Bushel Basket

Barely distinguishable from the sand, Saturday evening's snow still hugged this bushel basket and the surrounding random marsh grasses at Aarons Beach on Sunday morning.

Barely distinguishable from these wind-up chattering teeth were Chesapeake Bay Woman's own poor teeth as she shivered, huddled, stomped, and then bounced her way through these photographs at a very blustery Aaron's Beach.

It's surprising the amount of instant warmth you can generate by a good round of beach stomping and jumping in place. There are residual benefits as well, including stress relief, but only if nobody else is there to see you.

Then it works against you.

OK, that site linked above, with the chattering teeth, sells something else that caught my eye--Vampire Bubba Teeth (click here), not to be confused with Regular Bubba Teeth (click here).

Brrrrrr. This was facing the wind.  It was brutal.

Although I'm sure this blog post originally had a point and a direction or was at least headed somewhere reasonably productive, I must apologize and excuse myself to peruse the completely unrelated, utterly unproductive world of bubba teeth, fake bugs and rubber chickens.

Dear Spring,

If you don't hurry up and get here, there's no telling where this blog is headed, but there's a good chance its owner will be found jumping up and down wearing vampire bubba teeth on some desolate, isolated Mathews County beach. I eagerly anticipate your arrival so things can return to normal, where "normal" is defined as only wearing crab hats for stress relief.

Thank you,
CBW

p.s. Please click this link for my mother's blog post about Gustav's Valentine's Day fiasco adventure. Because the way we amuse ourselves, particularly in the winter, evidently runs in the family. Some of us, however, require more accoutrements than others.

********
If you are interested in a 20% discount and free shipping for my book on Mathews County, which did not once reference bubba teeth or rubber chickens, but perhaps did make a vague reference to this county's isolation from mainstream society,  please click the link at the upper right corner of this page or  here for Arcadia Publishing's special promotion, which runs until Sunday. Use the coupon code of MATHEWS at checkout. 

Snow

Back yard yesterday morning.

The most exciting part of my otherwise quiet and uneventful weekend was Saturday night's dusting of snow that created these scenes Sunday morning.

Well, actually, there was one other thing that happened, and that involves my mother's goose Gustav.  I'll let her tell that suspenseful tale, but he's found himself a Canadian girlfriend. When a powdering of snow and a goose's personal life become the most exiting thing going on, you can pretty much count on the fact that you're in a bit of a social rut, fyi. Also, when a goose has more of a social life than you do, you best be prepared to admit that your rut is the size of the Grand Canyon.

Luckily I got out early with the camera, because by midday the snow was already starting to disappear.

My dock at low tide. During a good storm, the tide will cover the bottom of the boathouse.

This week I'll share some shots from Sunday morning's trip to Aaron's Beach, where the wind was blowin' a gale and the air was so brutally frigid I actually worried whether my tonsils fingertips would drop off from frost bite.

So far, they haven't.

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In unrelated news, Arcadia Publishing is offering a limited-time 20% discount (plus free shipping) on my Mathews County book this week. Click here or on the image of the book in the upper right corner of this page and enter the coupon code MATHEWS at checkout. 

Misty Morn

Last weekend, I glanced out my bedroom window and noticed a haze hovering over Smither Cemetery, across the creek.

Hurry! I said to myself. Grab the camera!

I dutifully obeyed.

The morning fog can be so beautiful.

I snapped several shots, put the camera down, then continued to admire the view.

Then I realized that wasn't fog at all.

My neighbor was just burnin' some leaves.

The End.

p.s. For clarification, the neighbor was not the house off in the distance in these pictures, even though smoke appears to be coming from there in that last one. No, this neighbor is to the right of Smither Cemetery, which is an enchanting waterfront cemetery behind those pine trees.

p.s.s.t. Before I go off on a tangent about Smither Cemetery and believe me I could, please come to the Mathews Christmas Parade on Saturday at 1.  I'll be at the Visitor Center (formerly Sibley's General Store) before the parade signing books, chatting with friends, and wondering how I can possibly be old enough to have a teenager going to the Holly Ball--with a date--Saturday night.

