A Life of Seasons
I first meandered through the 32nd Street Farmers Market about 5,000 apples, peaches, melons, and salads ago. According to the solar calendar, that makes me a customer of nearly 40 years.
In the decades since, the market, itself, has become a way of keeping time — from one Saturday to the next, from springtime peas to acorn squash, from early motherhood to “Grammy”-hood.
Mainly a source of fresh produce and seafood in the beginning, the market has grown into a lively, all-purpose weekly bazaar with a bounty of offerings and great people watching. Still anchored by longtime vendors Reid’s Orchard, Pahls Farm, Black Rock Orchard and Bartenfelder Farms, it is also chockablock with ethnic food stalls, as well as artisan bakers and entrepreneurs selling soaps, tinctures, CBD, kimchi, dog treats and more.
The market, as well, has become a destination for entertaining kids, listening to buskers, dumping compost, getting your bike fixed, and buying gifts.
As it has changed, the market has marked my own life passages. I shopped there while pregnant, and now, 30-plus years later, I bump into my sons, and their wives and children who shop there as well.
On a recent Saturday, I came upon my daughter-in-law and toddler grandchildren, who munched on juicy peaches while listening to Abu the Flutemaker thump a drum to the Electric Slide. I ran into my other son, his wife and baby at the market a few weeks back. They were there to rendezvous with their friends for breakfast. I hit him up for a dollar because I was short of cash.
I catch up with friends at the market, greet acquaintances and spot the same people whom I don’t know, but have observed over the decades as they and I have aged. Not long ago, I ran into a friend and die-hard 32nd Street Market regular. It was her first time back after mastering a prosthetic leg. From time to time, I see friends who moved away from Baltimore years ago, but come to the market when in town.
Over the years, the market and its crowds have come to resemble the world I’d like to live in: diverse, colorful, open minded and a tad zany. It is a flourishing community within a community; one that I have come of many ages in and hope to be a part of in the years (make that apples, peaches and pumpkin pies) to come.
Stephanie Shapiro is a writer, teacher and former Baltimore Sun reporter who lives in the city’s Tuxedo Park neighborhood.