Rain was predicted for today, and rain it did. It was raining when we got up, and it rained most of the day, but it wasn't a heavy rain, except for a few minutes in the morning. While we were eating breakfast, lightning flashed overhead and there was a deafening clap of thunder, but then the thunder and lightning moved on and we just had rain.
The rain has really cooled things off. I put on long pants, solid shoes, and a sweatshirt for the first time in months. Roy has been wearing long pants, solid shoes, and a shirt for several days. It's hard to believe it was so hot a few days ago, and now it's so cool. The temperature is actually down in the 60's!
Since we couldn't varnish today, we decided to ride buses and do some sightseeing. Also, we wanted to go by the Post Office and get Roy's mail from General Delivery, but when we got there, they didn't have any mail for him, so Roy thinks maybe he told Steve to send his mail to Wilmington. He'll phone Steve later and find out.
Across the street from the Post Office is what looks like a tall brick smokestack. It's called "Shot Tower". We crossed the street to find out what it was. It was built in the early 1800's out of more than a million bricks and was used to make lead shot for guns. Molten lead was poured through a sieve at the top of the tower and fell 240 feet into a large basin of water. The falling shaped the lead into pellets and the water cooled it off. It produced nearly half a million pounds of shot a year for a number of years before becoming outmoded. Now, of course, it's a historical landmark.
I wanted to see Edgar Allen Poe's grave, so we took a bus to within a block or two of where it is. Unfortunately (as it turned out), I saw a sign pointing to Poe's house, so we headed in that direction. We walked for blocks, following the signs. We soon found ourselves in a poverty-stricken ghetto area. We were making puns about all the houses being po' houses, and we hoped we didn't end up in the po' house. Roy kept saying we were in the wrong part of town and should get out of there, but I said we were almost to Poe's house and kept going. The signs led us around corners. In fact, we made a loop. I can't understand why they didn't have us go directly around the corner to the house, instead of going a block out of the way and doubling back. Maybe it was a one-way street. Anyway, we were walking down a side street, looking for the house, when a young man stepped off his front porch and asked us if we were looking for the Poe house. He offered to take us there. We figured he was like the guy in Coxen's Hole and would want a tip for his "services", so I said, "Don't put yourself out; we'll find it," but he insisted on showing us the way. At first he walked in front of us, but then he went around in back of us. Suddenly, he put his hand inside his jacket as if he had a gun in his pocket (maybe he did), and he said, "Take all your money out of your pockets." I didn't believe what I was hearing, so I said, "What?" He said, "Take all the money out of your pockets." I held out my empty hands to show I wasn't carrying a purse and said, "I don't have any." (Actually, my wallet was in my backpack, which was under my rain poncho.) Like a broken record, he kept repeating, "Take all the money out of your pockets." I was trying to figure out whether or not I should take him seriously and hand over my money. He was soft-spoken and didn't seem threatening. I couldn't quite believe he actually had a gun and would use it in broad daylight with other people around. He didn't act deranged or anything like that. In fact, he seemed like a courteous young man.
I kept holding my hands out and saying, "I don't have any," and he kept saying, "Take all the money out of your pockets." I guess he finally believed me, because he switched to: "Tell your husband to take all the money out of his pockets." I don't know why he didn't address Roy directly; perhaps he thought Roy was more likely to hand over his money if he threatened me. Roy said, "We're old people living on Social Security. We don't have any money."
"Take all the money out of your pockets."
Roy was trying to decide whether he should hand over his money or tackle this guy who was a mere 50 years younger than Roy. If he had sounded more threatening or had flashed a gun or some of his friends had crawled out of the woodwork to help him, we probably would have handed over our money. Even if he'd repeated the old tune, "Take all the money out of your pockets," three or four more times, I'd have probably given him my money. We had less than $100 between us; it certainly wasn't worth risking our lives for. But suddenly a miracle happened. We don't know if we convinced him we didn't have any money or he saw a Police car in the distance or what, but out of the blue he said, "Just joking," turned around, and walked away.
Roy hurried me around the corner onto a busier street. We had been right in front of the Edgar Allen Poe house, and I had wanted to at least look at it, but Roy grabbed my arm and said, "Let's get out of here fast." We were delighted to see a Police Officer half a block away. We hurried up to him and told him what had happened. He asked for a description of the man. Neither of us had looked at him closely enough to really be able to describe him. The best we could do was say he was a young black male, perhaps twenty to twenty-five, tall and slender, clean-shaven, dressed in black and carrying a black umbrella. That description would have fit a thousand guys in the neighborhood. The best clue was that he apparently lived right around the corner; he had been on the front porch of a house and had spoken to a woman inside. The Police Officer asked us if we wanted to see the Poe house, but Roy said, "No, thank you!" The officer and another officer who had come up walked in the direction of the street we had just come from. Roy and I walked as fast as we could back towards the University of Maryland Medical Center, just a few blocks away.
It was after two and we hadn't had lunch, so we were famished. There weren't any restaurants in the area, so we decided to see if we could eat in the hospital cafeteria. We went into what I thought was the hospital Linda had been in, but as soon as we entered the lobby, I knew something was wrong. I didn't remember any escalators in the lobby. Then I saw a sign. We were in the V.A. hospital. But there was a canteen on the second floor, and the man at the desk said we could go up there, so we did. We were too late for lunch, but there were prepackaged sandwiches, salads, and pies, so we were able to eat.
How good it felt to be in a safe environment, intact in both body and wallet! That was the closest either of us had ever come to being held up. Our houses had been burglarized a couple of times when no one was home, but we'd never been face to face with a thief before. The whole incident still seemed unreal.
After lunch we walked across the street to the churchyard where Edgar Allen Poe's grave is. There was a monument to him and other members of his family. There were also a lot of other old crypts and gravestones, some of them dating back to the 1790's.
Roy wanted to get the battery charger repaired, so we took a bus to a store we'd read an ad for that did marine electronics repairs.
They said they'd have to send it out and it would take at least ten days. Since we don't expect to be here ten more days, that ended that.
Roy's right shoe was hurting his toes, so we went to a couple of shoe stores and finally found a comfortable pair of shoes, which he bought. With them on, he could walk comfortably.
We walked a few blocks to the Inner Harbor and visited the old frigate, "Constellation", which was built in 1797 and was one of the first boats ever built for the United States Navy. The woodwork was remarkable. The visit was very interesting.
We wanted to go up to the observation floor in the World Trade building, but it was closed, so we returned to the boat.
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