What does home really mean to you? To me, it’s a place your subconscious understands as relief. For me, that’s White Marsh – where I survived, learned, and belonged.

Legal Description of Lot 5961, folio 511

BEGINNING for the same at a point on the centerline of Ebenezer Road as now located, said place of beginning being the same place of beginning of the first described parcel of land in a deed dated July 2, 1957, from William E. Carroll, et ux, to Wilson T. Stevens, et ux, and recorded among the Land Records of Baltimore County, Maryland Liber G.L.B. No. 3186, folio 417, running thence binding on or near the center of said road and binding on the first or South 49 degrees 31 minutes East 10 foot line of said first described parcel of land, as now surveyed,

(1) South 51 degrees 20 minutes 00 seconds East 10.00 feet, running thence still binding on or near the center of said road and binding for part of the distance on the first or South 54-1/2 degrees East 50 foot line of the second described parcel of land of said conveyance and binding for part of the distance on part of the first or Southeasteriy 60 foot line of the third described parcel of land of said conveyance, in all, as now surveyed,

(2) South 54 desgrees 00 minutes 33 seconds East 90.00 feet, running thence leaving said road and binding reversely on the last or North 36 degrees 45 minutes East line of that parcel of land described in a deed dated February 7 1957, from William E. Carroll, et ux, to John W. Carroll, et ux, and recorded among the Land Records of Baltimore County, Maryland in Liber G.L.B. No. 3101, folio 258, as now surveyed,

(3) South 36 degrees 45 minutes 00 seconds West passing over a pipe set at a distance of 15.00 feet and passing over another pipe set at a distance of 310.83 feet, in all, 337.93 feet to Intersect the sixth or North 45-1/4 degrees West 60 foot line of the third described parcel of the herein first mentioned conveyance running thence for part of the distance on part of said sixth line and binding for part of the distance on the third or North 45-1/4 degrees West 51 foot line of the second described parcel of land of the herein first mentioned conveyance, as now surveyed in all

(4) North 45 degrees 15 minutes 00 seconds West 90.88 feet, running thence binding on the third or North 47 degrees 33 minutes West 10 foot line of the first described parcel of land of the herein first mentloned conveyance, as now surveyed,

(5) North 51 cegrees 58 minutes 00 seconds West 10.00 feet, running thence binding on the fourth or North 41 degrees 10 minutes East 327.64 foot line of the first described parcel of land of the herein first mentioned conveyance, as now surveyed,

(6) North 36 degrees 45 minutes 00 seconds East passir over a pipe set at a distance of 26.02 feet and passing over another pipe at a distance of 309.20 feet, in all, 324.20 feet to the place of beginning Containing 0.758 acres of land, more or less.

Property Analysis

The house was at the front edge of suburban growth, purchased before the development of White Marsh Mall, the Industrial Park, and the Route 40 and I-95 Exit, which helped make the area recognizable.

Recollections recorded starting on January 13, 2026

A Vanishing Childhood

Quite often throughout my adult life, for no reason it would seem, I would sometimes blurt out, “I just wanna go home.” This is somehow stuck in my subconscious as a self-soothing verbal reflex, often triggered by thoughts that elicit embarrassment or other emotions. No matter where I lived, home was always White Marsh.

None of the trees, hedges, or foliage in the front yard is present. Some tall hedges were added between the house next door and the house for privacy. The lot now has a sidewalk. A telephone pole is located at the center of the property to provide power to the garage.

Revisiting As an Adult

I often hear the phrase, “You can never go back home.” It’s more directly tied to the childhood home you grew up in. I lived here from ages 3 to 15. I left White Marsh in my freshman year of high school and didn’t return until my 40s, shortly after my divorce. I had a crush on my next-door neighbor growing up, and she invited my brother and me to her daughter’s birthday party at her dad’s house, which turned out to be the part of our old house he was renting out in White Marsh.

The house was smaller than I recall. Everything looked normal, but I seemed to approach things quickly. A walk to the hill overlooking the stream was just a few steps, where I recall running like crazy when it got dark, afraid that something might be chasing me from the darkness if I looked back.

Things are just different, both inside and outside the house. Returning home seemed to dig at me, that my memories were not as clear as I had thought. The garage had been converted into a two-story home, with stairs leading up the front. The back area, where my dad parked his tractor under a tin roof, was even incorporated into the building. Even going inside the house, there were a few differences. The dining room was now a living room. It wasn’t quite the home I lived in.

