Historic Photos of North Chesapeake City

Historic Photos of North Chesapeake City

1830 sketch of Back Creek & canal – note Back Creek at East end, no Basin at that time but Back Creek was marshy and much wider.

Very old photo (1840?) of the lock and Back Creek – looking west. Note lack of trees, just bare ground. Joseph Schaefer’s ships’ chandlery was to be at the area at top right.

Steam tug, Startle, headed East through High Bridge – North Side at right. It was the most active tug servicing the Chesapeake City segment of the canal.

Steamboat Days on the C&D Canal

Steamboat Days on the C&D Canal

The General I. J. Wister, a wooden, steam-powered tug owned by the Back Creek Towing Co. Inset: Capt. Jacob Isaac Truss, master of the Wister.

The Startle, emerging from the Chesapeake City lock with a schooner in tow. Note Masonic Hall in distance, circa 1910. Inset left: The steam whistle off the Startle, courtesy of Harold Lee.  Inset right: Capt. Ed Sheridan, master of any craft on the water.

The Lord Baltimore, the most popular day boat of Ericsson Line fleet.  Inset: John Sager, about the age when he sailed on the steamer to Baltimore.

It was the mistake of my life that I was born too late to have enjoyed the escapades aboard the various steamboats that puffed their way through Chesapeake City’s canal. But I’ve been blessed over the last several years by being able to talk with folks who were born early enough to remember the glory of those extraordinary times. I do recall seeing the old Wilson Liners, and even sailed aboard the City of Wilmington on its voyage to the great Riverview Amusement Park on the Jersey side of the bay. I also talked with Jim Peaper, who ran a concession stand aboard the Wilson Line steamer, Mount Vernon. Edna, Jim’s widow, remembered putting her three-year-old daughter, Susan, up on a table so she could sing for the admiring passengers.

But I like to think that living during the earlier days of the steam vessels—the days of the tugs and Ericsson Liners—would have been even more delightful. With this in mind, let me take you back to those days via the memories of those chosen ones who talked with sparking eyes as they relived in words those youthful, enthusiastic times. And, by the way, hand over your TV remote and iPhone. I promise to return them after the steamboats glide by, trailing their pitch-black smoke, phantom-like, in the distance . . . until the air clears and returns us to the sanitized year of 2013.

“My father was master of the steamboats.” That’s what my grandmother used to exclaim with pride when I was a boy in the forties. She told about Capt. Jacob Truss, pilot of the General D. J. Wister, one of five wooden tugboats powered by steam. The tugs worked the waters of the Chesapeake and Delaware bays and their tributaries. My grandmother told me that Capt. Truss sometimes saw Civil War battles in the distance when he steamed along on the Potomac River. Capt. Ed Sheridan explained further: “My great-grandfather, Capt. Jacob Truss, moved to Chesapeake City in 1852 when he was 18 years old. He became captain of the old side-wheel tug boats, towing barges down the bay, then up the Potomac River. It was while he was going up the Potomac toward the end of the Civil War that he had a four-legged stool shot out from under him.”

          The most popular and most recently-seen steam tug in the canal was the Startle, which can be identified by a statue of a horse on the bow. Capt. Stanley Benson was its pilot, Nobe Benson its engineer, Groom Benson its fireman, and John Sager its cook and deck hand. I believe it was the Startle that was pulling a barge through the canal when the barge sank.  John Loveless remembered: “The barge was loaded with a 65-foot whale, weighing 75 tons. They had the whale’s mouth propped open, which was about eight feet long, and inside the whale they had laid a floor with a carpet, a small table, and four chairs. When the barge sank, the whale was loaded onto another barge and taken to Tolchester and displayed for sightseers. After that it was made into fertilizer.”

          The other very popular steam vessels were the ones in the Ericsson Line fleet. Capt. Ed Sheridan remembered them well. He explained: “The route to Philly is the same that was taken by the Lord Baltimore and the Penn, which have long since been turned into scrap. Those steamers used to make stops in Chesapeake City when the lock was operating, before 1927. When I was a boy I used to go to the lock at noontime to meet the two steamboats as they stopped on their way to Philadelphia and Baltimore. There were dining rooms for their use on both boats. A pianist and often a band played waltzes and fox trots for dancing during the trip.”

