Signs

Mathews Court House--which refers to our "downtown" commercial area as opposed to the courthouse which refers to the place where court is held--has some quirky interesting signs.

For example, most people might call the space between Hudgins Pharmacy and the old French's pool hall an alley.  But not us.

We designate it a walk and give it a name:  Farmers' Fishermen's Walk.  (Although Mathews has more than its fair share of farmers and fishermen, it's pretty much guaranteed you won't see any if you happen to find yourself promenading along Farmers' Fishermen's Walk.  Hudgins drug store used to be the Farmers' and Fishermen's Bank. That part I understand.  I'm struggling with the "walk" part though, I can't lie.)

This is it.  The Walk. For best results, walk slowly. You don't want to miss anything!

Once you've walked the three steps to cut through the alley experienced The Walk, you'll find lots of interesting businesses on the other side.

It's always preferable to heal locally.  

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus--and Mathews does indeed have a film society.

This concludes our brief trip around the block in Mathews Court House.

Be sure to head down to the Court House on Saturday at 1 for the annual Christmas parade, which they say will be held rain or shine.  I'll be hanging out around Sutton & Kline (also known as Moughon's) with my trusty camera.

Have a great weekend.

Weekend

This little shed lives tucked away in a small field near the nursing home just below the Court House.

This weekend, the Court House will be bustling with activity as we usher in the 39th annual Market Days. Although the festivities begin tomorrow, and school lets out at 1:00 p.m. just for this event, I probably won't get into the middle of it all until Saturday since I have to work.

There will be plenty of music, food (kettle corn, funnel cakes and BBQ, oh my!), arts and crafts, and as mentioned yesterday a 5K run on Saturday morning.  I'll be the one wearing a crab hat (among others, I am sure).

Little known fact: The very first (and come to think of it last) time I ran in a Market Days race was back in high school. My mother organized it to help fund the track that envelops the high school football field.  That was a long time ago, and the track hasn't changed much since then, sadly.  I keep saying if I win the lottery, Mathews High School will have a new track and all new equipment.

But that's another story for another time.

Plus I don't play the lottery that often.

Still, it's nice to dream.

Anyway, after stuffing yourself with fried sugar and Lions Club BBQ all day, you can burn off some calories at the street dance Saturday night.  It's always a fun time.

If you live nearby, I highly encourage a trip to Mathews Court House to experience Market Days.

Have a great weekend no matter what you're doing.

Fall Scenes

Disregard the utility wire and the shadow from the telephone pole.
This was taken hastily from the car.
Note:  CBW does not condone unsafe driving practices even if she does employ them from time to time out of necessity.
Do as she says, not as she does.

These were taken about a week ago during my recent Meals on Wheels route.  The last person I delivered to lives near the end of Route 657, Bookers Lane.

That day I talked to so many delightful people, including the father of one of my high school classmates; the grandmother of another classmate; and one man, originally from Richmond, who teared up as he was telling me about his wife of 62 years who passed away three years ago.  Sixty two years of marriage, and he called her his best friend.  He clearly was lonely and very eager to answer all my questions about her, his family, and what brought him to Mathews.  (He moved here to be near his son and grandchildren. Shortly after he and his wife moved here, she passed away.)

The Mathews Active Lifestyle Center runs our local Meals on Wheels program, and the food is prepared by the Mathews High School cafeteria workers.  They are always in need of drivers. You don't have to commit to a regular schedule, you can substitute like I do. It's a very rewarding experience and entails so much more than just delivering food. I encourage anyone who is able to help out with this great cause.

Here in Mathews you can call (804) 725-7850 to sign up.

If you aren't from Mathews and wish to locate a program near you, click here.


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In other news, the Mathews High School girls volleyball team won the state championship Saturday.

What's happening in your neck of the woods?

Three Things

Public Landing, Onemo

Welcome to Three Thing Thursday, where Chesapeake Bay Woman attempts to limit the number of random thoughts she spews forth to three rather than her usual thirty three. Then you're encouraged to share three thoughts related to whatever topic happens to be floating through your mind at the moment.


Let's begin.

1.  The Mathews High School Cross Country teams won their first meet last night at Beaverdam in Gloucester.  They competed against Essex, King William and West Point.  Hopefully this weekend I'll find time to load photos to the cross country blog  that I haven't updated since last year maintain.

