Baltimore…The Houses I Grew Up In

I grew up in Towson, Md, north Baltimore. My earliest memories are of my grandparents farm, a yellow house and barn. After that I have some vague memories of a little house, out York Road, near Glencoe MD. that we called “Wee 3 Cottage”. I have no idea where these are located but have memories of being there, being on the porch, at the farm, a baby lamb with cobalt blue dye on it. Being at WTC and going down the street to see the first color TV I ever saw, at a neighbors house. My cousin, Alec, saving my life behind the house when I fell and shoved a Tootsie-Roll Pop down my throat. (See Cousin Alec, My Angel blog entry) I remember the stairs in that house, narrow and tall. I remember my dearest Aunt Nan taking me and my sister for Animal Crackers at a store on York, Rd. in Cockysville. Back then Cockysville was waaaaay out in the country! For a good many years after “Wee 3 Cottage” we lived with my grandparents.

1265 GIDDINGS AVENUE is where we lived when I was in kindergarten and early elementary school. 

Things I remember about Giddings avenue are pretty vivid. I recall our Siamese car, Priya, getter her tail cut off in the aluminum back door, I remember it still wiggling on the floor. It happened so fast and so clean that she never bled or seemed very disturbed by it, It healed quickly. Not the whole tail, just about 2 inches off the end.

I also remember my best friend, Rider Brandau (still one of my best friends) and I discovering that if we kept throwing rocks at our neighbors car window, the crack would keep getting longer. We did a great job, the neighbor was irate and our parents were too. THEY had to pay for the window.

Once when my mother had just gotten ready to go out on a date my sister, Margaret, and I were out in the back yard playing with the hose, soaking ourselves. When our mom came out, all dolled up, we turned the hose on her, totally soaked her. For some reason, she never got mad she just laughed hysterically and went back inside to dress….again.

I remember that my grandparents raised Miniature Pinschers and gave them names like Daphne, Hildi, Uli, and Klaus. Dapne was the oldest and Klaus was my grandfathers favorite.

One day, on the way to elementary school Margaret and I were waiting for the bus and we found a $50 bill in the bush in front of us. This was the late 1950’s so that was A LOT OF MONEY! We took it home to mother who said she would spent in, equally, on us. Now, I really doubt that she did because she was a single working mother but she did buy us each something we wanted, I do remember that much.

This is the house where I learned to ride a bike. I remember Michael D’Angelo running behind me, holding the bike steady saying “Pedal, pedal faster!”. I was riding in a circle in my back yard and suddenly Micheal was standing there in front me me. Of course, I freaked and fell right over but after a few more tries I was a bike rider.

The was an alley between the streets, a long alley and one summer some parent had this great idea that the north end of the alley would be the Yankees and the south end, the Rebels and we would meet and have a Civil War battle. I don’t know how long it lasted but it was EPIC!! I had a 2 six-gun holster set (I know, not very Civil War of me) and was delighted to be in the middle of it. My sister was right there with me, screaming “Don’t you shoot MY brother” every time I got killed.

709 WALKER AVENUE is where I was at Stoneleigh Elementary School. My grandparents lived on the first floor, us on the second and my Aunt Nan, my most beloved relative, live on the 3rd floor.

This is the house where I have some of my worst and saddest memories. They are all bad but I was terribly lonely here. There was a big walk-n closet in my bedroom with drawers built into either side about waist high, where I kept my clothes. Ione of my prize possessions was my Civic War soldiers set, that included Abe Lincoln and Ol’ Jeff Davis. I played with them, on the floor of the closet for hours on end.

My sister and I got mice for pets and they multiplied, I mean MULTIPLIED like crazy. One of the things I recall is my grandfather being incredible gentle with his big, woodworking hands, handling the newborn mice. They just kept on coming until we had too many to even deal with. My mother, not knowing what else to do, decided that we would take them out to the woods behind the house and “set them free!”. It was a great ceremony. It rained a biblical rain the night and I remember being horrified when I went out to play, the next morning and found about 20 baby mice, dead in various poses.

That is the same woods that I set on fire, playing with matches setting those same Civil War soldiers on fire on a tree stump. I had finished having my fun and some back inside. I went out a short while later and the whole woods was aflame. My grandfather and a neighbor broke out hoses to keep it at any until the fire trucks arrived. It was so severe that I never really got its trouble for it. Much less offenses would have gotten me a beating with a belt but that one never manifested.

I remember Aunt Nan had a kitten that died early on and seeing her sitting on the steps crying, saying “Why can’t I ever have anything to love?”. We were so happy when she met and married, Uncle Ken, a fine man and the love of her life. They had a long and loving time together. She, more than anyone I have ever known, deserved that happiness.

