For Dundalk, annual celebration brings community together

Forty years ago this summer, Heritage Fair made its appearance as a one-time-only tribute to the nation’s bicentennial.

The activities of the bicentennial year of 1976 were more touted than anything anyone could remember. There was a national bicentennial commission and states, cities, towns, villages and local neighborhoods had been planning appropriate events for years.

But a funny thing happened to Dundalk’s nod to the country’s milestone anniversary.

It was so popular that residents asked that the event become an annual gathering. Thanks to the diligent work of a handful of volunteers, some hard-scrabble fundraising and the cooperation of community organizations, private businesses and local government departments, the three-day Heritage Fair at Heritage Park celebrates its own milestone anniversary this weekend.

Running Friday through Sunday, the festival has grown to the size of a temporary small town itself, with three days of nearly non-stop music, carnival rides and games, an arts and crafts area, plenty of activities and demonstrations, business and community organization booths, a beer garden and plenty of food and drink offerings.

Thanks to this year’s timing of July 4 being a Monday, the three-day block party will be capped off with the annual Independence Day parade and fireworks on Monday.

Thanks to the perseverance of this event, it now serves as the catalyst to brings families and former classmates together, causes people to traverse many states to come “home” for the weekend and cause others to camp out early for the parade to claim the spot that has been the family’s watch spot for 50 or 60 years (or longer — the parade predates the fair by many years).

The fair’s musical acts run the gamut from local school groups to nationally known groups. This year’s main headline offerings are Almost Queen (a Queen tribute band), Friday at 8 p.m.; Heart by Heart ( a Heart tribute band featuring two Heart members), Saturday at 8 p.m.; and Kix (a rock band with its roots in Maryland), on Sunday at 8 p.m.

Image from Heritage Fair website.

All three main acts will appear on the Shipway stage.

Two stages plus the karaoke stage in the beer garden will provide a variety of acts, including performances by the Sparrows Point High School steel drum band, The Gigs (a local favorite) and The Mahoney Brothers, a tribute group that has gained quite a Dundalk following.

Tickets cost $8 per day, and admission includes all entertainment.

For more information, or to view the entire entertainment schedule, visit the Heritage Fair website.

One final request: Throughout the weekend, if you see a fair volunteer (they would be hard to miss; the staff the ticket booths, main gate, beer garden and parking areas, they empty trash, answer a lot of questions and in general, roam the grounds and are helpful wherever they're needed), thank them for their efforts. They're the reason the fair still exists!

We need to keep encouraging girls

I read an obituary today in the Baltimore Sun that reminded me just how far women have come in our society, in a relatively short period of time.

Just like technology has exploded in recent years, despite the intelligence being there for decades upon decades. so too have women begun to explode into their potential.

The obituary was for one Richard Wyman, who was a “philanthropist and executive at Hochschild Kohn,” according to the headline of the Sun’s tribute.

So just how did this son of a shoe store owner and a mere “homemaker” ascend to the lofty position as an executive at an iconic Baltimore department store?

The “homemaker” who gave birth to him was one Carrie Kohn Wyman, described as the sister of Martin Kohn, president of what eventually became a Baltimore store chain.

As we sit firmly ensconced in the heart of 2016, I am faced with the contradiction of knowing the Democratic party will put forth a woman candidate for the presidency of the United States while I read an obituary of a man who ascended in his career because a female couldn’t be trusted to take such a position in a family-owned business.

I realize many might believe this is a far reach, and I have no desire to take away from Mr. Wyman’s abilities. His paternal family owned a shoe store and he went to work for his father's family business, probably believing he would eventually take over that entity.

But he had that vision, that dream, simply because he had the good fortune to be born a boy in an era when girls just weren’t as valued. I’m not that old, but even when I was growing up in the 1960s and ’70s, women realized there wasn’t a whole lot of expectations of them. Marriage and children (and in that order) was still the expectation for most, and those who insisted upon entering the work force became nurses, teachers or secretaries. It was a true renegade girl who harbored goals of becoming a doctor, scientist, lawyer or pretty much anything else that required having a brain.

When I was a kid, public school dress codes mandating dresses or skirts for girls existed until I was in eighth grade. Sports and recreation opportunities that existed for girls were rare and paled in comparison to the quality of those offered for boys.

Service academies didn’t start accepting women until the year after I graduated from high school, and when I applied for my first part-time job with the county’s recreation and parks department, I was passed over —openly — for a man who was thought to possess better skills to handle a “problem” population.

