A caption in yesterday's Today section failed to identify several people in a picture taken at Bo Brooks restaurant. Pictured are (left to right):Karen Andrews, Bernie, Karen and Kristen Palacky, and Nancy Beall.
The Sun regrets the error.
How many (yawn) state dinners, (zzzzzzzz) private tours and (wake me up when it's over) protocol-perfect events can one woman take? Like, give the queen a break already!
Just because you're the queen of England doesn't mean you don't ever want to crack open a mess of crabs, bowl a few frames, let loose at Hammerjacks or just take a load off your sensibly clad feet on some white marble steps.
So welcome to Baltimore, hon, and just in case you want to veer off the beaten and official track when you come to town on Wednesday to see the Orioles game, some 400 Sun readers offered suggestions on where to go.
Many of the readers, responding to a Sundial call-in survey on where to take Queen Elizabeth II during her visit here, came up with the usual suspects, the Harborplace-National Aquarium-Phillips gauntlet that everyone runs their own out-of-town visitors through. But others suggested less traveled yet equally inviting spots.
Like, did you know:
* There's a drug store in Westminster where you can still get a 5-cent Coke?
"Every once in a while, you find something that never changes," said Cindy Rutzenbeck,36, who has worked at Schmitt's Rexall Drugs on Main Street for 21 years. She invites the queen to take a spin on one of the stools at the store's marble-fronted fountain and enjoy everyone's favorite after-school treat -- served cold. "They don't have a lot of ice in England," she recalled from her visit there.
* There's a school in Brooklandville with a replica of England's own Warwick Castle?
The once-private home, now a part of the Maryvale Preparatory School for Girls has a great hall, leaded glass, valley-view terrace complete with sundial and English boxwood trees on its grounds, said Sister Mary Lenahan, plant manager of the school.
"We thought if she came here, we'd find a horse and buggy to take her around," she bribed.
* And there are dozens of Marylanders willing to open up their homes to a stranger provided that stranger is the queen of England?
"I would take her to my house so she could see what a mess it is, and I'd take her to Ocean City 'cause that's one of the cooler
places in Maryland . . . and to my school because it's the best school in Maryland, Deerpark Middle, and then to my softball practice. Well, gotta go," one youngster rather breathlessly suggested.
In fact, the queen could spend months here and not run out of invitations -- everyone from a second-grade class to a Johns Hopkins fraternity to several senior citizen centers invited her to drop in. Not to mention the others who wanted to take her out to dinner (at Marconi's, Haussner's and Little Italy among other spots), or the museums (especially the new Hackerman House) or farther afield (Annapolis and the Eastern Shore).
The queen would return to England with some never-forget-us souvenirs as well: a personalized bowling ball, some new duds from C-Mart or K mart, toys for her grandchildren and, oh my, a tattoo from The Block.
Not to mention a lot of Old Bay Seasoning under her fingernails -- seems like everyone wants to smash some crabs with Her Majesty, either at popular crab houses like Bo Brooks, Obrycki's and Gunning's, less widely known neighborhood places or a newspaper-covered table in someone's backyard.
"When I first came to Baltimore two years ago, I was taken to Bo Brooks and I never forgot it," said Towson resident Karen Andrews, 32, of the Belair Road landmark. "I'd never had crabs with Old Bay before, and I'm certain the queen never has either."
Other callers suggested more royal treatment for the queen.
If she gives him a day or two of notice, Gil Schlossberg-Cohen can get some of his musical friends and neighbors together for a classical concert at his 141-year-old home on West Mount Vernon Place next door to the Hackerman House and down the block from the Peabody Conservatory.
"I just had the piano tuned," he said, "and we can have a nice little buffet and seat about 40 people here. It's the most beautiful area I've ever seen, and I think the queen would love to see it."
For all the high-style offerings many readers suggested -- the genteel Ladew Topiary Gardens in Monkton getting numerous mentions -- others thought the queen might need a break from all the fuss and fancy of a dignitary's travels.
"I would bring her home and sit down and have tea and talk about children and grandchildren because she is in the limelight so much I think she might enjoy sitting down and talking to a woman her own age," one kind reader offered.
Another caller would "start with a little dinner, kick back and relax with some crabs . . . then some bowling in Glen Burnie, where I'd have a ball made with 'QUEEN-E' on it."
Many seem to think the very proper queen might want to take a walk on the wild side while in Baltimore. The Block -- the fading red light district in downtown Baltimore -- came up in several responses: "People could have a royal flush," one caller punned.
The distinctly non-royal Hammerjacks, the high-decibel, rock venue in South Baltimore, also rated a mention or two.
"I would give her a tour of Hammerjacks on a Friday night at about 11 p.m. I think she'd be a little astonished, but nothing more extreme than what's in her own country," said Len Maiolatesi, 36, a mild-mannered accountant for the Army by day, a rock-and-roll junkie by night.
We got relatively few mean-spirited suggestions on where to take the queen, like "anywhere but the Governor's Mansion because she would
die laughing."
Others took the opportunity to vent some venom on state representatives: "Call a special session of the General Assembly in Annapolis -- best entertainment on the East Coast. And perhaps take the opportunity to give the state back to England -- they could pay for it."
And then there were those who constructively or otherwise pointed out the queen's fashion failings.
"Take her to Something Else in Mount Washington to get a new wardrobe," said S. A. Kalinich, 37, of Arnold of the funky boutique. "I think the reason is obvious. . . . I used to shop there when I lived in Baltimore. I think some of their geometric prints might brighten her up."
Some thoughtful callers, perhaps worried the queen might get homesick during her tour, suggested some reminders of her own country -- like tea at the Old Waverly Historic Exchange and Tea Room. "She would feel right at home," one caller promised.
If it's traditional English tea she wants, Les Roth will pour at his home, conveniently near the stadium should the queen want to stop en route. The expatriate Englishman, 48, is going to the game too, but would prepare a proper afternoon pick-me-up: "a good quality dark tea with a choice of lemon or milk . . . scones and strawberry jam and clot
ted cream," impossible to find locally but, for the queen, worth importing.
Noting the queen's equestrian streak, several callers suggested trips to Maryland's horse farms and race tracks, especially since she arrives in the middle of Preakness week.
And if it's relatives rather than routines that she misses, Kathryn Porter, 40, offered to "rerun a tape of the royal wedding of her son Prince Charles" on her VCR.
"It was really beautiful," recalled Ms. Porter, a nurse at Church Hospital. "But she's probably got her own tape of it, so instead I guess I'd take her to see the beautiful statue at Johns Hopkins Hospital."
Readers were divided on several questions of taste, such as the propriety of showing the queen the homes of Wallis Warfield Simpson, the American whose marriage to the Duke of Windsor led to his abdication and, ultimately, the Queen's reign. Or whether she'd like to see Fort McHenry, site of a battle in the War of 1812 in which the United States beat the British.
"I would just explain how important it is to Baltimore -- it's so important to understand where our national anthem comes from, and that's the home of it," said Andy Mayers, 26, of Mount Washington. "I know it's where we defeated the British, but I think it's time to let bygones be bygones."