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Posted By: Madison James on: 03/17/2008 13:03:05 EDT
Subject: Who's Sorry Now?

Message Detail:
WHO’ S SORRY NOW?

Fifty years ago, Saturday, February 16, 1958 to be exact, Charlie DeWald probably regretted that one of the thoroughbred horses he trained, Royal Holiday, was entered in the fifth race at Bowie Race Course that day. That’s because he would have to travel by car thirty three miles from his home in Northeast Baltimore to the track with his wife, Min, and his youngest son, 9 year old Chris. Generally, he never regretted going to the track to saddle one of his horses since he intensely enjoyed his side occupation and more often than not finished in the money. But, this day was different. The night before on Channel 11 WBAL-T V’s Weather Report, the show’s weatherman, Al Herndon, called for a big snowstorm on Saturday possibly accumulating up to ten inches or more.

Remember that back then the Russians had just launched the first man-made satellite, Sputnik, only a few months before, and in those days, you weren’t going to have the Soviets tell you what they saw from up there. In other words by today’s standards, weather forecasting then was bad and predicting the intensity and severity of projected snowstorms was even worse. Also, tires and roads weren’t much better. In fact, the law required that cars during snow emergency plans have chains wrapped around them for added traction. That’s something Charlie did this Saturday morning himself.

Now bear with me here. The aforementioned “Chris”, that’s me, enjoyed weekends away from elementary school, looked forward to car rides with his dad and mom, and loved going to the races almost as much as watching the Baltimore Orioles play baseball or the Baltimore Colts or Baltimore Polytechnic Institute and his brother play football back then. And it was no problem for him this particular Saturday. He was too young to drive. No doubt, Chris was most excited about going to Bowie and even, perhaps, about the weather and road conditions and the resulting uncertainty connected with the trip.

So Charlie motored with his wife and son through the newly opened Baltimore Harbor Tunnel and eventually got himself on what was then known as Route 3 (formerly Route 301, now Generals Highway south of Glen Burnie). Those familiar with this road know of the steep hill just north of Dorr’s Corner near Millersville, Maryland. No problem going down to the track, however, since the snow had just begun as he and his family entered the back gate at Bowie Race Course.

Since it was snowing and given the previous night’s forecast, Charlie deviated from his habitual pre-race pattern of parking in the barn area behind the grandstand, visiting his stable, and then taking his family to an usher-chosen set of box seats in the clubhouse. Instead, this time he took all of us to a location on the other side of the track near the far turn where said turn and much of the back and home stretch was clearly visible. There he left us in the heated running car and proceeded to the paddock three quarters of a mile or so away to saddle his horse for the fifth race.

Just after he left and disappeared from sight, my mother and I watched what we could of the fourth race that had just begun. Though we could see much of the race and in to the homestretch, the final sixteenth of a mile to the finish and into the clubhouse turn afterwards was blocked by the “strategically” place infield tote board. Nevertheless, we made the best of it and passed the time to the next race by talking, people and horse watching (There is a lot of activity between races in the backstretch area.), and listening to the car radio on Baltimore’s 60 A.M., WCAO (“a division of Plow, Inc.”).

One of the 45’s that was aired during this pre-race interlude was Connie Francis’s first and biggest hit, ‘Who’s Sorry Now?”, which at that time was rising quickly up the Baltimore charts to eventually hit number 1 and remain there for several weeks. My mother tolerated, if not thoroughly disliked, rock and roll music (She was into Liberace, Mario Lanza, and, of course, Lawrence Welk.), but this time she seemed to enjoy listening to Connie’s record probably because the tune was an old pop standard remake and Miss Francis sounded like an Italian singer, which, in fact, she really was. (My mother, Palmina, was a first generation Italian-American who spoke nothing but Italian
in her hometown of Baltimore until she attended elementary school.).

