A bimonthly tradition—started just before Maryland’s lockdown in March, 2020—continued as three friends and I met for a two-hour coffee klatsch at Baltimore County’s Corner Pantry (a crowded and accommodating breakfast/lunch spot, although I’ll note prices have ratcheted up recently with a large iced coffee, plain, no oat milk, costing nearly six bucks) last Thursday morning. It was in jeopardy when our close friend Michael Yockel passed away in the spring, still haunting, but Jennifer Bishop and Alan Hirsch, close friends since the 1970s at college, and I decided to carry on, as The Yoke would surely approve.
The newest participant is another old pal, Jim Burger (on the right in picture), a successful photographer in Baltimore, a fellow who long ago contributed photos to Baltimore’s City Paper, often teaming up with Michael Anft, a dogged reporter who added a different kind of acumen to the still-finding-its-sea-legs weekly. Jim’s fashioned a noteworthy, and often lucrative, career in his adopted hometown of Baltimore, and I can’t think of a local publication that hasn’t happily showcased his work. Like fellow “shutterbug” (just a word to show that I’ve never tasted oat milk and never will) Jennifer, Jim’s also transitioned (no “trigger warning,” this was a real word) from the essentially defunct media in Baltimore and elsewhere, to taking jobs from private concerns, which pay well, even if there’s not the sizzle of a cover or front-page. I’m not a recluse, but Jim is something else: he knows every nook and cranny of this city, from superior happy hours to small museums and the best way to get around high prices at Camden Yards. That’s just scratching the surface.
Before continuing, I’ll note that I stepped away from our outside table to have a smoke in the parking lot. No one batted an eye. That’s not the case in increasingly authoritarian Britain where unpopular Prime Minister Keir Starmer (allegedly of the Labour Party) announced plans to ban smoking outside pubs, restaurants, clubs, universities and small parks. A Guardian article said it’s unclear if this includes vaping; this in addition to an upcoming ban on selling tobacco products “to people born on or after January 2009.” I won’t bother with the math, but believe Starmer has lasted longer than footnote-PM Liz Truss, but if he continues with strongarm tactics, most heinously arresting English citizens for comments made on social media, he’ll be forced to stand down, and the UK will have yet another election.
Anyway, let’s follow Kamala’s lead and get back to a jollier topic. (In truth, I’m guessing her TEAM is becoming less jolly, if not the candidate, as the presidential campaign wears on. I didn’t watch the over-hyped, and abbreviated CNN interview, but did see video clips and while online partisans are parsing her words as if it was a 19th-century Russian riddle, I doubt it’ll have legs. And, not a Harris fan here, but the right-wingers questioning the candidate’s claim that she worked at McDonald’s as a youth is bogus, is a stupid distraction. Who cares about her decades-ago employment, when the real threat is she’ll pull a Starmer and abridge First Amendment rights?)
Jim sat down at the table and gave Jennifer, Alan and I identical wrapped gifts, not only thoughtful but of significance, especially to me. They were Johns Hopkins Club highball tumblers, with the logo, a number of which he picked up at an auction when the Club, founded in 1899, closed its doors post-Covid. Which led, in our rapid-fire conversation, to my telling them how I got my job at the Club in September of 1973. My freshman roommate Mark and I, working on a tip from a worldly senior, slipped into a back door of the club before nine a.m., figuring we could snatch several bottles of whiskey. As it happened, a manager walked in, asked what we were doing, and, on the fly, we inquired about job openings. In truth, we both needed work, and, if not providentially, luckily there was an opening for a parking lot attendant. We each worked three nights a week, five-to-eight, barely lifting a finger, got paid well and had dinner gratis Monday-Saturday. As a result, through more connections, the Dean of Students somehow maneuvered a dining-plan refund of $750 each, a sizable chunk of the $2700 cost of tuition, room and board.
In the fall of 1974, after Mark transferred to a school in Houston, Howie Nadjari (a buddy since Junior High in Huntington) inherited the plum job, and we kept at it until the spring of 1976, when the manager caught me a smoking a joint while on duty. Howie was on the bad stick of this event (though he too abused the position, taking long breaks away from the Club) and we were both canned. Less than a decade later, a German professor sponsored me for membership, so there was a full-circle ending. The food was standard WASP fare, but it was a swell place to hang out.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023