoes and the hats, would take place in the empty lot behind Mary's home. There was nothing there. It was composed of dirt, weeds and stones. A shovel would be needed. My father's tool collection provided this.


After we donned the stupid green berets with the stickpins proudly waving from the button on top, we then gathered the by now threadbare jumpers, blouses and the offensive shoes. ( I couldn't wait to see the last of these things. They were the ugliest brown color I had ever seen. Since the grade school uniforms at my parish school were brown, I had seen a lot of brown in eight years, believe me.) The service began.

Laden with the clothing, candles and the shovel, and wearing the berets, the cortege began to process around the block to the burial ground. As Honor Society members, Kathie and Mike led the group with candles lit. as we reached the lot, we chose a place near the hedge and dug the grave. With great ceremony and several incantations as to where these goods should go, we lovingly laid the clothes, shoes and finally the hats in the hole, commended them on to another existence and filled in the grave. We left the tomb unmarked.

After that summer we went our separate ways as schoolmates always do. Many, many years passed. At the thirty-fifth class reunion, we regrouped and gathered at a local restaurant for dinner and storytelling.

All but one of the original crew were in attendance. There were some additions. Trudy and Paula joined us. Over Italian food we talked old times and caught up on new times. We shared child and grandchild pictures and told tales until the evening got late.

As Colleen ate her ice cream (let me tell you she was the ONLY one able to eat dessert) I remarked on the burial so many years ago. The result was hysterical laughter from Mary and Kathie.

As I looked confounded, they recovered enough to tell me the rest of the story.

It seems that all was well hidden until some time in about 1989. Mary had married and moved on but her mother was still living in the family home. This lot was owned by the city of Baltimore ( WHO KNEW?) One day, a crew came out to the lot with the intention of clearing it and erecting some sort of structure.

As the digging began, the workmen uncovered the long passed over mound of uniforms, hats, and of course the shoes. Completely mystified and shocked by the discovery of what appeared to be a mass grave, The city employees called the city police.

That elicited a response of a sea of blue uniforms and yellow crime scene tape. The tape stayed up and the digging continued until the authorities were satisfied that human remains were not included. Honestly, the uniforms were so unique that I wonder if the police contacted the school to see if they had any idea who belonged to what was hidden for so long. Obviously, no one was talking.


I laughed at this until tears were running down my face. As my glee subsided, I found that was not the end of the story. It seems that the recovered relics, buried for over 20 years, were in just as fine shape as the day we buried them. Even the shoes were none the worse for wear.

The final disposal of the mess is not known to me, but the fact that all this is true and actually happened can be verified. Just ask the Baltimore City Police Department!

CHEEZ LOUISE!

Last night's local news from Baltimore offered more than the usual local color. Aside from who shot whom, who ratted on whom, and the usual trite political diatribe was a filmclip from Italy.

The Italians, it seems, have begun mixing business with pleasure. Well, OK, maybe not BEGUN mixing business with pleasure, but become more adept and innovative.

Word has it that at least one bank in Italy has a new loan program. The farming population is taking advantage of the CHEESE LOAN.

Farmers bring their cheese crop or whatever is proper to call the new harvest of curds and whey the use for genuine Parmesan cheese, to the bank in exchange for whatever lira the cheese will be worth when it ripens. The bank then stores the cheese in the special vault they have created for just this purpose. The loan term is two years. This is exactly the amount of time it will take the incarcerated cheese to age and ripen enough to be sent for exportation or sale to the local population.

Not so fast, you say. What if the cheese develops a mold and the crop is ruined? How about if the temperature or humidity gets out of control?

The cheese could dehydrate and be rendered inedible.

How will bankers handle these crises? No need to worry. Modern science and technology has come to the rescue. It is all under the Italians savvy control,

Along with the new vault is new technology. There are machines designed to scan and monitor the cheese. Cheesemeisters monitor the monitors. The bankers merely monitor the Cheesemeisters. Computers and scanners keep the temperature and humidity cheese friendly so the wheels stay comfy in their surroundings. Others monitor the inner workings of the cheese for air bubbles and the enemy molds that can ruin the whole crop.

The farmers take the lira equal to the appraised value of the crop and begin to work on next years harvest. In this neighborhood the wheels of Parmesan keep things turning.

The program is reportedly so successful that the bank has plans in the works to expand the program to wines and other products that require aging for an extended period of time.

Soon, Italian bank customers will hear something new from the tellers. Instead of, "Deposit, Withdrawal or Loan?", customers will hear"Deposit, Withdrawal, Loan or Lunch?"

Imagine how this trend, if it continues, will aid Law Enforcement. Italian police, instead of pursuing bank robbers, will have to be adept at catching MICE.

Then, that is just MY observation

Where Have All the Tea Towels Gone?







When I was a child one of my favorite past times was what my grandmother called "ROOTING." To Lizzie, rooting was the rummaging that only a 4 year old can do to a well ordered drawer of linens. My favorite drawer to pillage was the "tea towel" drawer.


She had towels of all kinds stashed away in that drawer. First, there were the ones she used for regular, mundane run of the mill, chores. They looked like flour sacks and some were checkered terry towels in red, blue, yellow and green. Others were an unbleached muslin color with orange and blue stripes down the long sides.


