Snow Musing by Lynn Thorp

Nicole and Richard, December 2009

Big snows are (were?) rare enough around here that traditions and memories are firmly imprinted. My mom had traditions: always bake or make a big pot of something and instruct Dad to take an Irish Coffee to Elmo next door while he was shoveling. Without even realizing why, I stopped on the way home Friday for Irish Coffee makings. I didn't even remember the tradition until today when I offered one to my shoveling neighbor Cece.

When the news reports previous historic snow totals, they all prompt a memory:

1979 - Wearing what Dan called "weird chic" cloth Chinese shoes while walking home to 4884 MacArthur from an all-night party in Foxhall Village. Even the drugstore and Safeway didn't open for a day or two and people were skiing down the Boulevard.

1982 - Walking the several miles home from work at Georgetown University to find roommate Matthew Klena watching the news of the Air Florida crash and the Metro accident.

1996 - Being snowed in here, in Mt. Rainier, for over a week with young children. They got so sick of sledding that they just wanted to play on the plow hills at the corner. That was easy because these plow hills were right in front of the house and the kids didn't need to be so well suited up.

What will be this season's memories? Well, first the sheer number of events, including the "mess up holiday plans storm" of December 2009. Then the January 30 six inch interlude during which we held Bob's big birthday party and grilled in the backyard. For the "big one" which just passed, it will be neighbors Kathy and John coming every night to play board games with Richard and me. And neighbor Dave and I embarking upon a committed relationship with Battlestar Gallactica by watching the first disc. Also our local brewery/restaurant Franklins has a new brewer and tonight's "meet the brewer/try two new beers" will stick in my mind because many of us who made it there hadn't been anywhere in days and yet another big snow was beginning. Staff were outside to push people out of the parking lot.

It's easy to make fun of snow hysteria, but it can be rough when the power goes out or the infrastructure collapses in various ways. But it also is just unusual enough to put us in a festive mood and makes us mark those friends and family who get us through, and it imprints traditions that we barely know we have. Fare well Washington DC area friends... spring will arrive for us.

Commander Salamander Blues by Chip Py

Twenty five years ago Commander Salamander was really something to see. We used to drive all the way from Nags Head to buy clothing, sunglasses, buttons and all of the radical raging supplies a punk rock kid needed. I was really heartbroken when I heard that the store was closing. I went one more time to say goodbye, but when I walked through the doors, I had a better understanding of why it had met its demise. Except for a Cobain poster over the register, this store was no longer unique. It looked like any other store in any other shopping mall anywhere. Man, this was where Andy Warhol would shop when he came to DC! Someone totally mainstreamed their inventory and their presentation. No corrosion in their conformity. Somewhere down the line Commander had ceased to be cutting edge and unique and, like almost everything else in Georgetown (and retail in general) it became just another common denominator.

My Mother Slept Here (and here)

I don't know where exactly George Washington slept around here, but I do know that my mother, Bebe Calvert, gave him a run for the money. Her family moved at least eight times while she was growing up, and all of those addresses were within the confines of the District of Columbia starting with the old Sibley Hospital on North Capitol Street where she was born in November 1917.

For my mother's birthday, I planned a tour of all her former residences, but first we needed sustenance. We stopped in at my favorite place for soul food, the Hitching Post, where we had a fabulous fried chicken feast. The proprietors, Mr. and Mrs. Carter, have held the fort here since 1968, and their place feels more like a home than a restaurant.


After the birthday lunch, we headed just down the street to 1346 Quincy Street in Petworth. The family lived in a four bedroom row house, squeezing in Bebe parents, her grandfather Papa Bailey, two teenaged aunts, Mary Bess and Johnnie Pearl, plus a lodger to help make ends meet. The grand total was seven people. One bathroom.

Built in 1918, these homes were fairly new when my family lived there in 1922. As far as I can tell this was the second place the family lived- the first being 2107 F Street-"near the gas works" according to my mother. This picture was probably taken in 1919.  George Washington University owns the building now.

At that time Bebe's father Roger was running "Calvert Commercial Service "opening doors" for newcomers in Washington. Roger came to town in 1916 to work for Senator Sharp Williams of Mississippi so he felt he knew the ropes.  The company motto?  "We do not pretend to know everyone, but we know someone who does." The office was at 1402 F Street and in a letter home, he mused to his mother that he could walk two blocks to the White House and see the President, but couldn't get away to visit the family in Mississippi. He wasn't kidding. He goes on to mention a photograph of President Harding holding my mother's hand taken in August of 1921.  I sure wish I had that picture.

My mother's little brother Roger Jr. was born in late November of that year also at Sibley Hospital. They called him "Sonny."

The family was outgrowing F Street when they moved up to Petworth and then on to Mt Pleasant where they would settle for a few years. Sonny was baptized at Mt Pleasant M.E. Church by Brother Ray. Their next address, 1370 Irving Street is now billed as "new luxury condos." They moved again when Roger got a job managing the Argonne Apartments, built in 1921 at 1629 Columbia Road. That building is still standing. The family lived in two different apartments there.

They also lived in the Chalfont which was built in 1918 on Argonne Place. Bebe remembers lying in her bed at night and hearing the lions roar at the National Zoo down the hill.

In early 1929 their address was 2606 Motzart Place. The house is still there although the big side yard where my mom climbed a tree has given over to a parking lot just like Joni Mitchell predicted.



Bebe remembers there was a fireplace angled between the living room and the hall to the kitchen, and that she could walk out her back door to HD Cooke Elementary which was on the other side of the block.

Cutting across town we passed by the rather grand Broadmoor on Connecticut Ave. My grandparents were the first managers when it opened in 1929 just before the Big Crash. They lived in at least 4 different apartments there. (Is anybody keeping count?) Here's Bebe at age 16 hanging out with a few friends in front of the lamp post.

And here she is a few years later. (I didn't realize I took this picture in almost the same spot until I found the old one.