          Other residents who were lucky enough to have sailed on those luxury liners remembered: John Sager: “I remember riding from here to Baltimore on the Lord Baltimore. I went with my mother; we boarded just below the Pivot Bridge, near the Pumping Station, at the Ericsson Line Wharf on the North Side. I recall how much smoke those steamers put out, and how narrow they were—about 20 feet wide. Sometimes we'd sail on the day boats and sometimes on the night boats. If we were going down at night we'd get on in the evening at 8 or 9 o'clock. We went to see my aunts in South Baltimore and stayed about a week before returning on another steamer. The steamboat docked at Pratt and Light Streets, in the last berth up in the harbor. At the stern of the Ericsson Line Berth was an area where the banana boats used to come in from South America. They were boarded-up high. I remember that if you wanted to be brave you could go down and throw a pack of cigarettes up there and they'd throw down all the bananas you wanted.”

Bill Briscoe: “When I was a kid we owned the farm that went right down to Hollywood Beach. I remember when the Ericsson Line steamers used to stop at the Town Point Wharf. In fact, we used to ship tomatoes from that wharf. Yes, I watched those steamers run up and down the river. We used to go to Philadelphia on the Night Boat. We'd board at the wharf in Chesapeake City at 10:30 and get to Philly real early in the morning. I wasn't tired when we got there because we always got a berth.” Bob Nichol: “I used to ride up on the Chesapeake City lift bridge. On Saturday evenings the steamer, John Cadwalader, would pass under and many people would sometimes ride up so they could look down on it and all of the passengers aboard. Sometimes there would be so many people on the bridge that the tender would come out and chase some of them off. Two of the bridge tenders were Friday Rhodes and George Knott, the boss. They didn’t care if we rode the bridge.”

          Edna Gorman: “I still remember when the steamers stopped at the Ericsson Line Building to load and unload freight and a few passengers. I remember when they closed the lock. I used to swim down there. I never rode the boats, but in the evenings I used to go down there and watch them. The smoke used to just pour out of them.” John Reynolds: “I remember the steamer, John Cadwalader. My grandmother and aunts used to come up from Baltimore on those steamboats. They'd get off at Schaefer's in the morning to visit us, and then get back on board in the evening to return. I never rode the boats, but I used to ride up on the old Lift Bridge and look down on them as they passed under. That was in 1934 or 1935.”

Walter Cooling: “I recall the steamboats that used to come through here. As a kid I used to jump off them into Back Creek. You see, we kids used to swim off the V, which was a wharf area at the entrance to the Chesapeake City Lock. The lock was next to Schaefer's old store. Well, if we saw the Penn or the Lord Baltimore in the lock, ready to drop into Back Creek, we would run up there, climb aboard, ride it a short distance, and then dive off into the water. Nobody on the boats ever objected.” Lucy Titter: “Miriam Watson told me that when she and Helen Titter were teenagers they rode with Mrs. Titter to Philadelphia on the steamer, Penn. Miriam recalls getting a bloody nose when the upper bunk collapsed onto Mrs. Titter, who was sleeping below.”

The steam vessels are gone, as are the locks, the lift bridges, and the pivot bridges. The canal is now a 450-foot wide, sea-level waterway. But older residents whom I talked with took great pleasure in reminiscing about the lost days of the steamboats.

Return of the Chesapeake City Snakeheads

Return of the Chesapeake City Snakeheads

Mules ready to pull schooner through lock. Inset: Harry “Hat” Borger, one of the last mule drivers to work the canal’s towpath

Lift bridge that connected George St. with Lock St. Note Rio Theater at left and part of Shine’s Gulf service station at right. Inset: Kaky and Shine Crawford.

Early, wooden pilot boat alongside of tanker to exchange pilots. Note pilot climbing ladder to assume command, circa 1943. Inset L: Marty Poore, one of the operators of the early pilot boats. Inset R: John Schaefer, owner and principal operator.

