munchies and memories

i'm craving something- i'm not sure what, exactly. tacos sound good, but i'm out of shells, torillas, meat, and lettuce- so i guess that's out. a crab craving was brought on by a blog i just finished browsing- the blogger was talking about a bumper sticker he saw that said something to the effect of:

baltimore- i kind of like it

i don't remember exactly what it was, and i'm afraid my computer might blow up if i try to open two windows at the same time (or, even worse, inform me that it had erred and needed to close all windows RIGHT NOW), so i guess we'll just have to stick with my paraphrasing.

reading that entry conjured up memories, so naturally i commented on the post. there i go again, putting in my two cents whether it's asked for or not. hope the author doesn't mind. (i, for one, get a kick out of it when random folks read something i've babbled about and feel compelled to comment. maybe i'm not just talking to myself, after all.....)

you see, i spent most of my formative years in woodlawn, a suburb of baltimore. we moved there from colorado a couple of months before i turned 4, and we left for kansas city right before my fourteenth birthday. to this day, when i dream about living in a house, it's always the house we had on northland road. i've driven past our old exit several times on the way up the coast, but i've always been too chicken to make the turn. they say you can't go home again, and while part of me wonders if the blackberry vines are still taking over the backyard and if the pine tree i planted on arbor day, 1984, when i was in kindergarten, still stands, i'm too afraid to have a look and find out they're not there anymore. (after all, it has been almost 13 years since we pulled out of the driveway for the last time.)

i miss picking crabs (the boys have the washington monument on their undersides, while the girls have the capitol building), and eating utz crab chips (flavored with old bay), and sledding on the hill at the woodlawn cemetary, and the "haunted school" in downtown woodlawn (as well as "skate night" on wednesdays) at the old woodlawn elementary school. i miss the walters art gallery, and baltimore county public library (the branch by woodlawn senior high school), and riding the kid-sized trains at the park up the hill- the name of it escapes me, and the science center, and the national aquarium, and the power plant (back in the day when it was an attraction and had rides and stuff- before the tough financial times and barnes and noble and the hard rock cafe), and sabatino's house dressing, and the short drive down to d.c., where i could wander through the smithsonian and climb on the dinosaurs behind the museum of natural history, and speaking of history, how about all those field trips to antietam....the bloodiest day during the civil war (or something like that- it's been a while since i visited), and memorial stadium........

ah, memories.

which is not to say i'd move back, because i'm afraid i wouldn't. too much pollution, too much crime- though we were fairly sheltered from it (or maybe just too young to realize what was going on). mama subbed at the high school, and came home more than once talking about a gang rape, or some student bringing in a weapon of one kind or another. then there was the morning we woke up and saw that several cars of our neighbors' cars had been torched in the night. i know of at least one occasion when we were told we had to be in by dark (we played a lot with the neighborhood kids), because some little old lady's house had been robbed recently.

yep, memories.

and on that note, i believe it's time for me to make some potato chip and cheese sandwiches (two chips with a small hunk of cheddar in the middle- best accomplished with pringles and sliced cheese), and head for bed.