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Parkville

Putty Hill Avenue

May 11, 2013

28. Alcohol Free

Channeling Jerry Garcia with his gray beard and sunglasses, Scott W. strums, “A Friend of the Devil.” Next, Romana S., a young woman with long ginger hair, steps to the stage and delivers a passionate (if ironic) rendition of the traditional Irish drinking song, “Johnny Jump Up.”

“Oh never, oh never, oh never again.

If I live to a hundred or a hundred and ten,

For I fell to the ground and I couldn’t get up

After drinking a quart of the Johnny Jump Up.”

More than 400 people fill Tall Cedars Hall in the Putty Hill Shopping Center for the 54th Annual Sobriety Show, organized by the Baltimore Intergroup Council of Alcoholics Anonymous. It’s a low budget affair—$1 admission—pizza, hot dogs, meatball subs, soda, and homemade cakes. Kids dance and run around the edges of the hall while the crowd, clearly enjoying a good time, banters at intermission and generously applauds favorite performers. The amateur acts—following months of rehearsals—vary from earnest to cool, including a killer cover of The Chantays’ surf guitar classic “Pipeline”—to over-the-top. In a towering blue Marge Simpson wig, Shelley C. croons Patsy Cline’s iconic “Crazy.”

“Look at everyone laughing and smiling,” says Joe P., an old-timer, sober 33 years since following a former drinking buddy into AA. “Now imagine if there was an open bar here, with these people drinking. They’d need the National Guard to break up the place.”