The Office of Missing Soldiers

This guest post from my friend Robert Moriarty.

I try to get to work on time, a lifelong habit appreciated by no one. I leave home early and if Metro behaves, I walk from Chinatown to L'Enfant to burn up the time and calories while seeking inner peace on this 17-minute downhill walk. For years I have passed Clara Barton's office, The Office of Missing Soldiers. It is an artifact hole-in-the-wall marked with a plaque for this founder of the Red Cross who offered succor to soldiers in that dreadful conflict. It is always locked and neglected, occasionally marked by a Chinese food carry-out menu (Would Clara understand that concept?). Lately I noticed some new signage, Park Service style, something about how Yankee soldiers were short of socks (what about the poor Rebels?).

Today there was a plastic sign like you might see in a small shop window, OPEN on one side CLOSED on the other. Oddly it was flipped to OPEN. I chuckled and walked past. Then I stopped and returned, twisted the ancient doorknob and it yielded. I stepped into The Office of Missing Soldiers and climbed the staircase, longer than a story, less than two. The place was brightly lit with those temporary construction light bulbs in yellow plastic cages. The place was stripped of furniture but there seemed to be period wallpaper, plaster and lathe, balusters and wood work. The floors were obviously old but too dirty to be appreciated. I walked from small mysterious room to room via narrow hallways and found a modern elevator which molested its surroundings as little as you might wish. Then I heard murmuring from a street-fronting room. I gingerly approached. I found in that room the last thing I ever expected to find at 8:00AM January 25, 2011. Perhaps two dozen soldiers, in battle dress, seated on folding chairs, politely listening to a lecture. Did I find the Missing Soldiers?

Fiction, Nonfiction and Journalism

There's fiction, there's nonfiction and there's what you read in the newspaper - or on the internet. Courtesy of Ric Cottom's Your Maryland at WYPR - FM. www.wypr.org

Think Hammett Never Wrote About Baltimore?

Think again. For Baltimore, Dashiell Hammett, who learned the detective trade in the local Pinkerton office, created the anti-Bond before there was a Bond. In The Assistant Murderer we meet Rush - Alec Rush, the world's ugliest detective. A man with a bulldog's face, a croaking voice, the body and moves of a bear, and a golden smile. Welcome to Baltimore, Hon!

Hammett's favorite among his five novels was The Glass Key, set in an unnamed east coast city. If the city isn't Baltimore and it's train station Mount Royal Station, I'll eat my fedora.

For a Baltimore short story homage to Hammett here's
A Bad Day at the Office.

The Perils of Being a Restaurant Critic

The Baltimore Sun recently brought on board a new restaurant critic after the retirement of their previous restaurant columnist of thirty years. Then the editors asked him to do a 50 Best Restaurants article. Oh, the horror! Into the valley of death rode Richard Gorelick, where he omitted one of the best loved restaurants in the city. Unsaid restaurant, Tio Pepe, thereby received more free positive publicity, due to the ensuing chorus of outrage, than it would have gotten if it had been listed at #1.

The restaurant is one of my daughter Kristen's favorites, as well as mine and her mother's.

Kristen took up her keyboard to avenge the dishonor of her beloved Tio. Still receiving no satisfaction, relentless in the pursuit of justice for Tio Pepe, she cornered the doomed Richard Gorelick, live on the air at WYPR and demanded that he stand and deliver.

You can see her written inquisition as the number 2 response as posted here by Richard Gorelick in his blog.

Anybody Else Here Feel Cold?

Last December we had a good size early season snow storm, then the February blizzard that broke all previous records for storm and seasonal snow accumulation. Now in December again we are having unseasonably cold weather, while London and Paris are snowed in and setting records lows for this time of year. Gasoline is headed for $3.00+ and heating oil prices are rising as fast as the temperature is falling. Good thing we're calling it climate change now instead of global warming. All bets are covered. Of course it could be I'm just getting old. Where are those damned wool socks?

Out on the Town in DC

Last Sunday I went over to DC, met my friend Bob Moriarty at the Hirshhorn Museum, aka “The Donut,” saw a screening of John Garfield in the 1948 noir film, Force of Evil, at the National Gallery, then had dinner in Chinatown - a good outing on an unseasonably cold and windy evening. The Hirshhorn is on the site formerly occupied by the Army Medical Museum, always a mandatory stop for area boys on any trip downtown when we were kids. Didn't see the human artifact of urban legend this trip either.

The Scene of the Crime

About that body in Leakin Park....the scene of the crime. Usually they are killed elsewhere and dumped in the park. Not this time. http://tinyurl.com/ce2aps