A Neighborhood Upon a Hill

Nestled atop a hill of terraced housing lies a gentrified gem of Baltimore known as Hampden.   Off-white houses, relics of a distant past, crowd the narrow streets that slope downward from the neighborhood’s center.  The scene looks like something out of a 1960’s Sear’s catalogue.  It’s early evening and gunmetal clouds hang heavy over the homes.  For most of the people on the street, the air is just brisk enough to call for layers. 

The main commercial strip, titled “The Avenue”, runs through the center of town at its apex.  The banality of its name counters the brightly colored boutiques and cafes that line it.  The small businesses here lack the modern chic of big city boutiques, but their charm and character more than compensates.  The buildings around here have held on to just enough of their history.  If it weren’t for the hybrid cars lining the street, the place could be perceived as stuck in a different era—the era that The Feminine Mystique called for an ending to.  But this neighborhood proudly hearkens to a time when women spent the majority of their day in flower print aprons.

            Through the world wars Hampden housed thousands of workers employed by the Jones Falls mills.  For many years it served as Baltimore’s middle-class utopia.  The seventies, however, saw the closing of many mills by the hands of a growing corporate America.  By the 1990’s Hampden had become a trendy arts district, with house prices to match.

Since its facelift, most of the shop owners have made a living out of selling nostalgia.  Inside the appropriately named Hampden Junque nostalgia smells like dusty, stale oak and comes in the form of Brownie cameras and yellowing movie posters.  From every cluttered cranny at least one Natty Boh man, Baltimore’s Big Brother, has an eye—and only one eye—on you at all times. 

It’s undeniable that Hampden is cute.  Yet Hampden knows it’s cute.  Inside the popular Café Hon, everything from the apple pie to the décor reeks of saccharine self-awareness.  At the door stands a life-size Elvis statue draped in a pink feather boa, and at the cash register stands a rack of neon, cat-eye sunglasses.  Hampden walks a fine line between quaint and tacky, all too often crossing the line into outright kitsch.    

            On the street, a wiry, leather-skinned lady with a case of Keystone Light peers into a retro diner window at a twenty-something couple savoring warm cups of Maryland crab soup.  “Good day for that, eh? Soup.” she says to her trucker-capped husband shuffling beside her.  They both wear oversized purple Ravens sweatshirts.  When they pass the dimly lit local sports bar he cranes his neck to see through the glare and slurs a drawn-out “Daaam” followed by “They’re losin’ 20 to nothin’.”  The people at the bar sip their beers lazily and the bartender serves with little conviction.  It’s a Monday night.  The bar is consolation—football, an escape. 

            A yellow 1963 Camaro rumbles by and the buildings rumble with it.  Seeing the classic car roll down the street is like seeing a glimpse into the past.  The man driving turns his head out the window and yells to someone on the street “I’ll give you a good fight!”  It’s difficult to tell if his tone is facetious rib jabbing or belligerent threatening.  Half-a-block north a young woman sits on the doorstep of yet another shady bar that breaks-up the independent art shops and cafes.  She has candy-apple-red lipstick and takes a slow drag on her cigarette while gazing across the street at nothing in particular.   Her elbow rests on her knee, and she ruffles the ear of a howitzer-built bulldog.  He looks in the direction of a man on a nearby corner who mumbles to himself loudly.  Roughly shaven and sipping from a brown bag, the blue flannel shirt he wears could easily be worn by one of the many wannabe Ginsbergs who populate the Hampden bars.  A group of them are taking a smoke-break with the girl and the dog.  They have thick-framed glasses, greased side-swept hair, and a style that looks like whatever-is-for-sale at the vintage consignment store.  In Hampden, homeless and hipster have nearly the same appearance. 

But back across the street, a more refined group of three young women clonk by in high-heels and pea coats.  They look straight ahead with determination and hug the inside of the sidewalk when they pass the mumbling man on the corner.  They quickly duck into a posh coffee-shop. 