These were the ones we saw everyday. They grabbed the hot pot when one of my hand made loop potholders ( a story for another time) was not available. They wiped jelly from affected hands and faces when children moved too fast for the washcloth to catch. Yeoman towels they were, yeoman work they did.


Next, there were the fancier towels. Splashed with fruit and flowers and patterns, these came out for Sunday and special occasions. They were the Oscar winners of the collection and wore like iron.


Then there were the really special towels. These were the Holiday towels. Made of the same materials, some terry, others the scratchy muslin stuff that didn't seem to soak up the liquid assigned, they showed up at Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. Filled with the ubiquitous santas, bunnies, turkeys and cornucopias, we saw these gems once a year. they were usually accompanied by matching potholders.


At the top of the heap came the hand embroidered towels. I dubbed these my very favorite of all time. Pieces of history, these towels told stories of the family. There were the morning glory towels that Aunt Mossie did last summer. Along with the flowers could be found towels with kitchen utensils lovingly sewn with colored thread by Aunt Nettie. Some with blue forget me nots with the exquisite French knot forming the center were done by aunt Margie's hand. All of the contents of this drawer told a story in one way or another.


If my grandmother was in an expansive mood, and that meant if there was not something in the oven needing her attention, she could be prevailed upon to recount the stories. Though heard so many times, I could stop her and correct the tale if she omitted something, this was one of my favorite times with her.

The hand embroidered towels came out on the occasions when the aunts came for lunch. Stories were told and retold The sisters squabbled over bowls of soup and tuna sandwiches about who did what, when.


Soon the number of towels expanded with the addition of the crooked stitches and unusual knots that were made by my chubby fingers as I learned the craft from Lizzie and the Aunts. The tea towel drawer overfloweth!



Years, later when the grandparents were gone, the contents of the drawer was markedly smaller. Some towels had gone to the "rag bag" as Lizzie called it. Some were so thin and frail that their fruitful days were done. Stamped patterns were faded or gone entirely. The embroidered towels were losing their tight stitches. The flour sack and muslin towels were very frayed. The good and faithful servants were dispatched without much ado. There were tears from the one to whom the drawer was special.


I had not given much thought to dishtowels, nor to this particular drawer of them until I went shopping with my mother last week. Mom, now 86, wanted to get some new dishtowels. How hard can this be?

Harder than one would think.


We toured places with "Mart" after their name, finding only thin, faux terry towels fraught with roosters, or apples, grapes or fat chefs riding bicycles. Accompanying those were potholders and oven mitts in similar motifs.


There were also some solid colored towels. We saw none of the checkerboard colorful towels of yore. Gone also were the thirsty terry towels that I remembered. Towels needing embroidery or needlework were limited to the crossstitch fad. PLEASE!


Mom declined to purchase these imposters as did I. Still, I thought, there had to be SOMETHING out there that would do the job in the way I required. Today I figured it out.


While shopping, mom bought new bath towels and washcloths. When we got home she discovered that she had not purchased hand towels. In my whole lifetime, I don't recall ever using hand towels. She must have bought matching things after I left home.


I told her that I, dutiful child that I am, would get the hand towels and mail them to Baltimore.


Last week, as I was accomplishing this feat, I had an AHA! moment. Talk about your multi tasker! These hand towels are a great size. They are terry and soak up much liquid. They come in a myriad of colors. If you stretch a point, they come with flowers and sea shells and embellishments. That makes them a little "bathroomy" for me, but the solids will do nicely in my kitchen.

Alas! My dishtowel drawer is not nearly as historic and child friendly as Lizzie's was. There is not a tale to be told in the bin.

Inspect Yer Gadget

Have I ever mentioned my love/hate affair with onions? Nearly everything I cook contains this allium family member. that is the LOVE part. The HATE part is the dismembering of the plant itself.

Most onions have an adverse effect on my tear ducts. I have tried freezing them, cutting under running water, and most remedies written or spread by word of mouth. Red , white, yellow onions, it just doesn't matter. The result is always the same, tears.

There is also the problem of uniformity of cut. I can slice and dice but my dice seems to leave something to be desired. The lack of uniformity in the dice leads to lack of uniformity in the cooking.

I have watched Bobby flay and Alton Brown whiz around the kitchen, knife in hand, dispatching the unsuspecting lily cousin with wild abandon. This leads me to have feelings of inferiority and lack of self esteem!

Voila! A solution appears on an infomercial late one night. Some genius has invented an onion chopper that has safeguards built in for chubby idiot fingers such as mine and chops onions like butter.

The demonstrator simply takes the ends off the onion, removes the outside peel, and slices the bulb in half. He then takes the marvelous machine, lifts the lid, places the half onion on the sharp grid and swiftly lowers the lid.

Amazing! With one downward stroke of his hand on the lid, the onion renders iteself into perfectly square particles inside the compartment provided to avoid the mess of diced vegetable going everywhere. Brilliant! I was thrilled but not mesmerized. There had to be a catch.

