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Goodbye Columbus

Goodbye Columbus

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On Columbus Day in Asbury Park New Jersey in the 1960’s, the city would host a ceremony where a person dressed and portraying the character of Christopher Columbus, along with a couple of attendants dressed in their period garb, would brave the ocean’s waves and come ashore ceremoniously “discovering America” right there on the beach in Asbury Park.

The two Boy Scout troops in my hometown of Oceanport at the time had a native American dance team that I participated in called the Lakota’s.  We would wear native American costumes and perform native American dances like the snake dance and the Hopi hoop dance.

On at least one Columbus Day, and I think maybe two, I and the other members of our Lakota tribe were there to greet Columbus as he landed in Asbury, we performed our dances to entertain the public and get our picture in the Asbury Park Press.

When I was growing up, we learned all about the explorers of the New World in grammar school (that would be elementary school in case you didn’t grow up in Jersey). DeSoto, Magellan, Hudson, de Leon, Pizarro, Cabot, to name a few, we learned all about them.  We had to write “reports” and present our explorers to the rest of the class.  Their place in history was quite important at the time. It was still cool to celebrate explorers.

And of course, the most famous of the explorers, the Italian Christopher Columbus, was widely touted as the person who “discovered America” on October 12, 1492, by landing on an island he called San Salvador.  And as a result, thanks to Italian Americans and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937, we picked up another holiday called Columbus Day to be celebrated on October 12, now of course it is recognized on the second Monday of October.

In October of 2021, President Biden signed a proclamation naming the second Monday of the month Indigenous People’s Day, in direct conflict with Columbus Day.

It was no longer cool to celebrate Columbus’ discovery because it opened the new world to other European explorers and ultimately colonization which would lead to warring and diseases that would have a devasting impact on the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

My DNA indicates I am 75% Scandinavian and mostly Norwegian and since my people didn’t make it to America until the early 1900’s I don’t feel too much guilt with the mistreatment of America’s indigenous people directly.  My people were Vikings, they were “raping and pillaging” other Europeans, of which, I suppose I must share some accountability for ancestrally.

And speaking of Scandinavians the truth is Columbus was not the first European to reach the Americas, the Norwegian Leif Erickson is credited with doing that about 500 years earlier; and the first European settlement Vinland, thought to be located on modern-day Newfoundland,  was established by Vikings probably coming from nearby Greenland or Iceland.

The world has lots of sad stories in its documented and undocumented history.  It seems that sadly, conquering and colonization were built into our human nature.  The Bible and our world history books are full of stories of civilizations at war, conquering, enslaving, and exiling. I suppose we are all to blame, even our indigenous people.  And, sadly, it continues still to this day, as we are made aware of listening to the news every day.

 

I spent Columbus Day, or Indigenous People’s Day,  this year on the Eastern Shore making a quick visit to see my mother.  Since the guy who cuts the grass was slacking a little that week, I got the lawn tractor out and knocked that off.  With the tide clock indicating high tide in about an hour, though it was mid-October, I got a fishing pole out of the shed and threw the line out.  I had some pretty good bites but only managed to catch a small spot, which I returned to the water to catch again another day.  Though I don’t like the fall because I know it means winter is coming,  October on the Eastern Shore has become one of my favorite months.  I stood on the pier looking out over the waters and coastlines once traveled by another explorer four hundred years ago, Captain John Smith who explored the Chesapeake Bay and who knows, maybe even anchored his shallop in the protected waters of Fishing Creek while he traded with the natives on Deep Point Road.

In 1970 American writer Dee Brown published a book titled Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West.  I read that book at some point in the early 70’s and though I can’t say I remember the details of the book now 50 years later, I do remember that I cried finishing the last chapter.

I guess I must have felt some guilt after all.

