I’ve always maintained that Baltimore’s best entertaining is a combination of meticulous planning and seat-of-the-pants spontaneity, and this last Saturday was no exception. A large group of friends gathered to celebrate the birthday of one of our crowd—who, at sixty, has the physical appearance and exuberance of a woman thirty years her junior. (That would make the explanation of her thirty-year old daughter difficult, but so much the better.)

We started the day with a buffet and beer reception at the ancient B&O warehouse next door to the new baseball park. (Yes, I know the park is now twelve years old; it will be “new” until something else replaces it six decades from now.) That was the well-planned part, and it was delightful. Tasty picnic-style food and free flowing beer—does it get much better? Even the game tickets were planned, but the continuing entertainment in the stands wasn’t. We ended up seated somehow in the midst of a bunch of rowdy—but genteel and amusing—Red Sox fans. They’d all scored cheapo plane fares from Boston. Ever true to their team, they wasted no time making fun of some of the Oriole men, but were never malevolent or nasty to the fans. There was a lot of good-natured ribbing between us all. I gave them my own ration of hell for mispronunciation of their host city—I do not live in Bal-tee-moah—and they had a good time joshing us for our last few miserable seasons.

Since the game itself was slow, a lot of us revolved through the seats and the concourse, drinking lots of beer and contributing to the corporate wealth of R.J. Reynolds. We had a great time catching up; there were friends in attendance from the better part of both of the great Chesapeake States and a few from far-off Tennessee and California.

In the ninth inning poor Boston scored its only run of the day, and the skies started to clear. Before we knew it we had a lovely spring day on our hands, and retreated back to my house for a previously-unplanned cocktail hour, followed up by a previously-unplanned dinner party around the corner. Somehow “What will we do about dinner?” became an impromptu gathering for ten, good silver and all.

Afterwards we returned to the plan and joined the rest of the crowd downtown. I normally shy away from the big chain bars that now line the waterfront, but the Hard Rock Café lent just the right note to a milestone birthday. It’s something you don’t do every day, and as such it was just the right place to go.

Not too surprisingly, since we’d started with beer at noon, moved through several phases of wine, whiskey, women and song, by the time we reached the waterfront we were all in fine fettle. I must take this opportunity, in closing, to thank those who talked me out of jumping into the Harbor just to prove I could do it.