Back out on the Avenue, I thought we were finished when Bebe started waving at yet another building on the corner of Connecticut and Ordway. I veered over to the curb and found out that she lived there until she graduated from Western High School in 1935, and it was from this place that my mother left home for good and started another series of moves around DC. This time with my father.

The Broadmoor History Project

My grandfather, Roger Louis Calvert, was the first manager of The Broadmoor Apartment Building on Connecticut Avenue when it opened in 1929 which was a long way from the farm where he grew up outside of Meridian, Missisissippi. Here is a clipping from the Washington Post:


Today the Broadmoor is a modern co-op, but still retains details of a grander time. A friend of mine is a current resident and historian. Recently she found out about a pre-1948 restaurant called The Margery, but she is looking for more information.


If you have any stories or memories, please write me or leave a comment below.

So Long Old Friend by Chip Py

I bought this TV in 1986 at the Peoples Drug Store on Old Georgetown Road for $129.00. It was a wedding gift to my sister. For the last ten years, it has been my basement TV. Something to turn on while I painted furniture, strung up my fishin' poles or any other basement project. It has no remote, the channels are changed with a knob, and it gets UHF! (that round thing on top is a UHF Antennae) I have chosen not to buy it a conversion box because it just doesn't seem right.

I will miss my basement TV. It will probably sit in my basement for a few more years until I take it to the dump. Or perhaps, like LPs, I could wait for the analog TV comeback! That High Def is probably just a fad. One day my TV will be retro cool, and I'll be cutting edge!!

Georgetown by David Arnson

I always loved Georgetown. I remember going for the first time with my parents when I was about 8 or 9 years old and marveling at the hippies. Boys and girls strolling down the sidewalks with their bare feet and guitars, the lava lamps in the gift store windows, and the psychedelic poster shops. I still have my "White Rabbit" poster from the East Totem West Company! Georgetown was such a hip and fascinating place. In junior high and high school, I would take the bus down Wisconsin Avenue on weekends. I might eat an amazing sandwich at The French Market atop the hill across from Dumbarton Oaks, and then stroll down to the bookstores at Wisconsin and P or the one down by the brick Canal Street mall, between M street and the river, to search for science fiction and Conan books.

I would always check out the record stores, the one on Wisconsin above P had, to my teen eyes,  the unnerving poster of John and Yoko nude, but my fave was Orpheus Records on M street. I remember (I'd read reviews in Rolling Stone or Crawdaddy) asking the bearded hippie hipster behind the counter whether I should buy the new LP by Bob Weir or Blue Oyster Cult. He started to mock me by loudly chanting (his coworkers chimed in) "Blue Oyster Cult! Blue Oyster Cult! Blue Oyster Cult!" which to them clearly seemed like a joke band. I went home with Blue Oyster Cult, and damned if I didn't like it! So what if it wasn't hippie music? Orpheus would host cool Halloween parties, and the most eccentric people would show up, my fave being the striking blond with the albino lil ' ferret climbing around her neck. I remember me and my buddy buying Mott the Hoople's Mott and Johnny Winter's Still Alive and Well on Halloween night 1973. I think I was in 10th grade?

We all knew it was uncool to hang out at Blimpie's on the corner of Wisconsin and M, because "that's where the narcs hang out." Ikaros Pizza on M (where I learned what a gyro was) around the corner was way cooler. Also on M you could see cool arty movies at the Biograph and at the Cerberus with its cool art deco neon numbers 1/2/3 in its window. Also notable was the always amazing Key theater that would screen Rocky Horror Picture Show and Eraserhead. Both were among the best of midnight movies in town.

We were barely (actually maybe not really) old enough to go see Patti Smith at the Cellar Door in 1975, but she was like no other performer I'd seen before: cracking jokes, spitting, arching her back upside down on all fours while doing a yoga bridge on Ain't it Strange.

Across M street from the Cellar Door was Desperados, a great club that mainly featured roots music, but later hosted lots of new wave acts like us Insect Surfers. Next door was a multi level army surplus store where I kept myself attired in Italian and Belgian army jackets. If you walked further west, you could find the famous Exorcist stairwell that the priest tumbles down in the movie. And let's not forget The Bayou, at the end of Wisconsin where it hit the Potomac, had some of the best club shows in DC.

(photo by David Nuttycombe)

WGTB, broadcasting from Georgetown University, was the absolute coolest station, and I remember attending a rally (unsuccessfully) to keep it on the air. (The Jesuit administration evidently didn't like them running an ad for a clinic that sponsored abortions.) I got turned on to such a wide array of music from WGTB. Georgetown U. had the most beautiful campus with its medieval looking buildings and courtyards. In between college semesters, I worked at the university hospital while punk rock was slowly taking the city by storm. You could go to Haagen-Dasz Ice Cream and talk to a slightly goofy Henry Garfield behind the scoop counter before he joined Black Flag as "Henry Rollins" to became a professional angry guy. (photo by Alan Kresse)

I still miss the old Little Tavern Hamburgers ("Buy 'em by the bag!") on the east side of Wisconsin and P, with its white and green 40s style architecture and teeny burgers with oniony lumps o' meat. The Little Tavern chain was a late-night mainstay for me, and I sadly saw them slowly disappear from D.C., then Bethesda, Wheaton, and finally, the last store in College Park.

Also let's not forget: The Brickskellar, a great student haven for a myriad of beer varieties and the sadly mundane tasting buffalo burgers. Commander Salamander- the shop where the punk world clashed with the poser fashion world. AND Kemp Mill Records, The Crazy Horse, Poseurs, Olssen's Record and Tape Exchange, Blues Alley, Up Against the Wall-I know I'll think of more later! All of these places have stories.

I drove through Georgetown recently, and it seemed to have become a lot more upscale and definitely less interesting, but I will always have great memories of its vibrant pop-cultural past. BCC High School Yearbook 1976

Nick's Valet by Nick Ruggieri

My name is Nick Ruggieri and I am a second-generation Italian-American raised in the Washington, DC area. My memories of growing up in Washington have strong roots with my Sicilian grandfather, Nonno, as he was affectionately called by my family. Nonno was born Nicola Ruggieri in Fiumadinisi, Sicily in 1896 and came to America in his early twenties. Fiumadinisi was a small town where crime was relatively non-existent due in large part to a town center that engaged in public displays of its own form of civil law. Those caught stealing got a finger chopped off in front of all to witness. It was that simple…you do the crime, you pay the price.

