No longer languorous from a punishing winter in Baltimore—the last clumps of dirty snow didn’t disappear until St. Patrick’s Day—I’m on a furious pace, wasn’t even perturbed by the reappearance of BGE men outside our house at seven a.m. last Wednesday, inspecting the driveway. I’ve never told you about Strawberry Fields, that’s a 1967 nugget that can’t be reproduced, but for the 45th time in 10 years I will go on about the ghosts in our sprawling 1928 house, and think I saw one, or at least a charming, if hammy, apparition, about a week ago. We engaged in chatter for a quasi-metaphysical 90 seconds, and if it was in my head, not a problem, since I talk to myself all day long.
This was the impetus: recently, my wife returned from an acupuncture session in Baltimore County (she’s gone for six months or so, after twisting her back after too vigorously mopping the second and third floors our home; and now just enjoys meeting with the lady who performs the illusion—and I don’t go for that mumbo-jumbo, Lazy-Eyed Sam is me, Egg Roll Norton, although my friend and Red Sox-texter Rick told me his own acupuncture sessions were boss, came close to a fourth-place Yankees finish. Anyway, she arrived home, and after greeting our hyperactive Yorkie, Billy Smith for those who know him, noticed that one of her stud earrings was missing. Panic mode. Melissa has a fair amount of jewelry accumulated over the years, but this pair had particular sentimental value. They weren’t flashy: a small dice-shaped number with single sapphires (she also has the ruby and emerald parts of the collection) that I bought for her at Tiffany’s one early morning in 1994.
Couples have traditions, and one of ours was that every September, on the day New York Press’ “Best of Manhattan” issue was delivered to over 1400 locations in the city, I’d walk up to 5th Ave. from our Tribeca apartment, mind at rest after an exhausting three weeks, slowly breakfast with eggs, ham, fruit and coffee while reading The New York Observer at the Plaza Hotel, and then buy a trinket for my gal. Just before the grand party at the Puck Building each year, I’d hand over the blue Tiffany’s box and watch her eyes—it never got old—go googly. Sometimes she’d do a jig, calling it “The Pivot,” not realizing that in the 2020s the word “pivot” would become a hated cliché (at least by me).
She was a sad-eyed-lady over the lost earring and the next day re-traced her steps from the previous afternoon, with no luck. I thought combing the parking lot of the acupuncture facility was taking it to the limit, but tried to stay in the background, suggesting, “It’ll turn up.” A week later, she found it, on top of a clothes bureau. “Did you find it,” she asked, and I said no, as did the ladies who clean the house once a week, and she then whistled in a combination of relief and spookiness, sang a verse of Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs “Wooly Bully” and insisted it was one of our ghosts. As a believer, I offered no dispute, and so we clinked imaginary glasses and bowed down to Melinoe, the ghost curator. The veil of that nasty winter was mercifully lifted.
We live around the corner from North Baltimore’s Sherwood Gardens (and pay a fee for upkeep) and the daffodils are out now, the precursor to row upon row of gorgeous tulips in April that attract camera-toting tourists (or really, locals from other neighborhoods, since the increasingly-rundown Baltimore, under the sleazy Mayor Brandon Scott, doesn’t attract out-of-towners anymore). Meanwhile, the landscaper we hire to keep up the property had his crew removing winter debris, whipping along to the Hully-Gully with bags of mulch, and figuring out a scheme for new plants (some immediately batted down as too pricey). Taking a look at their progress, I felt like setting up a card table and playing chess with my neighbor Norm—I can hold my own, barely, at chess, unlike golf, a sport I never had the patience to pursue—but he wasn’t home. Whispered drats! to myself and went back upstairs and flipped on Chris Bouchillon’s “Born In Hard Luck,” from the 1920s.
The accompanying photo, staying psychedelic shack/manse mode, was taken outside the Johns Hopkins Club, where a buddy of mine (sort of recognizable, flannel shirt with pack of Kents in pocket, in this solipsistic double-exposure; we worked at the Club) hides in a mess of azaleas, my favorite. As I’ve mentioned, we’ve had no luck with that glory here; the heat doesn’t agree with them.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: Bill Almon was the top draft pick (Padres); the late Montreal Expos finished at 79-82; Catfish Hunter won the A.L. Cy Young (before Bob Dylan wrote a splendid and underrated song about him); Dick (“Don’t call me Richie”) Allen hit 32 homers to lead the A.L.; Paul Blair won his 150th Gold Glove Award; Shannon Hale was born and Anne Sexton died; Roald Dahl’s Switch Bitch, Lawrence Durrell’s Monsieur and Tom Stoppard’s Travesties are published; Nadine Gordimer wins the Booker Prize; Robert Lowell won the Poetry Pulitzer; Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal is Time’s Man of the Year; and Randy Newman’s Good Old Boys is released.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023