 

Postscript:

Today October 19 is the anniversary of the day Kim’s dad Royal lost his battle with cancer four years ago.  October 15 was the anniversary of the day my dear friend Tawanda lost hers in 2011.  I have written in the past about both, Royal in The Steinster and Tawanda in The Beauty of an October Day. I am confident they are both resting peacefully.

The photo above is of the Lakota’s though not in costume probably circa 1968.  I couldn’t find the photo of us in costume. That’s me front and center.  The photo below of Christopher Columbus landing on the beach is not one of our group.  I couldn’t find that photo either.  This one is from the book Images of America, Monmouth Council Boy Scouts.

Fishing Creek
Early October sunset
Ophelia Anxiety

Ophelia Anxiety

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Boards on the window, mail by the door
What would anybody leave so quickly for?
Ophelia
Where have you gone?

(from “Ophelia”)

 

“Ophelia” is a song written by Robbie Robertson, a member of The Band.  “Ophelia” was first released by the band called The Band on their 1975 album Northern Lights-Southern Cross.

If you are a fan of The Band, you know that Robbie Robertson passed away this past August 9, another sad loss.    If you grew into your teens in the late sixties and early 70’s, then music performed by The Band no doubt made up a part of the musical score of your growing up.  Whether it was the iconic Music From Big Pink in 1968 or the self-titled brown album, Stage Fright, or Cahoots or whichever, music by The Band was no doubt playing somewhere in your background.

 

But of course, this week we weren’t focused on an old tune by The Band named “Ophelia,” it was tropical storm Ophelia that got our attention in the Delmarva area, though the verse above seemed somewhat fitting for an impending storm.

 

I was still in bed Friday morning when Kim and I got the message via Messenger, a warning from my grandson Christian.

Christian is our family Hurricane Tracker.

I hadn’t planned on going anywhere this past weekend, and I hadn’t heard of any impending weather event.

But thanks to Christian I was made aware of a tropical storm named Ophelia heading towards the Chesapeake Bay.

I immediately went to the Woolford, Maryland weather forecast on the internet and read Woolford was smack in the middle of the Tropical Storm Warning.

Kim and I began to discuss our options as I pondered what to do.

Was there some unwritten rule that said you couldn’t let your almost 90-year-old mother fend for herself in a Tropical Storm?

I thought about the time I helped my dad put plywood over the windows on the river side of the house before a threatening hurricane came up the bay some years ago.

Then I remembered my dad paddling around the neighborhood when the water came up after Hurricane Isabel.

I envisioned the tide up over the bulkhead, the aluminum rowboat floating and banging up against the tree in the 70 mile an hour winds, and my 89-year-old mother out in knee deep water, her ninety-five-pound body getting knocked around in the white caps as she tried to secure the boat before it floated away…

Yeah, okay, so needless to say,  I got to packing.

 

So, after dinner on Friday evening after traffic died down but before the worst of storm arrived in our area, I headed out to the eastern shore to batten down the hatches and erase the image from my mind of my mother fending for herself in the floods, the wind, and the rain.

 

I have been in kind of a funk lately.

Summer is winding down, impending darkness in the coming weeks.

I wasn’t exactly sure what was going on, but it is not uncommon for me as the summer ends to get like this.  But then I heard of a theory worth serious consideration.

The Vice President of the United States introduced the threat of Climate Anxiety.

Yes, Climate Anxiety.

And according to the VP, it’s causing people to not want to have children and not want to buy houses.

Oh, my goodness, I thought.

That’s me!

That must be what I am suffering from.

I too don’t want to have any more children, but I actually attributed that to Daughter Anxiety but, maybe that is not so.

And I don’t want to buy any new houses either.

Yes, Climate Anxiety, I am sure that is the cause of my recent funk.

 

But, I digress.

So early Saturday morning I secured the four kayaks, the deck furniture, and the aluminum boat.  I took down the Steelers flag flying on the flagpole on the dock because the rope was fraying, and it was taking a serious beating. I didn’t want to lose it.

 

And then my mother and I settled in for whatever Ophelia was to deliver.

