Belle Isle Saw Mill

This building sits next to the old Gulf station (which is now a Curves) on Route 198 between Hudgins and Blakes. For anyone reading who didn't live around here in the 1970s, Blakes, which had its own zip code, started around Tom Hearn's Corner and ended somewhere before the invisible line where Cobbs Creek begins, roughly the Mathews Chapel vicinity give or take.

Confused? Don't worry. Blakes isn't even remotely germane to this blog post. If you wish to read the cliff notes version, please skip to the * below.

Anyway there's a hard surface road called Belle Isle near this old building, and though I've always thought the name was pretty, I never realized it had any particular significance.

Yesterday before freezing to death standing in cold, horizontal rain at the regional cross country meet which Mathews High School won!, I spent a few hours perusing the archives and files at the Gazette Journal, our local paper.

There, among hundreds of files loaded with local history, I saw a folder labeled Belle Isle.

There were only two items in the file: a very old drawing of a saw mill, and a typewritten note from someone whose last name was Bell.

According to the note, the original Belle Isle house burned in the late 1800s but the saw mill survived for many years afterward. If Queens Creek hadn't been mentioned, I would have quickly put this folder back and declared Belle Isle to be in one of the neighboring counties, since none was specifically mentioned.

However, the note went on to say that a boat hauling goods from the saw mill  capsized before reaching the mouth of the creek--Queens Creek, the very same Queens Creek CBW lives on, which so happens to pass by a road named Belle Isle in the vicinity of the building above.

*So to summarize:

1. CBW always liked the name Belle Isle but never realized it had any particular significance before yesterday.
2. Heretofore, nothing of any historical significance seems to have happened on Queens Creek unless you count the Army Corps of Engineers' involvement in dredging the mouth of the creek at Cow Point, and we don't really.  However we're highly appreciative of those efforts otherwise nary a boat (pronounced locally as "nare boat") could pass through.
3. Heretofore? Really? And nary? (Pronounced "nare" though, seriously.)
3. I would never have known there was a saw mill at a place called Belle Isle on Queens Creek just down the road from me if  not for the treasure trove of history at the Gazette Journal,'s library,  where I will spend every Thursday and Friday from here until the year 2025 or my death, whichever comes first.
4. Congratulations to Emily Brown of Mathews, a freshman who easily snagged first place in yesterday's regional cross country meet.
5. Congratulations to Coach Greve and all the runners for their much-deserved regional championship.
6. If I don't force myself to stop, this list will go until Tuesday or number 3,658, whichever comes later.
7. Therefore (as opposed to heretofore), Happy Weekend to all and to all a happy weekend.

p.s. If you're in Urbanna this weekend for the Oyster Festival, look for the frazzled, frizzy-haired woman wearing a crab hat while tossing back oyster fritters. Then run in the other direction.

A Week Or So

This is a recent sunrise on Queens Creek.

Once upon a time on Queens Creek,
A blogger took a break, for approximately a week.
Though she truly loved blogging she needed this break,
As did her two readers, for goodness sake.
While she squeezes the last bit of life from this summer,
She hopes to return fresher and hopefully not dumber.

...although she can't make any promises on that last sentence thanks to the fact that her brain cells are on the endangered species list. At last count there were only three and two of them were hanging on by a thread.

I'll be back.

Three Things

Welcome to Thursday where I share three things however random and you share three things, the more random the better.

Let's begin.

1. Saturday evening there is a crab steam at the Ruritan Club. Senator Ralph Northam, my favorite state leader, will be there, and so will a person wearing a crab hat. Guess which one people are coming to see?

Come on out and have a grand time with crazy people wearing crab hats good friends and good food. I promise none of the crabs being steamed are fiddler crabs.

2. Today I made a list of all the things troubling me. The list was absolutely overwhelming.

3. The photo above is in my top ten favorites. Obviously it represents Everything Mathews with the skiff, the marsh grass, the dock and the water, but it also represents how I feel most some days: tethered tightly to a dock even though the tide is way out and there's no danger of drifting away--or at all for that matter. An uncomplicated boat meant to venture calmly and freely on the waters is unnecessarily bound by outside influences.

Or something.

And now, before we get too deep, it's your turn to share three things. Whatever you want, anything at all.

Real Men Wear Dresses

In spite of all outward appearances, this is not a police line-up.

On the left (above), we have Miss Grimstead, aka Bud "Boudoir" Ward, waiting for the talent portion of the competition in Saturday night's Womanless Beauty Pageant at Mathews High School. Next to him is Miss Cardinal, aka former Washington Redskin Stuart Anderson. Sitting in front is Baby Sister's friend Miss Bohannon, aka Chuckie Walker. She He sashayed and shimmied to "Tip Toe Through the Tulips" for his her part of the talent competition.

Here he she is (below) dazzling the judges during the swimsuit competition:




Stuart Anderson Miss Cardinal sang her his heart out.


