Dan Rodricks

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. Baltimore claims Edgar Alan Poe because he lived here for a while and definitely died here. He's buried here. Poe's house is still standing on the west side and the city's … Continue reading Poe had the Raven, me the Woodpecker

Carl Schoettler, my late colleague from the Baltimore Evening Sun and Sun, (photo) was the mentor and advisor for several reporters many years his junior, and I was lucky to have been one of them. Way back, when I was still feeling my way through a relatively new assignment -- editors of the Evening Sun … Continue reading A place for the ‘mildly amusing’ story

My brother in Massachusetts had converted to DVD home movies that were shot by an uncle of ours in the 1950s and early 1960s. Many families have these old movies. Many families had one person who owned perhaps a Bell & Howell 8-mm movie camera, projector and screen. A lot of these old films are … Continue reading On racism and the moment upon us: Do Americans really want a better country?

Other anglers must think it odd that I still use the old Pflueger Medalist reels. What can I say? I like how they feel and work. I like the feel of the rod when there's a little more weight at the bottom, the way I prefer older knives with thick handles when I'm preparing a … Continue reading This old reel, a reliable friend

Did you think about going solar at your house, then drop the idea? Are you counting on the electric grid in your region to become less dependent on fossil fuels and, therefore, greener? And does that make you feel it’s unnecessary to put solar panels on your roof? Or maybe you just think they’re ugly. … Continue reading Did you think about rooftop solar, then drop the idea?

I took this photograph of Calvin Ash (on the right) and his new friend Kurt Wenzing a little more than a year ago. It's one of my favorite photographs. The two men were seated on the front porch of Calvin's late mother's home in Wilson Park, and Kurt had been helping Calvin fix the place … Continue reading ‘Better than never,’ says former Maryland prisoner of state legislature’s action

And so I think about all those words Joe wrote, and wrote on deadline, clouded in cigarette smoke on the day Kennedy died, or in the fading sunlight of a Bonn afternoon, or in a hotel somewhere, or for the last 25 years of his career in an office on North Calvert Street in Baltimore. … Continue reading On the passing of Joe Sterne, journalist

Fully vaccinated, I went -- with a friend who is fully vaccinated -- to the Orioles' home opener on Thursday. Here's my mildly amusing Sunday Sun column on that experience. I assume others there were fully vaccinated, but, of course, I didn't know that. About 1.3 million people, or about 22% of the state’s 6 … Continue reading Are we there yet? Nope. Continue maskulation.

My Friday column in The Baltimore Sun tells how the abandoned and contaminated PEMCO property in southeast Baltimore, across from Hopkins Bayview, became a new shopping center called Yard 56 and how a determined developer named David Bramble made it happen. Founded in 1911 as the Porcelain Enamel Manufacturing Corporation, the company once had 600 … Continue reading Transformation: 20 acres of Baltimore back from the dead