Old II

Continuing with yesterday's theme of old people structures, here are some I visited yesterday on my way home from Gloucester.  Most of these were taken from Chapel Neck Road at North.

The door is wide open, just beckoning.

This looks like a miniature Tastee Freeze.  Seriously.
There is a sliding window to exchange money/food and a
fluorescent light overhead.

Not all is old and falling down around these parts.
There are plenty of estates along the river.

These last two are of a cute little house just off Route 14 on the road leading into the Court House (Church Street).  I've shown pictures of this one before, but I felt the urge to take a few more shots because recently someone has cleared all the brush away.  As usual I am worried someone will tear it down.  So, here are a few more shots of the tiny little house.

Warning:  Taking photos while driving will
produce imperfect, lopsided results.

After work today I have to do a wee bit of traveling for work, so there likely won't be another blog post for a few days.

(Please keep your applause down to a dull roar.  Thank you.)

If you're really bored,  click here for a post  that dates back to the very first month this blog was created, March 2008. I was asked to share six unimportant things, habits or quirks.

I focused on six general things about my life, some of which are actually important  (like the snippets about my great-grandfather and my mother) as opposed to the habits or quirks, which would take fourteen days to compile.  Only #s 4 and 6 are what I would deem unimportant.  I don't follow directions well. Also, it's up for debate whether being related to Wayne Newton is important, unimportant, or a quirk. You can decide.

 If you would like to play the game, feel free to leave a comment describing six unimportant/important things, habits or quirks about yourself.  I will thoroughly enjoy reading them from the comfort of my hotel room in The Big City, assuming I can figure out how to hook up the internet and assuming I've not exploded from overindulging in Thai and/or Vietnamese food.

In any case, have a great rest of the week.

-cbw

Dusting

My back yard Thursday morning.

The title of this post refers to the light snow we received Thursday morning and not to the household chore I despise.

(For the record, there is not one single household chore I do not despise. I do, however, love all types of snow, even if it's only light.)

It was my day off from work, and the Chesapeake Bay Children had no school. After a blissful morning that included sleeping well past my normal time, I spent the day cooking--homemade turkey vegetable soup; Salisbury steak and mashed potatoes, cookies, etc.

We ate well.

(By the way, in my opinion Salisbury steak is just a fancy word for hamburger with gravy and onions.  However, it does sound better than hamburger with gravy and onions.  Still, to call that steak is a bit of a stretch.  Poor Man's Steak would be a better label.)

The Thursday night basketball game against West Point was cancelled due to schools being closed.  The girls play tonight/Friday at West Point assuming we don't get more snow, which they are calling for Friday afternoon.  If that game is cancelled we play Saturday night. The previously scheduled Saturday game over on the Eastern Shore has been cancelled.

(If you don't understand the above paragraph, don't worry.  I barely do either.)

Personally I am hoping for lots and lots of snow, much more than a dusting.  We shall see.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend.

Random Scenes

Today I feel like playing an association game. We'll connect all of these otherwise disparate photos by a common word or element.  

Fasten your seat belts, the train is getting ready to leave the station. Please remain seated until the ride has come to a complete stop at which time you may exit to your left.  Do not stampede on your way out; you could injure others trying to escape exit ahead of you.

(Unrelated side note: I used to work at Busch Gardens and had to give a similar spiel a few hundred times one summer. If anyone's ever looking for book or reality TV fodder, work at a crowded amusement park in the jungle-like humidity of an August summer in Williamsburg. You simply won't believe what people do on vacation, nor the clothes they wear or don't wear, nor the stuff they find to complain about, nor how many of those complainers seem to be from the North. No offense to anyone from the North, it's just an isolated observation made by a silly woman who wears a crab hat for entertainment.  Let's return from this entirely unnecessary tangent to our little association game, already in progress.)

The wooden skiff above sits on dry ground in a yard down Shadow.

That weathered and worn skiff  is made of wood, just like this cute little white farmhouse with a tin roof in Redart.

This mountain of oyster shells, outside of the old ice plant at Milford Haven, is white like that house.

Milford Haven is home to the Coast Guard station and the Gwynn's Island Bridge.

This rainbow is like a bridge from Earth to sky.

The last photo was sent to me by Mathews resident Bill Crowe, who had the privilege of seeing this rainbow from his back yard.

Thanks, Bill!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Life is like an amusement park here in Mathews.

We have to invent our own fun and games here in rural Mathews.

Thanks for playing along.

  

Have a fantastic weekend.

Yacht Club

At the end of Route 696 along the banks of Stutts Creek in Redart is a place called the Yacht Club.

(Even though that sign clearly states Mathews Yacht Club, we call it the Yacht Club. Since we're standing in Mathews and there's only one yacht club, we feel it is a bit ridiculous to call it the Mathews Yacht Club.  Well, maybe I'm the only one who has ever reflected on this topic before, but I know what I know, and that is I've never once heard anyone call it the Mathews Yacht Club even if it is clearly documented on this and other signs on the property. 

Now, for all I know, the members congregate every week and sing an anthem whose chorus repeats "Mathews Yacht Club" over and over again.

Still, it's just the Yacht Club to us Regular Folk.

Who here is ready to stampede out of this blog if CBW doesn't move along and stop obsessing over this irrelevant background information?

CB Mother, put your hand down.)

Most of the people I grew up with have been to the Yacht Club at least once whether they were members or not--and most of them weren't.

The building above, in addition to holding regular events for members, is often rented out for wedding receptions, class reunions, anniversaries, and other special occasions. My tenth high school reunion was here, and I believe that was the first time I'd ever been inside the clubhouse.

