At the Future Care Nursing Home, on Reisterstown Road in Owings Mills, we found George “Hunky” Sauerhoff hanging tough. Once, he was a hurricane of a fellow. Now he awoke from an afternoon nap and seemed pretty delighted to see a couple of old friends.
“Hey, Hunky,” said Joe DiBlasi, the former city councilman out of South Baltimore.
The old man’s eyes lit up. For a moment, you could picture Hunky in his glory, the blithe spirit who formed the Loyal Sons of Pigtown years back and declared himself President for Life. The guy who helped turn Sid’s Tavern into a Southwest Baltimore cultural Mecca, and led all choruses of “Pigtown Will Shine Tonight.”
If there was charity money to be raised, Hunky was there. Maybe it was Christmas food for the poor or money for troubled kids. If there was a political campaign to be run, Hunky was there. He was the original street-corner guy, pounding campaign signs into yards, handling Election Day walk-around money, a Bawlamer original.
In fact, that’s how he and DiBlasi met. Joe was running around South Baltimore, trying to win his first City Council campaign, putting signs in front of scores of supporters’ homes. Then, he awoke one morning with a whole stack of the signs unceremoniously dumped in his own front yard. Attached was a note with Hunky’s signature.
It said, “Keep your signs out of my neighborhood.”
In political circles, this was known as a South Baltimore Hello. Hunky was backing the opposition. In Pigtown, there were ground rules, literally. Naturally, this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, once these rules were understood by all. Also, a political alliance that lasted through the years.
“Remember what you used to say?” DiBlasi asked now, as he leaned over Hunky’s bed. “You used to say, ‘Viva DiBlasi.’”
Hunky laughed aloud at the memory. He’s had some pretty rough health issues, and they’ve taken a toll. But, for a moment, the years seemed to melt away. DiBlasi would go on to win several terms in the council — he’s now in sports marketing — and Hunky would march on, a man in the midst of his very own legend.
Around here, the legend started with war. Hunky’s dad, Elmer Sauerhoff, lied about his age and enlisted in the Army at 15 for World War I, then made national headlines when he signed on with the Seabees after Pearl Harbor and spent three years in the South Pacific. By this time, he was 41 and had a wife and 10 kids on McHenry Street in Pigtown.
There were photos of Hunky and his brothers and sisters in newspapers around the country, a patriotic family cheering on their departed dad. Later — and it’s documented in newspaper clippings — Elmer signed up to fight in Korea and took part in MacArthur’s historic landing at Inchon.
“Wasn’t much to it,” Elmer told his family when he got home. He wasn’t much for overstatement.
Meanwhile, Hunky was growing up and marrying. He had four kids. He seemed to be everywhere at once: promoting boxing matches, running political campaigns at street level, always extolling the virtues of working-class Pigtown.
“Pigtown? It’s like Piccadilly Circus in London,” he’d say, stretching the comparison beyond all recognition but making the larger point: To Hunky, Pigtown was the heart of the world. He rhapsodized about it. He seemed to know everyone, and know all the high points of their family histories. Every community should have a guy like Hunky, an eternally blithe spirit turning all neighborhood descriptions into a kind of love song.
To be fair about it, there were a few missteps along the way. He was irrepressible, but occasionally misguided.
There was the time he went to a dog track in Florida and placed a lot of money on a dog. The dog was running last. Hunky saw all his money slipping away.
So he tossed a cat onto the track, scattering the dogs and canceling all bets. He was thus invited to leave the state of Florida.
But that was Hunky, ad libbing his way through life at a moment’s whim. For a lot of years, he was one of Baltimore’s great street characters, who are now a vanishing breed. He had his troubles here and there, but he’s a good soul who brought a lot of good cheer to those around him.
DiBlasi remembered. As he slipped out of Hunky’s room the other day, he grabbed the old man’s hand and said, “Viva Hunky.”