When that much better equipped man quit after just a couple of weeks, I was asked to take the job. I ran after-school programs in that “troubled” community for eight years and built relationships with kids that exist to this day.

The bottom line is that many of us have experienced this kind of discrimination and still do to this day. The equal pay for equal work thing is still a big struggle; men make much more money for doing less work than some women, let alone the same work. Women have to prove themselves over and over and over again, while men drink with the boss, get undeserved promotions and undeserved pay raises while the women quietly plug along, making the paychecks work and the office click.

While the Sun’s obituary mentions the death of Mr. Wyman’s father, no mention is made of how Mrs. Wyman left this earth. She, quite understandably, is not mentioned among the survivors of an 87-year-old man.

This blog post is affectionately dedicated to the memory of Carrie Kohn Wyman who perhaps in a different time would have become the CEO of the family business. 

Women of her era weren't aware of the glass ceiling because they weren't allowed out of the basement.

In her memory, and countless others like her, we need to keep telling girls they can do anything they want. And be there to mentor them along the way.

I just don't know the answer

Our collective hearts are broken yet once again as we try to come to terms with another senseless massacre on American soil.

I’m not a fan of guns and don’t desire to own one myself, but I do respect the rights of others to own them. I don’t know much (if anything) about guns so I can’t argue the merits of one type over another. I will admit I don’t understand the need for regular, everyday citizens to own high-powered, 30- and 45-round assault rifles, but they’re legal in many places so who am I to argue.

What I do feel in my heart is that more gun control laws are not the answer.

Our country has long had a law enforcement problem — both at the policing and court levels. When law enforcement officers can get some charges to stick and actually get offenders to court, the alleged criminals get off with a slap on the wrist or they get off on some arcane, obscure technicality, usually because a human in the paperwork chain screwed something up.

The murder of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando on Sunday morning is just the latest in an all-too-common occurrence in our nation. In this case, the deadly combination of mental illness, religious radicalization and hatred caused an American citizen to arm himself, march into a popular Orlando night spot and mow down innocent people just out to have a good time on a Saturday night.

The pro- and anti-gun camps have been slinging it ever since, while seemingly forgetting about the tragic loss of life, the probable permanent physical and emotional dismemberment of injured survivors and the emotional impact on the family members, colleagues, friends and neighbors of those lost.

As a friend of mine so aptly put it on a Facebook post of his, our elected leaders didn’t see fit to ban box cutters, cargo vans, fertilizer or any number of other products when those items were used to kill large numbers of humans.

Laws are on the books that prohibit any number of behaviors and acts, from rape and murder to street drug use and drunk driving. But women get raped on a daily basis by predators; citizens of all ages die on America’s streets every day at the hands of murderers; family members find relatives dead of drug overdoses every day; and the courts are full of trials and hearings for impaired drivers.

The bottom line is, law-abiding citizens will follow every law thrown at them. They might bitch and complain about the proliferation of laws and the far-reaching tentacles of government, but abide by those laws they will.

With a favor I hoped wasn't ever necessary, Paris showed its support for the Orlando terrorist attack. Photo credit: Owner unknown, posted on Facebook.

Criminals and criminal wannabes will always find a way to skirt laws, no matter how many you throw at them.

Now, it just so happens that the Orlando killer — I refuse to name him — procured his weapons legally. Despite two FBI investigations looking into the suspected behavior that led to this massacre, this guy passed the background checks and bought the weapons through a reputable arms dealer.

But if he had failed that background check, he would have found another way to get those guns if he really wanted them. And if he had suspected that he would fail the background investigation, perhaps he would have opted to go around that process and buy the guns on the street.

In any case, he bought them and then used them to carry out a heinous act of terrorism and hatred. He targeted gays just because of who they were and he mowed them down without concern for human life.

While the gun camps scream at each other, here’s where this nation needs to do some serious introspection: how we treat mental illness.

Just like I don’t understand why dental and vision coverage is separated from “regular” health insurance, I don’t understand why mental illness is treated differently than any other malady which may befall us. We aren’t told that our policy will cap treatment of strep throat or bronchitis or a torn ligament to $2,000 per incident, or limit the number of times we can go to the doctor to get that ailment treated. 

But visits to mental health practitioners are limited each policy year, and the co-pay is outrageously expensive and in many cases, cost prohibitive.

Combine those elements with the very real stigma that still exists when it comes to acknowledging mental illness and it’s not hard to see why so many people go undiagnosed and untreated.

In the case of the Orlando murderer, as far as I’m concerned, he had three known strikes against him.

