Baltimore, oh Baltimore I can hear your sea winds blowing

Baltimore. That place sounds familiar. It seems an important port with a unique geography. What happened there? Fort McHenry. Star Spangled Banner. British. 1812 Burned down Washington a march away.

Mother Seaton, first American saint. Nations first Catholic seminary. Anything else? Babe Ruth. Edgar Allen Poe, see? That right there is why one would think the whole place is so spooky. Because of him. Baltimore is so spooky it even freaked out Edgar Allen Poe. That is my impression. There should be something about ships. Tall sailing ships. We put these models together as boys. Let me think. Shipping there is a big deal, you know. U.S.S. Constellation, a 3-masted war sloop. Cool boat. Baltimore undoubtedly has a lot of rats.

Wooden model. $648.30 by Old Modern Handicrafts. You should buy one. Kidding. I know you're not interested. Ours were plastic. This is a lot better. Dusting is a problem. Either glass case or housekeeper with a delicate touch. Baltimore, having the real thing is just so totally historically ace. Baltimore has more historical ships than this but they're not as good, and actually, the real thing is a bit cheesy. Also the U.S. Naval Academy at nearby Annapolis. Baltimore Oreos, home of the famous cookie. Kidding again. Also, Chef Duff and his entertaining Ace of Cakes.

Oriole VS Cardinal. Just for the heck of it.

Now, here are two very good looking birds.

Sorry Baltimore. Cardinal for the win. St. Louis wins for bird teams. The red beak and red feet kill it. It's a bird so confident in its color that it takes it all the way from the toes to the crest. The oriole is attractive, yes, but it compromises, like it's trying to pass for a robin. But even robins have yellow beaks with gray legs, and robins have stunning blue eggs. But wait, what do oriole eggs look like?

Oh, orioles make hanging basket nests. Wow. Jackson Pollock eggs.

What do cardinal's nest and eggs look like? Stunning eggs. Much simpler nests.

Baltimore oriole's nest and eggs win. Tough choice though. Oriole is a better housekeeper and family bird while cardinal is a more confident stylist.

Their geography is such the force of waterways suggested mills. I'm interested in their early grain mills. The early settlers preferred rye bread. I imagined their milled wheat to be be all whole wheat minus the husks. I imagined the stones flattening de-husked wheat seeds to powder but that is not what they did. The ground grain is graded for different purposes by sifting through various screens, their term "bolting" originally "boulting." Romans bolted their wheat to seven grades of flour. So, not all their bread was 100% whole wheat as imagined, but all of their leaven was natural piggybacking or airborne, what we call sourdough.

Don't ask me about present day happening in Baltimore and their dilapidated unhappy Democrat plantation with all their high profile non-Baltimore plantation rebellions because I don't know anything about that. It doesn't come through. I do know historically plantation owners were terrified of revolts. There they were, the plantation owners, out there in the country isolated away from the unhealthy city in summer, with more people in bondage than available enforcement and there is always news coming in of happenings in Jamaica. Now, they are doing a lot of talking but not to me. All of the talking, and there is a lot of talking, is amongst themselves and for themselves. They're working out their own problems and they've made clear all  that has nothing to do with me, in fact I and my profiled type are excluded. But that needn't wreck a whole city, there's a lot else going on there besides plantation rebellion.

Seems every time you turn around there's another hard luck story you're going to hear. And there's really nothing anyone can say. Oh, I never did plan to go anyway... to Black Diamond Bay.