Nonno’s travel experience to this country was never discussed and we gather his time at Ellis Island was quite unpleasant. Legal entry to the United States required a sponsor from one’s country and $50 cash in one’s pocket. In years to come, my grandfather sponsored other Sicilian immigrants who followed his lead in making a new start and finding work in America.

In the early 1930s Nonno launched his business, Nick’s Valet on 14th and Irving Streets NW. He set out to establish himself as a shoe cobbler and haberdasher of sorts, providing shoe repair and design, as well as tailoring, dry cleaning, and shoeshine services. The back of the shop housed living quarters in which he and my grandmother, Nonna, raised two daughters and one son - my dad. All were born with the assistance of a midwife in this tiny little apartment. The family later moved a few blocks away to 3805 13th Street NW. They lived in a beautiful row house with three floors, each having long narrow rooms that seemed to stretch on forever. Planted in the backyard were wonderful fig trees that many Italians seemed to cherish back then.

As kids growing up in the 6os my brother and I had the wonderful opportunity to work in Nonno’s shop performing the more menial tasks - sweeping floors, working the cash register and greeting the customers, but our greatest joy came in observing and talking with Nonno’s employees. By the time we started frequenting the shop, most of the older Sicilian workers had either retired or passed on. They were replaced by African-American men hired by Nonno. Two guys I will never forget were Joe the shoeshine man and Louis the tailor.

The shop shoeshine stand, quite in vogue back then, consisted of five leather-cushioned chairs that sat high upon two steps of smooth white marble. Joe would grab his tools of the trade and begin slapping shoe polish directly from his hands to the shoes. With a brush in each hand, he’d go about polishing the shoes in a rhythmic pattern that sounded quite like a jazz drummer playing with brushes. Next he used his buffing cloth to draw a brilliant shine out of each shoe. When he snapped that cloth three times over each shoe, you knew his work was complete. Man, in all my then-eight years of existence that was the coolest music I ever heard coming out of a human being! I truly believe my interest in drumming came from watching Joe do his thing.

Louis the tailor, on the other hand, was a character to say the least. By week’s end, when Friday rolled around, Louis was already half in the bag and spinning more yarns than cloth. He shared wild stories with my brother and me, staring at us with his gleaming madman eyes, while his wicked smile proudly showed off his two gold teeth. He often argued with Nonno, and I can recall one incident in particular in which Louis threw a shoe at my grandfather beaming him right on the head. My grandfather wasn’t the kind of guy to take crap from anyone, and many times my dad had to jump in between those two to keep the peace. One Saturday morning I accompanied my dad to the DC penitentiary, which at the time was located next to the DC Armory. I distinctly recall waiting in the car while my father trudged through the gates to bail Louis out from yet another Friday night venture that landed him in the drunk tank. (My father said it was the eeriest feeling to have those gates slam shut behind him, and I often recalled those words when growing up - they helped me in choosing between right and wrong on many an occasion.) After what seemed like an eternity, my dad finally re-emerged through the gates with Louis staggering behind him, sporting a fat shiner on his right eye and reeking of cheap booze. We drove Louis straight to the shop to start his work day not even stopping for a cup of coffee. Louis may have had his shortcomings but he was a good man and I loved him dearly, as did all who came into contact with him.

Not only were those two guys a constant source of wonder to me but the endless stream of persons who walked through Nonno’s door on 14th Street were like none other I had ever experienced in my lifetime. But I’ll save those stories for another time.

Nonno’s shop burned down in the ’68 riots and for years there was an empty lot where Nick’s Valet once stood. From time to time I would drive by and just stop and stare, remembering what once was. I would still have the same special feelings that I once had as a kid on that block. Some memories are just etched in time.

The Last Valentine

My parents George and Bebe were born and raised in Washington DC, but this isn't really a DC story so much as a love story that happened here. As far as I know my parents have always celebrated Valentine's Day. Maybe it was because they had the rarest sort of love- the kind that lasts. They met while still in high school at Western and weathered deep family disapproval over their multicultural backgrounds. My grandfather forbid all his local business friends to hire his son in an effort to thwart the young couple's chances long enough for George to come to his senses.  He never did. George  stayed in love with Bebe for over seventy years. And it's not too dramatic to say that only death id they part.

That's a lot of Valentines.

Though my father was a warm and funny man, he rarely showed his romantic side, but I have written proof. (Get the Kleenx now) Here is a note my father wrote sometime in the last 10 years when he was in his eighties:

"Dearest One,

Why can I not say the words I can write? At least once a day and sometimes more often I think how much I love you, not only as a wife, but as a friend and companion....My love is 60 times stronger as each year has gone by."

Or this one written when they had been married over 65 years:

"As we sit night after night watching T.V. I often think what a beautiful woman you are not only in body, but also your mind."

Most of these he signed "George", but I liked the one that ends "Love, Your What's His Face- GPC"

My father died shipboard one year ago today, but he had thought ahead and bought my mother what would be a last valentine before they went on the cruise. We found it unsigned. It was one of many such trips that my father worked so hard for all his life. On one of their first cruises, my mother spotted a clause in the contract that stated a child could stay in their room for free. I was the baby of the family, but ian the time I was in my early 20s and not up for bunking in with the parental units. My older sister, however, had raised a family and divorced by then, and she was happy to go. (She was here after known as "the child.") On their last cruise, my father tripped on the stairs and that was pretty much that for him. My mother blames the sneakers he was wearing. We still find it easier to pretend he isn't really gone, but he is.

