Doc: A trip down memory lane in Maryland

A house can inhabit a soul. Brick and block works through burnished memory to create a haven that's every bit as alive as those who dwell within. That explains why a certain sports hack and professional melancholist sat on a curb beneath a streetlight last Sunday night at 9, and stared at his old house.

It's in Bethesda, Md., about an hour from Baltimore. Every year when the Bengals visit the Ravens, I take the trip back to where I used to be. The Browns moved to Baltimore in 1996. Twenty years, 20 trips.

Some people worship old ballparks this way. Some collect memorabilia. My memorabilia is contained in that place in the brain where we remember the name of our 6th-grade girlfriend – Karen Frey! -- and forget where we put our car keys.

It's nostalgia beyond reason for a man of 57. My brother lives 30 minutes away, and wouldn't think of walking past 5419 Lambeth Rd. Or eating breakfast at the Tastee Diner, or hiking the towpath at Great Falls. He thinks I'm strange. So does the rest of my family. So be it. This year, I walked the old neighborhood twice, once last Saturday afternoon and again Sunday night, after the game.

I remain awed by what Lambeth Road meant to me. I was 11 when I lived there, and 12, 13 and 14. That's all. I lived in apartments before that, and houses after. Never visited any of them after I left them.

My mother died when I was 8. Her death was her idea. She was a loving parent, but I came home from school each day not knowing what to expect. My dad remarried when I was 11. We blended a family and moved to Lambeth Road.

What a kid needs, more than anything, is no surprises. Cake on birthdays, a baseball glove and a home that doesn't scare him. Stability is everything and for the first time, stability for me became something other than someone else's reality. Dinner at 6, homework at the kitchen table, Little League, a bike. This conversation with my new mother, every night:

"What's for dinner?''

"Food.''

"What kind of food?''

"Good food.''

On Lambeth Road, my friends and I fielded a rubber-coated hardball on the street for hours. It's how I became a decent second baseman. In the summers, we played Wiffleball – hit the neighbor's drain pipe, ground-rule double -- and afterward lay in the cool grass and debated the merits of Clemente and Aaron.

Because both of my parents worked, I'd awaken each summer morning to a silent house and a quarter on the bureau in the living room, always with the same note:

Have a good day.

Don't break anything.

That covered a multitude of potential sins: Don't break any laws. Don't break a trust. If you say you're going somewhere, go there. Most importantly, don't break any bones. We don't have time to take you to the emergency room.

Our bikes were our freedom. We'd ride them to downtown Bethesda, put them in the parking garage elevator, take it to the top, then ride down. We'd buy baseball cards, and cinnamon candy we'd feed to the tropical fish at the pet store. We'd talk about sports and girls and all the things we were going to do that summer. The world was small and ours.

And I could always go home, with a reasonable expectation that someone who loved me would be there.

What a sight I must be now, this middle-aged weirdo walking in the street wide-eyed and talking to himself. "That's where we threw the crab apple that broke that window,'' I'll say. "That's the yard where Bill Buxbaum broke his leg playing football.''

Last Saturday, I leaned over the counter at Tastee and said to the grill man, who was working seven orders at once, which is pure genius: "I've been coming here for 50 years.'' To which he replied, "Yeah, lots of people have.''

We can't see where we're going unless we know where we've been. I wish for one more day on Lambeth Road when I am 12. A re-setting of the compass. That's not possible, so I turn the day over to my memory and we go for a walk together.

Bethesda has changed. Once a multi-collar mix of middle and upper-middle class, it's now an enclave for the wealthy. Think of Mariemont at Indian Hill prices. Many of the cozy 2- and 3-bedroom houses on quarter-acre lots have been added to or torn down for trophy houses that look stupid in such a small space.

That hasn't happened on Lambeth Road. At least not yet. My house looks as it did when it was built, right after WW II. I sat beneath a street light at 9 Sunday night, burning a Rocky Patel and gazing at 1970. The view made me happy.