Have a fantastic weekend.

Three Things

More from Bethel Beach

Welcome to the day of the week I call Three Thing Thursday, where the goal is to ramble on and on, flitting from one trivial topic to the next share whatever happens to be on our minds, at least three things.

Let's go.

1. There's just way too much going on this month. In addition to the usual commute/work/school/sporting events which keep me frazzled enough, the release of the book requires me to be at three book signings over the next two weeks. Plus Christmas is right around the corner and I've done absolutely no shopping whatsoever. If I didn't have kids, I wouldn't care about the shopping. But I do have kids and I've always made a big deal out of Christmas, therefore the self-induced PRESSURE builds.

2. We won't even talk about the artificial Christmas tree waiting to be decorated. After hauling that monstrosity upstairs from the depths of hell basement, I reached into one of the plastic bins containing all--all--the lights and discovered  that every strand was submerged in, oh, about six inches of water. Where that water came from I do not want to know. All I do know is that water + poorly functioning electrical outlets + water logged Christmas lights + an already stressed out CBW = Ugly. Plain and simple. (I'm buying new lights since I have no interest in being electrocuted, not yet anyway.)

3. This Saturday is going to be interesting.  Chesapeake Bay Daughter has to be at Ware Academy, 15 miles away, at 7: 30 a.m. to help prepare for their Breakfast with Santa event.  How she's getting home from that is anyone's guess, because my first ever book signing starts at 11:00 at the Mathews Visitor Center (Sibley's in the Court House) and lasts until after the Christmas parade, which starts at 1:00.  Then we will race home and help Chesapeake Bay Son get ready for his first date formal dance Saturday evening.

Serenity now. I need some peace on Earth.

Now it's your turn to share three things, whatever you want, anything at all.

Except for one thing...If you celebrate Christmas, and you've done all your shopping, all your decorating and all of everything, and everything is perfect, and you are very happy and pleased with your achievements, well, that is wonderful, but I beg you to share anything but that, if you don't mind. Thanks so much!  (Congratulations on reading the longest sentence in the history of this blog.)

Melange

An old home on the East River

The wrap around porch is beautiful...

but is deteriorating.  It's still a wonderful old home, though.

When viewed from a distance, you can't see the flaws.
(The house is in the upper left corner.)

I don't know about you, but it feels like I've been off work and on vacation for a week, although it's only been four days. What a difference it makes not having to drive children back and forth to school and the associated activities, although their social calendar didn't slow down much...

Anyway, today's post is a hodgepodge of random thoughts, which is no different from any other day here, really.  It's sort of like a Three Thing Thursday on Monday--with six things instead of three.

1.  The Chesapeake Bay Family celebrated Thanksgiving in the most unorthodox way humanly possible.  This topic deserves a separate post but let's just say that lots of driving and this place (click here) were involved. Oh yes indeed. The only thing that would have made it any crazier would have been if we'd all been wearing crab hats.  And trust me, we did not want to draw attention to ourselves in that crowd.

2.  The movie Eat Pray Love is now one of my favorite movies of all time mostly because of the way it ends (in Bali, which isn't Bora Bora, but sure looks good to me).  One night when the Chesapeake Bay Children were both gone, looking forward to a nice, quiet evening alone with my new movie, I attempted to load it on to the DVD player in my bedroom.  Since it's been so long since I've watched a movie, evidently I forgot  which button to push on the remote.  No problem!

Still optimistic, I trotted into the living room and loaded it into that DVD player.  The audio worked just fine, but no matter how many cuss words I uttered buttons I pushed I could not for the life of me get the video to work.  Note: Ordinarily Chesapeake Bay Son handles all the technical issues in this household.  I was not going to embarrass him by calling to ask how to operate the DVD player. I was bound and determined to figure it out on my own, gosh darn it.  Oh, and no, I could not watch it on my laptop, because my laptop screen is fried.  That's another story for another day, although the problem will soon be rectified.

