Commentary
Ocean City Today Jan. 29, 2021
Page 25
BJ’s closing ends chapter for many BJ’s on the Water — the long metal and wooden bar and the familiar faces of people lined up along it, stationed as they were on what sometimes seemed to be assigned seating. The football crowds on Sundays, the Maryland basketball fans standing shoulder-to-shoulder in March and screaming at the televisions, the opportunity to peruse the newspaper sports pages tacked up on the men’s room wall and appearances on the small bar stage by the beloved house band, Teenage Rust. The daily duck feedings, the artwork next to the wall telephone that declared salespeople would be shot on a rotating basis, the caricatures of long-time patrons and friends displayed near the entrance, the beer-soaked canoe races in July, the many, many fundraisers and free popcorn. City government department heads, elected officials, attorneys, Realtors, businesspeople filing in for lunch, the long table of recent years where members of the highly informal Dead Chicken Club met on Thursdays for rotisserie chicken and other specials, the roasted red pepper soup of the day. Frequent visitors from elsewhere the staff knew, and frequent visitors from elsewhere whom the staff pretended to know. Seafood skins, steaks, fish, old-time rock ‘n’ roll and always open. Still the same. Except that it won’t be anymore. Billy and Maddy Carder, after 41 years of presiding over one of Ocean City’s landmark restaurants and bars, are moving on and the building at the end of 75th Street on the water will pass into different hands. Eventually, it will be replaced by a new, well-appointed creation by the Ropewalk restaurant group, whose other area restaurants have experienced great success. Odds are the group will experience the same thing at 75th Street. But for long-time residents, patrons and friends, the page is turning on an extended chapter of their personal histories. We thank the Carders for their hospitality, for the privilege of their company and for the many good deeds they have done for the community. We wish them well, as time moves on for them and all of Ocean City. It’s a new day now, and it won’t be the same.
Ocean City Today P.O. Box 3500, Ocean City, Md. 21843 Phone: 410-723-6397 / Fax: 410-723-6511.
EDITOR ............................................ Stewart Dobson MANAGING EDITOR ................................ Lisa Capitelli STAFF WRITERS ..............Greg Ellison, Elizabeth Bonin, ............................................Ally Lanasa, Neely James ASSISTANT PUBLISHER .......................... Elaine Brady ACCOUNT MANAGERS.......... Mary Cooper, Vicki Shrier CLASSIFIEDS/LEGALS MANAGER .... Nancy MacCubbin SENIOR DESIGNER ................................ Susan Parks GRAPHIC ARTIST .................................... Kelly Brown PUBLISHER........................................ Christine Brown ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT ...................... Gini Tufts Ocean City Today is published weekly by FLAG Publications, Inc. at 8200 Coastal Highway, Ocean City, Md. 21842. Ocean City Today is available by subscription at $150 a year. Visit us on the Web at www.oceancitytoday.com. Copyright 2021
PUBLIC EYE
These bulletins just in
By Stewart Dobson Editor/Publisher With so much to report this week, I have no choice but to offer a long summary of some of the more noteworthy events. First, this bulletin: former Ocean City Police Chief Bernadette DiPino, who I believe liked me about as much as a case of hives, has resigned as the chief of police for the City of Sarasota, Florida. According to reports, it could have had something to By do with her alleged comment Stewart about wanting to fire a Taser Dobson at a babbling homeless guy to shut him up. Someone thought that was insensitive and filed a complaint. A stunning development, to be sure. • House Bill 32 in the General Assembly this session calls for the legalization of marijuana for recreational use, and to invest the tax revenue collected from legalized marijuana in the state’s four historically Black colleges and universities, including the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, as well as communities impacted by the “war on drugs.” Actually, I’m all for legalizing and taxing marijuana for recreational use. As far as recreation is concerned, it’s cheaper than golf, would convert slow-pitch softball into sloooowwww-pitch softball, and make not catching fish a lot more fun by adding a whole new meaning to the term, “drift fishing.” • In other news, MASN, the television home of the Baltimore Orioles, will not be bringing Gary Thorne back to the broadcast
booth this season. No reason was given, except possibly that he was more popular than many of the players, because we knew his name. As for the players, with a couple of exceptions, insiders say their names were drawn in a 50-50 raffle that also supplemented players’ paychecks by allowing them to keep half the proceeds. Of all the old broadcast crew, only Hall of Famer Jim Palmer gets to stay, and the reason for that is they’re afraid if he leaves the booth he’ll turn into ashes before our eyes, since he’s really 239 years old, but looks 42 because of the monkey gland extract clause in his contract. It’s true. I saw it on the Internet. • More baseball. You do realize that baseball is one of the few things these days that involves grown men carrying big sticks that isn’t threatening some part of society or the other. Even if it did, we could still take comfort in knowing that if a group of baseball players were to confront any of us and start swinging, there’s a 77 percent chance they wouldn’t get a hit. • Meanwhile, all-time home run leader Barry Bonds, got a good whacking from Hall of Fame voters recently when they denied him entry into the shrine because of suspicions that he was aided by performance-enhancing substances. I can understand how he might be enticed to do such a thing, considering how many emails I receive each week about how I could improve my performance. On the other hand, I’m not sure if a product guaranteed to help me “Become the Ringmaster in the Circus of Love” would do much for anyone at the plate.