2. Mathews Market Days is this weekend!  With any luck I'll be there Friday wandering aimlessly with my camera.  On Saturday Chesapeake Bay Daughter's class will be manning a booth outside Dr. Stewart's old office (the yellow building across from the Confederate statue) to raise money for their class trip.  They'll be selling handmade belts and bracelets as well as baked goods.

3.  If I had my act together, and naturally I don't, I'd be manning a crab hat booth or a Mathews calendar booth at Market Days.  But sadly, with too many irons in the fire, I will never have don't have my act together nor do I have the organizational skills time. However next year I hope to be peddling a book (and maybe crab hats, and perhaps even a calendar).

By the way, I think I uttered those exact same words last year at this time...

Now it's your turn to share three things. Whatever you want.  Anything at all.

License plate on truck at public landing.

Market Days

This house, swimming in a sea of soybeans, lives in Mobjack, a section of Mathews I have been to twice in my life rarely frequent due to its remote, off-the-beaten-path location. When something is off the beaten path in a town that is the very definition of off the beaten path, you can rest assured that it isn't possible to say "off the beaten path" any more times in one sentence than I have here it's isolated.

In spite of all the unrelated text above, today's post is about the big event here in Mathews this weekend: Market Days.

Although I have lots of work to do on a side project (the same one which took me to this sea of green yesterday), I plan to make a few trips down to the festivities to inhale some funnel cakes and kettle corn inhale the aroma of funnel cakes and kettle corn; amble through the craft booths and most importantly people watch.

People watching is one of my favoritest activities, and yes, favoritest is a word.

If you're in spittin' distance, please try to make it out and partake of all the fun and funnel cake frivolity.

The schedule of events for Market Days includes:

1. Wondering about the sort of person who includes "spittin' distance" in any sort of writing, although it's particularly disturbing when combined with an invitation to an event involving food.

1.b Funnel cake

2. Kettle corn

3a. Over 90 booths of arts and crafts

3b. One booth selling bracelets to fund Operation Smile, a charity which helps children with cleft lips/palates.

4. An ultralight flyover Friday morning (What's an ultralight, you say? Rest assured it has nothing to do with a funnel cake, but you'll have to attend the opening ceremonies to find out exactly what is involved.)

4b. Funnel cake

5. 5K run at Williams Wharf Saturday morning

6a. Entertainment starting at 11:00 Saturday inside Westville on Main Street, including Faith Carter Family (Hi, Faith!) and Friends at 2:45 p.m.

6b. Six musical groups on the outdoor stage on Saturday from 11 - 4

7a. Kettle Corn

7b. Pet Parade Saturday at 10

8. Crab Race Saturday at noon. This event is just screaming for spectators to wear a crab hat. Screaming, I say!

9a. Saturday Night Street Dance from 8 - 11 (CBW considers this the highlight of Market Days except for 9b below)

9b. Kettle Cake Funnel Corn

10. Sugar Coma

11. The End.

Please answer one or more of the following:

1. If a crab race occurs at a festival, and everyone accepts it as normal, is it?

1b. Since crab races--of course-- are normal, if only one person watching wears a crab hat, is it even a crab race?

2. If a human being wants to eat a funnel cake, some kettle corn and some salty french fries all in the same sitting day, do we need to have paramedics shadowing her all day, or is a 3-mile radius sufficient to respond to the inevitable 911 call?

3. For those not going to Market Days this weekend, what will you be doing? Will crab races and funnel cakes be involved?

Three Things

Although I thought I just typed these exact same words day before yesterday, it's Thursday once again, which means it's Three Thing Thursday, which means we share three things and wonder where on Earth all of our writing and grammar skills went to allow such a meandering sentence. It's shameful, really. And yet I do nothing to stop/correct it.

Let's begin.

1. This weekend is the county's biggest event of the year, Mathews Market Days. It's sort of like our version of the Urbanna Oyster Festival, only without the oysters and the Fireman's Parade. And the boats. However, we have something the Oyster Festival doesn't have: the Saturday night street dance. Baby Sister always jokingly refers to this as the Barn Dance (even though it's not held in a barn), sort of like the ones they used to portray on the Waltons, one of my favorite old TV shows. (Stop laughing. I mean it.) See? Once again with the meandering sentences.

