Front Matter

In this issue, walk through 142 Stovall, or all around Reynoldsween. Piece a quilt and gather oral history. Attend Ranger 101, and support Museum of Reynoldstown.

A House is a Time Machine

Now:

A man walks out onto the front porch of a yellow house on a Sunday morning. In the distance he hears voices, growing closer. A group of runners turns the corner, all bright chatter, foot patter, and heavy breathing. He waves, as their voices swell, then slowly fade.

Fifteen years before:

Same front porch, different Sunday. A woman walks out, closes the front door softly, as her roommates sleep in. In every third block of Reynoldstown stands a small church. One by one, deacons in their long coats pass each other, tip a hat. Each of them wants an hour to themselves, in their own churches, to turn on the lights, sweep the floor, soak up the quiet. The woman watches one of them come down the hill, then lifts her coffee cup to him. He replies with a tip of his hat, then passes along.

Fifteen years before that:

A man this time, a different one. Same front porch. This house is his home, but also his art gallery, and the night before was an opening night. Packed with friends and neighbors, and a few famous faces. John Lewis was there. Samuel L. Jackson as well. The man looks up the street, past the next corner, and in the middle of Stovall stands a peacock. The peacock is kind of famous. It picks fights with buses. A blues singer wrote a song about it:

Every house is a time machine. Some more than others. Across the years, 142 Stovall St SE has been associated with Hughley Gallery, the National Black Arts Festival, Dashboard Co-op, Reynoldstown Revitalization Corporation, Vote with Dignity and 13 Cocktail Parties. The Reynoldstown Rangers started on its front porch. Museum of Reynoldstown was dreamed up in its kitchen.

In Reynoldstown, the past is always present, and so is the future. We know about those deacons, that peacock, because we sat on that very porch, with that man and that woman who lived here before us. 

They handed us the keys to the time machine.

For the Reynoldstown Rangers, it’s our mission to pass along those keys. Please join us on Wednesday, October 23, for a very special edition of Walks with Resident Experts. John Gibson and John Bluhm, just before they move to a house down the block, welcome former inhabitants of 142, Courtney Hammond (co-founder of Dashboard Co-op) and Reynoldstown’s own iconic community organizer Young Hughley Jr.. Together we’ll look at seven decades of neighborhood history, through the windows of a little yellow bungalow. 

We live among time machines. Take the keys.

Walks With Resident Experts, #007, 142 Stovall Street, with Young Hughley Jr., Courtney Hammond (remotely), John Bluhm, and John Gibson, and hosted by Chris Appleton, will take place on Wednesday October 23, from 6 to 8pm.

The capacity for this walk is greater than usual, but can not accommodate pets or neighbors under 10 years old.

*Technically a talk, or even a visit, but perhaps you'll walk over. However you arrive, expertise awaits.

Ranger Up

(Quilting, Oral History, Ranger 101, and Help Wanted)

Talking the Talk

Oral History falls somewhere in the middle: more fun than oral surgery, less fun than other things. 

And yet, crucial. This fall, with the support of our big-hearted friends at Neighbor in Need, we’ll be in conversation with those who know the story, and love to share it. Legacy and longtime neighbors, recording and sharing their stories of this place, a dozen opportunities to connect and reflect. If you have a knack for interviewing and research, maybe a background in journalism, or if you just really love talking to your grandma, please join us for an organizing meeting at 142 Stovall St, on Wednesday, October 9, at 5:30 pm.

Piece Work

‘The Quilters are back! The Quilters are back!’ we exclaimed, because exclaiming is so fun that it gets its own point. Summer is over, so bring on the mugs and the quilts. The New Reynoldstown Quilters kick off Snuggie Season, on Sunday, October 13, from 3 to 6 pm at 1042 Kirkwood Ave (a new location for a recurring quilt host).

Ranger 101 

Are you interested in being a Ranger? Please fill out this survey to let us know your interests! You can also learn more on Monday, October 21, at 6 pm at a porch in Reynoldstown. Just reply to this email and let us know you’d like to attend Ranger 101.

Help Wanted – Website Administrator

Our first instinct was to make this listing cute – make it read like an old-fashioned personal ad. Things got very creepy, very quickly. Wiser heads prevailed. Now we will simply say that Rangers seek a website administrator. That is all. Reply to this email if this is you.

More Trick than Treat

Let’s call it “The Count Chocula Principle,” whereby a familiar word plus a scary word equals child-appropriate comedy. Mix chocolate with Dracula and voila! Six year olds are cracking up. Boo Berry? Hilarious. Franken Berry? Stop it – you’re killing me. 

If any holiday calls out for stealing a page from General Mills line of billion-dollar monster-themed cereals, it’s Halloween. Or, as it shall henceforth and throughout all the neighborhood be known –

Reynoldsween. 

We started last year, turning Manigault into Manighoul. This year, we’re expanding our punscape to Lurkwood, Fester, and Screamorial Avenues. Also Sto-vile Street. Our Ranger wordsmiths have been working overtime on puns just silly enough to tickle a six-year-old, while our crackerjack Art Department has wrapped it all up in a collectible coloring page, chock full of spooky/spurious urban myths. 

Look for us on Manighoul Street on October 31, from 5:30 to 8:30 pm, and get your own Ranger Danger Reynoldsween Map, suitable for coloring, or framing, or both.

Museum of Reynoldstown (MoR) 

Did someone forward this to you? Get on our mailing list here.

FARQs (Frequently Asked Reynoldstown Questions)

Yes – everything, before it is what it is now, was once something else. ParkGrounds’ site has been, variously, in its past:

bits of post-Big-Bang exploding matter; an ocean full of trilobites; a tropical home to dinosaurs; and a sweet spot on the Pangean super-continent. 

You wouldn’t have survived five minutes back then, so be here now, and stop your whining. 

In living memory, what you know as one site was two different businesses: a Gulf gas station, and a corner store called Ramey’s. The Ramey family lived just up the street, and ran the store for decades. That structure survives only in charming vintage photos like this one:

The shop’s distinctive round sign can be spotted in its original form, here, with Gulf logo. That logo is probably still under there, for archaeologists of the future to wonder over. There was also a period of just a few years (after the gas station) when RCIL ran a thrift store on the site. 

Your pal,

Wylie

This Month’s Ranger Calendar

October 13, 3 to 6 pm: Fall season begins for the The New Reynoldstown Quilters

October 21, 6 to 7:30 pm: Get to Know the Rangers (Ranger 101)

October 23, 6 to 8 pm: Walks with Resident Experts 007: 142 Stovall

October 27, 3 to 6 pm: The New Reynoldstown Quilters 

October 31, 5:30 to 8:30 pm: Reynoldsween (look for us on Manighoul Street)