The immediate Chesapeake Bay Family was not exactly known to run in the Yacht Club-type circles, which is perhaps best exemplified by our recent Thanksgiving celebration at the Golden Corral. Not that there's anything wrong with that.  Still, that's probably not something you'd want to put on your application for membership at the Yacht Club.

But I digress.

My paternal grandparents may have had some involvement with the Yacht Club, I don't recall. CB Mother perhaps can fill in those gaps.

The bottom line is the Yacht Club doesn't just let Any Old Body join, and if memory serves there used to be lots of old bodies quite the waiting list for people interested in joining.

Full-fledged Yacht Club members are able to take advantage of the marina, the bar/dining area, and the swimming pool. They're also able to use terms like "Rear Commodore" without batting an eye or stifling a snicker.

That last sentence is Reason # 56 that Chesapeake Bay Woman would never be allowed in as a member of the Yacht Club, right after Reason # 55, which covers her defensive basketball/boxing out moves around the mashed potato tray at the Golden Corral on Thanksgiving.

The swimming pool.

Back when I was coming along, two places offered summer pool memberships:  the Islander and the Yacht Club.  Presumably the Yacht Club was for members only.

The Chesapeake Bay Family went to the Islander, a heavenly paradise that had to be experienced to be fully understood.

Occasionally, though, I'd come to the Yacht Club as someone's guest and will always associate this pool with one thing and one thing only:  salt water.

Of course the salt water was treated, but if you happened to lick your lips or whatever while swimming there was no mistaking the salt. That always struck me as odd, perhaps because nothing but salt water surrounds Mathews County and the very last thing I'd expect to taste when jumping into a swimming pool is salt.  That salt water, which tasted just like the creek, caused me to instinctively worry about things like stinging nettles and crabs. And eels.  We have eels in our creek.

I don't think I ever found any, of course, but the association detracted from my ability to fully relax, that's for sure.

Back in the early 2000s, the Chesapeake Bay Children took swimming lessons here.  I'll never forget the instructor telling me that Daughter should try out for a swim team.  She was about five at the time. Mathews doesn't have a swim team, though.

Nor a dive team, which was what I was practicing for over on the Islander's diving board during the summers of my teen years. I could do a one and a half, a half gainor, back dives, back flips--Lord I loved going off that diving board.

Once again, I digress.

Out back there is a small marina.

Note the sign that says MYC.

Thanks to my recent illness, which allowed me nothing but chicken broth and crackers for the past 48 hours, my brain evidently has turned into cracker meal automatically launches into the Mickey Mouse Club song:

M-Y-C....See ya real soon!

K-E-Y...Why?  Cuz we like you!

Em Oh You Ess Eeeee.

The above is reason # 88 that CBW will never be considered for membership to this or any other club. Although she may have a decent shot at the Mickey Mouse Club, if she were interested.

Stutts Creek

For the history of the Mathews Yacht Club, click here.

Green

Somewhere in Mobjack, 2010.

Partially because I haven't had time to take photos lately, 

View from the Road, Mobjack, 2010

but mostly because I am officially tired of the scarcity of color and life this time of year,

Corn Field Near Glenns, July 2010

I am sharing some old photos that feature the color green.

Public Landing, Onemo, 2010

I can't wait for warm weather.

Hoping to find some words of wisdom to support my lack of enthusiasm for winter, I happened instead upon a few quotes which give good reasons to appreciate this time of year.  

There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself.  

~Ruth Stout

I like these cold, gray winter days.  Days like these let you savor a bad mood.  

~Bill Watterson

The color of springtime is in the flowers, the color of winter is in the imagination.  

~Terri Guillemets

OK, fine. Pardon me while I spend the next few months savoring my bad mood. And hurry up, Spring!

~Chesapeake Bay Woman

Tuesday Trio

This shy old house down Whites Neck usually hides behind Mother Nature's abundant greenery on the few times I've come calling before, in the summer months.

But a few weeks ago, after one of our snow storms, she was exposed, vulnerable and very visible from the road.

I wanted to coax her out of her shell a little more, but that would have required trespassing getting out of my car or pulling into the driveway which, as you can see above, was full of brush snow.

It was too cold to get out.

Instead, I used the zoom lens from the warmth and comfort of my car on the main road.

There were no other cars around for miles.

And miles.

(Incidentally, a place called Miles is not too far from here.)

Don't you just want to run across that field and explore all around and inside that house?

I do.

Speaking of old houses, the DIY network is supposed to begin filming this month for their 2011 Blog Cabin series, which involves a farmhouse renovation down at Susan. This weekend I saw a very unexpected and most unusual sight in our dear county:  a taxi.  I don't think I've ever seen one here before, ever.  Putting two and two together, Sherlock I deduced there had to be some correlation.

A major network filming the same time as a once or twice in a lifetime spotting of a taxicab surely must be related.

At least in my little brain world.

And this concludes a post that started off about a timid farmhouse and ended up trying to explain why a taxicab would be patrolling Mathews County.

The End.

p.s. For the Mathews readers, have you ever seen a taxi around here?  Why wouldn't the person just rent a car?  By the time you pay cab fare for 50 - 75 miles (depending on whether you're flying in to Richmond, Norfolk or Newport News), wouldn't it make more sense to rent a car?  Am I the only one who has never seen a cab in the county? 

Do you know how many more questions I could ask if I didn't force myself to stop?  Too many, that's how many.  Have a great Tuesday.