Linda Grace Morris: Baltimore Boomer Tales from the Hood

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Demetrius Washington had a farm . . . .  However, before he had a farm, he was a member of the Balsa Super Sonics model airplane club. Demetrius also spent 34 years driving buses for Baltimore's Mass Transit Administration. And now, he is a turkey farmer. You have got to hear his story!

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John Balsom is a British photographer I met at the July Montford Point Marine Convention in Baltimore. He and his camera showed up at the ceremony awarding Montford Point Marine families with the Congressional Gold Medal, authorized by President Barack Obama in 2012, their loved ones earned as the first African American men who trained to integrate the United States Marine Corps. Most of these men served in the European and Pacific theaters during WWII, and John was unaware that African Americans served in Europe for the war. He is now trying to make everyone aware of their participation and achievements by having the dwindling number who remain conduct "conversations" with his camera. 

It is a costly mission for him flying back and forth across the pond to do these stories, so he is seeking sponsorship to complete the job. Here's to getting the word out about this worthy endeavor. If you'd like to find out more about his work or make a contribution, go to his website at johnbalsom.com, or email him at [email protected]. If we don't get these stories out, they die with us.

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What do you get when you come together with a retired fireman, a retired bank examiner, a retired FBI agent, a retired Baltimore City Public School administrator, and a retired MTA bus driver who is currently operating a 102-acre turkey farm in Charlottesville, Virginia? Give up? You get great memories from some of the charter members of the Balsa Super Sonics Model Airplane Club. This club, consisting of African American teenagers from Cherry Hill, formed in 1958 and competed against white clubs--virtually unheard of at the time. Hear some great stories of the brotherhood and comradery of a group of men whose club continues to meet to this day. I should add that James Dow, another Balsa Super Sonic member from Cherry Hill, was unable to make the trip with us. However, we were thinking of him.

If you are looking to get in on this fellowship, meet them on Tuesday, December 15, 2026, at the Bare Bones Restaurant in Ellicott City, Maryland, at 7 p.m. Until then, Listen to this!   

Photographed from left to right:  Retired public-school administrator, John Brewington; retired bank examiner, Raphael Simmons; retired MTA bus driver and currently the only African American turkey farmer in Virginia, Demetrius Washington; retired FBI agent, Joseph Monroe; and retired fireman and club starter, Edwin Simmons.

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When the United States Marine Corps promoted the recruiting slogan, "The Few. The Proud. The Marines." in 1977, they had no idea it would attract a young, indecisive, African American male in 1981 who would commit his post-retirement life to the Corps. Fast-forward 45 years, and anyone can see that Retired Sgt. Major O'Neal Johnson, Jr., Baltimore Chapter President of the National Montford Point Marine Association, Inc. (NMPMA), now fully epitomizes that slogan. 

On June 27, 2012, President Barack Obama awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to the Montford Point Marines, honoring more than 20,000 African American men who trained at Fort Montford Point in Jacksonville, NC, between 1942 and 1949. To date, only about 4,000 men have been identified and presented with their awards.

The NMPMA is working tirelessly to identify and locate the families of the 16,000 men who have yet to receive their honor. If your family member served at Fort Montford Point and has yet to receive his medal, please contact the NMPMA for information on how to claim your loved one's medal. Send an email to [email protected].

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As you should know by now, I am trying to find my family in Barbados. I went to Barbados for the first time in September 2023 and made an appointment to go to their Archives. There, I met a young man who unlocked the next generation of my ancestry. I knew my grandfather immigrated here from Barbados in 1906. I got his immigration record from our National Archives in the early 2000s or before. And I've been searching for my Barbados family ever since. I think Im about to strike gold!

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This episode is near and dear to my heart because I never planned for retirement.  I just thought I would work forever. Also, I had a "good government retirement" and Social Security. What more did I need? Silly me!

Jim Capuano, author of The Great American Retirement Myth, is sounding a wakeup call for those of you still planning for retirement, and I urge you to listen. Take it from me, your work years go by quickly, and if you don't plan properly now, you will regret it later. Listen as Jim makes the case for changing an outdated retirement paradigm.

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Brenda is 80 years old and planning the next chapter of her life. She is a breast cancer survivor who fought through a major bout with depression when she was subsequently confined to a wheelchair due to degenerative arthritis. She uprooted herself from Baltimore and moved to Charlotte, NC, in the midst of her trials and tribulations. Then, when she got there, she became an entrepreneur at the age of 72 with her business, BB's Homemade Krab Kakes--the Ks being for her two grandsons. Now she is planning her next chapter, and she is adamant that it's not too late for me or you!

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I first met Reverend Chester Morris, his lovely wife, Deborah, and his young daughter, Theresa, in about 1977 when I drove my Mother back home to the Eastern Shore of Virginia for the first time after she left as a child in 1931 as part of the Great Migration. Up until then, I had heard my Mom, and her eight siblings talk about their happy lives growing up in Nassawadox, Virginia. As I got older and learned more about segregation--I had lived under it until I was 16 years old when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed allegedly ending Jim Crow--I could not comprehend how the life that they found so much joy in recalling could possibly have been happy. However, after talking with Reverend Morris today, I am reminded that joy is given to us by God and cultivated through our relationship with Him. If you need some joy today, listen to this episode.

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Mrs. Lelia Elaine Moody Harrison lives in Cherry Hill and has lived in the same house, the house her father purchased back in 1948, while living there. She has seen a lot in her 99 years and shares with us what she has done over time. Miss Lelia, as I call her, is such a delight. Listen as she shares her story.

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I first heard of Warren Howze when he was the Big Man on Campus at Morgan State College in the mid-1960s. Although I did not attend Morgan, I heard my girlfriends talking about him being President of the Student Government Association. I recently met him and was interested in where life had taken him. I was captivated by his story because it shows the difference a life dedicated to public service can make. His story reminds us of how far we have come, but how far we still have to go.

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