It begins as South Hanover Street, a gritty stretch through south Baltimore, and winds its way through strip malls and shopping plazas, tiny towns and rolling farms. It ends after 72 miles, at scenic Solomons Island on the Chesapeake Bay.
Maryland Route 2 — called Ritchie Highway above Annapolis, Solomons Island Road below it — is one of the busiest north-south arteries in eastern Maryland, and no part of it says more about the quirky character of the Old Line State than the 39 miles that run through Anne Arundel County.
Many who live and work along Route 2 say new box stores and burger joints have soiled its character. Everyone gripes about the traffic. But a drive from urban Brooklyn in the north to pastoral Friendship in the south is a motorized meet-and-greet with proud, funny people who appreciate the past, have an eye on the future and live by a potent sense of what matters in life.
It took two days to drive the stretch from north to south, with stops along the way — at funny signs, at oddball buildings, at places that radiated history. The folks had a lot to say.
Carol's Western Wear
7347 Ritchie Highway, Glen Burnie
It's hard to resist a 10-foot-high cowboy boot beside a busy road, especially where used-car lots are the norm. A sign with Wild West lettering begs a question: What do 10-gallon hats and Glen Burnie have in common?
"Who's my customer? Anybody that will watch a John Wayne movie," says Bob Chance, 74, who founded Carol's Western Wear in 1968 and opened a second store in Laurel 23 years later.
Carol's (named for Chance's first wife) blends history, quality and humor in a Maryland way. Chance's dad bought the building after the Depression and used it to house an upholstery shop — and his wife and kids.
Chance grew fond of Western wear while in Wyoming with the Air National Guard. He later took up square dancing in Glen Burnie, only to learn he had to drive to Timonium or Washington for supplies. He decided to sell them himself.
Forty-two years later, Chance carries boots by 26 manufacturers, ranging from $90 to $1,000, in sizes 3A to 18 EEEE, in material from stingray to ostrich. But he sees basics as king. "It's about the fit," he says.
With its belt buckles, bolo ties and marshal badges, the place gives off charm as a horse kicks up dust. "What other kind of clothing says, 'I'm American?'" Chance asks. "There's a little cowboy in all of us."
Ann's Dari-Crème
7918 Ritchie Highway, Glen Burnie
The 7-foot fiberglass hot dog out front — clad in pearls, condiments and a bun — appears for all the world to be doing a touchdown dance.
It's two o'clock one afternoon, customers are lined up outside the door, and it's clear that after 59 years, Ann's Dari-Crème — a shrine to foot-long dogs, soft-serve ice cream and old-time values — still has a lot to celebrate.
"It's the best value you can get for lunch or carry-out, the best foot-long you can find, and the best service you could hope for — every time," says Michael Derrickson of Kent Island as he munches a plump, chili-slathered dog, one of the 650 or so the place will sell that day.
Derrickson, a Glen Burnie native, is like many customers: He started going there in 1961, as a kid, and still plans his errands around regular visits. A favorite perk: The "girls" at the counter still take orders without writing a word.
"We do things a certain way," says manager Patricia "Pat" Schreiber, who has worked there for 44 years, since the tenure of the original owners, Ann and Ray Hines. "We're a family."
That sense emanates from "Mr. P.," owner George Pinskey, who bought the business in 1976, raises prices only every two years and takes an interest in the lives of his 18 employees, Schreiber says.
That sustained the business through a dicey time, when the $50 million Marley Station Mall went up behind it in 1986. "It didn't hurt us," Schreiber says.
It still hasn't. "An everything dog and a cherry-chocolate shake," barks a customer before stepping aside. More orders come thick and fast. The lunch rush lasts until 3.
Earleigh Heights Volunteer Fire Company
161 Ritchie Highway, Severna Park
All's quiet at the Earleigh Heights Volunteer Fire Company, a two-story, 1950s-era building at Route 2 and Earleigh Heights Road.
Turns out they're too busy. "Everyone was out on call," says Charles Disney, the president, later in the day.
That's par for the course for an outfit that was formed in a local living room in 1918 and is one of the county's oldest active fire companies at the tender age of 92.
It's thick with history. After that first meeting, the group had 14 members and a budget of $2.50. A year later, they bought their first engine — a horse-drawn cart that could lug ropes, ladders and buckets — for $50. Current members like Bill Weitzel, now in his 67th year, don't remember back that far, but Disney says many of the 154 volunteers can recite high points dating back half as far as 1955, when the current site was purchased for $6,000.
They now enjoy state-of-the-art gear, including two Pierce engines that blast 1,750 gallons of water a minute.
For all the upgrades, Disney says, it still has a small-town feel. The company, an independent corporation, gets support from the county, but it mainly relies on bingo nights, bull roasts and a carnival it puts on every July to keep going. "We serve the community," he says, "but we're part of it, too."