            The streetlights come on just as the last of the sun’s crescent wanes on the horizon.  The tweed-jacketed grandfathers and thinning beehive grandmothers walk hastily to their cars when leaving the novelty restaurants.  Maybe it’s the chilly air.  Maybe it’s the fear that they’re not in the same Hampden that they raised their children in 50 years ago. 

At both ends of “The Avenue,” terraced housing stretches into the darkness.  Rifts in the sidewalk give way to overgrown patches of grass.  It’s only just past sundown, but all doors are closed and locked.  The streets are now empty, save a few middle-aged men who smell of ethanol and transient lifestyles.  As children of this once close-knit neighborhood upon a hill, these men dreamed of following in the footsteps of their fathers and fathers’ fathers by working in the mills.  Today there are no mills, only cutesy shops for the tourists passing through.  

Nothing but Norms

If there is one thing that I, my mother, and my grandmother can all agree on, it’s that Seinfeld is a good show.  It’s rare to find someone born in America in the last 80 years that doesn’t like Seinfeld.  The timelessness of the show relies upon one thing that we can all relate to—American social norms.  Take that away and you’ll find that the show has no story, no drama, no action.  In fact, it’s really nothing more than a few friends chatting in an apartment.  But that’s all it needs when it depicts, in a comical light, social predicaments we all know. 

            I recently watched an episode titled “The Dog” and took of the implied social norms in the 22 minutes of runtime:

The overly-friendly stranger:  Jerry is riding on an airplane as an old gentleman next to him goes on a never ending monologue.  We don’t care about your baseball-playing nephew in Minnesota, just let us have some quiet so we can read the dam Sky Mall. 

The pity favor:  The old man next to Jerry on the plane collapses from a heart-attack.  Jerry is obligated to care for the man’s dog in New York until family can pick it up.  You don’t want to do it (even though it’s the nice thing to do), but you have to because you would be labeled a jerk if you didn’t. 

The dog complex: Jerry’s ego struggles with having to carry around plastic bags and pick up behind the dog.  They may be on a leash, but we pick up their crap. 

Friend-in-laws:  Jerry, Elaine, and George are all supposed to go to a movie together, but when Jerry has to watch the dog it makes for an awkward night between Elaine and George.  A good friend of a good friend.  You wouldn’t spend time with him/her unless you were with the go-between friend. 

The friend’s girlfriend/boyfriend rule:  Kramer tells Jerry and Elaine that he is going to break-up with his girlfriend.  Jerry and Elaine are thrilled and can now finally tell Kramer how much they hated his girlfriend.  (In the end, this actually backfires because Kramer gets back with her.  Jerry and Elaine say they should have known not to say anything because “the first break-up never takes”).  She may look like a less cute gremlin; her personality may make you think of four-letter words; but when your friend asks you about his girlfriend she’s always pretty and kind. 

Saving movies for certain friends:  Jerry and George go to the movie theatre and want to see the new hit “Prognosis Negative,” but Jerry says he shouldn’t because he told Elaine he would see it with her.  George convinces Jerry to go, but he knows he will be in trouble when Elaine finds out.  You can’t talk to them during the movie, but you’re sitting next to them watching the movie at the exact same time and that makes all the difference.  You better not see it without me. 

The person you have nothing to say to but should:  Friend-in-laws Elaine and George realize they have nothing to say to each other.  To avoid being left-alone and having any awkward silences they don’t let Jerry go to the bathroom.  You are around each other a lot, but never alone.  The problem is you have nothing in-common and you can only talk about the weather for so long.  

Aging and the Internet

           Professor Bill Dobberstein didn’t actually see the yellow fire hydrant protruding out of the snow bank until he stepped out of his beige, Buick Regal to see what had hit him.  The front bumper of his car had wrapped itself around the hydrant as if hugging an old friend.  Ashamed and embarrassed, he trudged back to his car to shut off the engine.  The song trickling through the speakers was his favorite Bach sonata, but he knew that the song would never sound the same again.  Seconds later, police arrived at the scene before he could even get a second-look. 

            “Sir, are you okay?  The ambulance is on its way.  Have been you drinking at all?” 

The police officer’s voice was firm, but hollow; it sure didn’t seem to care about anyone’s safety. 