My dad loved many things starting with his family. He loved dogs, and cars and Home Depot. He loved to travel especially to Greece. He loved the beach. He loved chocolate, Tootsie Rolls, half smokes and Greek chicken with tomato sauce and thick macaroni with brown butter. He loved to tell stories. He sang and sneezed very loudly and, as a former grill man, could make a great egg sandwich. He loved practical jokes, and getting a bargain. He loved to make people laugh.
And now I know he loved my mother with a fierce and steadfast heart that continues to inspire me even after he is gone. That unsigned valentine speaks volumes now.

Report From The Front by Lynn Thorp

(the scene over @ Hugh and Sylvia's)

1-20-09

I am in my living room in my pajamas at 11:17 a.m. on Inauguration Day crying my eyes out. There are many reasons to be moved today, but I am overwhelmed by an email I just read from my Dad, Mat Thorp, DC native, World War II veteran and long-time Republican voter. He was commenting on an email I sent him last night about all the things I had been doing this weekend and my plans for today. He wrote: “Our new President would be proud of your diligence.”

“Our new President” did me in because those three words tell you so much about my Dad. My Mom and Dad believed in voting and in contributing however you could. They were not activists the way we think of them in my world, but I have learned to see how their influence shaped my life. They saw government and military careers as a noble calling. They raised us to watch NASA launches because they were enormous human achievements by some of our brightest minds. They always voted, even when they had to vote absentee because Mom was not able to get around. As a DC resident most of his life, Dad couldn’t vote until 1964 so he takes the privilege seriously. In 1976, the first year I was eligible to vote, he said “I don’t care what Communist you vote for, just vote.”

Despite being a McCain supporter, Dad spent this election season – all 2 years of it – proud of the enthusiasm and effort on the part of my friends and his, too. Right now he is at the home of my college buddies and our dear friends-like-family Sylvia and Hugh partying with friends who live in that part of town – Democrats all. He’s the one who taught me the beauty of the peaceful transition of power. In his Parade magazine letter to his daughters this weekend, Our New President said “ ...it is only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential.” Now I know where I heard that idea before.

The foundation of the democratic system is that today, Barack Obama is indeed “Our President,” no matter who you are. My Mom, Lynnette Wilson Thorp, born and raised in Yell County, Arkansas would be beside herself. Thanks Dad for being a role model for all of us. You are a class act.

Why I Miss the Places That Are Gone

One after one they fall, those old school places that no one will ever be able to replace because they belong to another time. The Market Inn is the latest casualty in the name of progress. I know I'm a little weird, attached as I am to the rock holes and restaurant relics, but I also recognize when history is being obliterated, and that the value of these lost places has no price tag. Well, maybe pieces of it have a price tag which is how I came home with the upright piano from the Roma on Connecticut Avenue. The piano is a great old work horse that needs to be put out to pasture according to Bobby Lee Birdsong, but I can't bring myself to do it and so it sits, moldering in my living room- still reeking of cigarettes and its past life on hot summer days. The Market Inn auction will be later this month.

The new trend towards reviving the concept of having a town center is a good idea, but how did we stray so far from the original? The answer is cars. We built our lives to suit the automobile, and that meant shopping centers with plenty o' parking which lead to the shopping mecca we called malls,  Silver Spring, Rockville and Hyattsville all fell victim to the concept.  They were all once beautiful towns in their own rights, but all fell victim to" progress."  Now their new "down towns" have a plastic interchangeable feel.  I just can't imagine people working their whole lives in a Baja Fresh as they once did in the old family run restaurants. Hyattsville now boasts an arts district, but part of this includes a sterile line up of "urban row homes."  (Somebody needs to go in there with a case of spray paint. )

 I doubt any of the new restaurants will be collecting nude paintings, suits of armor or hunting trophies like they did in the Market Inn, the Orleans House and the Roma. Ulysses Auger, of Blackie's House of Beef once built an annex called Lulu's which was dedicated to his wife's one time experience as a Queen of Mardi Gras. Now that's what I call a theme restaurant!

Sprinkled here and there the old and the odd places are still clinging to life- establishments like Martin's Tavern, Tastee Diner, Crisfield's, Vincino's and god bless Roger Miller's African Restaurant. Franklin's is a great blend of new and old housed in an old hardware store and serving some of the best beer in the area. And one of my all time favorites is The Hitching Post where you can get a "fried chicken sandwich" featuring at least five pieces of bird and, almost as an afterthought, two pieces of Wonder bread on the side. Here's a picture of my mom on her ninetieth plus birthday (you heard me) and her "sandwich." It just doesn't get much better than this.

A 9:30 CHRISTMAS by Mark Opsasnick

It was Christmas morning 1999. After a Silent Night I awoke in a Silent House, greeted only by weak strains of sunlight that filtered through the tattered curtains of my bedroom window. I lumbered down the stairs and found no fancy presents under the plastic tree, but my self-induced holiday cheer remained intact. This time around I had made special plans to gift-wrap my own little treat – with the on-coming Washington, DC holiday season filled with waves of joyful tourists energetically visiting the various monuments, gaping at the magnificent Capitol and deftly dodging daredevil cabbies, I would get a jump on the multitudes and intrepidly embark on a special pre-noon pilgrimage to the remains of an inner-city rock and roll den that still harbored ghosts from DC’s musical past. It would be a Cool Yule indeed.

I hopped in my big black Buick and departed for the city, keenly aware that not many people realized that the nation’s capital stands still on Christmas Day. The kids stay in their homes and break their newly-acquired toys, most adults hide indoors and either prep for church services or ponder visits to nearby relatives, and miscellaneous others remain holed up in their bedrooms until the visions of sugar plums have had their final dance. As a result, the inner core of the city is left to slumber underneath covers of glass-and-concrete structures that tower over empty streets. On this one day of the year, Washington rests in peace, if only for a short while.

I wheeled the Buick down 10th Street NW past the MLK Library and instinctively swung right at the next intersection. At the middle of the block I cut the engine, noted the exact time – 9 a.m. – and stepped out of the vehicle to take a long look at my strangely serene surroundings. Never in my life had I experienced a more eerie sense of calm then on this particular morning. The sun was shining brightly and the sky directly above was a piercing bright blue. I could feel the light winds gently swirl about in the freezing city air. Office buildings, some old, some new, all speckled with green and red decorations, lined both sides of the fairway. I looked around and the 900 block of F Street was desolate and motionless – no traffic, no Metro buses, no people, no noise – a forgotten world completely devoid of life. It was Christmas morning and not a creature was stirring, not even a rat.