I met a girl down the street. I had a crush on her before I knew what that kind of thing was. I showed her my collection of sharks teeth and my soldiers. Happily, we are still friend, thanks to Facebook, 50 plus years later!

One winter day I was out in the front yard when a piece of ice came crashing into my face and busted my lip open, really bloody. I went screaming into the house and told my grandfather that some kids had gone by, in a car, and thrown an ice ball at me. He was LIVID. I never felt that he liked me, except that day. We went out and stormed down the street after them. He was a disabled old man that had been injured in a motorcycle wreck when he was younger. He wore a back brace and had holes drilled in his head that would bleed. That day he way my hero. As an adult I believe that the ice ball probably came from the car and the road, you know how ice flies out from under tires when the roads are slushy.

My mother LOVED to tell ghost stories. She made them up and they were really good, actually. My sister and her friends loved to hear them. Two I remember where “The Ghost of Mary Adams” and “The Lady With no Nose”. I never heard either story completely because I would run screaming from the room the minute the story started. Seriously. So, there was a tree in our yard that I loved to climb. At some point the utilities people came and did some work…hung some wire or something. At the bottom of the tree was a big round spot where they had dug. My mother, fearing I would climb the tree and get electrocuted, told me that Mary Adams was buried in that spot. It makes me laugh, out loud just to think about it because I never went anywhere near that tree again. HAHAHAHA!!

This is where I discover The Beatles. I remember singing along with “Alvin and the Chipmunks Sing The Beatles”, playing my grandfathers cane and looking it the mirror at my baseball cap, flipped up I the front like Alvins.

908 REGESTER AVENUE still in elementary school pre-teens. This is the house where I met Mike Fitchett, my best friend until his death in 2011. I miss him every day. 

There was a corrugated steel garage behind this house and in the fall, when my grandfather would rake the leave, he would pile them behind the garage. My cousins and friends would join me as we climbed on the roof and jumped off into the pile of leaves…great fun.

My bedroom was the one 2nd, floor-right, with the reflective window. My bedroom had kind of “salmon” colored wallpaper with flowers on it. I remember bing on my bed with Mike, making spitballs and shooting them at the light fixture on the ceiling. They were all over the ceiling. I would go out the window and sit on the roof over the porch. I was listening to The Beatles A LOT by this time. My sister had just gotten The Rolling Stones LP. They were good, too.

I was out in the front yard and saw this kid, my age, 2 doors down playing with a ball. I yelled “Queer!” or something like that (Funny enough..Mike was gay, it turned out) to get his attention. He replied “You wanna play?” and we became best friends from that moment on. (more on Mike in my Blog post about him)

There were 3 brother that I used to play with regularly. I can’t remember their names other than the youngest, Paul, because I wet back to that house, several years after we had moved a my friend, Paul’s older brother told me that he had been killed by a truck on his tricycle, rolling down out of our old drive-way. I always really liked Paul and it makes me sad to this day.

Mike and I became teen vandals during this period. We weren’t hippies, yet, but would could stay out late and get into mischief. We would throw eggs at cars soap cars, drawing phalluses and boobs on car windows. We would write “mild” obscenities like “Pee Pee in the bucket” and draw that event on the window. We would also toilet paper tress in enemies yards.

There was a nice, kind of eccentric woman across the street who was our school crossing guard. We spent many hours visiting in her house. I can’t recall her name but I can see her and hear her voice, loud and clear. Memories are funny.

817-A DARTMOUTH ROAD is where teenage and hippiedom really set in. God, where do I start? I met many of my best, lifelong friends here…Hammond Brown, Charlie Gatewood, Andy Knefel (R.I.P.), Chris Plumstead…these guys stayed lifelong friends.

See that window, bottom right with the short hedge? That was our kitchen. We lived in the apartment to the right of the door. One day I was on the phone and my buddy Gary Williams came by. I was talking on the phone and had my arm out the window, Gary snuck up and burned my arm with his cigarette…..OOOWWWW!! I thought I had been stung by a bee.

I had my chance to get even. One day I made a dummy, a good one, dressed I’m my clothes, with my heavy boots on. Gary would alway barge in the hallway and bang really hard on my door. It pissed my mother off. He called said he was coming over so I told my mom my plan. I was gonna take the dummy upstairs and wait. Gary barged in BOOM-BOOM-BOOM…”Hey Steve!”. I yelled “I’ll be right down!” and dropped the dummy down the stairwell. We had to peel Gary off the wall…hahaha. My mom loved it. She laughed so hard she peed herself.