“I’m fine officer.  And no, I have not been drinking.  I was trying to get to my analytical chemistry lecture.” 

The officer turned away briefly and spoke into the radio on his shoulder, “Ten-four, I’ve got a vehicle-non-moving-object-collision at the corner of 17^th avenue and Gateway Drive.  Probable cause: geriatric negligence.”  The officer turned back to Professor Dobberstein, who stood in the snow with his chin to his chest.  The grey peacoat on his 83-year-old frame looked to weigh-down his narrowing shoulders and hunched back.    

“Okay, sir, a tow-truck is on its way and then you’ll be free to leave.  Unfortunately, I am going to have to suspend your license until you retake the graduated driver’s license test.” 

            Last fall, Professor Dobberstin went on his thirtieth-annual white-tail hunting trip with his son.  But this time, when he peered through the scope with his left eye, he saw only black. 

With vision in only one eye now, he knew for certain he wouldn’t pass the graduated driver’s test.  He worried about not being able to drive himself to the university.  Even more so, he worried about the inevitable reprimanding call from his son or daughter, whichever one found out first.

            A fellow chemistry faculty member picked Professor Dobberstein up from the scene of teha accident.  He arrived to his 11:30 a.m. analytical chemistry class eight minutes late. 

“Good morning students, let’s begin today with a look at the thermodynamic implications of calorimetry.”  The nearly 250 person class continued to chatter amongst themselves.  His baritone voice didn’t carry the same booming resonance it did when he started teaching 32 years ago. 

            His fingers bent every-which-way at their knuckles, arthritic from years of chalkboard writing.  But thanks to the recent ten-million dollar university renovation, chalkboards no longer existed in the lecture halls.  Professors had been told it would be much easier to teach solely from Power Points projected upon a white screen in-front of the class.  Professor Dobberstein fumbled with the plastic stylus and writing pad, trying to write on the Powerpoint.  After a few minutes of flustered button-pushing, his writing appeared on the screen.  Even so, he could barely read his own handwriting.  The students snickered.  His tremors seemed to be worse when he had to write with the electronic stylus in front of the class.  The kids didn’t seem to mind though. They were engrossed in whatever was on their laptop screens.  The only time they looked up at him was when he prefaced something with “This may be on the test.” 

            After the lecture, a student approached Professor Dobberstein.  He assumed it would be another request to “put the lecture on a podcast” or “upload Power Points to the school’s server.” 

“Professor Dobberstein, I missed the last lecture, can you email me the main points or like the lecture slides or something?”  Professor Dobberstein had been taking a Senior-Citizen Computer Literacy class at the Grand Forks public library, yet email still made him uneasy.  “Well, I am sorry, but I haven’t figured out how to attach things to emails so you’ll have to get the notes from a classmate.”

Without saying anything, the student turned hastily and mouthed what looked to be a four-letter word to his friend on the way out.  Professor Dobberstein often worried a lot these days about how he would be remembered by his students—if he would be remembered.  He couldn’t connect to them like he did back when he was only an assistant lecturer.  He had tenure now, but that didn’t seem to mean much to the kids.   

             Professor Dobberstein loved chemistry.  It was all he knew how to love.  The past few years had been tough, though.  He felt more sluggish in the classroom and in the laboratory.  He still oversaw a lab of graduate students and post-docs, but at the weekly lab meetings he found it difficult to keep-up with everyone’s fast talk and complex projects.  At one time, he was a leader in the field of electrochemistry, being published almost every month in journals as esteemed as Science and Nature.  But to his disappoint, he had yet to attain an achievement he could retire on—something that would solidify his name in chemistry textbooks for years to come.  Being an almost-Nobel laureate also wasn’t enough to get a building named after you on campus.  And it certainly didn’t pay enough for you to make a donation for anything more than a park bench in the designated smoking area. 

            His wife, Delores, had passed some years ago.  Now when he returned home each night, the only lady that greeted him was a Ballantine scotch, neat.  When Professor Dobberstein got home the night after the accident he heard something beeping.  After a few confused seconds and a glance at the oven, then the microwave, then the clock, he realized it was his cellphone.  The cellphone that his kids had bought him for Christmas few years back. 