I’ve been concerned recently about a report describing an undesirable creature called the snakehead fish. It seems that they have been seen and sometimes caught in certain streams and ponds on the East Coast. They were brought here from another country and have the potential for rapid reproduction and thus could threaten the native fish. They are especially resilient, even having the ability to navigate on land with their flippers. These facts are upsetting because they remind me of a story told to me by my reliable Uncle Ernest when I was nine years old. Apparently these resourceful snakeheads have returned and again could cause big problems. That’s right; I said “returned,” because back in the early 1900s, according to Unk, there were many, many more of them and they were a force to reckon with.

It was 1945, and Uncle Ernest was visiting our farm, and as usual he brought along his best friend, Jack Daniels. I remember the evening well; it was dusk, after a warm day for early November, and as we watched the darkness squeeze out the last filament of light beyond Dave Herman’s immense oak tree, and as we eyed a mated pair of bluebirds flitting back and forth to snag bugs from mid-air, Unk told me his incredible tale. I had just brought home an ugly catfish I had caught in the canal, and that was what reminded him of the ugly fish that besieged Chesapeake City in the early 1900s.

Back then our canal was not sea-level; it was a long, narrow pond that ran from Chesapeake City to Delaware City. It required locks to raise and lower vessels as they entered and exited the canal. There was a pump house (now part of the Canal Museum) with a forty-foot water wheel that transferred water from back creek into the canal when it needed replenishment. Back then the tugboats and Ericsson liners were steam-driven. Large sailboats and barges had to be pulled through the canal by mules. Operations were much different back then before the Corps of Engineers bought the canal in 1919 and eventually widened and deepened it, thus making it sea-level.

But now, let me take you back to 1945, when I was a boy and thrilled to Uncle Ernest’s snakehead story. Here is what he told me in his own special way: “Well, Moose the Goose,” he said, swirling and clicking the ice cubes against his glass, “what I’m about to tell you I’ve remembered from the account your grandfather, Harper Hazel, told me when I was about your age. You see, he lived here on the farm in the early 1900s and had a clear recollection of the shenanigans that went on back then. Here is his story as I remember it: ‘You know, Sonny,’ Grandfather Harper began, ‘Chesapeake City was a quiet fishing town in 1915. The area was surrounded by farmers who came to town for supplies and for church and other activities. It was right about then that weird things started happening. Repulsive part-fish, part-snake creatures called snakeheads got into our canal and evolved at rapid speed. These crafty critters did it all practically overnight.

“ ‘That’s right, in a short time they undulated up the canal banks and began walking on their flippers all around the streets, especially the South Sides’ legendary Bohemia Avenue. Their numbers multiplied and they matured early, enabling them to establish institutions of all kinds. They had their own schools (underwater of course) not far from the Canal Museum. They even started their own church on the grounds by the old High Bridge. I recall being in the area one time and being touched when I heard the congregation singing their favorite hymn: Slithering to the Sweet Bye and Bye. Their nasal, out of tune voices brought tears to my eyes.

“ ‘Also remarkable was what they accomplished as individuals. One brave, young snakehead attached a line to the pilot boat and could be seen tubing back and forth in front of the Hole-in-the-Wall. Another learned to ride a motorcycle up and down the streets. It was so neat to see how he gripped the seat with his little back flippers as he worked the accelerator with his front ones. Soon many other young snakeheads took to riding motorcycles and even formed a club. And they all let their head scales grow long so that they could tie them into attractive pony tails. Yeah, it sure was heartwarming to watch them speeding along with those scaly pony tails flopping in the breeze.

“ ‘Some of them tied camouflaged bandanas to their heads, which made them even more appealing. And my but it was entertaining to watch and listen to them roaring down George Street—past Foard’s Hardware Store, past the Church of the Good Shepherd, past Beiswanger’s Ice Cream Parlor, past Shine Crawford’s gas station, and eventually across the lift bridge to Lock Street. But, of course, the sensible folks of the North Side always got together to drive them back across the bridge, where they could frolic as they pleased. Most of the townspeople, besides me, were delighted by the spectacle while others were unexplainably disgusted by it.

