Don't get me wrong. I LOVE my hometown, but part of the fun is poking fun at Baltimore's "quirks"--like the homicide rate. 
C'mon Ed, get back to MD. We still have beer, bands, and basses. The bands and basses are still in fine form, too. The beer, however, needs some work. Natty Boh ain't what it used to be.
Natty Boh isn't still "From the Land of Pleasant Living"? Forget it then, I'm not moving.
I haven't been back since I visited friends there in '76. I'm afraid there are a few things besides the Natty Boh holding me back;
I've actually checked real estate on line in good 'ole Severna Park and it looks like the entry fee for a nice home with a dock is well into seven figures. That would mean it would have to be my primary residence, and my wife won't move until her parents are passed on.
Which is a
real problem, because they are only a few years older than I am and in excellent health.
Probably a better chance of my wife and her parents moving to MD after
I'm passed on.
Most importantly, I couldn't ever recapture my memories. Worse than that, it would likely ruin the ones I have. The short time I was there was my adolescence, although it was only age 13-15, it felt like I lived a decade in those years; as I mentioned the "firsts" (and a few "firsts" I won't get explicit about in print
), and the fact that time passes so much more slowly when you're young.
Sorry for the ramble down memory lane, but I do think that you "Land of Pleasant living" folks are in a pretty good place to be, even though it's sometimes hard to recognize when you've lived someplace most of your life.