So, I resorted to the one thing I knew would work:  a "portable" DVD player/TV combo (the size of a mini-fridge) with only one plug and no remote or other confusing buttons whatsoever--from circa 1995 2005.  The screen was so small I had to practically press my nose against the screen to see pull my chair very close up to see. (Note to self:  Please schedule that eye exam that is now two years overdue, otherwise you're well on your way to being legally blind.)  Finally I saw the movie, and I loved it.  Success!

3.  The photos above were taken from the public landing just below the Court House.  I have long admired this house and try to capture her every chance I get since she seems to be deteriorating.

4.Yesterday I had the honor of meeting a Mathews resident who can trace her roots in this county back to the 1700s which was the same year that DVD/TV combo was invented.  Later this week I will share photos of her absolutely exquisite home called Beachland, and snippets of our conversation about her family.  Beachland is the sort of home that gives you chills; you can feel the history even as you drive down the driveway.  Unfortunately, I didn't bring a pad and pencil with me, so most of the history she shared will be filed in the same part of my brain that remembers forgets how to operate the DVD players in my own house.  However, I am hopeful I will get back there for a longer visit to delve deeper into what is most assuredly a great chapter in our local history.

5. I made the best batch of collard greens this weekend.  Slow cooked them with a ham hock.  I do believe I could eat collards morning, noon and night and never get tired of them--but only if they're cooked in old ham.

6. Arcadia Publishing has scheduled a couple of book signings for my book.  The first will be December 10th, the weekend of the Christmas parade, at the old Sibley's General Store, now the Mathews County Visitor Information Center.  The next one will be the following weekend at Twice Told Tales in Gloucester.  I'm working on a third at Sandpiper Reef but will probably wait and do that one early next year.  More info/details coming soon.

Right now I am just trying to survive memories of Thanksgiving at the Golden Corral the transition back to the work/school week.

How was your Thanksgiving?

The Book

For almost two years now, I've been carrying around an unfinished project known as The Book.

On December 5, I'm scheduled to give birth.

This labor of love is scheduled for a December 5 release.

More details to follow when I figure them out soon.

Have a great weekend.

Tuesday Trio

Today's trio of pictures comes from the public landing at Edwards Creek on Gwynn's Island.

This week is chock full of action, including:

*  Chesapeake Bay Daughter's soccer tournament (Tuesday and Thursday after work)

*  Chesapeake Bay Son's District Cross Country Meet (Wednesday after work)

*  New work to be done on the book, this time related to Marketing. I have to basically make up ten reasons identify ten reasons why someone would want to buy my book on Mathews County Then and Now and (this is the hard part) send a photo of myself. (Due Friday.)

*I don't have any photographs of myself except the ones on Facebook and all 3/4 of those are of me wearing a crab hat.

*Somehow I don't think the Arcadia Publishing Marketing folks want a picture of me in a crab hat. 

*That's just a guess though.

Hope your week is a good one.

p.s. Ann Marie, why did you have to move to North Carolina?  I need you to take my picture, and that's not logistically possible with you three hours away. Chesapeake Bay Mother, are you available?  

Three Things

Once again we find ourselves in the midst of the day called Thursday, which is when we're encouraged to share three (or more) things, no matter what they are.

I'll go first.

1. As it turns out, after that little hike through the woods last week, I don't have poison ivy. I have CHIGGERS, or rather chigger bites. If you don't know what chiggers are, I'll devote a separate blog post to them at a later date. However, even if you do know what chiggers are? You don't know what this year's graduating class from Mathews County post-hurricane is like. In short, they're horrendous. Much like our mosquitoes, this year they have morphed into some killer, mutant breed that is relentless and dead set on causing hysteria, paranoia, incessant itching and the uttering of more than a few choice words.

Hey, at least my record against poison ivy still stands.  I am not allergic to it, at all. By the way, this is only mildly comforting as I scratch myself to death over these killer chigger bites. 

2. The Mathews High School cross country teams are undefeated. They won again Tuesday night against Northampton, Lancaster, and Middlesex. I am woefully behind in every possible aspect of my life on updating the cross country blog, but hope to tend to that this weekend. Chesapeake Bay Son's time has been improving, and it's such a pleasure to watch these kids run.