Rey's Crabs
363 Ritchie Highway, Severna Park
In contrast to the shiny look of the banks, pricey restaurants and condo towers passed on the drive south, it's the anti-glamor of Rey's Crabs that draws like an undertow.
It looks as if a stiff breeze could level the shack at the corner of Ritchie Highway and Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard, but Rey's has stood firm on this acre and a half since Rey Yesker decided in 1988 that 20 years as a waterman were enough and started the business.
"Actually, that's just when he got lazy," says Yesker's wife, Patty, his partner and chief needler.
Rey's is still prosperous, even during a recession, because it offers attractions other places don't, the Rey Yesker says. He buys his seafood fresh daily, from five watermen he knows personally. He and Patty steam crabs to order. The prices are good ($45 a dozen for the heftiest males), and the two know their customers well enough not to have to ask what spices to use (during cooking, not after).
"Rey's has the old-time feeling," says Pasadena's Bob Sappington, who goes there two or three times a week during the May-to-November season. "My dad used to have a place on Deale Island, and the crab shacks were just like this. ... Why pay for an inferior product when you just can walk in here and get the best quality on Ritchie Highway?"
Yesker has no plans to retire, though he never forgets the value of his property. "I don't know what I'm asking for [the land]," he says. "I'll know it when I hear it."
No matter; he's had ample payment. "I've been here 25 years," he says. "It still doesn't feel like work."
Severna Park Golf Center
1257 Ritchie Highway, Arnold
The golf ball on the sign gleams like a Titleist just fished from a ball washer.
The Severna Park Golf Center, a sort of full-service stop for golfers of all levels, is like that: clean and fresh, a place that feels as if it has started anew.
And it has. Three years ago, owner Rob Brilliant took a 44-year-old site that boasted an 18-hole mini golf course, a 9-hole par-3 layout (one of the few in Maryland where patrons can play under the lights), a pro shop and a driving range, and spearheaded a huge upgrade.
An 8-foot waterfall now centers a handicapped-accessible "putt-putt" course upgraded by Harris Miniature Golf. A dozen players can be seen on the 900-yard par-3 layout (longest hole: 125 yards), its greens shining in the sun. A half-dozen more hit balls from a 44-station driving range (17 are enclosed for bad-weather days).
"We're like the post office," says Chris Bowan, 19, a worker who bought his first clubs there. "Rain, snow, sleet or hail, we're open."
Golfers love to chat, and the people there follow form. Head pro Winnie Sewell talks swing basics (grip, stance, and rethinking the impulse to rely on one's arms), as well as how attitudes have changed.
The same men who used to want their wives to stay home, she says, now pay for their golf lessons. "Couples have found it's a good way to spend time together," she says.
And golfers, like golf centers, can always improve. Bowen raves about the practice sand trap on site. "That's where I learned to swing really hard to get out of a bunker," he says.
Sewell doesn't like what he taught himself. "You swing hard in sand?" she says, an eyebrow raised. "You and I should talk."
Mystery Bat
3101 Solomon's Island Road, Edgewater
It stands on Route 2, cars and trucks whizzing by. It's 25 feet high, cylindrical and appears to be made of cement. It's bears no clear relation to the businesses nearby.
Sometimes you have to stop just to ask a dumb question. What in the name of Anne Arundel is it?
"A baseball bat," says a man named Chris, who quiets an angry pit bull long enough to say he's caretaker of the largely empty 100-by-700-foot lot on which the sculpture stands. "There used to be a putt-putt course with batting cages here. It drew customers in."
Chris says he rents part of the site from its owner, Jeff Cox of Edgewater. When reached by phone, it's like Cox has been waiting years to tell this tale.
Fifteen years ago, Cox, a contractor, decided to start a fun business. He hand-built Chesapeake Putt and Pitch, a games park with a nautical theme. Guests putted around buoys and crab pots, bought hot dogs out of a Tilghman Island boat, and swung at balls in a cage at the back of the lot.
Cox also made the bat. He started with a length of phone pole, he says, then wrapped it in construction foam, attached fiberglass mesh, and packed on an exterior of drywall mud. He dug a 7-foot hole, had the 2,000-pound creation lowered in by crane, and gave birth to a conversation piece for the ages.
Within five years, the putt and pitch was out of business. That still pains Cox, 45. "It was a tear-jerker [to close it in 2000]."
Were it open today, Cox says, the putt and pitch would be a home run. "Nowadays, parents drop a kid off and give him 100 bucks to spend," he says. "In my day, Edgewater parents dropped their kids off with five bucks to spend. Today, it's $100. I must have been ahead of my time."
ATW Hardware & Supply
3410 Pike Ridge Road, Edgewater
Ted Kramer, owner of ATW Hardware & Supply, says he had a big sign on his store for years, but it was never enough to draw attention.
So he created "The Man," and life hasn't been the same since.