He was strongly suspected to be an Isis sympathizer, he loudly announced his hatred for gays and his own friends and family members said he suffered from mental illness.

Yet he was still legally able to buy the guns that he used to forever change the lives of thousands of people directly and millions indirectly.

As I said to my sage Facebook friend, I don’t know the answer. Worse yet, I don’t know if there is an answer. Our society may have very well fallen to the depths that means this sort of massacre will happen again and again. It already has. 

Terrorists, both home-grown and foreign-born, have targeted elementary school children, cinema lovers, high school students, college students, members of the military, government workers, marathon runners and now members of the LGBTQ community to display their hatred and bias.

I’m sorry i don’t have the answers because I’d love to be part of the solution.

For the nth time, my heart goes out to the city of Orlando, the latest name in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. I hope and pray its citizens are able to come to terms with the senseless losses they have suffered, and I hope they are able to work for solutions as well.

But, also for the nth time, I wonder who will be next.

Because there will be a next. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

And that saddens me most of all.

Déjå Vu

I’ve been reading about — with great interest — the most recent turf battle between Gov. Larry Hogan and Baltimore City and Baltimore County public schools officials.

Hogan is using his gubernatorial and Board of Public Works power to withhold education funding, essentially blackmailing the superintendents to speed up air conditioning plans if they want to see state funds released to their school systems.

Online comments regarding the debate/power struggle, spurred also by a recent press release announcing record casino revenues, are bringing attention to the state’s “trust fund” for education, funded by a (mysterious/unknown/hidden/well-protected) percentage of casino revenue.

It seems as though there isn’t a credible accounting for these funds, or any real, clear-cut proof that the money is making its way to local education systems at all.

I raised these very questions nearly eight years ago as Marylanders were going to the polls to approve casino gambling in the state.

History shows us that these “new” funds aren’t new funds at all, but rather “replacement” funds for the money the state would have actually allocated to various projects. For example, Baltimore County could be awarded $10 million in casino funds for education purposes, but the state reduces its allocation by the same amount, making the final budget a wash.

Just for you-know-what and giggles, here is a column I wrote for The Dundalk Eagle, which was published Oct. 2, 2008 (I’d link directly to the paper’s site but a website redesign wiped out archives of materials published before the redesign):

Let’s not buy into gambling for education again

Maybe I’m becoming a hardcore cynic in my old age, but I can’t believe Maryland's elected leaders  — and the many union and organization leaders who apparently drank the Kool Aid — think we’re stupid enough to truly believe slots money will benefit public education.

For those old enough to remember, this is at least the second time we’ve been down this road.

In the early- to mid-1970s, our esteemed elected leaders sold the idea of instant lottery tickets , now more casually referred to as “scratch-offs,” by telling a gullible and apparently blindly faithful constituency that this type of gambling would be OK because all proceeds would benefit public education.

Well, for at least 20 years — which means public education got a slice of the pie for 10 years or so — proceeds from scratch-offs have gone to the Maryland Stadium Authority, which was established by the Maryland General Assembly in 1986.

Its original mission was to oversee the creation of a new stadium to retain the town’s Major League Baseball team, as well as a new football stadium that would entice a National Football League team to call Baltimore home.

There was no fanfare, no public hearings, no broad announcements of the decision to divert scratch-off money to MSA. It just happened.

While public education floundered in many jurisdictions across the state, gambling money helped build state-of-the-art stadiums to attract extremely wealthy professional sports team owners to bring their businesses here.

I run out of fingers and toes counting the Greater Dundalk schools that have had major roof leaks, boiler problems and rotting doors and windows during that time, but two gleaming stadiums got built largely thanks to money that was originally promised to school systems.

It’s been 10 years since the opening of M&T Stadium — home to the Ravens and the second new stadium to be built  — but the Maryland Stadium Authority still exists.

Why? Because its mission has changed.

From the annual report on the MSA website: “The Maryland Stadium Authority is more than the name implies. Its projects promote historic preservation, adaptive reuse, community redevelopment, cultural arts and civic pride. In planning selected projects, MSA has the latitude to negotiate with other government jurisdictions and other departments within the state. Its mandate includes creating public-private partnerships for financing and operating facilities.”

In short it appears that anything under the sun could be a potential MSA project. The organization acts as developer, planner, landlord and negotiator. It seems to be a not-so-shadowy shadow government.

And I’d be willing to bet that MSA still exists simply because its leaders didn’t want to give up their fiefdom once M&T was complete.

