Dan Rodricks: Organizing Baltimore’s Christmas parade, the Kerrs go above and beyond the call of civic duty

Tom Kerr was 30 years old in the spring of 1973 when the legendary William Donald Schaefer, then in his first term as mayor of Baltimore, called and told him he wanted Kerr to organize a Christmas parade. “And you didn’t say ‘no’ to Mayor Schaefer,” Kerr says, reminding me — not that I needed it — that WDS was a strong-willed and demanding mayor who could explode into shards of nasty if you crossed him.