This place holds my absolute worst young memory. My sister did all of the things young people did back then, before me. She smoked pot and got caught. My mother sent her to a  shrink who diagnosed her, incorrectly, as a schizophrenic. Jesus…….At his recommendation she was put on St. Elizebeth mental institution in Washington D.C. the national looney bin, for a year. Horrible “One Flew Over the Cuckoos” nest shit. After she got out my mother gave her $20, kicked her out and changed the locks on the apartment. While they made peace and life went on, I don’t think either of them ever healed from that. My sister is fine and happy and they were not estranged, I just know my mother would cry and say she was wrong and my sister has had to bear that cross. She didn’t do anything to deserve how she was treated. Oh, this makes me cry. Like I said, my worst memory.

Me? I did MUCH worse stuff here. I got caught smoking weed so often my mother just gave up and said “You boys stay in your room and smoke”. That didn’t happen right away but the 60’s were in full swing. I remember telling my mother I was on acid and having a bad trip. She made me tea.

One time when I was tripping I came home and she was resting on the couch. I thought (or I thought I just thought) she has tattoos all over her face. She sat bolt upright.like some giant chicken and started screaming “Tattoos all over my  face? Tattoos all over my face? What are you talking about?”. Apparently, I had screamed “OH MY GOD, SHE’S GOT TATTOOS ALL OVER HER FACE!!” instead of just thinking it to myself….Ahhh acid!

This is where I had my first real girlfriend, Gail. We were together for years are she is still my best friend. Gail and I had a pet monkey, Fred. ( Read THAT blog entry. It’ll blow you mind.)

3405 Seneca Street was a duplex and we also inhabited the house directly to the left of this one.

This was a GREAT memory. 15 hippies lived in these 3 houses. We had a band, LIPS ON A STRING, named after a pair of lips found hanging from a window shade pull, in Ed Gein’s house. Ed was a noted murderer and cannibal.

We had several cats, Dusty and Earl (Earl was a girl) and a third whose name I don’t remember. We cooked and ate communally. We had legendary parties there. In my house were 3 couples. Myself and Gail, Dutch and Penny and Hammond and Sue. The latter 2 couples got married. Gail and I are still life-long friends.

My sister, Margaret lived in the house on the right with her BF. Charlie mark and her good GF Sheriden.

In the house to the lift lived, Charlie Gatewood<Chris Williamson, Larry Shapiro, Wanda Alexander, Ken Hebden, Terry White and Carlos..can’t recall his last name.

Larry Shapiro

Larry Shapiro and Charlie Gatewood

Many of the Seneca crew, Penny, Charlie, Hammond and Sue, Ken Hebden, Larry Shapiro and Betty and Joann, who we met at that house! 35 years later at Ikaros Greek restaurant in Baltimore

Me, Stella and Dutch in the back yard at Seneca Street

A party at Seneca Street (Larry-bottom right) Mike Fitchett showing off his rubber skin.

 

Charles Street-605 Washington Place 3rd floor. This is where I had my second serious romance (With Sakina) across the alley from Peabody Music Conservatory.

This was a cool place. Sakina and I lived right across from the rehearsal rooms at Peabody. We would sit on the roofs and hear singers, oboes, pianos, harps…every instrument you can imagine at any time of day. It was like something out of a movie. We lived in the top left, in the building, below, with the iron work. 

The George Washington Monument was in our front yard.

For a while I worked 2 blocks north, at Record and Tape Collector. I LOVED working in a record store. I had started out a few blocks farther away at a record warehouse but one day my manager blew up at us and I left, went to lunch and applied at RTC. He gave me a glowing recommendation at the store I hired on to, so much so that they made me an assistant manager at the Towson store. My girlfriend worked at Green Earth, a health food restaurant, just the other side of that cathedral in the photo above. I remember seeing Al Pacino eating there, several times when he was filming “And Justice For All” in the neighborhood.

One time, I was at work and my Manager said we need to close our shades because some friends of his had just come into the record store and recognized me. He said the guy and all his friends would watch me and my girlfriend having sex…no, really…..a lot! So, one night I was about to take a bath and I went to the window and looked across the street and one floor up there were about 6 people lined up in the 3 windows of that apartment, like a movie theater. One of them even waved at me. I got a little pissed so I went down to the street and there happened to be a cop standing right out front. I told him my story, which made him laugh. I asked him to come up to my apartment and just look at my fan club across the way. It was funny. He did, he walked into my apartment and over to the window, looked over….and the fans scattered, like roaches when the lights come on! Hahahaha. We did start closing the shades, tho, just to be right about things.

That was the last place I lived before moving to Texas and Austin.