“ ‘Some of the other equally flamboyant snakeheads used to frequent the famous Hole-in-the-Wall bar to entertain and be entertained by Birdy-the-Bartender. One especially large one, named Allen, used to sidle in and bite the customers on the tops of their heads. Sometimes Birdy had to throw certain over-zealous revelers out the screen door, which meant that Birdy’s brother had to fix it the next day. Anyway, this snakehead named Allen, who had grown to the height of 6’8’’ and, by the way, walked on the tips of his tail like a clown on stilts and whose voice reminded me of John Wayne, sometimes threw Birdy out the screen door. This same Allen used to bite the beer glasses to pieces, and over the Christmas holidays would always eat the red Christmas lights as they hung on the tree. One time, and I witnessed this, Sonny, Allen removed one of Ralphy’s new boots.

“ ‘Ralphy was a whimsical Hole-in-the-Wall fixture who was known for his beer-drinking marathons. Most people drank their beer from a mug, but Ralphy drank his from an oft-filled pitcher. Anyway, Allen snatched off one of Ralphy’s boots, filled it with beer, and made everybody take a swig from it. Ralphy had just bought the boots that day, so they were brand new, and the comical part was that the beer began leaking out of the one like a sieve. Another time when I was there Allen came swaggering in with a 20-pound large-mouth bass. He made Birdy open its mouth and fill it with beer. And, you guessed it; everybody had to take a drink from it, including me. What a nasty-tasting mixture! Take my advice, Sonny, and don’t ever try it.

“ ‘But listen, I don’t mean to give the impression that the snakeheads were all playboys without respectability. Certain groups were inspired by cultural refinement. Why, some performed in the town’s minstrel shows (being naturally dark made charcoal application unnecessary). Others participated in the annual Chautauqua presentations. Oh yes, some were extremely bright. I became personal friends with a bright one named Oscar, and I know for a fact that he used to help Birdy’s son, Chuck, with his homework, which improved the lad’s grades considerably. Oscar became so respected that he even ran for mayor. He ran under the slogan, “A Flounder in Every Pot,” and he was only five votes shy of winning. My word, Sonny, imagine how different things would be if he had won.

“ ‘Eventually, though, despite the good intentions of the conscientious ones, the snakehead episode turned sour, because when the young, male snakeheads started dating the eligible daughters of  the town, the influential leaders had all of them rounded up and banished to a swampy compound somewhere in the wilds of Southwestern Cecil County.’ And that, Moose, is the end of Grandfather Harper’s story as I remember it. And now I have some serious partying tonight at Dolph Wharton’s tavern.”

So off he trudged, and as I watched him descend our field towards town, fantastic images of humanized snakeheads cavorted in my brain. And even now, 68 years later, snakeheads are on my mind. You can understand, concerned reader, the seriousness of our situation today, because somehow some of those dreaded buggers have apparently escaped captivity after nearly a hundred years and may be headed for our canal and town again. And we certainly don’t want a return of the problems cited by my grandfather’s historic, eye-witness account.

Model A Memories—A Love Story

Model A Memories—A Love Story

The Milk Bar (now site of Baker’s Restaurant) on Rt.213 at Brantwood, circa 1950.

Hanging Deer at Schaefer’s Wharf, with well-liked bartender, Uncle Frank Smith—circa 1950.

The John Schaefer House, designed by architect, Armond Carroll, and built by Harry Pensel in 1953. Inset: Master Carpenter, Harry Pensel in circa 1950.

“Fifty dollars,” he said. “I’ll let it go for just fifty.” That’s what I heard Nip Pierce say in Foard Brothers’ Hardware Store back in the Chesapeake City of 1950. Nip worked on the widening of the C&D Canal in the 1930s, and he was one of several older men who gathered at Foard’s to reminisce about their lives in the water-divided town. I was a skinny 14-year-old and worked in the store for a couple of summers. I soon found out that it was Nip’s 1929 Model A Ford that he had for sale, and right away I told him I wanted it.

Oh yes, 1950—It was something special. So sit back, put your feet up, and let me return you to those days, those days of hard work, hard play, and memories hard to forget. In the news, North Korea invaded South Korea (which led to war), President Truman approved the production of the hydrogen bomb, the first credit card was introduced, and we laughed at the first “Peanuts” comic strip. In the movies, Gloria Swanson and William Holding entertained us in “Sunset Boulevard.” In pop music, Bill Haley energized us with “Rock Around the Clock” and Elvis pulsated to “All Shook Up.” In sports, golfing great, Ben Hogan, won the U.S. Open and Boston’s Ted Williams became the highest paid baseball player at $125,000 a year. And in the World Series the Yankees beat the “Whiz Kids” of Philly in four straight.