3. Saturday there's an invitational cross country meet at Maymont in Richmond (a mere 70 miles away! one way! on Saturday!) which I will attend in between working on proofreading and editing the first draft of the book, which was recently sent to me by the publisher and due back with all edits (that's 100+ pages at last count) by Tuesday.

(In between driving to sporting events and editing book submissions,  I also work  at that little place called The Paying Job, so not sure how I will squeeze everything into an already frenetic schedule, but we don't worry about such things, what with all the scratching from the chigger bites and all.)

3b. In short, every spare minute of my life time has been spoken for this weekend.

3c. Regardless, Sunday I will spend some time reminiscing with Ann Marie, whose great- great- great- GrandSomeOne, Elzy Burroughs, built the New Point Light. Next weekend, she's moving away from Mathews on to a place called Greener Pastures, which is a spectacularly gorgeous beach community huddled near the Atlantic Ocean.

By the way, she can expect frequent visits from CBW who has absolutely no problem inviting herself to friends' houses, especially when those friends have houses near the beach.

4. Please click here to read my mother's experience with beauty pageants. She's a very gifted, very beautiful writer.

Now it's your turn to share three things. Feel free to share more things unless, of course, those things happen to be chiggers and/or mosquitoes.

Thanks!

[**scratch***scratch**]

Shadow

The other day on the way down to Bavon, I stopped at one of my favorite intersections in the county, where Route 600 meets 14 in an area known as Shadow, near the New Point firehouse and the site of the old New Point school.

This charming building and the one across the road always seem to beckon whenever I'm down that way, almost like they're flagging me down, begging for some attention.

I'm very happy to give some.

Photos of this structure will be included in the book I'm never going to finish working on; it was once a store that also housed the Shadow post office.

I wish I had taken these pictures sooner, because the lighting is better here than in the one I submitted to the editor already. But whatever.

Speaking of the book, I was notified yesterday that it should be ready for sale by December 5th.  I still have some blank pages to fill and lots of editing to do, but it's nice to know there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

The publisher also mentioned things which make me extremely nervous, like interacting with other human beings the public to promote it, for example. (*Shudder*)

Let's get back to this building, patiently awaiting our return from this unnecessary tangent.

You can't tell from this picture, but an old boat is hiding to the left just behind the bushes there.

And there are some other interesting features like this...

and this.

Needed Things.

I could--and believe I will-- go off on yet another tangent, this one relating to this sign which was placed here late in this building's life.

If you had to make a list of the top few things (not people, things) you really, truly need (as opposed to simply want or desire or think you require), what would that list include (besides obvious answers such as shelter and transportation)?

I'm not sure I have an answer just yet. I'll have to think about it while daydreaming at the paying job today.

Thank you for enduring a blog post which started off talking about a quaint building in the Shadow area before quickly careening into the topic of  my extreme introversion the book, and then fishtailing into the topic of so-called needed things.  

Signed,
Chesapeake Bay Rambling Woman

The Courthouse

Over the weekend I went to the courthouse to take some street photos for the book I'm working on.  I thought Sunday afternoon would be ideal, since the sun was bright and people would be at home doing whatever people do at home on Sunday afternoons. Downtown Mathews is usually desolate on Sunday afternoons.

So naturally the one time I needed a perfect photo of the public library (above), which used to be Farmers Bank of Mathews, there were several cars parked out front. And all of a sudden I noticed all the telephone poles and wires. Great big, ugly utility wires. This was not good.

Feeling a little frustrated but not yet defeated, I walked around the corner for a shot of Southwind (below), which at one time was a general store. The lighting was perfect! But once again a car was in the way just enough to muck up my picture.

I might still use this one, but, hello?  Wish the car weren't there.

All this time, whenever I contemplated the necessary tasks for the book (gathering old photographs, taking photos of the exact same scenes, and writing a paragraph for each pair of pictures--all 80 pairs), I always assumed that taking the current photographs was going to be the easiest part of the job. I take pictures around here all the time, it's a snap! To me the hard part was all the rest.