2. I am very, very excited to say that I am attending Saturday night's festivities with an old friend from high school whose name in high school Spanish was Renata (pronounced with the rolling "r," Rrrrrrrrrrenata). By the way, I hated my name in Spanish: Juana. Plain Jane Juana (no offense to any Juanas or Janes out there). The teacher wouldn't let me pick my name because my real name--according to her--translated closest to Juana. In French, though, the teacher let me choose whatever I wanted, and I wanted Chantal. I loved the name Chantal. Juana? Hated it. But really this is not about made-up names in foreign language class. It's about reuniting with an old friend whose name was way better than yours in Spanish class.

3. I am also hoping to meet up with another high school friend who was a genius (seriously) musician and drummer. He wants to talk about a business proposition that sounds muy interesante. To let you in on just how unusual this prospect is, one of the job requirements is "Not afraid to shoot a pistol."

Trust me when I tell you that if CBW could share even half of what really goes on in her day-to-day life nobody would believe a word of it, and yet the stuff still keeps happening to her. She needs to consider starting another blog under a new name with no way of tracing her identity. The next thing she needs to do is stop referring to herself in the third person. I wish her good luck with that one.

4. (I don't do well with rules. Three is merely a guideline.) The Mathews High School Cross Country team won last night's opening meet against King William and West Point at Beaverdam in Gloucester. At some point I'll do a proper post on the team, but they are an amazing group of young adults with a fantastic coach. Also, I saw Reader/Commenter Baybrowder and tried to talk him into volunteering for the team since he used to coach CC. But so far I've not convinced him. I love a good challenge - and he'd make a fantastic assistant, particularly in the spring track season.

And now it's your turn to share three things. Whatever you want, anything at all.

Tour de Chesapeake

Above is the historic Mathews Court Green on a recent Saturday morning just before the Farmers Market opened up. The buildings which make up the court green date back to approximately 1795, the same year I was born.

While that may be a slight exaggeration, try telling that to my Vitamin D deficient blood. This is a topic for another day, though, this whole Vitamin D thing.

Anyway, the stately white building in the background has been many things over the years: a hotel; the home of 1930s MGM "Goldwyn Girl" Toby Wing-Merrill; and a daycare. Now it's a lovely restaurant, bar and B&B called the White Dog Inn.

What I really wanted to discuss today, though, is Vitamin D deficiencies have been associated with all kinds of horrendous diseases, and I'm convinced I have all of them this weekend's Tour de Chesapeake.

Tour de Chesapeake is an annual Mathews County event in which every single bicyclist this side of the Mississippi, north and south of the Maxon Dixon Line, descends on our nice, flat, below-sea level, fiddler crab infested roadways. They bring their children, aunts, crazy uncles, siblings, step siblings, Sunday School teachers, and BFFs--and they're all wearing spandex and helmets. On bikes. In the middle of the road.

It's more than just a little frightening when you're driving down to the court house to pick up a loaf of bread and you're not expecting the onslaught of bikes, helmets, fanny packs and brightly colored spandex.

However, this is a fun event for the bikers, and a portion of the proceeds are donated to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. The participants also bring a great deal of revenue to the local businesses, which we love. Then they leave. And we love that too. Hi, bikers! We really do love having you in our county, honestly.

The bike routes range from 20 to 80 miles in length. I didn't know there was eighty miles to be found in Mathews.

Best of all for us locals is there will be music. And food. And music. I believe something is planned for Saturday night next to the very court green pictured above, however the Tour de Chesapeake website's information is from 2008.

I might be Vitamin-D deprived, but I do know it's not 2008.

This week's Gazette Journal will no doubt have all the particulars.

Anyway, a big Welcome to the County to the millions many cyclists coming to Mathews this weekend, and a fair warning to any residents needing to make a trip into town this weekend:

Get to the Food Lion before noon on Friday unless you're prepared to box people out in the snack aisle.
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Have you ever done any serious bicycling or participated in an organized cycling event?

If you were cycling down the road with your family and all of a sudden a herd of killer fiddler-crabs jumped from the bushes and scurried across the road, what would you do?

If a lone cyclist-- overtaken by horseflies and mosquitoes in the swamps of New Point-- screams but nobody hears him, does he make a sound?