Four years ago, Kramer, an outside-the-box type, had a scarecrow in his Edgewater front yard to fend off deer. Inspiration struck. He'd put it on the roof of ATW and see what happened.
He even added a twist: The Man's head was a plaster-cast impression of his own face. "He's as ugly as I am," Kramer says with a booming laugh.
Since then, he has changed The Man's position once a week or so, engaging him in a variety of activities mostly unrelated to hardware. The Man has fought King Kong, wrestled with and flown a biplane and saluted the flag. (You can see photos of his exploits on ATW's MySpace page.)
In 2007, when vandals stole The Man off the roof, the event made the front page of a local paper. "Now, every time I take him down [to change him], people stop by to make sure he's all right," Kramer says.
Parenthetically, locals see ATW as the place to go for hardware problems big and small. Jay Meade of Edgewater, a regular, arrived one afternoon in search of a polished 3/8-inch bolt for his Harley. Kramer forked one over. "These guys always have what you're looking for," he says — one reason the place has thrived since 1988.
But quality and humor can blend. There's an angry-looking mannequin in a front window, a cartoon balloon beside his face to show that he's speaking.
You lean down to read the small handwriting. "Get the f*%$ in here and buy something!" it says.
All Hallows' Episcopal Church ("The Brick Church")
3604 Solomon's Island Road, Edgewater
"You enter this [place] not as a stranger, but as a guest of God," reads a placard by the door to All Hallows' Episcopal Church — better known as The Brick Church —which sits amidst a grove of elms and maples as it has for more than 340 years.
No one's there on a sunny afternoon, but the place has a welcoming feel and, with its delicately arrayed red brick and gently worn headstones, emanates history.
The earliest parish records, according to a researcher, date to 1669. The church was established in 1692, the year the king and queen of England planted the Anglican church in Maryland. An early rector was Mason Locke Weems, who gained fame as an author in 1800 by inventing the story of George Washington and the cherry tree.
Still, the place feels modern. Its current rector, the Rev. Alistair So, 34, was born in Hong Kong, according to the church's website, and is a trained biochemist. He sees it as part of his mission to "reach out to those who can't reconcile science and religious faith," and has a special interest in helping others "see the face of God in all our diversity."
The themes would have been unlikely in Weems' time, or even as recently as 1940, when a fire gutted the place. Builders completed a restoration that year. It still seems as good as new.
History markers
Route 2, south of Mill Swamp Road, Harwood
With its broad lawns and big farms, the stretch below Edgewater — encompassing unincorporated Birdsville and Harwood — is free of billboards, but some small signs reveal what this area traffics in: history.
Starting in 1933, the state's historic trust and its highway administration teamed up to create markers around Maryland, placards that relate its past. At the spot, two such signs recall a period at odds with the serenity of the setting: the 1680s, when Charles Lord Baltimore, the colony's stiff-necked governor, squabbled with his counterpart William Penn over how to build the colonies.
Larkin's Hill Farm, a brick house that still stands on a hill there, was Maryland's temporary capital for a time in 1683. As one sign says, the Catholic Lord Baltimore met the General Assembly there to create 31 new villages; later, he and Penn, a liberal Quaker, met to hash out differences.
Penn must have had his say on the matter of religious tolerance. While motoring south toward Calvert County, drivers pass Baptist, Methodist, Anglican and Evangelical churches. Along Route 2, history lives.
Dick and Jane's Farm Market
4361 Solomon's Island Road, Harwood
Dick and Jane's Farm Market is hardly the kind of place likely to upset the neighbors — any neighbors. Richard and Jane Bishop have been selling local flowers and produce there for 27 years, and passing motorists still honk and wave.
Dick, 60, describes what's really on the menu: "Good old Southern Maryland hospitality," he says.
Theirs is a success story. They met in rural Virginia, where Dick grew up and Jane was a student at Radford Girls' College (now Radford University). Before dating her, Dick dated her identical twin sister, Jean.
With the girls' permission, he switched.
"I'm friendly, and Jane's sweet and charming," he says. "She went better with my personality." Four daughters later, they settled on his wife's family farm, a peaceful spread of 27 acres.
In business, they dealt only with local farmers. They hired local kids, then their brothers and sisters. They improvised: Theirs is the only stand around that ices corn to prevent the loss of sugar content.
But in 2008, a neighbor — one of the few they hadn't met — filed a complaint with the county, arguing that they shouldn't be selling on an agricultural site. Dick and Jane's shut down in the fall and didn't know whether they'd reopen again. "It was scary," says daughter Sandy Harner, the manager.
They reacted as they always do — without rancor. The Bishops went to council meetings that addressed the controversy, but they never said a word. "We wanted to learn what the community felt," he says. After hundreds of locals filed a petition in their support, the council backed them with a new law.
One recent afternoon, he's anything but mad. He says it's fair that everybody get their say. But it sure felt great to learn they were wanted. "We hope [the complainant] comes by sometime," Dick says. "She'd like it here."