Rumors of Suicide

Years after leaving, a story circulated among the neighbors. After our family had left, either the mother or the son killed themselves in an institution, and as a result, the other hung themselves in the basement out of grief. The deaths in the family led the father to move into the garage and turn it into a home, and he refused to live in the original house. It’s the kind of wild ghost stories you would hear around a campfire.

When we discussed it, it was suggested that there might have been a change in medicine. The question we all had was – how would they hang themselves? The basement had only a long, thin copper pipe just under the stairs, which wouldn’t support anyone’s weight, and the ceilings were low. The attic would have been a better way to do it, since the short fence around the stairs opening offered plenty of space to tie things to, but it still seemed far-fetched. Half of the bottom floor was used for his business, while the rest of the house was rented to the husband of our old neighbor.

The Childhood I Remember

White Marsh is my childhood. It’s a time of innocence – even though I did get into a bit of trouble, it’s still the foundation of who I am today. There are vast memories. They are scattered and not in order. This is my attempt to remember what once was. My youngest sister doesn’t remember much at all, so perhaps when I am finished, all of my siblings can read and understand a little more what I experienced – or at least, what I recall experiencing.

Honeygo Run

We had a creek at the back of the property called Honeygo Run. It was a small, shallow creek that I never recall running dry. The water was eroding the bank. My parents once got a lot of concrete leftovers, like chopped-up bits removed from buildings, and had them dumped on the bank. It made it difficult to walk down to the river in most places. Later, he would plant willow trees along the bank to help the roots hold the soil in place.

We would often go play down at a part of the river where one of the concrete blocks formed a three-foot-square pad that made a nice dock, overhanging the river a few inches above it. I would flip over big round rocks in the river. I carried a big rock back home once that weighed almost 10 pounds on the bathroom scale. There weren’t any fish that I recall, other than tadpoles and crawfish. We saw water striders skimming across the surface in some spots. We would occasionally find box turtles, toads, and snakes around the yard. Once we found a giant snapping turtle. My dad picked it up by the tail. The thing would hiss and snap. He carried it to the high bank of the stream and tossed it into the honeysuckle bushes. I hadn’t seen or heard of a snapping turtle before that.

Floods

Dad often brings up that we were close to tidal waters, as the tide came in around the railroad tracks near our house. Our house sat about 40 feet above sea level. During heavy rains, the creek would flood. During one of the floods, I grabbed an inflatable tube and a wooden dowel about an inch thick and took them to the backyard, where the water was pooling. I used the rod to poke at the ground beneath me, guiding the tube. I also went onto my neighbor’s flooded property because there was more room to float. It was pretty dark when the firemen from the fire department next door spotted me with their flashlights and asked me what I was doing. I showed them my dowel, and for the most part, they got a kick out of it. I returned home. After the waters had subsided, I noticed many holes in the neighbor’s yard. Nobody said anything, but I knew it was my doing. In my mid-40s, I had my yard aerated once and realized I might have helped rather than damaged his, but I’ll never know.

The Hill

We had a big hill we would go down before reaching the creek, and one year the creek rose close to the top. On one side of our property, the hill was steeper; on the other, it had a gradual decline. Our neighbors had a very steep hill, which we would slide down in the winter.

Mockup within Second Life

Many years later, I would attempt to recreate my home in a virtual environment called Second Life, as I remembered it.

TODO:

