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A remembrance of Baltimore's quirkiest French restaurateur
On ai sunny, breezy afternoon in Bud-September of 2008, I pressed the lit doorbell at Morris Martick's home and French restaurant at 214 W. Mulberry St. Like so many times before, I watched as Martick silently looked through a peephole from the side of the shuttered 19th-century facade - probably in the same manner as his parents when they ran a speakeasy in that very building during Prohibition days - and eventually opened the large, thick front door.
"Hi, Mr. Martick," I said, since he'd never instructed me to call him Morris. "How are you?" Martick half-smiled and gave me one of his dead-fish handshakes.
"Why are you here ?" he asked in a voice dripping with sarcasm. "Are you writing my obituary?"
Of course, he knew full well why I was there. It was all over the local news that he'd closed his celebrated bistro, Martick's Restaurant Francais, after nearly 40 years, according to him because of his age (nearly 86) and pressure (mounting violation citations) from Baltimore Housing, due to the decaying condition of the building.
On the surface at least, he was fairly philosophical about the matter, though far from gleeful. "Nothing lasts forever," he said, staring me straight in the eye. "You have to be a realist, and the reality is, I don't have the energy to do that work anymore. ... How long do you think you live? I read the obituaries. People younger than me are dropping dead."
This was classic Martick: straightforward, honest, unsentimental, rather self-pitying and unabashedly morbid. But always intriguing and never dull, unlike most people.
And yes, Mr. Martick, here I am, writing your obituary.
Last Friday, Dec. 16, Martick died of lung cancer at Union Memorial Hospital. He was 88. Last month, he reportedly collapsed while walking along Howard Street, probably as part of his daily routine of strolling over to the Blue Sky restaurant on the corner of Park and Saratoga for breakfast, then to Lexington Market to shmie around, and then taking care of some banking matters on Howard.
That was only a couple of weeks after I last saw him. And yes, somewhere in my kishkes I knew it'd be the final...