Many years ago, when I migrated to Baltimore, I began to create a series of scrapbooks reflecting what was going on at the time. Today, I want to reconstruct some of a scrapbook I created in 1961.. maybe it will trigger some of your memories or at least give you a little insight about what it was like to live 48 years (!) ago.

01. Saying: He who buys what he doesn't need, steals from himself.

How does that relate to today's stimulus payments?

02. A cartoon by A. Toussaint of Belgium: A man in his shirt sleeves stands near an open door. Across the open door is his pants and shoes. Through the door, we see three ladies chattering away. The joke is.. he doesn't know how to cross the open door to get his clothes.

Today, he probably would say: "What the hell." and go across to get his pants without thinking twice about it.

03. A drawing by Leonard Vosburgh in "The Lords Baltimore." It shows a horse team rolling a hogshead of tobacco to a ship in early Maryland.

Rolling Road in Baltimore County was the main "highway" for rolling those hogsheads down to the Patapsco so they could be loaded on boats and ferried to the Chesapeake.

04. A beautiful black and white photograph: Baltimore's Washington monument in the evening, in a snow storm.

05. A newspaper account of crime in Baltimore: There was an outbreak of crime, some of them in broad daylight. In just one week:

A retired tailor was beaten and stomped to death in Mount Vernon Square.

A 16 year old was hit on the head with a thick board.

A motorist in a collision with a taxi, got out and hit the cabbie with a beer can.

A 46 year old man was beaten to death with a tree limb.

A policeman was hit with an empty can thrown by an 11-year old body.

An advertising collector was beaten and robbed by two teen-agers.

A 19 year old girl was thrown off the Orleans Street viaduct.

A purse-snatcher knocked a 63 year old woman to the ground and stole her purse with $12.

A policeman was cut with a knife while being ejected from a bar.

The police suggested that the assaults were the results of long daylight hours and fair weather.

06. A nice black and white photograph: Downtown Baltimore at Fire station #6.. about 1925. One of the store signs reads: Everything Electric Radio (Holmes Electric).

07. Newspaper article: An 8-foot high trash can, dubbed as "Cleanup Charlie" broadcast announcements every few minutes at Howard and Lexington Streets. Sharp-eyed members of the Women's Civic League watched the intersection from a second story window and pointed out litterbugs over a loudspeaker. "Charlie was on duty daily during "Cleanup Week."

08. Photo of a disaster: An apartment house being built in Lutherville collapsed in recent heavy rain and will have to be completely rebuilt.

09. Saying: A miser isn't much fun to live with, but he makes a wonderful ancestor.

10. Newspaper article: 600 French tourists will visit Baltimore.

Wait a minute, they came to our fair city because DC had no available rooms. At night, they will sleep in the Southern Hotel.. during the day, they will tour DC.

11. Letter to the Editor: What is wrong with Baltimore's Heritage that the French tourists have to tour DC and not our fair city? What about:

The Walters Art Gallery
The Cone Collection at the BMA
The home and grave of Edgar Allen Poe
St. Mary's Seminary
The Chapel at St. Mary's and the Battle Monument, both designed by Maximillian Godefroy
Betsy Patterson who married Jerome Bonaparte
The oldest school of pharmacy in the US
Dr. Pierre Chatard
Louis Pascault
Archbishop Ambrose Marchal
The widow Lacombe
J. Pinaud
Fort McHenry
Mount Vernon Place

12. Drawing: A little boy with a flower growing out of his navel. ?

13. Depictions of Baltimore's famous painted screens. It is impossible to see through a painting from outside.

A South Curley street house with painted screens on every window.
Twol screens by Frank Abremski for his house at North Ellwood Avenue.
Two Baltimore scenes custom painted for A. Aubrey Bodine, to reflect two of his famous photos.
A cool painting on a storm window at South East Avenue.
Swan depictions in screens at South Curley and South Chester.

14. Ocean City scenes: The Boardwalk is continuing from 19th to 26th street.

There was a major storm in March which flooded the city and destroyed a lot of property. The Jamaican, a recently completed luxury apartment hotel was completely destroyed. There is a picture of a house on steel stilts that survived.

15. Newspaper article: A 150-year old two-story log house has been renovated in York, PA and furnished with antiques. Usually, log houses are much smaller.

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