An Author’s Love Letter to Charm City

As the author of “100 Things to Do in Baltimore Before You Die” (Reedy Press), I’m occasionally asked why I wrote this book. The answers are simple.

The primary reason is that Charm City doesn’t receive a lot of love. “The Wire” and “Homicide: Life on the Street,” both acclaimed TV shows shot in Baltimore, cast a lot of shade while they were exploring the underbelly of our city.

The cruise ships come to town and the shore excursions include a few Baltimore highlights, but they also drive 40 miles away to Washington, D.C. To be fair, they also go to Gettysburg, but D.C. has all the free museums and monuments and the chance of seeing someone politically famous. Most of Baltimore’s attractions have an entrance fee.

I think Baltimore deserves a better reputation. We have world-class art museums, fascinating attractions, spectacular food, lovely parks and gardens, interesting architecture and some really friendly people.

Since the book was published last year, I’ve had the pleasure of appearing on numerous radio and TV shows, and speaking at libraries and before civic and other groups. At these presentations, there’s almost always some “wit” in the crowd who says of my book’s title, “Oh, you mean ‘100 Things to Do Before You Die in Baltimore.’”

Part of my book and my talks highlight the unfamiliar thing to do at the familiar places. Everyone knows to visit the National Aquarium, but they don’t always know about the behind-the-scenes tours or the sleepovers, or that if they have the right SCUBA certification, they can feed the sharks (and clean the windows).

People drive by the American Visionary Art Museum and see the “Universal Tree of Life” outside the museum. They might know that classes in making things with shiny objects are offered almost monthly. But they don’t know that Bob Benson teaches the classes, the same Bob Benson who taught us to understand and love classical music on WFDS, then WBAL and then WYPR.

As most of us like to know how things work, I spread the word about the behind-the-scenes tours at the Walters Art Museum. I talk about my favorite parts of the Baltimore Museum of Art, the floors in the original John Russell Pope Building and the trend-setting corner entrances into the galleries of the Contemporary Wing.

A few months ago, I spoke to the guys at the weekly “Bagel Boys” speaker’s series at the Edward A. Myerberg Center in Northwest Baltimore. After my presentation, two men approached me. The first said he and his wife travel all over the world to see outstanding sites when they could just stay home and do the same thing.

The second said his children gave him a copy of my book for Chanukah and he put it away. He was going to go home and read it.

When I’ve done a radio or TV interview or a presentation, I’m always asked three or four questions. One, have I been to every place in the book? The answer is no. I had a lot of help from online friends and longtime Baltimore residents. And that’s basically the answer to the second question: how did I decide what to include? I looked for things that would interest locals and visitors.

The third is what is my favorite? I usually say Herman Heyn, the “Street Corner Astronomer.” I wrote about him and his eclipse adventures for jmoreliving.com a few weeks ago.

And finally, was I born in Baltimore? No, I was born in Washington. But I belonged to the Isaiah chapter of B’nai B’rith Girls, and we used to visit the AZA guys here on a fairly regular basis (and vice versa). And as I grew older and started writing travel guide books about the state and the city, I spent a lot of time on Ed Kane’s water taxi listening to Ed talk about the city, its history and its people.

Then, there were Ruth Fader’s Baltimore Rent-A-Tour nighttime city explorations that visited Edgar Allan Poe’s gravesite, the newsroom at the Baltimore Sun, the nocturnal animals at the zoo, a bakery, the television station preparing for the early morning news, and then sunrise at Fort McHenry.

The nicest thing you can say to me is, “I didn’t know that.” Fortunately, I’m almost always able to tell someone something they don’t know, even those who were born here. Depending on where you live or grew up, you may or may not know about Rheb’s Chocolates, which has been here since 1917, or Dangerously Delicious Pies that’s only been here for a decade.

Perhaps my favorite “I didn’t know that” was from local TV personality Marty Bass who didn’t know that Duff Goldman’s Charm City Cakes offered cake-making lessons.

I just love it when someone says, “I didn’t know that.”

And that’s why I wrote “100 Things to Do in Baltimore Before You Die.”

A Jmore contributor, Judy Colbert will be signing copies of her book at Rheb’s Handmade Candies, 3352 Wilkens Ave., on Saturday, Nov. 11, from 10:30-12:30 p.m., and at Barnes and Noble, 4300 Montgomery Road, Ellicott City, on Saturday, Nov. 18, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. “100 Things to Do in Baltimore Before You Die” is available at other local stores and attractions and on Amazon.com.

Top photo: Judy Colbert at Rheb’s

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