We watched the river.

We watched the wind intensity and direction in the trees and the flag.

We watched the weather on CNN.

We watched the Hallmark Channel.

We watched Fox News.

(That’s how I learned I had climate anxiety.)

And in the end, compared to other storms that visited in the past,

Ophelia was a yawner.

 

Ashes of laughter, the ghost is clear
Why do the best things always disappear
Like Ophelia
Please darken my door

(from “Ophelia”)

 

And I should say thankfully Ophelia was a yawner, because no one wants what could have been.

So, Sunday morning, three hours before high tide, with the water already over the dock, but comfortable that it wouldn’t get much worse, I dipped out and went back home.

I got to spend some time with my mother and was now able to substitute my daughter anxiety with the real culprit, climate anxiety.

Life was good again.

 

And speaking of daughter anxiety, I read this morning that yesterday was National Daughters Day.

Sorry guys, I missed another one.

But you know, I love you more than meatballs.

 

Postscript:

The happy photo of me and my little chickens above was taken many years ago, before they got together and traumatized me.

 

This is Christian’s Atlantic Ocean Hurricane tracking map (he has the Pacific too)
Sunday morning, three hours until high tide
Daughter anxiety

 

Because He Lives

Because He Lives

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Almost twenty years ago now, Donny’s accident occurred on Friday, July 19, 2002.  His funeral was Tuesday, July 23. Tired from grief and everything else unimaginable that week, we needed to “get out of Dodge.”   So we gathered up some kids and some close friends for support and headed out to my parent’s house on the Eastern Shore in Woolford, Maryland.

My dad was crabbing at the time so he still had his crab boat which made for the perfect diversion spending some time on the water, fishing, and crabbing.

Outside of our world, the rest of the country was watching the events unfold in Somerset County, Pennsylvania where on July 24 eighteen coal miners were trapped in the Quecreek Mine. Somerset County was where Kim’s family resided so that crisis hit close to home as well and captured our concerns too.

Woolford is a small town about halfway between Cambridge and Taylor’s Island.  There is not much to the town but a small post office attached to the Woolford Store.  The Woolford Store had everything you needed for fishing, crabbing, and back then, hunting. You could also pick up your beer and groceries or have a seat at one of the few tables in front of the deli/grill and have breakfast or lunch. Camo was common or whatever you liked to fish in and pick-up trucks lined the road out in front.

Just a little ways further up Taylor’s Island Road was a small United Methodist Church named Milton United Methodist Church.

The Milton United Methodist church in Woolford at the time was part of the four church “Church Creek Charge.” The Church Creek Charge consisted of the Whitehaven UMC in Church Creek, Milton in Woolford, Madison UMC in Madison, and the Taylor’s Island United Methodist Church on Taylor’s Island.  The Pastor at the time was Reverend Bob Kirkley.  Kirkley was a preacher’s son who himself spent many years preaching in Baltimore and in St. Mary’s county on the Western Shore. Like my dad, he was born in 1929, so he could have easily been retired.  But instead, every Sunday morning Reverend Kirkley would start his preaching at 8:45 a.m. at the Whitehaven UMC in Church Creek, and once finished he would beat feet down the road to Milton at 9:45 a.m. then Madison at 10:45 a.m. finishing up the morning at Taylor’s Island UMC.

On that particular late July, Sunday, Kim and I felt like we needed to be in church and we convinced my parents to attend with us.  We sat down in one of the pews of the small very traditional-looking aging church sanctuary.  As strangers in church that morning, once we were acknowledged my dad very uncharacteristically stood up and introduced us and explained the circumstances with Donny.

Though I don’t remember what the sermon was about that Sunday, I do remember Kim and me thinking that it was speaking directly to us on that day.

At the end of the service, everyone stood and sang “God Bless America.”

Later that morning we went over to the Volunteer Fire Department in Secretary, Maryland for buckwheat pancakes and caught some TV replays of the miners in Pennsylvania being brought to the surface one at a time in their rescue capsule.

