Going to the girls

We'll be heading to Baltimore on Friday. We haven't seen Josh and Cathy and 'the girls' (our three granddaughters: Emma, Morgan and Tegan) since Thanksgiving. They were out of the country at Christmas and we were going down last weekend--what a mess that would have been--driving into the snowstorm!

It'll be a quick trip for me since I have to be in church for an Annual Meeting on Sunday. Bern can stay through and come home on the train.

For all the bad press, Baltimore is a manageable and interesting city. Very ethnic. I can find my way around Baltimore pretty well. Lots of problems, of course, and some of them are daunting.

Unlike most places, the haves and have-nots are cheek and jowl in Baltimore. You can be in a rather high priced neighborhood and a block later half the brownstones are boarded up.

The neighborhoods are very distinct. Josh and Cathy live in Camden, which is growing by attracting young professionals. Other neighborhoods are emptying out for lack of jobs and possibilities. And yes, the most telling divides are along racial lines.

Poor Black neighborhoods almost touch the trendy area where Johns Hopkins rules.

It is a city of great and wrenching diversity and gaps.

But the girls live there, so it's one of my favorite places!