What's in Dave's Head

Donna and I took off for the weekend, to one of my favorite places, Maryland’s Eastern Shore, known as The Land of Pleasant Living. From our home in Columbia, you cross three bridges along the way— the Severn River Bridge,   the 4.5-mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and finally the Kent Narrows Bridge, after which you are officially on the Eastern Shore. Each takes you further back in time, to a slower, less crowded, quieter place. It’s not the horse-and-buggy lifestyle of the Amish in Pennsylvania, but it’s certainly more serene than life in the midst of the Baltimore-Washington corridor. You are among farms that date to the 1600s and 1700s, flat horizons broken by lone, wood-frame houses and the occasional tree line. There are reminders of civilization: a cell tower here, a grain elevator there, and, increasingly, encroaching housing developments. When you go, pay attention to the names. The towns: Sudlersville, Galena, Snow Hill. The narrow strips of land between the scads of...

Saturday, March 14 was the annual St. Patrick’s Day pub crawl in Baltimore hosted by my daughter Eileen, her husband Andrew Swanekamp, and their friends Ryan and Eric Pfoutz. Our route map (doesn't help) We start the festivities with an Irish breakfast at the Swanekamps. Our group this year numbered 15. After a hearty breakfast and a toast to the patron saint of Ireland, our first stop was the same as last year—Cardinal Tavern, whose owner Larry always welcomes us with open arms (and why not?). As always, Eileen makes up detailed maps of our route for the day. Unfortunately, despite very clear directions, many of us are not capable of using the map to inform our walking. Most assuredly not after the intake of adult beverages. Still, we arrived at our destinations without losing anyone. Erin, Kate, Donna, Jack Cardinal makes a wonderful bloody Mary, the glass rimmed with salt and Old Bay, the tomato juice, worcestershire and Tabasco enriched by a generous pour...

As we approach St. Patrick’s Day, I thought I’d do a little digging into the making of saints. Legend has it that St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, was the first to explain the holy trinity with a shamrock, and that he drove the snakes from Ireland.   In fact, he was not born in Ireland. He was probably born in Wales or Britain. He was kidnapped by pirates as a boy and sold into slavery in Ireland. He escaped after about six years, and fled to France, where he joined a monastery and studied religion for years before returning to Ireland, where he converted many Pagans to Christianity. A link to an interesting website about St. Patrick is here . The making of saints According to Wikipedia, today there are 810 canonized Roman Catholic saints, from Abadiu of Antinoe to Zygmunt Gorazdowski. The road to sainthood begins with the   Congregation for the Causes of Saints ,   an administrative body of the Church that oversees the process that leads first...