Answered prayers for those families.

 

Once we returned to Herndon Kim emailed Reverend Kirkley and explained that my parents really needed a church family and could he visit with them and try to get them to start going to church.

He did, and it worked, and eventually, my parents became active members of the Milton United Methodist Church.

The aging church building benefited from some of my dad’s carpentry skills and in addition, he would build a new church sign out front and a special Christmas tree-shaped stand for the poinsettias at Christmas in the sanctuary.

 

As my dad’s health began to fail and walking became more difficult, they eventually had to stop attending services.

Kim and I would attend from time to time while visiting.

 

Eventually, Reverend Kirkley’s health failed too and he had to retire, and just this past February, he passed away.

And the once four charge “Church Creek Charge” over time became a three church charge with the closing of the Taylor’s Island church.

Now with a new pastor, Pastor Ben, who is actually a police officer on the western shore when he is not preaching on the weekends, the same traditions of the small-town congregation continue.

 

Yesterday Kim and I returned with my mom for Easter services at Milton.  She hadn’t been to church in a while and they were happy to see her.

Most of the faces of the small congregation were familiar.

The sign on the wall said “last week’s attendance 31.”

With Easter, however, this Sunday’s attendance swelled to 46.

The stand my dad built for the Christmas poinsettias was still present in the corner now decorated with American flags.

And since the lady who used to play the piano moved away, the hymns are sung accompanied by recorded music and vocals.  We sang “He Lives” along with Alan Jackson and “Because He Lives” with Bill Gaither.

And just like it was twenty years ago, “God Bless America” still ends every service.  No accompaniment was needed for that one.

 

After church, we visited with my dad and tried to remember Easters of the past when the big deal was packing the family in the Corvair and driving all the way to Middletown to have dinner at McDonald’s.

Now with our visit over, Kim and I got back in the truck to head home.

But not before a quick stop at the McDonald’s in Cambridge to keep the tradition going.

 

It was a nice Easter.

“Because He lives, I can face tomorrow
Because He lives, all fear is gone
Because I know He holds the future
And life is worth a living just because He lives”

(From “Because He Lives” by Bill Gaither)

 

Postscript

The photo above was taken at the time the new sign that my dad built was installed at the church.

 

Pastor Ben leading the service
The poinsettia tree, now adorned with American flags
The sign my dad built, as it looked on Easter 2022
The Birds and the Bees, Finally

The Birds and the Bees, Finally

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Would You Like A Lime With That Week Eight

 

Another week.

I got the sense this week that people are starting to get tired of this new lifestyle.

Normally on this upcoming weekend, the first Saturday in May, I would have the homemade meatballs cooking, the Derby decorations up, and the TV’s all on for the Kentucky Derby festivities.  This year that will be the first Saturday in September.  At least I hope.

I was busy since my last post.

I successfully “painted the roots” and made my wife even more beautiful.

On Sunday afternoon the remaining large potted plants that made the trip to “Plant Camp” back in October returned home again for the summer.

But I also must admit, since that last post, I broke the rules and made a quick twenty four hour visit to see my parents.

The last couple of weeks I had been more concerned that I hadn’t seen them and the phone calls were getting a little more weird and stressful each time.

 

My parents live in a small town called Woolford on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, west of Cambridge.  Their house is on the water, on a tributary of the Little Choptank River that empties into the Chesapeake Bay in the area of Taylor’s Island.

At the time I wrote this Dorchester County Maryland had the fourth lowest number of Coronavirus cases in Maryland with 51.  In fact with the exception of Wicomico County with the city of Salisbury, the Eastern Shore counties are all at the lower end of the list.

Never the less, without any traffic on the roads, I made good time and didn’t stop until I got in their driveway.

The last time I had been out there was the weekend of the 9th Annual Crawfish Boil and Muskrat Stew Festival on March 1st, so it had been about eight weeks.  That’s a long time when you are used to making that trip every two or three weeks.

