Baltimoreans have garnered a reputation for greeting one another by tagging “hon” to their speech. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, this small piece of local dialect took center stage in a series of rancorous public debates over the identity associated with Baltimore culture. Each time, controversy followed leading to consequences ranging from protests and boycotts to formal legislative action. “Hon” brought into focus Baltimore’s past and future by symbolizing lingering divisions of race, class, gender, and belonging in the midst of campaigns to unify and modernize the city. While some decried “hon” and “the Hon” as embarrassing, others hailed the word and the related image of a down-to-earth, blue-collar woman as emblematic of the authentic Baltimorean. This book tells the story of the battles that flared over the attempts to use “hon” to construct a citywide local tradition and their consequences for the future of local culture in the United States.
"I can see no reason why it wouldn't make a good movie. The frame work is certainly there." Paul Gregory, legendary agent and producer. ABERDEEN begins on the Chesapeake Bay with the wedding of Ruth Wayne, a gorgeous flight attendant, and Mark Hopkins, a rich and intuitive former SEAL Lieutenant who owns Ridgefield Farm outside Rock Hall on the upper eastern shore of the Bay and runs his familys steel mill in Baltimore. With the help of his staff, he establishes a refuge for Red Cross medics injured in combat; discovers a Pollock painting worth millions; changes a hair stylist into a radio talk show hostess; proves that a canister of mustard gas came from Edgewood Arsenal, leading to a Captains court martial; and funds a live film-shoot of a carnival fortune teller and the development of an electronic buoy to monitor pollutants in the Chesapeake Bay. One things for sure: life is never boring in ABERDEEN. Its the finale of a trilogy, with 75 characters, ending with the birth of a foal named Stormy Alex and rise of a farm boy with a nasty knuckleball to the big leagues. ABERDEENs legacy: You Can Be Better than You Are.
Bonnie is 24 and a voluptuous single mother of two boys when she falls in love with articulate, identical twin ex-vet medics. After they become partners in her soft-crab business on Maryland's upper eastern shore, she is pregnant. DNA tests reveal the biological father is not one of them. The subsequent hunt for the real father leads to a suspenseful roller-coaster ride. Mistrust, ingenuity and persistence to seek the truth prove in the end, You Can Be As Good As You Can Be, and Be Better Than You Are.
Why does a rich, handsome, ambitious and talented 26-year old former SEAL settle in a small town on the Chesapeake Bay, and unknowingly carry a rare dagger around his waist? Want to know more about antiques, auctions, starting your own business, planning for the future? What are your chances of finding something worth $75,000 every Wednesday at a country auction? What happens when a murder results from a rare dagger from Baghdad, worth over a million dollars? Why is it that a homicide brings out the worst and the best in people? Why is it that a possible murderer on the loose is easier to explain, but difficult to comprehend fully, in a small town where everyone knows the suspects involved? Is the suspected foul play a crime of passion, revenge, theft, or just malice aforethought? $ Betterton has a storyline that will have you yearning for more. Author Joseph Szymanski takes the reader on a racer-dip of suspense and uncertainty in a cliff hanger that will take your breath away! ANSWERS INSIDE!
The Oxford Handbook of American Folklore and Folklife Studies surveys the materials, approaches, concepts, and applications of the field to provide a sweeping guide to American folklore and folklife, culture, history, and society. Forty-three comprehensive and diverse chapters delve into significant themes and methods of folklore and folklife study; established expressions and activities; spheres and locations of folkloric action; and shared cultures and common identities. Beyond the longstanding arenas of academic focus developed throughout the 350-year legacy of folklore and folklife study, contributors at the forefront of the field also explore exciting new areas of attention that have emerged in the twenty-first century such as the Internet, bodylore, folklore of organizations and networks, sexual orientation, neurodiverse identities, and disability groups. Encompassing a wide range of cultural traditions in the United States, from bits of slang in private conversations to massive public demonstrations, ancient beliefs to contemporary viral memes, and a simple handshake greeting to group festivals, these chapters consider the meanings in oral, social, and material genres of dance, ritual, drama, play, speech, song, and story while drawing attention to tradition-centered communities such as the Amish and Hasidim, occupational groups and their workaday worlds, and children and other age groups. Weaving together such varied and manifest traditions, this handbook pays significant attention to the cultural diversity and changing national boundaries that have always been distinctive in the American experience, reflecting on the relative youth of the nation; global connections of customs brought by immigrants; mobility of residents and their relation to an indigenous, urbanized, and racialized population; and a varied landscape and settlement pattern. Edited by leading folklore scholar Simon J. Bronner, this handbook celebrates the extraordinary richness of the American social and cultural fabric, offering a valuable resource not only for scholars and students of American studies, but also for the global study of tradition, folk arts, and cultural practice.
Frustrated over his failure to sell antiques in Betterton, a small town on the Chesapeake Bay, Mark Hopkins, a handsome, rich and bright 27-year old former SEAL, decides to become a private art dealer and buys a farm outside Rock Hall, near the Eastern Neck Island Wildlife Refuge. Two weeks later he discovers an important impressionist painting in an antiques store in Baltimore, which he buys for $10,000 and sells for $329,000. His joy, however is short-lived when his father dies unexpectedly, forcing him to take over operation of his family's steel mill in Baltimore. After the funeral, his death is ruled "by suspicious means." A subsequent murder resolves everything, with at least two gorgeous women always competing for his love. The characters are strong, with a storyline that reads like a movie script.
This saga centers around the Chesapeake Bay and Mark Hopkins, a charismatic former SEAL, who juggles his family life with running a steel mill (Bethlehem Steel at Sparrows Point), leasing part of the land to a research institute for the study of nudity, and wheeling and dealing in art. After finding a Remington bronze in a thrift store, which is sold for a $450,000 profit, his steel mill is sabotaged by a millionaire to avenge the court martial of his corrupt son. Woven into the overtly-comic storyline are several protégés: a hair-stylist who's transformed into a TV astrological forecaster; a tech writer, into a cabaret singer; and a knuckleball pitcher, into a pro-baseball scout whose first discovery is a young Navajo catcher from Taos, NM. The action, suspense and pace are crafted to have you turning pages to see what happens next. Expect suggestive double-entendre one-liners to tickle your funnybone.