I flirted with the idea of effortless division of the hapless onion for days.
Days turned into weeks. Still I was not budged. I spent more hours watching tv chefs disarticulate vegetables with a flick of the wrist. My own efforts, however, were less fruitful.

On my many weekly pilgrimages to Wal Mart I was teased by this onion splitting gadget sitting on the kitchenware shelves. Still, I tried to be objective about purchasing something that would probably be a unitasker and would also need a home in my already crowded cabinets. obviously when VO-Tech built this house they did not remember to add the closets and cabinets that human beings need to store their stuff!

Finally, one sultry summer day my mind was made up. I would have to buy the onion splitting gizmo. This was precipitated of course, by the Food TVchannel. I watched Semi-Homemade featuring Sandra Lee.

Now, I love Sandra Lee dearly. This semi homemade idea is right up my alley. The less I have to concoct, the better I like it. I seem to recall spending and inordinate amount of time making a genuine Tuna Casserole, including having my friend e-mail me a recipe. I presented the homemade wonder to the spouse, only to be greeted with "GREAT! I like TUNA HELPER." What happened after that is another story for another time.

Let me return to Sandra Lee. She uses this particular gadget all the time when dicing onions. Just as the demo guy on tv did slip the peeled onion in, lower the lid and the diced onions fall squarely into the container below. If Sandra can do it, so can Patricia.

Of course when I returned to Wal Mart they were all gone. Two stores later I was convinced that there was a conspiracy. My hesitation had caused them all to be taken. Turning to good old Amazon.com, I found that there were plenty to be had. In true Amazon fashion, the gadget came Priority mail, dressed in bubble wrap and ready for action.

So was I! Not bubble wrapped, just ready for action. The onion came
out. It was peeled, and halved and placed in the onion chopper. I was delighted that my chopper was the same color as Sandra Lee's. Here was something else we had in common.

When all was set, I lowered the cover, expecting the onion to drop into the container. Everything was fine until the cover hit the onion. There was a sudden stop in the process. I tried again with another half onion. the same impediment occurred. Several onions later I reached a dismal conclusion.

I simply am not strong enough to shove the vegetable through the grate!
Sandra Lee is not Charles Atlas, nor Hulk Hogan. Still, she manages to make it look as if a child can do it.

The onion chopper is currently sitting in seclusion, back in the box, on the counter. Tomorrow is another day. Perhaps the problem is as simple as the trajectory. My counter may be too high. I will try the kitchen table as a base of operation and try again.

The worst case scenario will be to have the spouse dice the onions. At 6'4" the trajectory should be not only correct for diced onions, the thrust should probably send them into another dimension entirely.

The Maryland State Fair

It has been many years since I last attended the state Fair at Timonium.

In 1995, my friend Florence and I ventured from the wilds of Cecil County to the confines of Timonium, hand made creations in tow. We entered our Home Arts exhibits the day before the fair began. She had to go back to Baltimore after the Fair ended to retrieve our goods. I was in Harford Memorial Hospital sans gall bladder and none too excited by that event!

As I recall, together we entered five hand crafted offerings. Florence entered a silk flower bouquet in the category for Best Bouquet. The Farm Queen would carry the winning bouquet in the parade, for all to see.

Florence is from Michigan and not familiar with Maryland at all. She decided to make her bouquet in the colors of the Maryland state Flag.

We went shopping for the necessary silk flowers to make said exhibit.

when she found out she was using black, red, yellow and white flowers along with black eyed susan, the state flower, she was somewhat taken aback.

Meanwhile, through the weeks before the entry deadline, we both worked on our exhibits, or so I thought.

I had taken a class in clay figurines and constructed a wizard, grey beard, pointy hat, marble crystal ball and all. He was in a class all by himself!

Also, for the driftwood class, I had a huge hunk of wood to decorate. first however, I wished to make certain that no... er, living things were still in residence. I cranked the oven up and inserted the log. I figured that the heat would drive out any lingering livestock. My roomate and my spouse both thought the house was afire.

I aslo made a dried flower arrangement for the Governor's desk category. Procuring thistle tops was one of the most adventurous undertakings of that season. It seems that no matter how thick the gloves worn, the thistles managed to find a vulnerable point!

Finally, my things were done, I was satisfied and Iwas waiting for Florence to arrive bringing her bouquet so we could take them to Baltimore and complete the entry process.

When she arrived, the flowers were still int he bag! the birth of the bouquet was yet to be!

In a panic we hurriedly arranged flowers and fuzzy things and all manner of bouquet paraphernalia into some semblance of a nosegay. We both agreed it was the worst thing we had ever seen.

We arrived in time to make all our entries, even the ugly bouquet, as it had come to be known. Even the lady receiviing the entries looked at it as if it were an orphan. Nonetheless, we committed our goods to the judges and returned home.

As I said, I was in hospital when it was time to retrieve the exhibits, so Florence went alone. I was waiting at the hospital for her return and my ride home.

When she arrived to take me home, she was in tears. I found out momentarily that they were tears of laughter.

Not only had my wizard won first place and a blue ribbon, my dried arrangement won second place and a red ribbon, my driftwood placed third, in the competition.

The ugly bouquet? It won BEST IN SHOW!