Get deep inside the mind of this writer as I give insight on how I came to love Baltimore as it relates to House music.   I definitely love, respect, and know the origins of House, as it poured out of Chicago and then NYC.  But let me tell you what was going on in Baltimore especially since we called "house" music "Odell's" or "club" music back then.  Let me take you back to the late 70's.  I had a young mom and she and her friends were always talking about a club called Odell's.  She was in her late 20's  then and I was playing little league baseball.  By the time I was 13 I had already been to 2 Odell's kiddie discos.  I knew this club inside out.  My mother loved to dance and in my house I can remember album covers like the one Diana Ross did where she had on the denim jeans. You know, the one with "I'm coming out" and "Upside down" on it.  My mother loved her records and actually gave a woman a beat down because she lost some of her 45's that she loaned her for a party.  After witnessing that, I think this is when I became an Honor Roll student.  I admired my mother for many things because it seemed like she could do anything, like "the hustle."  I started to love dance music, being the son of a mother who liked to party.  When me and my younger brother returned home the morning after a couple of parties that was given at the house,  I used to play some of the songs on the record player.  I remember her taking my brother and I  to Easter cabarets back then and dancing to songs by Bohannon and Taste of Honey.  You see dance music to Baltimore was and still is what jazz is to New Orleans or Go-Go music is to Washington, D.C.   The seeds were planted back then and I could have been an incredible DJ today If I had not fell in love with technology first.  I am fortunate to grow up with two original music genres created by Black people in the United States.  That is House and Hip-Hop music.    I still can remember the day that my mother and her girlfriend was asking me about the lyrics to a song that was on the radio.  I said "ma, he said-- the macaroni's soggy, peas all mushy, and the chicken taste like wood."  I can remember being about 14 or 15 and a friend's parents wasn't home so we decided to have a party.  Somebody forgot the records so we just partied with the Kraftwork album and Planet Rock.  I was fortunate enough to grow up on the left side of Baltimore and almost all my childhood friends love House music.  I am one of a few people who knew that Jerome Hicks was Djing before he worked the lights at Odell's.  I can remember when the AM stations  ran the city because some of the FM stations were arrogant enough to actually say we don't play hip-hop and dance music like WEBB.  I can remember the day when Randy Dennis introduced DJ Spen and the Numarx mix team to Baltimore.  I also remember Randy Dennis leaving and introducing Frank Ski, now based in Atlanta, to Baltimore.  I am fortunate enough to see Odell's go through 4 different redesigns.  My mother's era had the cubicle style seating around the dance floor.  The House era saw Lil' Will Franklin and Phil take the club to another level with the wider dance floor and the runway style stage.  The same stage that the famous Fly Girl contest was held.