 

The sun porch where we tend to spend most of our time faces the river, their pier and bulkhead.  In the yard there are a couple of trees, a flag pole, and two large purple martin houses high up on poles.  Purple martins like open areas which makes the waterfront yard perfectly accommodating.  By this time of the year, the purple martin houses were full of activity with birds swooping back and forth from their perches on their houses to the yard, and back again.

At one point, my mother and I were sitting at the table looking out the window and there were two birds rolling around in the grass.

So I said to my mother, “look at those two birds out there… they are really fighting!”

If you know my New Jersey mother you know she is awesome.  You also know she has never been shy about saying whatever is on her mind whenever she feels like it. She has no filter.  You always know where you stand with my mother.

In this case, her rather loud response was:

“THEY’RE HAVING SEX!”

“THEY’RE NOT FIGHTING!”

“THEY’RE HAVING SEX!

“Oh” I said rather sheepishly.  “I thought they were fighting.”

“THEY’RE HAVING SEX!”

“THEY’RE NOT FIGHTING!”

 

 

“Gee,” I thought to myself.

For the first time in my now almost sixty four years, I think my mother just had the “SEX” conversation with me.

In her own way, we just had “the talk.”

For me I wanted it to be like “C’mon Ma, yuck, is that what they are doing?  No, please tell me they’re fighting…!”

But no, they weren’t fighting.

THEY WERE HAVING SEX!

This is awkward…

But how was I to know?

I am naive about these sorts of things.

 

While I was there I was able to check and clean the gutters, a chore that included my dad insisting that he climb the ladder to check my check of the gutters.  Thankfully the quality control part of the gutter cleaning process included only one gutter section.

I also changed a couple of light bulbs, replaced a shower head, and fixed a smoke alarm.

We talked about memories of their growing up in our hometown of Oceanport and memories of me and my siblings growing up there too.

We stayed up late.

In the morning, we assembled and raised on a pole, a third purple martin house in the yard.  It was a birthday present from my mother to my father.

Probably a good thing because with all that sex going on, the purple martins were sure to need another boarding house pretty soon.

My father and mother then brought down the American flag, now frayed from the winter winds and needing to be replaced.

After all that was done, I packed up the truck, and headed back home.

I felt good about the time I spent and what I was able to accomplish.  My parents were grateful for the visit.  I was a lot less worried.

And best of all, I now understood:

“THEY’RE NOT FIGHTING!”

“THEY ARE HAVING SEX!”

 

Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to get home to tell my wife what I had learned!

 

Post Script:

As of today in Virginia, medical and dental offices are starting to open up, and elective surgeries will begin again.  A good sign.

Don’t forget to continue to keep those healthcare workers and their families in your prayers. Remember “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy” (Matthew 5:8)

As well as all those sick or compromised from the virus and all other health issues.

Also those non healthcare caregivers working to take care of a loved one while isolated at home.

And those families who have lost loved ones.

And those who have lost jobs and businesses.

And keep reaching out to those who may need some attention.

 

Coming home from Plant Camp
Week Eight

 

Pop’s Lady

Pop’s Lady

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Pop’s Lady

The waterman typically woke up about 3:30 AM.  There was no need to set an alarm, no need to set a time on clock radio or West Bend portable because the “alarm clock” was already up and making coffee out in the kitchen.

The first mate was always the first up as well.

 

That coffee had to be brewed, thermoses filled, and breakfast made.  It would be a while until lunch.

In the early days, before the law was changed that allowed crabbing only after the sun came up, they hit the water in complete darkness.  High powered flashlights had to be used to spot the buoys indicating where the trotlines started and ended and on the dark mornings, up and down the river it looked like  premier night at the movies.  Those mornings when the fog moved in it was a leap of faith.

