I stumbled on these wonderful photos of 1920s Baltimore women on Ebay. Were they lesbians? Was one a drag queen? Were they dressing up for Halloween or a party? Were they expressing their lifestyle? So many unanswered questions that piqued my curiosity. On one photo “1924 – Waldron St.” is written. The answer is lost to history.
George Feehley, who passed away last weekend at the age of 87, is pictured tandem surfing. Photo by Ocean City Life-Saving Station Museum
‘George Feehley Has Surfed His Way Into The History Of Ocean City And Will Always Be Remembered’
The sun set on the “endless summer” for a local legend last weekend with the passage of a former Ocean City elected official, lifeguard and surfing icon.
By Shawn J. Soper (The Dispatch, 2/27/2014)
“For many years, while George served on the City Council, the beach patrol had a special friend in high places and his influence allowed our team members to compete in major competitive events with the financial support of the town,” he said. “George Feehley has surfed his way into the history of Ocean City and will always be remembered.”
While Feehley was already guarding the north end beach in the late 1940s, it wasn’t until the early 1960s when he took up the latest craze to hit the resort. Ocean City surfing legend Skill Johnson and his brothers Al and Carl are largely credited with introducing surfing to the resort in the 1960s. Johnson, who now resides in Hawaii, said this week Feehley quickly picked up the sport and became a surfing legend in his own right.
“In 1964, the first surf shop in town was at 18th Street, but we always went up to 43rd Street, which was at the end of town limits, to surf and George had a house up there and used to guard the beach,” he said. “He saw us surfing out there and took it up and became a natural from the start. He was an athlete beyond belief.”
Johnson said he and the others in the nascent resort surfing community always marveled at Feehley’s athletic prowess.
“George was a strong man,” he said. “He used to lift weights and he had these 100-pound dumbbells he used to throw up with ease. He was one of the fittest guys I ever met. I first met George at the local premiere of ‘Endless Summer’ at Stephen Decatur High School in 1964. I got a ticket and went in, then I went back out and gave the stub to George.”
Johnson said the Ocean City community won’t soon forget Feehley’s contributions to the resort.
“He’s an Ocean City legend,” he said. “He was one of the coolest guys in Ocean City. He was a true classic and won’t be forgotten.”
Continue reading at The Dispatch.
Annapolis police chief apologizes for citing hoax story in testimony against marijuana legalization
By Alex Jackson (Capitalgazette.com, 2/26/2014)
Annapolis Police Chief Michael A. Pristoop listens to the press conference as a coalition of Maryland police chiefs and sheriffs met at the Maryland State House to voice their opposition to the decriminalization or legalization of marijuana being considered in the Maryland Senate. Capitalgazette.com
Testifying against bills proposed to legalize and decriminalize marijuana in the state, Annapolis Police Chief Michael Pristoop cited a hoax story that claimed 37 people had died the first day marijuana was legalized in Colorado.
“The first day of legalization, that’s when Colorado experienced 37 deaths that day from overdose on marijuana,” Pristoop testified at Tuesday’s Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee hearing. “I remember the first day it was decriminalized there were 37 deaths.”
But Sen. Jamie Raskin, D-Montgomery, who has proposed a bill that would legalize, regulate and tax the drug, immediately fact-checked Pristoop.
“Unless you have some other source for this, I’m afraid I’ve got to spoil the party here,” Raskin said. “Your assertion that 37 people died of a marijuana overdose in Colorado was a hoax on the DailyCurrant and the Comedy Central website.”
Indeed, Pristoop was apparently referring to a story by the satirical website DailyCurrant.com, which reportedly fooled some people with the headline ‘‘Marijuana overdoses kill 37 in Colorado on first day of legalization.”
Continue reading at Capitalgazette.com.
Annapolis police chief apologizes for marijuana misspeak
Pristoop says he obtained inaccurate data regarding deaths related to Colorado marijuana legislation.
Continue reading at Baltimore Sun.
By Jacques Kelly (The Baltimore Sun, 6/13/1995)
Henry James in 1910. Wikipedia.org
Henry James was one of the most respected writers of his day, but there was no fanfare when he stepped off a train at Baltimore’s old Union Station 90 years ago.
In the Baltimore of 1905, horse-drawn taxis waited at the railway depot’s Charles Street side. The 62-year-old American novelist’s next destination was the recently completed Belvedere Hotel at Charles and Chase streets.
“I arrived late in the day, and the day had been lovely; I alighted at a large fresh peaceful hostelry, imposingly modern yet quietly affable, and, having recognized the deep, soft general note, even from my windows, as that of a kind of mollified vivacity, I sought the streets with as many tacit questions as I judged they would tolerate, or as the waning day would allow me to put,” James wrote in the chapter devoted to Baltimore in his 1907 journal of his East Coast impressions, “The American Scene.”
“It took but that hour, as I strolled in the early eventide, to give me the sense of the predicament I have glanced at; that of finding myself committed to the view of Baltimore as quite insidiously ‘sympathetic,’ quite inordinately amiable, which amounted, in other words, to the momentous proposition that she was interesting. . . .”
“So I walked around that dear little city looking for the peculiar parts — all with the singular effect of rather failing to find them and with my impression of felicity at the same time persistently growing,” he wrote.
Literary scholars tell us that James (1843-1916) visited Baltimore beginning June 10, 1905. He stayed perhaps a few days and was then off to another destination. The author of “The Ambassadors” and “The Golden Bowl” seemed to have enjoyed his visit here.
Continue reading at The Baltimore Sun.
“Baltimore” by Henry James – Click for fullscreen
