I am now forced twice in a row to admit that I read the Washington Post online, but at least I can claim the excuse that I haven’t much to do at work these days.
Much in the same way that I read every last strip in the comics sections, I feel somehow obliged to read almost all of the columnists’ blurbs in the Sun, Post and Times-Dispatch, regardless of their level of crappiness. (WordPerfect has just subtly informed me that “crappiness” is not a word.) When I was about 13, I thought Bob Levey was pretty cool. Now I tend to find him a little preachy and smarmy.
If there are two constants about that sinkhole of a city–where everything is as transient as the SUVs that fill its streets–they are the fact of the Potomac smelling like a rotting wallaby carcass in the summertime, and Bob Levey’s annual campaign to send poor inner-city kids to camp.
Which is a nice thought, but I’m glad that I was raised in a socioeconomic bracket too high to have piqued Uncle Bob’s interest. I was a city kid early on and an old-school suburban kid later, and I never once went to camp. I was perfectly happy within the confines of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, which had plenty of weird dark corners and caves to explore, and is Art Deco, besides.
Growing up in a household where certain parts of the world (the Pines at Rehoboth, Easton, Essex) were derided as “buggy”, I had very little use for a vacation that would put me at great exposure to things with exoskeletons. Also, although I have always been an animal lover and prefer them immensely to humans, I did not and do not feel any need to get THAT close to wildlife. Wildlife is beautiful, but some of it is also very large, and I have no desire to come face to face with a life form that regards me about the same way I regard a bag of cheesy poofs.
I did have some friends who went to camp. Ironically, they were mostly suburban kids; city parents evidently believed (and with good reason) that Druid Hill Park is all the nature anybody needs. Of course, I think most parents probably don’t give a rat’s dingus about nature–they want to be free of the little monsters for a few weeks. Anyway, my friends that were exiled to Camp In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida or whatever always came back displaying handmade leather purses and belts. All well and good, I’m sure, but frankly the ones you get from Hutzler’s look better.
Perhaps most significantly, a childhood spent at the movies taught me everything I really need to know about summer camp, and that is that people at summer camp invariably meet up with monsters, evil Indian ghosts, and people in hockey masks who carry very sharp objects for reasons other than belt-making. And from what I saw onscreen at the Grand, those people in hockey masks cannot be bought off with red bug juice.
Actually, even the last time I went to Patterson Park I met up with a tick the size of an Audi. It apparently believed that my leg strongly resembled cheesy poofs. East Baltimore has just joined the “buggy” list.
Much in the same way that I read every last strip in the comics sections, I feel somehow obliged to read almost all of the columnists’ blurbs in the Sun, Post and Times-Dispatch, regardless of their level of crappiness. (WordPerfect has just subtly informed me that “crappiness” is not a word.) When I was about 13, I thought Bob Levey was pretty cool. Now I tend to find him a little preachy and smarmy.
If there are two constants about that sinkhole of a city–where everything is as transient as the SUVs that fill its streets–they are the fact of the Potomac smelling like a rotting wallaby carcass in the summertime, and Bob Levey’s annual campaign to send poor inner-city kids to camp.
Which is a nice thought, but I’m glad that I was raised in a socioeconomic bracket too high to have piqued Uncle Bob’s interest. I was a city kid early on and an old-school suburban kid later, and I never once went to camp. I was perfectly happy within the confines of the Enoch Pratt Free Library, which had plenty of weird dark corners and caves to explore, and is Art Deco, besides.
Growing up in a household where certain parts of the world (the Pines at Rehoboth, Easton, Essex) were derided as “buggy”, I had very little use for a vacation that would put me at great exposure to things with exoskeletons. Also, although I have always been an animal lover and prefer them immensely to humans, I did not and do not feel any need to get THAT close to wildlife. Wildlife is beautiful, but some of it is also very large, and I have no desire to come face to face with a life form that regards me about the same way I regard a bag of cheesy poofs.
I did have some friends who went to camp. Ironically, they were mostly suburban kids; city parents evidently believed (and with good reason) that Druid Hill Park is all the nature anybody needs. Of course, I think most parents probably don’t give a rat’s dingus about nature–they want to be free of the little monsters for a few weeks. Anyway, my friends that were exiled to Camp In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida or whatever always came back displaying handmade leather purses and belts. All well and good, I’m sure, but frankly the ones you get from Hutzler’s look better.
Perhaps most significantly, a childhood spent at the movies taught me everything I really need to know about summer camp, and that is that people at summer camp invariably meet up with monsters, evil Indian ghosts, and people in hockey masks who carry very sharp objects for reasons other than belt-making. And from what I saw onscreen at the Grand, those people in hockey masks cannot be bought off with red bug juice.
Actually, even the last time I went to Patterson Park I met up with a tick the size of an Audi. It apparently believed that my leg strongly resembled cheesy poofs. East Baltimore has just joined the “buggy” list.
posted by Daniel | 11:23 AM
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