What I'm discovering--less than a week before my cover photographs are due and about two months before the entire book is due--is how much I underestimated the difficulty of taking a decent "now" shot of various buildings in the courthouse, thanks mostly to my need to take these pictures when there are no cars or pedestrians around.

(Oh, and also?  There's heavy construction going on at Hyco Corner and Ward's Corner making any "now" photos at those locations unsightly.  One scene requires me to take a shot of the sanitation plant; the "then" shot, before the plant, is priceless so I have to use that photo.  Is there any way to take a good picture of a sanitation plant? Also, did you know that there is no proper angle for a good shot of Hardees which is where a very cute and very photogenic Texaco station once stood? Honestly the courthouse area was far more charming back in the 1930s and '40s than it is today.)

This sudden realization caused a wave of panic to sweep over me, and beads of sweat formed on my forehead even though it was slightly chilly this particular day. 

(A similar wave of panic caused me to bolt upright in bed the other night at exactly 2:00 a.m. Hormones may be playing some role in all this sweating and all, but the book related stress isn't helping matters one bit.)

A couple of shots must be taken from the middle of the road to match the angle of the old photographs which shouldn't be a big deal early in the morning or on Sunday.

Except it actually is, at least when I've made such attempts.

The shot below is awful, plain and simple.  I will need to go back when the light is better and there are no cars coming at me.

So, after spending about an hour wandering around taking terrible pictures, I got pissed off became frustrated and spun out of there on two wheels...

I'm pretty sure my seventh grader could take a better shot. More utility wires anyone?

...and drove directly to Aaron's Beach, where absolutely no work was done on The Book Which Will Never Be Completed.

Ah.  Now all is right with the world.

The End.


p.s. I went back last night after 7:00 p.m. and had better luck, but still, this is going to be a very long, very difficult couple of months.

Mathews Co. Marble and Concrete Company

Richardson's Drug Store, (the building on the far right, which is now a restaurant) has stood on the corner of Main and Church Streets since the 1920s.

The Jarvis and Pugh Building (the yellow building below, which at one time was Miss Golden Brooks' store) has stood just down from Richardson's on Church Street for roughly the same amount of time.

But see those buildings with the lower roof line and awnings (below) in between the yellow J&P building and Richardson's?

They were later additions to this streetscape.

The only reason I can state this with any conviction is that the Gazette Journal has a photograph of this same stretch of street back in the 1920s when the roads were dirt.  In the space between Richardson's and the Jarvis and Pugh building stood a little shed with a sign that says Mathews County Marble and Concrete Company.

They made, among other things, tombstones, which were displayed out front right along this street.

That old photo will appear in the book I am working on (the good Lord willing and the creek don't rise).

The Gazette Journal is truly an amazing source of information, and if not for that photograph, I would never have known that a place called Mathews Co. Marble and Concrete ever existed (unless I spent days upon weeks upon years months in the county clerk's office researching deeds; even so, the photograph says things no deed book ever could).

Mathews is overflowing with so many stories just waiting to be told.  Hopefully one day I'll win the lottery and be able to devote the proper time researching those stories, interviewing the right people, and hunting for the photographs that go with each tale.

Until then, I'll just share what precious little I know here.  But one thing I've learned in the many months spent working on this book is that precious little is sometimes a lot. One clue leads to another and before you know it you've solved a puzzle you didn't even know existed.

Or something.

Have a great weekend.

Bayside

Last Friday I had the privilege of touring the southern end of the county with a former classmate of mine who had information and old photographs for the book I'm working on. One of the many places we visited was the site of the former Bayside Wharf.

The wharf, which he said stretched waaaaaaay out from where we were standing, was obliterated by Hurricane Hazel.

Today, the site is marked with a pavilion which is available for rent from the Mathews Land Conservancy. These pictures were taken from that pavilion.

 Click here for information on the wharf and the MLC.