• Helicopters & Accidents
• Money from dads accident
• Meeting the owners (cross in kitchen)
• Moving between each bedroom
• Brother pushing hand through glass in kitchen door
• Watching a tree fall in the woods out back
• Moms Champ
• Dads 56 chevy
• Dads 57 chevy
• Dads big van
• Moms Chevy Astro Van – walky talkies and mcdonalds run with tons of kids
• Dark brown long camper van
• Grey trailer and watching the wheel come off on the highway on the way to delray
• Yard sales on front porch
• Watching dad with cement gate posts with front sidewalk
• Neighbors telephone heard from far away
• Grape vine
• Dads hunting friends practicing on the back hill while I watch from the tree
• Climbing the big tree on the hill
• Sandbox under the giant oak, and getting sand from genstar
• White Marsh Mall construction
• Mom
  • Crosses out city, and writes town on forms
  • Corrects people that White Marsh Mall is not in White Marsh
• Me playing with the dryer door, getting scarred on thumb
• Mom putting up contact paper on lower half of walls with blue tape at top
  • Dad later puts white paneling over it
• Kitchen with rug – bleach spot
• Looking out the kitchen window on my 13th birthday, knowing nobody cared
• Living Room
  • Green Rug with indentation of pattern
• Using mattresses to slide down steps
• Mighty Mouse poster
• Melting crayons into bottle caps.
• Spaghetti on ceiling is done
• Generator plug on back porch
• Roosters and hatching chicks
• Big coloring books in moms closet
• Exploring old stuff in the attic
• Finding dollar coins in a silver piggy bank, and garbage pale kids
• Reading a picture bible in the attic back room
• Looking at old cowboy cards (like baseball cards)
• Using a pin to take out plastic seal in bottle cap and fastening it to other side for a make shift record player
• Dads stereo with 8-Track and record player in dining room, learning hooked on phonics records
• Dining room light that could be pulled down lower, and had a dimmer
• Games on steps to answer questions to get to the bottom
• Black Walnut tree made into a large dining room table, benches, and chairs
  • Denting it with a flat-head screwdriver
  • Using a typewriter sitting at the table
• Crawling up doors with hands spread out
• Big freezer on inner-back porch
• Moms bread and the radiators
• Daydreams about a piece of wood, turning it into a tour guide trolly/tram and using paper towel role to make announcements
• Throwing jumping jacks, firecrackers in the air, some go in stream, one flies by ear
• Exploring the woods behind the house
  • Fire starter on shoes and lighting on fire
• A basement full of soda
• Trees in yard: Green Apple, Cherry, Chestnut, Willow, Big Oak, Figs
• Mom gets HBO with a special filter on the cable in the basement
• Tons of VCR tapes
• Roaches, Bug Bombs, R2-D2 vacuum, the final fix – powder. Boric Acid?
• Dad builds
  • Wooden stove
  • Special outlet for generator to plug into during power outages
  • Basement floods
  • Trampoline in basement with carpet tacs between rafters
  • Flipping the light switch on/off in the basement while spinning on the sit-and-spin
  • The old red/white acoustic guitar
  • Grate in ceiling
  • Door in living room
  • Downstairs half-bathroom
  • Shower attachment
  • Second Door to the attic
    • Old railroad engines on purple wall paper behind paneling
    • Skinny horizontal sticks behind drywall
  • Bookshelves downstairs
  • Laundry hookup in the basement
  • Extension of driveway with gravel parking lot
• Sick on the toilet (parents didn’t recognize lactose intolerance)
• Uncle Bill lives with us
  • Babysitter woken by horse raddish
  • Attacked by sister with knives
• Watching snow fall in car dealer lights
• Flags from car antennas during sales are falling off along the road, and then tied to our bikes
• Dad’s 57 chevy restoration
• Camping van – brief ownership
• Exploring the woods out back
• Watching a tree fall down
• Playing with Fire starter on shoes
• Bikes to White Marsh Mall
• Dale’s Christmas Tree Farm
• Walking to Grandmas House along the tracks
  • Big long bridge over Gunpowerder Falls
  • Pennys on the tracks
  • Feeling the tracks for vibrations
  • Running to the tree line
• Taking Bicycle along Route 7 to Grandmas House
• Electric Shocks – Attic and Garage Attic
• Wood pile fence to keep kids from going to stream
• The large garden
  • Dads water pump from the river, and making small water channels
  • Jewish Artichokes – yuck
  • Moms Mashed Turnips (not potatoes)
  • Rhubarb pie from the bush outside
  • Horse Raddish, and canning it
• Riding Dad’s tractor – trailer with seat
• Large variety of trees (Pear, Walnut, Cherry, Weeping Willow)
• Chicken Coop
  • One got loose
  • Hatching Chicks
  • Sleeping quarters side of coop
  • Coal pad
  • Rabbit Hutch
• Awakened at night by fireman to feel the chimney in the attic
• Furnice
• Building the Chimney. dollar bill
• Pets
  • Outdoor
    • Dogs
      • Barney
        • Dead when I got home
        • Processing
      • Marble
        • name origins
        • Initially inside
    • Cats
      • Pumpkin (from Wodarczyks)
      • Zippy
  • Birds
    • Mayna Bird (Dad)
    • Cockie (Cocketeil, Sister)
    • Parakeets (brothers)