My trips to Baltimore with Nannie
Around the time I was in the fifth grade, someone discovered that I could not see the words on the blackboard clearly. It was decided that I should have my eyesight tested, but there was no eye doctor in the Linthicum area. Edee and Bernie did not wear glasses but Nannie (Mary) did, so she was the one who would take me to Baltimore for the exam.
On the morning of our appointment we walked to the Linthicum station and caught the B&A RR electric train into Baltimore’s Camden Station. From there we walked up Howard Street to Lexington Street, made a right turn and headed to Schumacher & Foreman Optometrists located at 209 N.Liberty Street, near the corner of Lexington.
Schumacher & Foreman had a large waiting room behind the show window overlooking the busy street. It was dimly lit with large comfortable upholstered chairs. When my turn came, I was escorted to one of the examination rooms at the rear of the store. Just as everyone, except me, expected I needed glasses. Next stop, was one of the fitting tables along the left side wall. Here Nannie selected, with input from me, frames of skin-colored plastic that were so much more modern looking that the older-style metal frames. We would by notified when the glasses were ready, so we now had the rest of the day to enjoy Baltimore.
A couple of weeks later we were back at Schumacher & Foreman’s to pick up my new glasses. This routine would be repeated every couple of years as my eyesight continued to deteriorate.
Once the eyeglass process was out of the way, the fun began. I could pretty much pick what I wanted to do. The 5 & 10¢ stores that lined one side of Lexington Street were the first target. In these wonderful places were all kinds of stuff that fascinated a kid. The toy counter was the ultimate experience. Plate glass dividers separated each different toy on the counter. I got to choose one which Nannie would buy for me. It was often one of those molded rubber autos with heads of the driver and passengers in the windows, that I selected.
If I needed new shoes, we would go up the hill on Lexington Street to Wymans Shoe Store. The children's department was in the basement. The wall beside this stairway was covered with a sepia photo montage mural of Baltimore scenes. The real fun in trying on new shoes was the Fluoroscope. You put your feet, with the new pair of shoes, into an opening at floor level. Then you pushed a button and you could see your toes inside the shoes on a large screen. You wiggled your toes to see how much space there was in these shoes. This was great fun. Sometimes we did this with several pairs of shoes before selecting the pair to buy. No one seemed to realize that this machine was actually an X-ray that could have serious consequences from the exposure. It is surprising that my feet have not fallen off after that experience. After buying the shoes I could select a small toy from a table near the cash register.
By this time we were usually ready for lunch. I got to pick where we would eat. There was Virginia Dare on Howard Street that had a dining room in the rear of their candy store, Read’s Drug Store on the corner of Howard and Lexington had a soda fountain on the main floor and a table-service dining room on the mezzanine, where you could look down at the shoppers below. My all-time favorite was Hochschild Kohn’s Department Store Tea Room on their sixth floor. This was the same floor as the toy department, so what was not to like about that? The best feature of the Tea Room was the dessert cart, which waitresses pushed around the room as customers were about to order their dessert. I could munch away on my club sandwich and potato chips while I watched the cart being pushed down the aisle. When the time came, it was difficult to choose what I wanted because ‘one of each’ was not an option.
With lunch out of the way it was now time for entertainment. Again, I got to pick where we would go, and there were several movie theaters close by. From an architectural standpoint the Valencia was the winner. To get to it we entered the doors of the Century Theater on Lexington Street, but walked down a ramp on the right side, rather than up the ramp on the left to the lobby of the Century. At the bottom of the ramp were elevators which took us up above the Century to the lobby of the Valencia. Entering it was like going back in time to a castle in Spain, complete with stone walls, suits of armor and swords. The theater itself was designed to appear as an open courtyard under a night-time sky, complete with very active blinking stars and slow-moving clouds. If the movie got boring, I could look up and watch the ever-changing sky. The Town Theater on Fayette Street, was originally built as a vaudeville theater, had recently been converted from a parking garage back to a theater. It was very sleek and modern inside with live plants growing in a raised garden in the balcony-level lobby. My first choice was usually the Hippodrome Theater on Saratoga Street. Even if the movie was not of particular interest the live stage show between the movie screening was fascinating to me. There was a microphone in the center of the front edge of the stage, which went up and down out of the floor, as if by magic. There were always several vaudeville-style acts with lots of curtains opening and closing and changing colors under the lights.
As we walked around the crowded sidewalks, Nannie would often meet someone she knew. One old man, (when you are a kid all adults are old) was Thomas Worthington who went around Baltimore taking black & white photographs with his big camera. I have no idea how or why Nannie knew him, but they would stop for a chat. There were other street photographers around Howard & Lexington that would try to get you to let them take your photo. It never worked with Nannie so I don’t know how, (in those pre-Polaroid days,) they delivered the pictures and collected the money. In warm weather the sidewalk in front of the 5 & 10¢ stores would be lined with vendors selling produce. One spring day there was a vendor selling Maryland strawberries. Nannie picked out a basket of good-looking berries and paid him for them. He put them in a bag, which was under the table on his side., and handed us the bag with his thanks. When we got home and opened the bag, what had been nice fresh berries was now an almost rotten mess: bait and switch. From that time on whenever we went to town Nannie was on the lookout for that strawberry salesman. If she had ever found him the result of that encounter would probably have been reported in the Sunpaper.
When our day in Baltimore was over, we headed back to Camden Station. One time we took a taxi. As we pulled up on the Howard Street side of the station, the taxi driver told Nannie the fare. She paid him and added a tip. The tip was not as large as he would have liked, and he told her so. You could almost feel her Irish blood starting to boil, and he heard, in no uncertain words, exactly how she felt about why he did not even deserve what she had given him, as he had not even gotten out and opened the door for her. By the time she was finished with him, I’m sure he was sorry that he had said anything more than “ thank you very much”.
Usually when we got to Camden Station Nannie needed to stop at the ladies room. So of course I was expected to stay with her rather than being in this busy place un-escorted. In we went to the ladies room. Actually it was a large lounge space with chairs and even writing desks. The actual toilet facilities were in another room beyond a second doorway on the right. I waited, (and wanted to hide,) in the lounge until she returned, and we headed for the B&A train back to Linthicum.
It was not just getting a day off from school that made these events special, it was a day of being treated royally ( except for the ladies room) by my grandmother that made our trips to Baltimore lasting memories.