Here's a picture of Johnny Pugh, my high school friend who was ever so happy to tell me what he knew.  And what he knows are facts and details which cannot be read in books or studied in school.

What he knows may be my next book.

Thank you, Johnny.

Peary

Yesterday I drove down to Peary to take some photos from property a reader gave me permission to visit. I'll share those photos later in the week.

Afterwards, I decided to drive down to the old Peary post office.

On the way, I was stunned to see this church, St. Matthew.

It sits on a corner at a bend in the road.  I didn't remember it was here since I very rarely get this far down Potato Neck Road.

Yes, it's called Potato Neck Road. And if you've never heard of Peary, that's because the Peary post office shut down many years ago.  However, to us locals it's still Peary.  This road sign near the post office provides some supporting evidence.

Perhaps more shocking than having that church jump out at me was the old post office, now painted yellow...

...and sporting a string of snowflakes across the porch. (Click on the image below for a better view.)

The book I am working on compares old photos of landmarks with present day images. I remember when this was a fully functioning post office and located an excellent older photo from that time, taken from a similar angle as the first one above.  So Peary Post Office will very likely make the cut for the book, even though she's currently sporting a bright yellow coat and snowflake jewelry. (Thankfully the photos in the book will be black and white.)

I'd say she's doing OK; at least she's not acting her age like so many other buildings around here.

In closing, and unrelated to the Peary area of the county, if all goes well I hope to have a special announcement tomorrow that may involve a give away, the good Lord willing and the creek don't rise.

Have a great day.

Piecing Together the Past

Outbuilding Near Ocean Products, November 2010

Yesterday I discovered another treasure trove of local information down at the Clerk's office at the Court House.

After I showed up dragging a laptop, a bag of file folders, a mini-backpack that serves as my pocketbook, and a partridge in a pear tree the bags under my eyes from not enough sunlight or sleep, my initial conversation with the employees there went like this:

CBW, to the two nice ladies sitting near the front desk:  "Hi, my name is CBW and I must be half crazy because I agreed to do a book on the history of Mathews and need some help."

Nice Ladies:  (Insert sounds of crickets chirping here as they stared blankly and blinked once or twice.   I don't think they're used to people admitting they're crazy, at least not where they work.)

CBW, filling in the awkward silence:  "Yeah, well, anyway, a lot of the book will revolve around the Court House area. I'll use old photos from various Court House scenes, match them with current photos I'll take of the exact same scenes, and then for each pair I have to write a paragraph about the significance of the location."

Really Nice Lady and I swear I am not making this up :  "You really must be crazy."

CBW:  "I know.  Anyway.  Let's take Foster's Department Store as an example."

Nice Ladies:  (**Crickets.**  They didn't know where Foster's Department Store was because technically it's no longer called Foster's Department Store, and they aren't from Mathews.)

CBW:  "You know, the store across from Richardson's.  So it was Foster's Department Store and through some research I know that before the fire in the 1920s there was an old hotel near that property.  What I'm curious to know is if there is any resource here that could tell me, for any given piece of property, who owned it and what establishment may have existed on it through the years, as far back as I can possibly go."

Nice Lady, who knew this really wasn't possible but didn't want to potentially disappoint someone who has just self-declared as crazy:  "Well, some of that is possible. Eugene will probably be able to help. Eugene, are you there? Eugene?"

Mr. Eugene came out and I gave him the overview but also suggested that Mr. Eugene himself, with ties to Callis Wharf on Gwynn's Island, might know some of the history of the Court House.  He then went on to say that he probably knew about as much as my husband.

Since I am not married and haven't been for some time, it was obvious that Mr. Eugene thought I was Chesapeake Bay Mother.  Instead of looking 46, I and my baggy eyes must have looked 69 yesterday.  Great!

After we took care of that little bit of confusion, Mr. Eugene and the Very Nice Lady carefully explained what I needed to do to piece together what is available at their office to determine property ownership. It's actually quite fun and involves some sleuthing but it isn't a swift process and nothing guarantees you'll find what you're looking for.   Researching three properties took me three and a half hours, and I never did find anything about that old hotel.

