A life well-lived

In this day and age, very little news takes my breath away. I’ve become numb to most of it and, since retiring from the news business, I don’t go out of my way to seek it out. Mindless cable networks like Ion and StartTV have become my best friends, providing the company of background noise in my otherwise quiet living space.

So when I heard of the sudden death of Costas Triantafilos, my heart literally skipped a beat. I was scrolling through email when I saw a TV station message with just a partial headline visible in the subject box. Clicking on it delivered the news that Mr. Costas, as he was affectionately known to me and countless others, had died in a suspected carbon monoxide incident, and his wife, Miss Mary, was hospitalized in critical condition.

Costas and Mary Triantafilos. Photo courtesy of Triantafilos family/Facebook.

Mr. Costas and Miss Mary own the venerable Costas Inn, a landmark restaurant and pub on North Point Boulevard in Dundalk. Known for its steamed crabs and jumbo lump crab cakes, its live music scene and its warm, welcoming ambiance, the eatery is a family affair for the Triantafilos family, as well as a home away from home for countless customers who became extended family.

Upon hearing of the death of the beloved patriarch, my thoughts went instantly to his family, particularly his sons Pete and Nick, who I know from both my time as a local journalist and as a semi-regular customer for many years.

To say the Triantafilos family is a tightly-knit unit is an understatement. Many family members have or do work at the restaurant and if there have ever been any family squabbles, I as a customer never saw one. Mr. Costas set the tone, with a smile on his face for everyone. He greeted everyone and, when he wasn’t in his domain — the back office — where he sold lottery tickets, handled paper work and generally held court, chatting with his hundreds of friends, he cruised the restaurant, dished out greetings, hugs and handshakes and pitched in wherever he saw fit when the place got slammed.

I truly never saw the man without a smile on his face, and I do not have the words to describe the warmth and genuineness of the twinkle in his eye. It’s as if his eyes, in competition with his lips, smiled all the time.

He was also very generous. I often joked that he probably gave away as many beers as he sold. He would cruise the bar, pulling pints and placing full glasses in front of customers. Sometimes he would take the glass I was drinking from and top it off; other times, a full, fresh glass would be delivered.

In the later years of my journalism career, when I was working only part-time, my social life dwindled significantly. Costas had a happy hour that offered Natty Boh for $1.50 and $5 select appetizers. I’d go in, have a few cheap beers, some chicken wings and leave a decent tip without breaking the bank. On one of these visits, Mr. Costas was behind the bar, giving out his charity beers. When he gave me new beers, they were from the Coors Light tap. I accepted gladly, and thanked him. A little while later, one of the bartenders noticed he was giving me Coors Light and asked why I didn’t tell him he was giving me the wrong beer. My response was somewhere along the lines of, “The man is gifting me free beer. I'll drink whatever he puts in front of me and be thankful for his gesture.”

Against my wishes, the bartender told Mr. Costas he was giving me the wrong beer and he instantly went to the Natty Boh tap and handed me ANOTHER beer! He asked me why I didn’t say anything and I told him the same thing I told the bartender. Then I jokingly said, “Next time, if you’re going to make a mistake, can you make it with Stella Artois?” He roared with laughter and said, “You never know!”

But here’s the thing — Mr. Costas was like that with everyone. It didn’t matter whether you came in every day of the week or once every couple of months. It didn’t matter if you spent hundreds of dollars on a single dinner or pinched pennies during Happy Hour. He saw friends. He saw chosen family members in the huge, extended business family he and his wife created. And he treated them all accordingly.

And his philanthropy wasn’t limited to handing out complimentary beverages. The community will probably never know the full extent of his support of sports teams, scholarships, fundraisers and community members affected by personal tragedies. I would guess that thousands of bottles of liquor have been donated to “baskets of cheer” throughout the years, and that his checkbook was opened countless times. Anyone who asked for assistance walked away with a little something to further a cause or help with a personal tragedy.

Since his sudden death, much has been written about his generosity, his friendship, his sense of family, the importance of his faith and just about every other aspect of his life. Many people consider him a father figure and tell the stories to back that up.

Many others talked of the inn providing their first jobs. Some talked of working at Costas for decades, starting as bus help while young teenagers and progressing through the ranks. Longtime employees have children who grew up around the restaurant and got their first jobs there. One former employee alluded to some personal problems in his younger years and credited Mr. Costas with giving him a chance and putting him on the straight and narrow pathway of life. 

Longtime employee Jennifer started working at the inn in 1996 and took off a few years when she gave birth to her daughter. That daughter is now a Costas colleague.