They worked three lines.  The shortest was 1800 feet long, the longest just short of a half mile. About every five feet the 3/16 nylon rope was twisted and a salted bull’s lip was inserted in the space and twisted back.

Bull’s lips were used as the bait.  The bait had to be tough.  It had to last as long as possible.

Once the lines were dropped to the river floor and the buoys placed to mark the location, the waterman would maneuver the boat back along the route of one of the submerged lines and an outrigger would slowly elevate the baited line to the surface, five feet and one bull’s lip at a time.  When a crab was spotted with its claws clinging to the bait it would be scooped into the boat with a crab net.  Once the crabs were in the boat, the mate would sort the crabs into the different baskets that at the end of the work day would be taken to the wholesaler and sold for that day’s wages. The sooks or females in one bucket, the jimmies or males in another. And of those, the restaurant sizes, the ones or twos, had to be separated out as well. The peelers in yet another bucket, they would fetch fifty cents apiece.

The name on the boat was Pop’s Lady.

Pop, my dad, was the Captain; Lady, my mom, was the First Mate.

I don’t remember exactly when my mother got the nickname Lady, but it was a long time ago.

When my parents retired and moved from New Jersey to the Eastern Shore of Maryland and settled down on the Little Choptank River they became commercial crabbers.  Together, they did this for about 15 years.

The first time I introduced my wife Kim to my parents, my mother was sitting under a big tree with a large bucket of bull’s lips by her side and their trotlines, inspecting and re-baiting the crab lines as was necessary.  Pulling out the worn out bull’s lip and inserting the new one, five feet at a time.

I don’t remember whether they shook hands.

My mother…aka Lady, Florence, Flo, Flozzie, Ma, Mom…whatever you called her was and still is as tough as those bull’s lips.

Before her stint as a waterman (or waterwoman), she managed a high school cafeteria for many years.  And before that as a young mother and wife she wielded a hammer, laid brick, and maneuvered a wheelbarrow alongside my dad, his dad, his brother, and his friends as they built our new house in Oceanport New Jersey.

She volunteered with the Oceanport Hook and Ladder Fire Company’s Ladies Auxiliary; she was a wonderful aunt in the extended family that made up the little village we had in our little corner of Oceanport.

And she raised four kids.

My sister Pat was born in 1952, while my dad was in the Army during the Korean conflict. My mom wrote my dad a letter every day that he was gone.

My brother Carl was born in 1954 and me in 1956.  My brother Gary was born not too long after that new house was finished on May 14, 1961, fifty six years ago today on a Mother’s Day.  My dad told me recently he would tell everyone Gary was Flo’s Mother’s Day present from him.

On a recent visit to see my parents, Kim had learned of a website that would tell you the most popular song at the time you were born.  One evening we had some fun with that.  I was born on June 27, 1956.  The most popular song at the time was “The Wayward Wind” by Gogi Grant.  My dad remembered it well.

This same site would also take it a step further and tell you the most popular song at the time you were conceived as well.

For me it was “The Yellow Rose of Texas” by Mitch Miller from the movie Giant, “a 1956 American epic Western drama film.”

Wait…my dad is a huge fan of western movies.

Yuck, way too much information.

C’mon Pop!  I always thought we had ice cream when we watched movies?

I haven’t watched a James Dean movie since.

 

But hey, thanks Pop, you did alright with your Lady and we are all blessed to have this one as our mother.

My mom is still riding shotgun with my dad; still fiercely loyal to her family; still managing that cafeteria only now it’s just her kitchen; still the carpenter’s helper; still tends to my boo boos ; takes care of her neighbors; and is still taking good care of us.

So Ma…Happy Mother’s Day!

In my first essay on Musings…Three Score and Counting  I twice referred to her as my lifeline.  She may not need to be my lifeline anymore, but it’s nice to know she is there.

And I still really appreciate those pork roll, egg, and cheese on the hard roll sandwiches so keep the cafeteria open!

And Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom’s out there.  It’s not always easy but we need you!