His son had told him “This will help us keep in touch better, Dad!  The grandkids can even text you now!”  His kids and grandkids just visited a lot less, now. 

He stared at the ringing phone.  Was it the green button or the yellow button to answer?  He must have hit the right one because he heard his son’s voice come through, “Dammit Dad, I told you, you shouldn’t be driving anymore!  You could have killed someone!”

            Embarrassed and demoralized Professor Dobberstein only said what would make his son happy, “Don’t worry John, I’m not going to be driving any more.  Dr. Adams will be take me to school.” 

“Good, Dad, because you know I can’t be coming up there to drive you around all the time.  And don’t you think it’s time you start slowing down anyway?”  Professor Dobberstein didn’t know what his son meant by “slowing down,” but he did know he didn’t like being told what to do by his son.  Like all the other conversations for the past year, everything else was short and uninteresting for the both of them. 

            Since Delores’s passing, each night he sat at his table of four with only a Stouffer’s frozen dinner for company.  It didn’t bother him much anymore.  At least that’s what he told himself.  The Crispy Chicken Parmesan was his favorite, but this night he had the Savory Salisbury Steak and Green Beans.  He propped his new Dell laptop up in front of him.  He bought it for his computer literacy class, but hadn’t used it much.  Ms. Sheppard, the teacher of the class was a wide-eyed and overly-zealous twenty-something.  She often used a high-pitched, waxing and waning, Kindergarten-teacher-voice with the class.  Despite her enthusiasm she still couldn’t quite instill any interest in computers in him.  He continued to go to class though because she was easy on the one eye that he still had sight in. 

Last week Ms. Sheppard burst out, “Once something is on the internet, it’s there forever!  It’s not like paper where things can be erased or torn to shreds and lost forever.  Computers allow us to make an infinite amount of copies so we never have to worry about something getting lost.”  Professor Dobberstein wasn’t sure if this was good or bad—he felt that way about all technology.  He missed the days when people didn’t answer every question with a snooty, “Just Google it.” 

This week, the assignment Ms. Sheppard assigned read: Use the Google search engine to find the Wikipedia (an online encyclopedia ) biography of Marlon Brando.  Use the ‘copy’ and ‘paste’ functions to place the text in a Microsoft Word processing document.  Then change the font to “Old Golden Days” size 24.  Print on an 8.5”x11” sheet of paper and bring to class.  He hated the condescending nature of the assignments, but admittedly, he had never heard of Wikipedia before and he did like Marlon Brando.

It took Professor Dobberstein nearly an hour to finish the assignment.  Wikipedia pleasantly surprised him.  He couldn’t believe the breadth of its information—and how anyone could be an author in an encyclopedia.  For the first time, he stayed on his computer past his usual 9:00 P.M. nightcap. He read articles on everything from electron microscopy to nuclear magnetic resonance imaging. He even submitted a few corrections.  It pleased him to know that whatever yuppie wrote it didn’t know chemistry as well as him.  Eventually he stumbled across the biographies of some of his favorite chemists: Niels Bohr, Linus Pauling, and Ernest Rutheford.  He thought about what Ms. Sheppard had said about computers and the internet.  It was like all their biographies were written up there on the world-wide-web in indelible ink. 

On a whim, he typed his own name in the box with the magnifying glass next to it and pressed “Go.”  In a flash there was a picture of him taken when he first joined the university.  He barely recognized himself.  These days looking in the mirror had lost its objectivity. 

He left-clicked his blue, underlined name.  There it was: like the biographies of the chemistry Gods—a complete list of all his scholarly articles and achievements posted on the on Wikipedia, on the internet.  He couldn’t believe the detail of it: 1968 Chemistry Teaching Assistant of the Year, 1974 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, 1985 Midwestern Chemist of the Year.  There was even a brief biography that was accurate except for that he was born in Driscoll, North Dakota, not Fargo.  Again, he thought of what Ms. Sheppard had said.  A rare smile tightened his wearied face.   He could retire now.