"He was a proud man — proud of his wife and kids, and even more proud of his grandkids," Jennifer wrote in an online tribute. "But he was humble, always saying it was his family and community that made Costas Inn what it is today. Costas isn't Costas because of the crab cakes and crabs because that's duplicated all over Maryland. It's the feeling of family. It's the feeling of Costas."

I would imagine every single person who knew the man has a similar story. I don't think I know another single person about whom I could honestly not say a bad word. Mr. Costas was that man and they indeed broke the mold.

Even in the midst of their profound personal grief, Triantafilos family members realized how deeply the community mourned their father. They published their own tributes, and on several occasions, thanked the community for its outpouring of prayers, shared remembrances and offers to help with anything needed. They also shared a poignant video that showed the hearse carrying Mr. Costas' body as it circled the restaurant on the way to the cemetery. 

“My heart is broken and life will never be the same without you," son Pete Triantafilos wrote in his tribute. "You were my guide, my rock, and my greatest supporter. Your legacy will live on forever.” 

His son Nick said, several days after the funeral, that he was still coming to terms with losing the vibrant force he called Dad.

"The man exuded love," he told me in a message. "Everything about him was genuine. As time passes, I think we will appreciate him more if that's even possible. Right now, it's just raw. We will proceed full steam ahead as he would have wanted and make him proud."

In addition to being a husband, father, grandfather, sibling, uncle and cousin to his blood family, Costas Triantafilos was a father figure, mentor, boss, colleague, friend or benevolent benefactor to just about everyone outside of that family that he met. It wasn't an act, it wasn't choreographed or rehearsed, it wasn't planned. It just happened organically. It was, quite naturally and without pretense or affectation, who Costas Triantafilos was.

Perhaps no greater thing can be said about any man.

May he rest in peace. And may his memory be eternal.

Hello again

So, I bought myself a pre-tariff new MacBook Pro and vowed not to let this laptop languish, ignored and abandoned, in the box for two years. That goal was achieved, with me unboxing and setting up the device a mere 10 days after receiving it.

While I have never claimed to be a great writer, it’s something I immensely enjoy. I have often said that writing is the only way I get to finish a sentence. The only person who can interrupt me is me, and even I do that often.

The second step of the laptop goal was to dust off my Scribbles from the Margen blog, which has been grossly neglected since the day I started it. I am an occasional blogger, at best, though I always have a well-populated hopper list of what I consider great topics. I have written a million columns in my mind over the years but, as you can tell by scrolling through the history of this venue, few of them ever meet the publish button.

That you are reading this is proof that I have accomplished the second phase of that goal. There’s just too much going on, both on the local and state levels, as well as the world stage, to keep all this frustration, anger, rage and puzzlement within the confines of my skull.

As always, I will pepper my diatribes with the warm and fuzzy, positive tales that defined my early journalism career. Because I made a weirdly unrelated career change from public recreation and parks to community journalism, I was more often than not assigned all the warm and fuzzy stories that could not be screwed up too badly, while my more esteemed colleagues were entrusted with the real, serious news.

In time, I embraced the warm and fuzzy beat. People get sick of all the blood and gore and enjoy reading warm and fuzzy. The W&F beat reporter is also more welcome in many places than the reporters always looking to dig up dirt.

So, I tell you all this just as a little reintroduction. I’m retired from the newspaper business; my last byline appeared six and a half years ago, already. Writing is a creative outlet for me, as well as a way of unburdening myself.

I vow to write here more often. There are several good stories to tell about the Greater Dundalk community that are timely and cannot sit much longer. It's been a rough couple weeks in the community, with the sad losses of two prominent business owners — Costas Triantafilos, beloved owner of Costas Inn, and Colt Connelly, owner of Connelly Funeral Home of Dundalk.

In the next several days, I will pay tribute to each man and will encourage community members to record their memories of each.

And of course, I have a mile-long list of what I will politely refer to as current event topics. The world is spinning out of control, with the U.S. sadly in the driver’s seat and I have a few things to say about that.

So, if you’re still here, thanks for reading, and I promise I’ll see you soon!

 

Soaring to new heights

 Now that Match Madness is over and two terrific No. 1 seeds won the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball titles (though I was cheering for the other team in both final matches), I’ve been thinking a lot about organized sports.

And specifically sporting opportunities for girls and women. 

I was born in the late 1950s and basically grew up in the ‘60s and ‘70s. To say recreational opportunities of any flavor for girls were limited is an understatement. Depending on individual interest, girls could sign up for tap and ballet or softball. And that was about it.