After I left, I aged another 10 years at the realization of how much work is ahead of me in my "spare time" headed to the library and spent another 2 hours upstairs in the genealogy room, which also houses some excellent local history and record books.

In conclusion, here are some of the things I learned after my day of research:

* The Clerk's office maintains a wealth of information that is easy to access, albeit time consuming.
* The employees there are wonderfully patient and very helpful.
* Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have not purchased any property in Mathews.
* The room upstairs at the library, which has 2 or 3 huge books dedicated to the Sibley family alone, is a gold mine of local history and information.
* If CBW didn't already have a paying job and two children to parent, she might be able to make her book deadline.
* Since CBW thankfully does have a job and children, she's so worried about making her deadline and juggling all her regular responsibilities that she walks around looking 69 years old while her mother looks 46.
* I really, really, want to escape it all and hop on the next available plane to Bora Bora.

Who wants to come along? What would you run away from if you could?

Three Things

Aarons Beach, December 2010

Welcome to Thursday, celebrated on this blog by sharing three (or more) things which are usually random, off-the-top-of-your-head thoughts.

For those of us with self-diagnosed, adult-onset ADD (brought on by old age  technology and the ever-increasing expectation that a person must do sixteen things at once, in three or four different locations),  it's slightly liberating to receive permission to spew off completely random thoughts, even if that permission comes from oneself.

(Isn't "oneself" an odd looking word? Shouldn't an apostrophe show up somewhere?)

Let's begin.

1.  A week from Sunday, Chesapeake Bay Father turns 70. Born with a defect which required open-heart surgery as a teenager (and submersion in ice), he has every reason to celebrate. And celebrate he will, assuming I can clean the house and get to gettin' on the birthday fiesta, which will be on Saturday, January 22, for anyone interested in attending.

Celebrating is so much more fun than cleaning, and yet I spend more time cleaning than celebrating.  (Note to self:  This really must change.)

2.  Chesapeake Bay Daughter, a seventh grader, had a basketball game last night.  They lost 21-20, but that close gap was made possible by her inability to accept defeat until the game was actually over, and the two three-pointers she scored in the last seconds of the game.

I blinked back tears of joy and pride.  She's absolutely amazing. Truth be told, she looks just like Chesapeake Bay Baby Sister on and off the basketball court.

Chesapeake Bay Baby Sister scored over 1,000 points in her high school career and was one scrappy, determined player, just like her niece.

After she and I debriefed tonight, I gained a whole new respect for her performance on the court.

She kept fighting and didn't resign to losing before they actually did. She believed until the last millisecond there was a reason to fight and a chance to win.  

There are many life lessons to be learned in her way of thinking.

3.  After months of scanning old photos for the book that's due this summer, I discovered a wrinkle in my methodology that may require me to cry to start over.  Terms such as "grayscale" and "output width" are involved.  "Grayscale"  now refers to the color of my hair, and "output width" involves the size of the tears that I've been blinking back will be streaming, if in fact I have to start over.  For now, though, I am not going to think about it panic; the publisher will let me know for sure if something is wrong next week. As far as I can tell, I'm still in the game and there's still a chance.

There's still a chance.

Now it's your turn.

Thanks, as always, for participating and commenting.  There are not enough hours in the day to respond to each of you as I'd like.  Just know that I thoroughly enjoy reading your responses and thoughts each and every day.  To use the quote we talked about on Monday, my readers are finest kind.

Baby Sis and Chesapeake Bay Daughter, Basketball Twins Separated at Birth, November 2010

Three Things

Aarons Beach, December 2010

Welcome to Three Thing Thursday, where we share three things which can be related, unrelated, random, orderly, interesting, boring, humorous, sad, germane, irrelevant, silly, serious, loopy, profound, heartwarming, frightening, ridiculous, informative  and Oh, for the love of Pete, please make this sentence STOP and everything in between.

I'll go first.