The quiet calm around me was broken only by the sound of my heavy boot steps as I scuffled my way to the middle of the street. Suddenly, my vision focused on the object of my quest: the ancient, now-boarded-up Atlantis building and its grimy, ground-floor doorway that once welcomed the masses to the original 9:30 Club. Gallantly it stood, its most famous tenant having relocated to other quarters, now a fading temple to a segment of Washington, DC’s 1980-1995 rock and roll scene that will hopefully live on in the memories of those who had reveled within. I took a seat in the middle of F Street, legs crossed hippie-style on the pavement, oblivious to the frigid surroundings. Before me a procession of musical ghosts who had worked the 9:30 Club came and went: local favorites like Tiny Desk Unit and the Slickee Boys, legendary punk bands like Minor Threat and the Bad Brains, future superstars like REM and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, dinosaurs like Iron Butterfly and Blue Cheer, and on and on and infinitum.

An eternity passed and it dawned on me that in the nation’s capital, every decade seemed to have had its own distinct musical trends, hot spots and highlights. Guitarist Tommy Keene appropriated the term “Places that are Gone” for one of his album titles and I could think of no better way to describe the ties that bind the music-oriented hangouts of one era to another. The Casino Royal, the Blue Mirror, the Hayloft, Kavakos Grill, the Lotus, the Merry-Land Club, Rand’s – all names from DC’s distant nightclub past, all removed from the landscape, all leaving entertainment legacies that evolved, expired, and experienced cultural reincarnation in modern-day places like the 9:30 Club, the Black Cat, and the Velvet Lounge.

Contributing to the cycle, the 9:30 Club had moved on. It was Christmas morning, 1999 and here I was, frozen in time, staring at an empty building in the heart of the nation’s capital. For someone who loves the city’s rock and roll history, I could not think of a more appropriate gift.

At Least DC'S Got Key

Of all the schools-both public and private in the entire U. S. of A. chosen to receive Blue Ribbon status this year only one was chosen within the confines of the District of Columbia-Francis Scott Key Elementary. It's both an honor and a disgrace that one public school here in the district has achieved so much in a city wide system that has achieved so little. On one hand, we have a great little school like Key where over half of the students are advanced in math- according to test scores. In fact, when the Obamas were school shopping, Michelle Rhee told us that her office crunched the numbers, and Key came up on top.  On the other hand, our system still supports social promotion and retention, meaning, for example, you might be held back a year or two, but eventually- you will still be moved up to high school-reading or not.

I am really proud of Key school's award. It was well earned by teachers, students, parents and staff alike- all working together, but during the furor of the Obama's school search, I heard more than one voice question why the Obama family should "sacrifice" their children to the cause of DC public schools. The Blue Ribbon award program is part of the No Child Left Behind act, and I can't help but roll my eyes at the irony. Maybe one day-though maybe not in my lifetime- DC will be the Blue Ribbon town it could and should be.

Why The Briefcase Fell Out of Favor by Marshall Keith

My family moved up from Louisville, Kentucky to Rockville, MD after Kennedy was elected. We were barely settled here when he got assassinated. I went down to the mall with my family to see his casket go by. We waited all day, and into the night, and I remember it was cold.

My father got a job with the Atomic Energy Commission. He wrote PR stuff for them. I was all about space travel, moving sidewalks, and hovercrafts. My favorite show was "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." It had a great theme song ("Mission Impossible" TOTALLY plagiarized it). I imagined myself growing up and carrying a briefcase. But not just ANY briefcase, Oh No! It would have all kinds of hidden compartments, surveillance equipment, and secret weapons. The Jackie Kennedy-esque women I would encounter would find me irresistible. I ask you: What woman can resist a cool briefcase and a crew cut?
I was a scared little skinny kid in Rockville. I couldn't get  with the program. A teacher lectured me for hanging out with kids from the "wrong side of the tracks".  I think I was more comfortable with the "wrong side of the track" accent. They were trouble, though. I smoked cigarettes with them, and this one kid had already had sex. (We were ten!) 

To me, coming from the South, it seemed like people were rude up here. When they addressed you, it was like they were always saying "you're an idiot" with their tone of voice and body language, and don't you dare try to contradict them!  I didn't get the whole "the South is prejudiced" thing either. There was a KKK march right down Montgomery Avenue in front of our house. My sister had an African-American friend, and some kid at school saw her playing in our yard and asked if we were N-lovers (but he used the N-word). Welcome to Rockville! I'm glad I lived long enough to see Obama elected. Progress seems so excruciatingly slow. It's nice when there's a quantum leap like this.

Somehow, even though my family was in the middle of a huge never ending financial crisis, I managed to talk them into getting me a bass for $80. My father was furious when he figured out that I would need an amp, too, which of course was not forthcoming. I got an adaptor so I could plug it into the hi-fi. I did that for a couple of weeks and discovered distortion. WHEEEE! 

Then I blew the speaker. 

This started my whole D.I.Y. approach to music. Well, actually, for awhile it was more of a "use/destroy" approach. I stopped practicing my clarinet. I just left it at school. I had fallen in love with this girl, and I figured she would want me to be cool like the Beatles. She had beautiful skin and eyes and hair, and she was all dressed nice and everything. I was wearing ill-fitting hand me downs, but I was hoping the combing down of my bangs would be my new defining characteristic.

OK, after you see "A Hard Day's Night", and you realize how cool the world can be, a field trip to the Smithsonian is- well...underwhelming. They had one kinda cool thing with these cave-people in a glass display case. But apparently cavemen didn't necessarily beat cave women over the head with a club and drag them off by their hair and have their way with them- so yeah, it was boring. (I was hoping for: "yes, not only is it THAT true, we've also learned that cave women were very crafty, and would often stab the cave men, and it is believed that while mating, they liked it 'rough'.")