And while dancers could start at age 3 (as long as they were potty-trained), organized softball started with the 9-12 age group.

I “signed up” for softball by showing up at a practice session on the lower, far field at Mars Estates Elementary School. Practices and eventually games were held there and down the street at Deep Creek Elementary. There was no registration fee, no forms to fill out, no parental signature needed. I played the whole season without my mother knowing. She found out only when a coach called my house to tell me I had been selected for the All-Star team. And then she made me quit, which is why I didn’t tell her in the first place.

The league was truly instructional and met most of the summer, which is unheard of these days. The first six weeks were spent with all coaches working with all the girls. We were taught all the basics: rules, hitting, fielding, throwing, even how to properly wear and use a glove.

After about six weeks, the four main coaches lined us all up along the first base line and, in true playground style, chose teams for about six weeks of league competition. I was chosen by Mr. Frank and off we went to separate fields to meld as teams and continue growing our skills and knowledge.

There were no uniforms and no real equipment to speak of. Mr. Frank’s team became the Green Team because it was determined that all of us already had shorts of that color. We competed against Red, Blue and Yellow.

We didn’t play with balls that cost more than $100 a dozen and we hit with chewed up, well-loved bats. There were masks and chest protectors for catchers and we had peg-down bases that were veterans of many, many seasons.

And we didn’t care! We were playing softball in an organized league! We made new friends, we acquired new knowledge and skills and we felt important — that we mattered to our coaches and our teammates.

Some of my best childhood memories are of feeding the loop of my glove over the handlebars and jumping on my bike to head to softball. Such freedom!

As a player, I alternated between first base and catching and became a pretty decent hitter. But only after Coach Frank figured out why I was striking out so much and taught me a better stance and told me to pull my bat back in that stance.

After each and every game, we were all herded to the 7-11 across the street, where the coach treated everyone to a Slurpee.

At the end of the season, there were no awards banquets, no league picnics, no trophies. The coaches thanked us for a great season and said, “See you next year.”

I played two sports at the community college level and it was pretty much more of the same. As a field hockey player, we were given a pair of cleats and one pair of practice shorts and one T-shirt. We played in the traditional kilts that had quite a few seasons on them and we were issued polo shirts to complete the game uniform. Shin guards — thin guards, as we called them — also had quite a few miles on them. 

During out-of-state trips, we received a per diem to cover the cost of meals (think McDonald’s). I seem to remember it being about $7. 

We traveled in college-owned passenger vans to get to and from away games. There was a rule that vehicles had to be driven by college employees and because I had a campus work-study job, I was part of the driver rotation. Let me tell you it was no fun to drive to New Jersey, play a couple games and then drive home with my teammates asleep in the seats behind me.

These and other memories came flooding back as I marveled at women’s college sports finally getting some first-class treatment. It saddens me that it took this long, but I’m nonetheless happy that it’s happening at all.

I thought of beat-up bases and tattered balls as I watched Iowa star Caitlyn Clark autograph a pair of $500 (or more) shoes and hand them to a little girl in the stands.

I thought of threadbare kilts and stained polos as I watched teams play in three or more uniform colors after they paraded into arenas wearing warmup sweats and jackets with personalized gear bags slung over their shoulders.

I admired modern and well-outfitted locker rooms with all the amenities an athlete could want or need. I watched well-trained coaching staffs tend to each of their individual responsibilities. 

I looked forward to press conferences to hear coaches and players dissect games and individual performances. 

Much has been said about the individual performance of Clark and the multitude of records she set this year. There will be debates for years to come about the validity of her passing players from past eras when rules, playing conditions, equipment, and training and coaching techniques were vastly different. One popular target that many argue makes her scoring records invalid is the relatively new existence of the three-point shot.

But here’s the deal. Sports (and most activities of any sort) evolve over time. In-game plays and plans become more strategic, intricate and academic; equipment is improved; rules change; innovative uniform fabrics are trade secrets with protection rivaled only by that of Homeland Security or the military.

Throughout all these sweeping changes in any sport, you don’t see asterisks, bullets, hashtags or any other symbols alongside names in the record books to denote different eras (not even the PED era). The home run king is the home run king, the 400-meter freestyle world record-holder is the record-holder and so on. 

The Clark haters also say that, despite her owning pretty much every basketball record there is to hold, she’s not the greatest player ever simply because she didn’t win a national championship.

