All these years later -- almost 40 years later -- the guys from the pool hall showed up again, and they were all young, good-looking and lean, and some of them sexy in that 1950s Sal Mineo-James Dean way. Here they were again, the boys from Benny's, bending over pool cues, hovering over cards, all brought to life when a fellow named Mike Lang decided to print some photographs he'd snapped in 1957 on a Leica 3C.
Amazing. Lang, who was born in 1942, had contracted polio when he was 7. He took up photography as a way of getting in touch with the world. He liked the scene at Benny's, which was a famous place on Belvedere Avenue at Reisterstown Road. Lang liked sitting and watching the other guys shoot pool or play pitch. He leaned on his crutches and took his pictures, developed the film and left his work unprinted until just a few months ago. What he saw in the dark room thrilled him, and well it should have. These are terrific photographs -- all black and white, and evoking the age of diner guys and drapes.
Teen-agers in Elvis and James Dean hair focus sharply on their shots. The owner of the place, Benny Kitt, racks up balls. One guy checks his cards below an Arrow Shirt poster featuring an exquisite Harlow-type nude. Another man lines up a shot with a cigar in his mouth. There's a Sal Mineo look-alike, pressed against a dark wall, and you feel the tension of the moment -- a payday wager on a game of eight ball? -- in his face.
"I was thrilled at the realization that I had it then," says Lang, who feels pretty good about the sharp eye he had as a 15-year-old with a Leica. "The pool hall photos are sort of a time warp. I'm very satisfied, amazed really."
The photographs hang at Benny's Gentlemen's Cue Club, Pikesville. The old Benny's is gone. (Benny Kitt is still around; he turned 85 in December). The Pikesville place, operated by Gordon Guss, opened in 1972 and still is frequented by some of the guys who showed up in Lang's photographs. Games for two are $4 an hour. You can even get a coddie made by Ida Greenfeld, the same woman who made them at Benny's, way back when.
Backing into trouble
For the first time maybe ever, I backed into a parking space in a shopping center. As you might know, I avoid the practice and decry it in others. (After I griped about this in a column last year, letters defending the practice fell in an avalanche on my desk.) Saturday afternoon, the parking lot outside the Super Fresh in the new shopping center on 41st Street -- where Greenspring Dairy used to be -- was very crowded. I spotted a space after passing it, stopped, flicked on a directional signal and started backing up. But out of nowhere, a dented rusty van, driven by a guy in a leather safari hat, pulled in, and the dope almost nipped my bumper in the process. So I learned a lesson -- to shop at the Giant up the street.
Pricey potty
So here's a question I'll bet you haven't pondered recently:
What's the going rate for construction of your basic state-of-the-art public restroom facility? You know, something rustic on the outside but not too rustic on the inside: Standard his-and-hers salons, vandal-proof, stainless steel fixtures and self-cleaning toilets. How about $42,000? That's what the state has given the town of Sykesville for a fancy outhouse in Cooper Park, along Route 32. The state's generosity surprised town fathers. "It is so well-funded," Mayor Jonathan Herman said of the facility, "maybe we could add a celestial observatory."
Gas to burn
Let's be real about this speed limit business. The new governor wants to make it 65 mph on some rural highways? Every day, people routinely drive at 70, and 80 or 85 is not uncommon. Out on the Beltway, you're more likely to see O.J. in a white Ford Bronco than a cop writing a ticket. Hey, we won the Persian Gulf War. We got fossil fuel coming out of our ears. Nobody cares about speed limits anymore.
Bill and the Babe
I see where President Clinton told the nation's mayors that he identified with Babe Ruth: "A little overweight and he struck out a lot but he hit a lot of home runs because he went to bat." And one could think of other points of comparison, couldn't one?
What can they do?
Let me get this straight:
Congress is passing term limits because its members can't be trusted in office, a balanced budget amendment because they can't balance the budget, the line-item veto because they can't cut pork, and an unfunded-mandates bill because they can't pay for their mandates. And we're supposed to be upset with the president?
Nose job
Man steps up to the counter at the NationsBank branch on Cross Street. He wants to cash a check.
"How did you want that?" the teller asks.
"Fifties," says the customer.
"Did you say fifties?"
"Fifties."
"Sorry. I just had my nose fixed, and now my ears aren't working."
Accidental tourists
After passing through a small Garrett County village on the way back from a ski weekend at Wisp, a friend proposed the following bumper sticker: "Accident -- A Town Waiting To Happen."