The Maryland Trip
Originally posted 19th December 2014
In November I went to the Baltimore Writers Conference. My drive down was fairly uneventful. Once in Pennsylvania I noticed plenty of signs the mentioned headlights. In New York State on a clear day you can drive with your vehicle headlights off, however in PA they seem to use their headlights for everything.
The hotel I stayed at is in Cockeysville, Maryland twenty minutes outside of Towson where the Conference was held. Towson is like a half hour from the center of Baltimore itself. Google insisted each of these places were ten minutes apart by car. Google was wrong.
My first night there after checking into my hotel room, I went for a walk and found Towne Tavern. It was like a liquor store with a bar built in it, which I think is neat. This tavern had a great band. I had one drink and the band stopped to take a break, so I felt that was the best time to explore some more. I improvised some lyrics while I was walking down the street. The locals must have thought me mad. I found another place more crowded than the last.
An Poitin Stil was an Irish Pub. Their music was worse than the previous band and two to three rows lined the bar at all times. I was in the mood for Cajun food that night. The food was not bad, but I have not had real Cajun to even tell if they made it right. The style of the pub was entrancing and made you feel at home, even if the music wasn’t that good. I never got a good look at the whole place because the stage was in the center of the pub and the crowd was blocking passage to what looked like the empty side.
The next day armed with my GPS, and some maps of the campus printed off; I made my way to the conference at Towson University. I had to pay for parking because I could not find the right parking garage where parking would have been compt. Before I go on, I parked perfectly between the lines, but at the end of the day the Fuzz left me a warning claiming I wasn’t parked between the lines. I think they have trouble with cars prettier than theirs.
On my way to the campus I went up to a person I hoped was a student to ask for directions, and he was also a writer heading to the conference. The man, David worked with me to find our way to the correct building. The conference for my first was a perfect size, although everybody there was from Pennsylvania, Maryland, or DC. I traveled the farthest to be there.
I went to most, if not all the sessions that dealt with poetry. One of the sessions was led by James Arthur and he was splendid. I brought my masterpiece to be critiqued for the poetry critique. I was able to have James and Joe Capista, a professor at the university look at it. I was given very useful incite and thoughts. I went to one session I thought would help me be more confident in my memoir writing, however it was not helpful. I almost forgot, the keynote speaker was M. K. Asante. He wrote Buck. He was inspiring as he spoke of his experiences and the things he had learned.
I was hoping to fall into a group and go out for drinks. This day did not afford me that luxury, so I went exploring the streets of Towson alone. Towson Tavern when first I researched it seemed to me to be where college students would congregate. It was not. It had a valet service, it was overpriced and I could not find fries on the menu.
Continuing on my travels I found The Kent House Pub where both the staff and the food where excellent. In the pub I thought the Towson community must see itself as part of Baltimore, however it looked to have forged its own identity. I learned that Towson is viewed as a college town. It does not have its own Mayor, and that lets people assume it is a suburb of Baltimore, but it has its own identity.
I met a gentleman at the bar, Jason who filled me in on some Baltimore history: the two great fires of the city, the ghetto/town house/ ghetto development, and so on. Besides college students I leaned the Towson community is set in their ways and is not totally open to the public. Baltimore itself is seen to be more open and accepting than Towson, according to one young lady. Jason was very helpful and made the merry environment merrier. I like to believe I am unintentionally sexist, because I found male comrades to invest inquiry with, yet could not find female company in the same state. It may just be a same gender relation sort of thing. Women have reason to be on guard, where guys just don’t.
The next day before making my way north again, I went into the heart of Baltimore in hopes to visit the ground Edgar Allen Poe might have paced a hundred times. The building did not open up until a time that was too late. I had to be on the road by one. On my way there I saw what Jason meant by ghetto/town house/ ghetto. It was like history, advancement, and survival had an argument and then built Baltimore. I walked the grounds outside of what once was Poe’s house, and felt the dreary atmosphere. The trash, graffiti across the way and a rundown church made it even more so. Ravens covered the grounds allowing me to see why Baltimore and Poe were obsessed with them. I am used to noticing history being guarded and presented as untouched like Colonial Williamsburg or The Seward House, but the Poe House was a piece of history preserved in a beaten-down area. I felt mean when I realized I was here for history and I should have been there to help in some way, although maybe that is mean assuming they need help.
On my way out of Maryland I saw a sign that read, “Please Come Back!” I could not help but laugh. I had a wonderful time. Visit Cockeysville, or Towson you might enjoy it, and stop by The Kent House Pub!