But here’s what Clark did do that’s more important than all the records or titles in the world. She carried an entire sport on her shoulders and took it to unknown territories. While Iowa residents knew throughout her college career what they had, Clark caught the attention of the rest of the nation only last year. 

Bandwagon fans adopted her and started tuning in. At home, Iowa’s basketball arena was sold out for every home game long before this season’s competition began. And while Clark and Iowa head coach Lisa Bluder always talked about and praised the entire team, we all knew it was Clark people were tuning in to watch; it was Clark selling tickets; Clark was the reason hundreds of people were in line hours before games started.

And she didn’t sell tickets just at home. Her presence sold tickets at away games, where opponents benefited from the higher revenue brought in simply by Iowa being on the schedule.

Clark has done for women’s basketball what Cal Ripken did for baseball and what Michael Phelps did for swimming.

I’ll be the first person to say Clark isn’t perfect. She’s still a kid; she recently turned 22. She gets emotional, she throws little tantrums, she expects perfection from herself and her teammates. But I believe she performs quite admirably under one hell of a spotlight. She realizes she’s a role model for youngsters and acts accordingly. She’s generous with her time when it comes to signing just about anything thrust at her and she’s quick to give a kid a high-five, a hug or even a pair of shoes.

This past weekend, 18.9 million viewers watched Iowa lose to South  Carolina in the women’s title game. On Monday night, 14.8 million people watched Connecticut defeat Purdue in the men’s final. It was the first time in NCAA history that more people tuned in to watch the women’s championship game.

There’s no way to scientifically prove it but I believe Clark played a huge role in attracting those viewers. We’ll see what happens next year.

While the record debates will drag on for some time, here’s one thing that can’t be debated. Clark elevated the sport she loves to new heights. She did so with joy and, most of the time, a smile on her face. 

Thanks to a Covid-19 bonus year of athletic eligibility, Clark could have stayed in college another year and further padded her records. But she chose not to do that. She will receive her bachelor’s degree on time and she’s heading to the WNBA, where she’s expected to be the No. 1 draft pick.

She is passing the torch to the next cohort of athletes. She is choosing not to hog the stage; she’s choosing to leave so her fellow Hawkeyes, some of whom have undoubtedly played in her shadow, have their well-earned time to lead and shine.

Clark is passing the torch like many pioneers did before her, and like many stars, innovators and record-breakers will again do in the future. 

Many have and will continue to change the game, regardless of sport, because that’s the natural progression of life in general; because that’s how it works.

And the proof of that influence, that impact, that growth, is simple: Little girls’ teams are no longer known by names like Green, Red, Blue and Yellow.

Words matter

 It’s been a little over a week since the demise of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. 

My emotions have run the gamut over these 9 days or so, from profound grief for the families of the lost construction workers to the fear and uncertainty of the economic impact the loss will have on an entire region of workers, the Port of Baltimore and the underlying network of ancillary businesses.

But just today, I realized the thing bugging me way more than it should is the use of the word “collapse,” most often being used to describe what happened to the beautiful span over the Patapsco River.

I admit the recovering journalist in me frets way too much over word use, and I am way too picky and critical about things that don’t appear to bother other people. But hear me out.

The bridge didn’t collapse. To me, collapse is something you do after fainting, or perhaps experiencing something emotional that causes your knees to buckle. 

The Key Bridge didn’t faint. It died of blunt force trauma. It was murdered. The weapon of destruction was an out-of-control 984-foot, 95,000-ton (when empty) commercial cargo ship.

To me, the word collapse — used in this context— denotes weakness, fault, deficiency, neglect, deterioration.

If the bridge had plunged into the river on its own, with no apparent cause or reason but just crumpled without warning, I’d say the bridge collapsed.

That certainly wasn’t the case here.  Our strong and mighty bridge was destroyed after taking a direct blow from a formidable opponent in what could be called an extremely unfair boxing match. The bridge never stood a chance.

In the parlance of the medical examiner’s office, the cause of death was blunt force trauma, the manner of death was homicide and the weapon of death was the container ship Dali.

It is often said that it’s easy to blame the victim. “Collapse,” in my mind, places blame on the bridge, when in fact, the proud structure was just doing its job — the same job it has done loyally and faithfully since 1977 — when it was taken out in the prime of its service life.

It was a commuter road, a beloved and beautiful landmark, a welcome home beacon, and a monument to engineering and blue-collar tradesmen and women.

May the original span rest in peace, and may a new one rise in its place to honor the legacy of the old. 

And may we remember it didn’t quit on us. It didn’t faint. It didn’t collapse. It was destroyed in the line of duty. 

Words do matter.