Anyone who believes the Baltimore "hon" is merely a throwback to an era of beehive hairdos, cat glasses and leopard print spandex hasn't met Noelle Mack and Jennifer Blom.
The 20-somethings, both finalists in Saturday's first round of Baltimore's Best Hon Contest in Hampden, are determined to do their part to carry on the hon tradition.
"The young 'hons' are bringing it back," said Mack. "Once everything fades away with the older hons, we want to keep the tradition going."
The two friends strutted on stage with other women decked out in feather boas and pink eye shadow for the contest, a highlight of the annual Honfest that runs through Sunday and celebrates Baltimore for its melting pot heritage and unique term of endearment, "hon," short for honey.
Mack, 26, who said she lives in "Curtis on the Bay" and was dressed in her best zebra print polyester dress, made it through the first round of the annual contest, when she correctly used the "Bawlmerese" word "arne" in a sentence: "My dress is polyester, so I don't have to arne it," she said.
Blom, 27, didn't have to think too hard about how to use "Bawlmer," the word she was thrown by festival organizer Denise Whiting, owner of Cafe Hon in Hampden who started a "hon" pageant in 1994 that has expanded into the nationally known festival on four city blocks of 36th Street, or The Avenue.
"To get my outfit, I went downy Avenue in Bawlmer," said Blom, replete in polka dots, who is from Perry Hall by way of Highlandtown. When she is not being a hon, Blom said, she is a retail manager for a Hallmark store.
This year's event also featured a new draw, a stand selling portions of the world's largest crab cake.
Jim Cupp, a sales manager for Handy International, a seafood processing company in Crisfield, said he succeeded in breaking his own record for the biggest crab cake ever. He mixed up the crab about 3 a.m. and had it cooking in a custom-made pan by 5 a.m, weighing in at 253 pounds.
It was certified a record by Guinness World Records, he said. The proceeds, at $10 a plate, went to Special Olympics Maryland. By late afternoon, only about 25 pounds were left.
"It's not a traditional Baltimore style," Cupp said of his recipe. "But people still reacted positively."
Whiting estimates her hon pageant draws about 50,000 people each year, put on mostly by the businesses that line 36th Street.
A crowded spot was the Glamour Lounge, where hairstylists from Kumbyah in Hampden used hair spray, bobby pins and teasing on dozens of customers, coaxing their hair into tall beehives.
The hairstyle is still popular with regular customers in the Hampden salon, said Maurice Lease, a stylist who was creating a beehive for 23-year-old Tresa Schumann of Columbia.
"We're here in Hampden, so of course," he said. "They stick with the hair[style] they've grown up with."
Schumann said she and four friends were all getting beehives for the day.
"We might go out tonight," she said.