On the bus ride back to Rockville, I was in the back of the bus with this other kid. We saw a cop at a light near Wheaton Plaza, and the kid says,"I dare you to give that cop the finger." So, for the first act of my new career as a ne'er-do-well, I gave the cop the finger. Big mistake! He had no sense of humor about it at all. Stops the bus. Points at me. "You! Stand up!" Takes me off the bus and makes a big scene. So then I'm supposed to write all these apology letters, and wear a shirt with a scarlet 'F' on it.

After that, the whole "briefcase" thing didn't appeal to me anymore.

By 1970 we were living in DC- just over the line from Silver Spring, in Shepherd Park. My Ma was the secretary at the Takoma Park Presbyterian church. My siblings lived in communes in Takoma Park, and my sister worked at a head shop there called Maggie's Farm. I was transitioning from irritating little brother to fellow party-er. I gave up on school. I just stopped going. Eventually, to appease my elders, I transferred from Coolidge to Wilson. I got sick of the bus ride which included a transfer and a long wait, so I started hitch hiking. After school, sometimes I would just walk from Military Rd, up 16th St, 40 blocks to home.

My parent's place in DC was a nice stopping off point for my friends coming down from Rockville to do stuff in DC like anti-war demonstrations and free concerts. None of us ever had any $$$. A couple of friends and I climbed the fence at Carter Baron to see BB King play. He was great. I went to shows at Fort Reno that summer. I remember seeing some really good bands there like Claude Jones. It was nice just being free with a bunch of people having a great time. But home life, and school were bad. The summer of '70 was the second time I ran away from home. I was 16.

I was desperate for something else besides going to school at Wilson. I heard about a school called The New Educational Project. Some hippies managed to put together an alternative to public school and get it accredited. It was for kids who would otherwise be truants, like me. That fall, I started going there, but actually there was no "there." Sometimes, we would meet at the Friends Meeting House on Florida Ave, or sometimes we'd meet at student's houses, or sometimes at the teacher's pads in Adams Morgan, Dupont Circle or Georgetown. We didn't call them "teachers"- they were resource persons. We did stuff like building models of geodesic domes or reading books on altered states of consciousness-or chanting perfect 5ths (musically a perfect 5th, supposedly has mystical healing properties when chanted). It was somewhat interesting, but the hitch-hiking/arranging for rides was bumming me out, man. All I wanted to do was play music.

Since I was unschooling myself, my Ma weaseled a job for me - being the janitor's helper at church. After janitoring, I was free to play an electric organ in the little wedding chapel, or a big ole pipe organ in the sanctuary. That pipe organ was totally cool! You could step on the bass pedals, and make a huge sound come up from the basement. The upper keyboards could be all fluty, or huge - like a big band horn section..and the sound was everywhere. It rocked! I started f-ing around with the chimes up in the bell tower, so they eventually banished me. In those days, I loved all the atmospheric stuff that groups like the Doors and other psychedelic groups did. I tried to get organ lessons, but the teacher at the church told me I would have to learn piano first. The teacher had a briefcase. So I told him to forget it.

(Marshall may have ditched the briefcase, but he is still a working musician. Check out his myspace page.)

I hate to agree with George Bush on ANYTHING, but I have to say even though I live on a shoe string myself- now is the time to go out and shop!

Not at the mall and not for a car, mind you, but we need to support all the little places that make this town unique. I'm not too worried about our beloved Ben's Chili Bowl. (1958) They are feeding the Obamas, and I'm glad they're getting the publicity.  I am thinking about Sullivan's Toy and Art Supply (1954) on Wisconsin Avenue in Cleveland Park and  Magruder's  (1875). The one near Chevy Chase circle has great liquor prices and incredible weekend wine and booze tastings. Then there's "Hoppy Dave" over at Rodman's (1955) trying to keep the free world stocked with the best beers available on this side of the pond. Paul's Liquor is right across the street- both conveniently located near Gawler's Funeral Home (1850) another DC institution.

I often write about places that we've lost, but we still have the chance to keep places like this going.

Look for postings on local favorites soon.

DC's A Music Town by Mark Noone

In 1964 I went to Lafayette Elementary. This was a different time; DC public schools were places where learning actually happened. I still remember much world geography from Mrs. Jenkins’ fourth grade class, and English grammar from Miss Fernsner. When I started Lafayette, a couple of years earlier, the school still sported the ‘civil defense’ posters left over from the Cuban missile crisis. There was a bomb shelter in the basement of the school, which I illicitly explored, undetected. At some time in the year of sixty four, I also explored the attic of the school. I was 10 and incorrigible. Most DC public schools have a functionless, albeit appealing, steeple atop the building. I went up the tiny ladder to the very pinnacle. My name should still be up there. Upon returning to school in that Fall of ‘64, the black top conversation was mostly of the Beatles and the Beach Boys, but during the summer, a British TV show had replaced some forgotten usual show. It was also a hot topic of conversation. But it was not the show that had everybody’s consideration; it was the show’s theme song. I remember talking to Maury Abraham (who by the way sported a Beatle Cut) about the opening guitar lick. Maury and I were “in a band”. At the time I wasn’t sure what that meant. Maury did. Since I was clueless, he later banded together with a singer named Andy Williams, (not of Moon River fame) and a focused individual who played guitar, named Josh Bolton. They were called The Ocelots. Mr. Bolton is now the Whitehouse Chief of Staff. That kind of stuff happens in DC.

A DC greaser who lived on Legation St near Lafayette played guitar and taught me that opening lick. I wish I knew who that greaser was, he probably became someone famous. Maybe he was Link Wray. The opening riff, of Johnny Rivers’ hit of Secret Agent Man, should be in every rock and roll guitarists’ arsenal. That opening lick is still a staple lick for every guitar player. All this went through my mind yesterday as I taught the lick to Charlotte, who is one of my many high school aged guitar students. She actually practices. She writes songs.

