Incontrovertible Truth #8
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There will never be another William Donald Schaefer.
He got elected to the Baltimore City Council in 1955, stayed in one city or state office into the new millennium, never losing an election until his run for comptroller in 2006 (at age 84, if my math is right).
As mayor, he
* drove around Baltimore, checking on trash pickup and looking for potholes in his big old car
* developed the Inner Harbor into a world attraction
* dove into the seal poll at the National Aquarium with a rubber ducky
* invented "trash ball"
* sold abandoned row homes for $1
And when he was elected governor, he jumped out of a box labeled Baltimore's Gift to Maryland. He was also a first-class curmudgeon, writing nasty letters to people he disliked and calling the Eastern Shore a "shithouse" for not supporting him enough. Apparently he got even more vituperative as the years went on, but I prefer to remember him with the rubber ducky.
As it happens, my grandfather's name was also Schafer and he looked like the mayor. So he occasionally got a "Hi, Mr. Schafer!" on the streets of Baltimore from people he didn't know. They were good doppelgangers, as my grandfather would have totally rocked the striped swimsuit.
-
There will never be another William Donald Schaefer.
He got elected to the Baltimore City Council in 1955, stayed in one city or state office into the new millennium, never losing an election until his run for comptroller in 2006 (at age 84, if my math is right).
As mayor, he
* drove around Baltimore, checking on trash pickup and looking for potholes in his big old car
* developed the Inner Harbor into a world attraction
* dove into the seal poll at the National Aquarium with a rubber ducky
* invented "trash ball"
* sold abandoned row homes for $1
And when he was elected governor, he jumped out of a box labeled Baltimore's Gift to Maryland. He was also a first-class curmudgeon, writing nasty letters to people he disliked and calling the Eastern Shore a "shithouse" for not supporting him enough. Apparently he got even more vituperative as the years went on, but I prefer to remember him with the rubber ducky.
As it happens, my grandfather's name was also Schafer and he looked like the mayor. So he occasionally got a "Hi, Mr. Schafer!" on the streets of Baltimore from people he didn't know. They were good doppelgangers, as my grandfather would have totally rocked the striped swimsuit.
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posted by Anonymous at
8:14 PM
1 Comments:
not to taint his ENTIRE record or anything, but isn't he the one who, in front of an entire room of politicos, asked a young female staffer to stop and turn around slowly so that he could admire her?
ah, bill donald.
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