“Here are the horses for the fifth race.”, echoed the track announcer, Ray Haight, as the equine assembly entered the track from the paddock. That broke our attention from the radio as we strained to see what we could through the increasingly thickening snow of the pre-race parade and warm-ups around the clubhouse turn into the backstretch. The average ten minutes or so before the start of the race seemed to pass instantaneously as the next thing I remember was the track announcer’s declaration, “They’re all in the gate.” The anticipatory excitement and anxiety was both overwhelming and invigorating as if proceeding to the very top of the initial big drop of a roller coaster.

“ THEY’RE OFF!” reverberated through the air and my gut before I was totally ready for it. With 30,000 or so in attendance, I could easily hear the crowd reaction from across the way. Before we could see the horses, I strained to hear Ray Haight’s call but with the crowd noise and his vocal rapidity mimicking that of tobacco auctioneer, I couldn’t make out anything clearly.

Finally with the approaching sounds of rumbling hooves and jockey whips and shouts, the stampeding steeds came into view in the middle of the backstretch. As they got even with us and began rounding the far turn, we both shrieked when we saw Dad’s horse,
Royal Holiday, in the lead on the rail by about three lengths. No other horse appeared to gain on her around the turn into the homestretch. It sure looked like Charlie, if not all of us, would be heading for the winner’s circle after all.

Down the homestretch, our steed still held the lead but there were several horses moving up behind her. To the sixteenth pole, then damn it, the tote board! The crowd’s roar reached a crescendo, and I was unable to hear the finish call. Then, as quickly as it rose, the noise of the crowd settled down to an uncertain din. Just after that, we saw the horses slowing up around the clubhouse turn as we awaited the race results announcement.


“..….…….first, second, Royal Holiday, and …..…….finished third”. Disappointed, sure. But we had seen it happen before. It was then that I reached over to the radio and turned the volume back up. “I tried to warn you somehow”, chimed Connie.

After about fifteen minutes, we finally saw Dad trotting toward our car. We had been sitting there for about an hour and a half and the snow was approaching its zenith as it had completely covered the ground and most of our car. “We finished second.”, Charlie grumbled as he got in the car and proceeded to depart the track. “I hope we can make it back.”, he added as he turned on to Racetrack Road to Route 3.

The uncertainty of the race’s outcome was displaced with the uncertainty of our safe and timely arrival home thirty three snow-covered miles away. What was coming down and what had accumulated so far on the road had become a real problem, four plus inches with no end in sight. We proceeded along the road very cautiously and all seemed pretty much ok until we approached the aforementioned steep hill, now Generals Highway, just north of Dorr’s Corner. With stomachs in throats, we started down at ten miles an hour. And at what seemed from the engine roar to be fifty miles an hour at least, we climbed slowly up the one hundred and fifty foot white ‘monster’. After almost stalling several times during what seemed to be an eternity, we made it to the hilltop just barely. “You had your way, now you must pay….”, “canted” Miss Francis.

With five inches on the ground and still coming down even harder, we arrived safely home one hour later. This trip, which usually took just over an hour, turned out his time to be twice as long, or so it seemed. Later, the evening news would report that nearly thirty thousand people at Bowie were stranded and would have to remain there overnight before the roads and railroads were cleared. Some of those stranded there didn’t return home till the following Monday. The story has remained and grown over the years that there was more action at the track that evening via crap games than there was earlier during the day with the horses.

At lot and not so much has changed since that memorable eventful Saturday fifty years ago regarding my father and mother, horseracing in Maryland and at Bowie, television and its weather prognostications, automobiles and roadways, and radio and pop music. One constant though is with Ms. Franconero’s often-played-now satellite-fed-rhetorically-titled recording. For each time I hear it, the sights, sounds, smells, hopes, dreams, joys, fears, etc. of that distant day come rushing back to beg, once again, the answer to the question she repeatedly asks.

No, dear Concetta, I’m not.

“Giacomo Madison James”
March 17, 2008

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