Every town in America had kiddy bands back in those days, mostly inspired by the Beatles, DC was no different. I like knowing that playing the three chords on my acoustic Sears guitar in Maury’s basement was the beginning of something I might call my music career. Maury is just as much a part of that as Charlotte is. DC is not just the government or the political machine, or the law, or the murder capitol, or whatever anyone else knows it for. Most importantly, especially for me, it is the home of Link Wray, Trouble Funk, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Peaches and Herb, Duke Ellington, Minor Threat, Good Charlotte, Danny Gatton, The Flying Shards, Grin, Scream, Rummy and the Upsetters… This list can go on and on for days, and it will go on and on for years to come, because first and foremost DC is a music town. But don’t tell anybody, that’s our little secret.

There Are Fifty States But There Should Be Fifty-One by Lynn Thorp

In honor of my big birthday, here are 50 thank-you notes and random thoughts about Planet DC and its satellites:

1. I feel like I am really home in DC when I am at Ben’s Chili Bowl.
2. When we were buying our house in Mt. Rainier, we were also spending every night protesting the first Gulf War at the White House, so 2 year old Nicole thought we were buying the White House.
3. May 1993 – got arrested right there while handcuffed to Martin Sheen. Before he was President.
4. The pedestrian thing is okay, but I miss driving by the White House.
5. If it weren’t for one of DC’s homegrown industries, there would be no West Wing- television as an art form.
6. Thank you for MacArthur Boulevard.
7. Thank you for Fletcher’s Boat House.
8. I could drive MacArthur Boulevard with my eyes closed.
9. Newcomers can’t really understand what the Boulevard was like 30 years ago. But the spirits are very loud if you listen for them.
10. The squatters just can’t get the Marion Barry thing.
11. The Awakening belongs to DC, but at least my adopted county has it.
12. I can’t find anybody who remembers Hamilton Arms in Georgetown, but I am 95% sure it’s not a Brigadoon-type thing that I imagined.
13. The first time U2 came here they opened for the Slickee Boys. Three months later they were famous, and Slickees opened for them.
14. The first time the Clash played here, opening act Bo Didley asked me to introduce him to some girls.
15. Thank you for Garrett’s.
16. Thank you for DC rock and roll.
17. Thank you for The Raven.
18. In the days of DC Space, people were scared to go down to what is now the Gallery Place “whatever it is.”
19. Thank you for Lyn1.
20. Lots of people don’t know that the guy who wrote the piano solo for Layla is a DC guy who was in Nils Lofgren’s first band, even before Grin, and he has a bit of a sordid history. Look it up.
21. You could learn all you need to know about life at the People’s Drug Store lunch counters.
22. Sitting in DuPont circle with a coffee and a book is one of my favorite things.
23. I was taught to drive on the Beltway because there was so little traffic on it.
24. Because they grew up around here, my kids don’t see color, and they can spot b.s. a mile away.
25. Thievery Corporation could only come from DC.
26. The sign at the Wisconsin Ave. Little Tavern said “Buy ‘em [chunk of sign busted off] the Bag.”
27. My cat Kyoko and I used to share a roast beef sandwich across the street at the Georgetown Roy Rogers on pay day.
28. My sister Maude built Washington Harbor.
29. One year the Bullets won the championship, and the Kinks played. ( I thought the hollering and hoopla in the streets was for the Kinks.)
30. Sky King was jealous of me because he wanted my old friend Dan all to himself.
31. Thank you for all the local bands and the guitar heroes.
32. The best 4th of July fireworks are the ones rescheduled due to storms. Rare but priceless.
33. Piggy really did jump off Key Bridge and survive it.
34. Mom and her women friends lived above Duke Ziebert’s downtown in the last year of WWII. They would go on group dates with the few men left in town, and someone would stay behind to pocket the excessive tip for spending money for the week.
35. During WWII many women who were liberated ahead of their time came to DC and did all the jobs usually reserved for men, most of who were off in the military. These became some of our local and national heroes and paved the way.
36. My mom had an apartment at 14th and Harvard in the late 1940’s. Dad lived his teenage years at 16th and Harvard. My parents lived together at 18th and Kalorama in the 50s. They lived in McLean next to Robert Kennedy’s estate in the late 50s.
37. Thanks from a grateful nation for Chuck Brown.
38. If Congress would stop meddling with DC, it would have more enlightened laws than many.
39. My friend Dan never stopped considering NJ his home, but he loved DC as much as any native.
40. Half smokes are our thing.
41. Streets that are called “Roads” are the old farm routes used to deliver food to various parts of the area. MacArthur Blvd. was Conduit Road. There are still Canal Road, Loughboro Road, etc.
42. Baltimore has Mencken but we have Pelecanos.
43. Bistro du Coin is not a bad thing to inhabit the space of Food for Thought, karma-wise.
    
44. Pizza and bagels are a shortcoming, I have to admit.
45. It’s too bad you can’t sleep on the beach in Dewey anymore.
46. Someone must have a photo of the old House of Wig on F Street that I can buy.
47. Adams Morgan on weekend nights is like Time Square on New Year’s Eve. Rather frightening, not my thing but worth trying out now and then.
48. The hullaballoo over snow days is a deliberate way to get a mental health day. Don’t knock it, join it.
49. Until there was widespread AC, tons of people slept in West Potomac Park.
50. Flying into National (don’t call it the other name), is awesome every single time.
51. NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. THE TIME IS COMING.

The Bishop's Garden

Thanks to Alice for that last posting, I'm reminded that The Bishop's Garden behind the National Cathedral is one of my favorite places in DC. You can reach it by a series of steps leading up from the parking lot or through the medieval type doors set in the stone wall at the top. I like to come in that way and walk the smaller winding paths down to the roses. One side features a large green lawn lined with trees where a dog can squirrel watch for hours on end. The flower garden on the other side combines open spaces and more private spots to sit.  These out door rooms made of stone feel ancient and cool even on a sweltering day in August.

We used to take the children there for elaborate games of hide and seek. Depending on the time of year and day, it can be crowded with tourists or you might have the place almost to yourself. I remember being there with my father and mother. We had scattered exploring the herbs or looking for the fish in the little man made stream. A young couple was standing in front of the roses having their picture taken by a passerby when my father jumped into the scene- long before the words photo bomb was a thing.