So did Richard Moughon Miss New Point. Speaking of points, her his knee-high, spike-heeled boots were very impressive. Unfortunately I didn't capture them fully in this particular shot, which is a tad blurry:


There were some things I captured that I almost wish I hadn't:

For just the briefest of moments I'd like you to compare Miss Grimstead's broad shoulders (below) to his her dainty little thong waist. Yes, those are dollar bills dangling from her his waistband, and yes that is spandex under that thong a hula hoop.


By the time the swimsuit competition rolled around, Miss Grimstead was showing signs of I need a beer and I don't care who I have to knock over to get one fatigue.


But then he she caught her his second wind.

Is there a market for Womanless Beauty Pageant talent managers? Because I'm seriously considering changing careers. This was so daggone exhausting much fun it ought to be illegal, and I'm pretty sure in some states it is.

Thank you to everyone who attended, especially my blog friends:

Meg who drove from suburban Washington, D.C. just for the event;

Noe Noe Girl from about an hour away, who left behind her husband, 7 new laying hens and 52 varieties of recently planted tomatoes to be watered;

Big Hair Envy, who made an emergency phone call to her daughter who has "show choir makeup" to ask the critical question of how one makes fake eyelashes stick when said fake eyelashes have been purchased from Dollar General for one dollar won't cooperate; and

Ann Marie, whose artistic talent spans from the beautiful cheese platter she served all these ladies to the beautiful glitter fingernail polish she applied when I was so stressed I just wanted to cry die.

Most of all thanks to the ladies men of Mathews County who proved that real men women really do wear pink thongs.

Three Things

Every Thursday here in Crazyville Chesapeake Bay Woman's world we have what's known as a three ring circus Three Thing Thursday, where she I share three things and you share three things, whatever you want. Anything at all.

Let's begin.

1. The photo above from Bethel Beach is not of some mutant/hybrid seal-iguana-snake-alligator looking thing. That is a piece of driftwood which happens to look like some sort of mutant/hybrid seal-iguana-snake-alligator looking thing.

2. Oh my goodness gracious. Oh my goodness gracious sakes alive. As the talent manager of one of the participants in Saturday's Relay for Life womanless beauty pageant, I can assure you that anyone under the beams of the Harry Ward Auditorium will be screaming with laughter that night.

3. Today as I was leaving the paying job I rolled my sun roof back. A hawk flew so close overhead he cast a shadow on my forehead dashboard. For a not so fleeting moment I worried wondered about the possibility of some big bird swooping down, sticking its claws in my rat's nest frizzy hair and pulling me through the sun roof. But only for the whole commute home a fleeting moment.

Now it's your turn to share three (or more) things.

Whatever you want. Anything at all.

The Right Light

Believe it or not--in spite of all outward appearances--this beach is not in Florida or the Caribbean or some other popular tourist destination. Nope. It's here in Mathews County.

Last weekend or some weekend recently, on a hot day, I forced encouraged the Chesapeake Bay Children to get in the car because, "You WILL enjoy this!" accompany me to Bethel Beach for some Nature Appreciation 101.

(The good thing about Nature appreciation lessons? Nature does all the teaching. All I have to do is fling them onto the beach or out in the forest or in the middle of a daffodil field, and Nature takes care of everything else and asks for nothing in return.

If this is the one lasting impression I can leave on them, aside from viewing humanity and this planet as one (one planet, one people) instead of "us" vs. "them," I feel I've done my job as a human being. If I could teach them not to leave ice cream dishes under their beds and dirty socks in the yard, that would be an achievement too.)

Most times our public beaches don't quite look like this with the white sand, blue sea, and blue sky. No, often times the sand has more of a brownish hue (due to being damp) and it's covered in seaweed. Although still beautiful, they sometimes take on a drab tone, especially in the winter.

The water, at least from this vantage point, typically looks darker, with shades of green and brown. On stormy days it's gray.

But this particular day the sun scared off every bit of cloud cover, and she did her level best to highlight the water as well as the sand.

I think she did a darn fine job.

All of the above applies to us as much as it does this beach. We may weather some storms and take a beating; we may wonder if we're going to make it through the rain and heavy winds. Even without a storm, some days we may look and feel rather ordinary, perhaps forlorn.

But when the dark skies clear and the sun shines bright, we're better than ever. Sometimes we're better than we ever thought we could be.

p.s. As Chesapeake Bay Woman writes these Deep Thoughts she is deliriously tired and may even be asleep for all we know. If none of the above makes sense, just know she wishes you a happy Saturday and a life filled with mostly brochure-like beach scenes, with only the occasional storm--to make you stronger.

p.s.s. I don't know why Chesapeake Bay Woman slips back and forth from third to first person so often, but she does, and I ask you to see above about the strong possibility of being completely asleep as she writes this. She and I both thank you.

But wait! One more thought/question:

Can you remember and/or describe an experience in your life which was particularly horrific at the time, but which made you stronger, with time, for having survived it?