Every person is a time capsule, a walking amalgam of memories and experiences filtered through a unique perspective. We lose so many fascinating stories with the passing of every individual, and we’re lucky when we can hold onto some of those memories and share them with others.

My grandfather died last week. Benjamin S. Herman was the only one of his siblings to be born in America, and he grew up on Pratt Street in East Baltimore at a time when the entire world around him was changing almost every day. As a boy in the 1910s and early ‘20s, he lived in a community comprised of people from Jewish, Italian, Asian, African and many other ethnicities and backgrounds. And as he often told me, everyone got along. It was just that simple.

Papa remembered watching the workmen pour tar over the old cobblestone streets, sealing in the past as asphalt roadways prepared everyone for the future. He remembered watching the Negro baseball league march by in a parade on Pratt Street. He remembered a local toy maker that made playthings by hand out of wood and paint and heart. He remembered the names of every person that lived up and down the street, how many children they had, what they all wound up doing in life, and what the world was like nearly a century ago.

All of that is gone, as are most of the people, including Papa. He used to say the past was “like a dream.” But we spent a lot of time over the years talking about those memories on tape, and it’s something I hope to write about so that everyone can experience that world through the eyes of someone that spoke about it with such wonder and joy as if it was only yesterday.

My grandfather was a collector. He spent his entire professional life working for the post office in downtown Baltimore, so naturally he collected stamps, but he also collected magazines and lots of other things. It’s genetic; that collecting DNA gets passed down from generation to generation, and I’m proud to carry on the tradition.

I hope in the near future that I have something more substantial from all of Papa’s stories to share with all of you. And maybe then we can bring some of that dream of Baltimore back to reality, if only for a little while. I really think he would have loved that.

Benjamin S. Herman (1915-2009)