1.  Driving home from work last night, my odometer tripped 100,000 miles.  This frightens concerns me, because there's no way a new car is in the future any time soon. My hope however naive is that cars are lasting longer nowadays than they used to, and that I can expect another 100,000 out of mine.   Please don't burst my bubble if that isn't the case. It's wonderful living in a place called Denial, where I feel very much at home. Also, let's not discuss the fact that a major piece of exterior plastic blew off going down James Store hill a while back.  Let's definitely not take into consideration that I drive over 100 miles a day at least half the week and approximately 30-50 per day the rest. No, please, let's not talk about that.  Thank you. 

2.  Chesapeake Bay Daughter has a basketball game tonight in Gloucester.  At almost the same time, there's a meeting Chesapeake Bay Son and I must attend at Mathews High School.  Does anyone know where I can find those mad scientists in charge of cloning?  I need to order about three more of me.

3.  My focus this month is returning to the book that's due to the publisher later this year, so blog posts will continue to be trite light for the foreseeable future.  Hopefully these next couple of months will be productive and the bulk of work will be behind me.  Once that happens I'll feel better, but right now there is so much to be done it's frightening overwhelming.

Well, it seems as though the theme of this post is things that frighten me a familiar one: too much to do, too little time.  This, too, shall pass, just like the numbers spinning furiously on the odometer.

Now it's your turn to share three thoughts using the very stringent guidelines outlined in the first paragraph.

On your mark, get set, go!

Wandering Wednesday: The Court House Edition

Today's wandering takes us to the court house, also called the village by those of us who aren't from here.  Those who are from here would simply say, "I"m going up the road to the store" which implies the court house but never the village.  Just wanted to make that distinction.

Bridging the language gap can be burdensome, but someone's got to do it.

Above is Fosters Department Store, or at least it used to be back in my day. It's changed hands several times since then and so help me there is now a sign referencing one Mathews Film Society that appears to have taken up residence.

I never thought I'd live to see the day. What does a film society do? Is popcorn involved? Raisinettes? Cinema as an Art Form was one of my best classes in college, and I can analyze color and lighting and scenes as well as anyone as long as wine popcorn is involved.

Below is the strip that includes Fleets, that little brick building with green awnings on the corner. Fleets was a very straight forward, uncomplicated restaurant that had a teeny, tiny little bar tucked away in the corner between the restrooms and the kitchen.

You see, you could drink in Mathews, but nobody was supposed to know about it.  So to keep those drinkers confined and entertained in that tiny 2x4 drinking area, they decided to put up a dart board, because nothing says epicurean adventure like having to dodge darts hurled by people who have been drinking since 1972 noon.

Still, I liked Fleets just fine. And it will always be Fleets no matter what Nom du Jour beckons from the sign outside.

Above is the public library, where I spend a good hour three or four hours each week doing research. If you ever drive by on a Thursday or Friday and see a green Saturn parked out front, go up to the Chesapeake Room and look for the one and only person in there (other than the nice folks who help the unemployed find jobs which CBW wants to do when she retires which will be in approximately the year 3056). If her eyes are bloodshot and she looks stressed you can rest assured she is she's wondering how in the world she's going to locate enough old photographs for the project she's working on.

Or, she's wondering what's for dinner. Either/or.

 This building used to be the Farmers Bank of Mathews, where I had my very first bank account. Before moving here, the library was located in the building where the sheriff's office was before the new court offices opened up on the site of the old Lee Jackson Elementary School.

Please try to control your excitement at these mind-numbing fascinating facts, and thank you for pretending to be awake.

For my one local reader, do you remember when the court house (aka the village, aka our commercial district) shut down half a day on Wednesdays and all day on Sundays?  And there was no such thing as Walmutant.  Pretty much if you didn't have it  you just did without until things opened back up the next day.

For anyone else, how would you describe the downtown or village area where you grew up? And have you ever heard of a commercial area referred to as a court house?  This isn't unique to Mathews, but it may well be unique to this region.  There's Gloucester Court House, King and Queen Court House, etc., but I'm not sure how many others.  I'm just curious.

Last but not least, the MHS cross country team runs this evening at Beaverdam in Gloucester.