Nobody dresses up for Easter anymore. Nobody shines their shoes, puts on a suit and struggles with that top shirt button; nobody wears white gloves, a new hat and a gay Easter frock; and nobody uses the word “gay” like that anymore. Unless wearing the medium blue T-shirt without the dark blue stain and not missing a belt loop in your best jeans constitutes “dressing up”. Easter Sunday was the only event of the Kid Year that I ever wore a suit and tie and a pair of hard shoes. The tie was usually a clip-on bowtie and the suit was of the finest 35 thread-count fallow brown burlap. The shoes …

It's week and a half past Ash Wednesday and since it is without question most of you have long ago broken the empty promises of your New Year’s resolutions, it’s time to get ready for Easter and more broken promises and self-esteem killing. It’s the Lenten Season. As previously stated in this column, I don’t make resolutions. I learned about the futility of making them during Sunday school at St. Luke’s Catholic Church in the old town of Sparrows Point, specifically during the period of the liturgical year known as Lent. For Lent you have to give up something, making it similar to a New Year’…

“You sure do have a lot of cool little bars around here,” said the young stranger. “I’ve never been up this way before, but I might come back and hang out some time.” This poor deluded creature was a foreigner from Anne Arundel County. She had traversed Curtis Creek, the mighty Patapsco River, and perhaps most dangerously of all, had passed by that carcinogenic pond by the old steel mill, just to buy my pool table. “You should’ve seen the place about 40 years ago,” I told her. “Had almost as many bars as Highlandtown.” “As many bars as who?” asked the foreigner. “Never mind.” But she was …

Whenever it snows like this, I can’t help but think of the fun I had playing in the stuff as a kid. Building snowmen, snow forts and having snowball fights are as timeless as snow itself.   In the blizzard of 1966 we got dumped on so heavily we were able to make igloos, dig caves and create an elaborate series of tunnels that rivaled the Catacombs of Rome. But nothing ever beat the fun of flying down a snow-covered hill at 95 miles-per-hour on a sled. And if you grew up in Edgemere or the town of Sparrows Point back in the 60s and 70s, there was only one hill that mattered – the Cloverleaf. …

I bought my first rock album back in 1970 at the old Two Guys department store on Merritt Boulevard. It was "Led Zeppelin II" and more than 40 years later it's still my all-time favorite album, with "Who's Next" a close second. I soon added Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" and Three Dog Night's "Golden Biscuits" to my nascent collection, with "Led Zeppelin I" and "Led Zeppelin III" soon following. In my group of friends (we called ourselves The FBA – The Fabian Beer Association), I was the Led Zeppelin guy. Others FBA members included the Grand Funk Railroad guy, the Chicago guy, and the (early 70s…

The Macmillan Dictionary defines "New Year's resolution" as "a decision that you make on the first day of the year about the things that you intend to do or stop doing during that year." My definition differs slightly. I define "New Year's resolution" as "something that is broken more often than the urinals at The Green Room." Personally, I don't believe in making New Year's resolutions. I feel bad enough about myself. Why make it worse by making a promise I know I'm not going to keep? As a society we should feel fortunate that New Year's resolutions are merely a common ritual and not a legal…

There was a time when the local, tired, poor huddled masses gathered together outside in frigid weather and took simple pleasure in watching penguins swim and play. I'm talking about the Eastpoint Shopping Center before it succumbed to early 1970s modernism and was converted to the enclosed Eastpoint Mall we know today. This was the old, outdoor Eastpoint Shopping Center that was anchored on one end by Hutzler's and on the other by Hochschild-Kohn, each founded in Baltimore, in 1858 and 1897, respectively. When I was a kid a trip to Eastpoint was a real event, not only at Christmas, but any …

Someone new to the Dundalk-Edgemere area asked me where the best place was to watch a Ravens game.  M&T Bank Stadium, where it'll cost you a couple of hundred bucks to feed a family of four during the game? Would you even subject your family to the lunacy of foaming-at-the-mouth Ravens fans who started tailgating at 6:30 a.m. for a 1 p.m. game?  If you're a parent who cares about your child's well-being and is concerned about the long-term effects of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, then I think I already know the answer. Back in the early 80s my friends and I were Baltimore Colts season …

Turkey and football – you can't have a real Thanksgiving without those two ingredients. Though if forced to make a choice I suppose I could just grab a ham sandwich and be okay. Just keep your paws off my football games. There was a time in our little corner of the world when many people would've made that same choice; a time when football and a fierce rivalry overshadowed all else in Dundalk and Sparrows Point on Thanksgiving Day. I'm talking, of course, about the Steel Bowl. The Steel Bowl was played on Thanksgiving Day at Penwood Park in Sparrows Point from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s. …

Hold on to your hamburger, all you Gino Giant fans out there, I have incredible news. Gino and the boys are making a comeback."Gino," of course, is Baltimore Colts legend, Gino Marchetti, and "the boys" are Louis Fischer, an original Gino's co-founder, and Tom Romano, former C.O.O. of Gino's. The trio has resurrected the brand, opening a new Gino's location late last month in King of Prussia, Pa., just outside of Philadelphia.   Gino's was founded in 1957, with the first restaurant in Dundalk, by Marchetti and Fischer along with Colts running back Alan Ameche. As their popularity grew, …