Oyster Roast

Saturday my friends Glenda and Billy had an oyster roast.

Mr. Burroughs is in charge of the delectable oysters.

This is their barn, which some people call the tabernacle
 since it resembles the Mathews County landmark (click here)

There was food.  Lots and lots of food.

And beverages.

Some of the beverages were homemade.

These homemade beverages caused blindness quite the reaction.

Nancy decides that less is more, or more is too much.  
Or something.

Neil studies the label.

(Reading the fine print requires long arms.)

Ladies and gentlemen? This is a look of fear, plain and simple.
He was wearing the appropriate hat for the activity, may I add.
You know what they say, if you can't take the heat, get out the tabernacle.
Neil proved he could, in fact, take the heat. Just barely.

Chip decides he's going to take a taste no matter what the previous reactions have been.

And there you have it.    

Chip's father pretends like nothing is going on.

Alda, after sizing it all up, just says no.

Along with the overabundance

abundance of food and beverages, there were good friends.

This is a great group of people.  

I love that they love to laugh.

Lawrence

Billy

Carol Ann

Chip and Lisa

Alda

Craig

The Millers
Janice (my twin), Ann and John

My twin Janice, me and Ann.

The always photogenic Miss Betsy Barnett

Hostess Glenda

A huge thanks to Glenda and Billy for a wonderful afternoon of fun, food and laughter at Tabernacle II.

A grand time was had by all.

The Tabernacle

The Mathews Methodist Tabernacle pictured above is on the National Registry of Historic Places.

This is a (bad) shot of the tabernacle. For the uninitiated, a tabernacle was basically an outdoor church "back in the day," where "day" in this instance is defined as circa 1900. Not my day, but Somebody's day, if Somebody is 100 years old.

This tabernacle is located below the courthouse in Mathews.
(Translation: "below" - means "further past." "Courthouse" means the village of Mathews, or the commercial part as opposed to the rest of it, which is.....RURAL. EXCESSIVELY RURAL. You may now return to The Normal English Language, already presumably in progress.)

According to a local publication, the Methodist Tabernacle was long used as a revival center. The original one was built around 1879, but the one pictured here had to be rebuilt in 1922, probably due to fire.

I asked my mother what she knew about the tabernacle. Her eyes got big as saucers as she proclaimed, "Oh my word. That was THE place on any given Sunday around here. People in hoop skirts would show up with picnic baskets and make a day of it." ("It" being church.) She said the indoor churches in the summer time would simply be too hot, so everyone congregated here, in the middle of the woods in Mathews. To hear preaching outside right next to the KILLER MOSQUITOES that no doubt were multiplying by the millions since most of Mathews at any given time is UNDER WATER and has many pools of stagnant water. (Of course, if you're wearing long dresses and hoop skirts, a mosquito in the heat of summer is the least of your worries.)

I could do some research on the tabernacle, but I'm fairly lazy. In the ideal world, my Mathews commenters would check with their relatives who were alive around 1900, or 1879, or 1492. It's all the same.

Truth be told, there are still many people living who would have great stories to tell of this tabernacle. For now, I'll leave those stories alone and let the picture speak for itself.

And what it's saying is, "If only these Outdoor Church pews could talk."