So how are we to truly believe slots money will go to education? And what percentage of it? Five percent”? One percent? All of it? And for how long? Forever? Ten years? Until people stop looking at it?

And just because slots money will go to education doesn’t mean school systems will get more money than they get now.

There’s nothing stopping Gov. O’Malley from cutting state money in the same amount as whatever slots money is awarded, thus creating a wash in terms of net budgets.

When I worked for the Baltimore County Department of Recreation and Parks, we received funding from an organization called School-Community Center Programs (SCCP). The awarded money was intended to fund new after-school programs that could not exist without the grant. It was supposed to be extra money to create new programming — to augment local budget allocations.

But Baltimore County would cut part-time leadership funding in the exact amount of the awarded SCCP funds, thus defeating the intended purpose of the SCCP money.

I envision the same thing happening with slots money, and I will go out on a limb and say it will happen very quietly, without the fanfare or attention the pre-election promises and endorsements are getting.

And you know what makes me the angriest?

That our leaders think we’re stupid enough to swallow this line of bull a second time.

So, history tells us we did indeed swallow the bull, and here we are eight years later, with public education still struggling on many financial levels while, quarter after quarter, the state issues press releases touting the latest record-breaking casino revenue.

I’d say I told you so, but there’s just no real pleasure in issuing such a statement.

But this kind of history makes me understand why so many people have jumped to support Donald Trump in his quest for the presidency.

People are mad as hell and don’t want to take it anymore.

Remembering 'The Greatest'

Those of you who know me well know I’m not crazy about boxing. None of the brutal contact sports, such as boxing, fake wrestling and cage fighting, do anything for me.

In fact, they make my stomach turn and if I get stuck in a captive situation where one of these sports is on the television, I tend to look away. Or leave.

That said, I have to admit I was hit hard by the death of Muhammad Ali.  There’s no denying he was a superb athlete. And if you didn’t believe that, all you had to do was ask him.

I detest that kind of bravado and braggadocio about as much as I detest boxing, but even I have to admit the former Cassius Clay was one of a kind.

He was good, he knew he was good and he made no apologies for being the greatest of his day.

But my memories of the man are more personal. I was fortunate to be at the Opening Ceremony of the centennial Olympics of 1996 in Atlanta. 

While there was a general heightened level of excitement about the Games in general, there was even greater anticipation and speculation about who would be the final person to actually light the Olympic cauldron.

I was beside myself for the duration of the ceremony, spending a good deal of it in tears (again, those who know me well will understand this). A friend of mine and I arrived at our seats to find a green quilted portfolio bag of goodies draped over the back of the seat and a huge sunflower laying across the seat.

We settled in and started taking pictures and taking in all the sights of Olympic Stadium, the venue that would host the opening and closing ceremonies and all track and field events.

Our section host, one of thousands of volunteers, led her section of spectators through a rehearsal of the events that called for spectator participation. In our goodie bag was a flashlight, a colored handkerchief (my section got yellow ones) and a variety of other things, including an opening ceremony pin made only for ticket-holders) and a transistor radio that translated the French/English announcements into many different languages at the flip of a dial.

The lighting of the Olympic cauldron is the climax of the ceremony and excitement grew and grew as the moment drew near.

Four-time gold medalist discus thrower Al Oerter delivered the flame to the stadium and handed it off to boxer Evander Holyfield. He passed it off to swimmer Janet Evans and it looked like she would be the one to get the ultimate honor.

As I recall, Evans ran a lap around the track and then proceeded up a ramp leading to the skeletal structure that led up to the cauldron (which, by the way, eerily resembled a large McDonald’s french fry box). The crowd was going nuts in anticipation of Evans lighting whatever apparatus would feed the flame to the cauldron when another athlete appeared out of nowhere.

As more and more people became aware the new athlete was Ali, 85,000 people (give or take) exploded into cheers, whistles and applause. The flame was transferred from Evans’ commemorative torch to Ali’s and he acknowledged the crowd and waved the torch around before holding the flame to the shoot that would ignite the international symbol of peace and competition for the next three weeks.

I have lots of fond memories of those games — 20 years ago this summer, as hard as that is to believe — including meeting people from all over the world, seeing performers like Stevie Wonder and Gloria Estefan, trading pins with Jamie Lee Curtis, seeing Michael Johnson win gold, and standing in line every day for the Coca Cola Pin of the Day.

But the image of a shaky, fragile Muhammad Ali —still “The Greatest,” as far as many were concerned — lighting that cauldron still brings a tear to my eyes.

May he rest in peace.