The couple was startled at first, but soon started laughing. He had that effect on people. I like to think that they still have that photograph stuck in an album somewhere, and maybe they still smile when they see that funny little man in the green checked suit standing in between them.

The Mobile Party Unit by Alice Despard

photo by happy monkey

When I set my mind back to my early teens, it seems to me that live music shows were at the center of my life. In the early 1970s there were plenty of places in DC for the young hippies to congregate and hang out. Cheap wine was plentiful, but you wanted to stay away from Strawberry Ripple and Boone's Farm Apple wine--those sickeningly sweet concoctions would make you ill in a heartbeat. (Marketing alcohol to the young is no new thing!)

I attended--somewhat sporadically and between bong hits-Maret School- but all my friends were from Sidwell Friends and St. Albans. We were all preppy hippies. We hung out at the
St. Albans coffeehouse every Friday night. Our "Mobile Party Unit" (as we dubbed ourselves)
would go to the local liquor store and buy a gallon of cheap Chablis wine. No problem, even though we were only fourteen years old! Times were much more relaxed back then. We would head for Bishop's Garden gazebo on the Cathedral close, and it was a perfect place to get high: hexagonal benches in a stone structure with arched open windows all around overlooking the rose gardens.

After awhile, we'd wander over to the coffeehouse in the parish hall at St. Albans where a light show was already sending wild patterns onto the ceiling, and the band was in full swing.
The light show artist was really into mixing the oil, water and food colors and swirling them around on the overhead projector. Wow, man! (This is how we entertained ourselves before the video age arrived.)

I remember the Alice Cooper cover band called Tinseled Sin playing there many times.
Other bands, I don't recall their names. It wasn't important because the main thing was just hanging out together with friends and enjoying the whole scene, and maybe snaking around a little bit (hippie dancing--I call it "snakin")

I remember a St. Albans student setting up a candelabra on the piano downstairs in the parish hall basement, and playing Keith Jarrett-style improvisation for hours. I thought he was brave to play solo by the seat of his pants like that. Nowadays, I'm so jaded, I'd rather be shot in the head than listen to pseudo-jazz improv on the piano. Back then, it was all new and full of wonder: "Wow, he's just playing music without any sheet music or even songs to hang onto!"

During the endless, muggy DC summers, we'd hang out at Ft. Reno Park-a major destination for the underage and street-wise. Bands cranked while we sat in the grass or boogied on the basketball courts, wine and weed travelling constantly through the sweaty, hazy throngs of youth. I heard many, many R&B and roots rock bands there---countless Little Feat and Grateful Dead hits were covered. Everyone knew all the same music back then, as it was much more homogeneous than it is now. DC was a Little Feat town, no question.

(Alice may be a reformed party unit, but she's still a wonderful musician.

See her at the Galaxy Hut October 12.)

New Life For Old Blog

There's that old saying that familiarity breeds contempt, but living in and around DC for most of my life has just led to... more familiarity. I run into someone at a party, and if they are of a certain age and demeanor-given fifteen minutes or so-I can usually find some connection. Just the name Cokinos can do it as my large Greek family has lived here since the early 1900s.

Then there are the circles. My friend Lynn grew up a block from where I live now.
(I actually met her Dad, Mat Thorp independantly of Lynn- he is a very active guy in my neighborhood and not hard to spot taking care of business in his summer suits with the pants cut down to shorts, plaid slip on shoes and yellow happy face socks.) In Lynn's circle there is a couple from her Georgetown University days who I already knew as parents from my son's school. Lynn said one of her Mt. Rainier neighbors was in a band, and when I saw him I realized I knew him from dc space days. Yet another friend of hers, a junk dealer, was a college housemate of mine. I was at a party a month ago, and I talked to a woman I'd never met before. After the aforesaid fifteen minutes or so she suddenly asked me- do you know Lynn?

That kind of thing.

So this blog started out as a homage to my parents and my hometown. It will continue on in that vein, but with the loss of my father it has become harder to keep on writing. So after turning this thing out to pasture for the summer, I hope to bring it back stronger with fresh horses so to speak with DC based guest writers. 

Look for the first guest post tomorrow.

Long Lost Cousin Nat and Bernie Schultz

F. Bernard Schultz in Hawaii

Strange and interesting things happen now that we have the internet to connect the planet. For example, a man in Tennessee recently decided to trace his family history- specifically his grandfather. He did not know very much about him- only that he had abandoned the marriage, leaving his grandmother to raise her children alone.  In fairly short order, however, the man landed here, on this very site. Why? Because my grandmother Bernice was the one his grandfather Bernie ran off with.

Here's the story from my new found "cousin" Nat:

"As you know, I didn't know much at all about my grandfather, barely his name. After my father's death, I decided to take a shot in the dark and googled Frank Bernard Schultz. Surprisingly, the first link was to a memorial from the Mamiya Medical Heritage Center in Hawaii. The article spoke extensively of his professional history, but very little about his personal history.

After reading that article, I went back to the same Google link pages and came across your Pearl Harbor tribute to your grandmother. Wondering how the name Schultz was related to her, I read the article and found out that the two of them had been married. Seeing that your last name was the same as the one in the Mamiya article, I decided to take a chance and to "introduce" myself to you to see if you might know about our family history. "

And so I found my new (step) cousin, Nat and was able to pass along not only information, but also letters and souvenirs from his long lost grandfather who had spent all of World War Two as an army doctor in Hawaii.

Dr Schultz was quite a character. Tall and handsome, he was an accomplished musician who played with Paul Whitman and once had his band Bernie Schultz and the Crescent Orchestra. (You can hit the link and listen. Sometimes the internet just kills me.) My grandmother met him when he played tea dances at the Broadmoor.

Bernie was also a talented actor, artist and writer, and quite the lothario.

He left my grandmother in the wake of multiple affairs and married a third time before his death so Nat and I had one more thing in common.