Anyway, returning to my impatient, adolescent yearnings, I just had to have Nip’s Model A and, despite Pop’s objection (“Just too much for that worn-out jalopy”), I bought it with a combination of my money and his. I swayed him by whining that I had worked hard for that car. With Clint Foard as my boss I took care of the gas pumps as well as the whole general store. And, believe me, Foard Brothers’ sold practically everything: gasoline, kerosene, motor oil, linseed oil, farm implements, pen knives, boots, candy bars, sodas, and chewing tobacco—to name just a fraction of the merchandise.

And so, with the fifty bucks hot in my hand, I gave it to Nip for the jalopy, and I report with pleasure that over the next three years I derived a thousand dollars worth of fun from it. I still recall what it was like to sit at the wheel of the ancient buggy. One’s senses were overwhelmed with an emanation of rust, grease, stale gasoline, mildew, and fragrant, damaged upholstery that must have been comfortable lodgings in which field mice had set up housekeeping. But to me it was as good as a new Cadillac, because it took me wherever I wanted to go—over roads, fields, and through the woods. It even started sometimes without having to crank it. And if you ever have to crank a car, concerned reader, you’d better hope it doesn’t back-fire and break your arm the way my Model A almost broke mine. But once started I was able to travel to see things and talk to folks I had not known before. I wish I could report that I sputtered down the roads legally, but you must know that I had no driver’s licenses and the heap was not tagged. I’m counting on you, faithful reader, to keep my recklessness under your hat and not hold it against me.

My first journey was to pick up Cousin Dick Sheridan and buck and backfire over the bridge to visit Mayor Harry Griffin, who was standing outside Chesapeake City’s first firehouse with Johnny Walter, a respected waterman who worked on the canal. The old firehouse served as our town hall since it had been replaced by a larger, more modern firehouse located on Lock Street. Then we drove up Biddle Street to talk to master carpenter, Harry Pensel, who showed us the unique house he had build for John Schaefer. After that we chugged around to Schaefer’s wharf to see a hanging deer bagged by avid sportsman, John Schaefer, as it swam along his pilings. Frank Smith, John’s uncle, said that venison would be on the restaurant’s menu for the next two weeks. On one of my last Model A jaunts (I drove around in it for about three years before it broke down), I took my girlfriend to talk to Capt. Ed Sheridan, the competent former pilot of the Gotham ferry. At the time, “The Captain” was master of the luxury-liner, Port of Baltimore. He delighted in telling stories about his incredible career on the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.

But now let me take you forward in time to 1952, when our over-head bridge was three years old and I had my driver’s licenses. In those times most families had only one car and our family was no exception. So, when I borrowed our 1948 Ford, my folks stayed home and watched Milton Berle, Arthur Godfrey or some such on our 12-inch, black and white TV. I begged the keys from Pop often for many outings, but mainly to speed over to Cecil Street on the North Side to pick up my girlfriend. And I have a clear memory of one hapless evening during that humid-hot summer of 1952.

We watched a horror movie at the drive-in, cooled off at Brantwood with a milkshake from the Milk Bar (now Baker’s Restaurant) and, nestled as one driver, cruised down Route 213 towards home. Little did we know that it would be quite a while before we reached our respective houses. I, of course, was anxious to get home, but my girlfriend pleaded for parking at the gravel pit on Knights’ Corner Road. Once settled we turned on the radio and deployed our air conditioning by opening all the windows. We watched mesmerized while the plump moon panned leisurely overhead on its nightly journey, as midnight gave way to the next early day.

By now, gentle reader, you must suspect how hard this was on me because, naturally, I was concerned with the grandeur of the stars and that intriguing moon, never mind the glory of those soothing, early-fifties’ songs flowing softly from the radio. But when Jo Stafford sang “You Belong to Me” and Tony Bennett crooned “Because of You,” well . . . how could I enjoy those sensuous wonders with all of the kissing going on? As distracting as it was, however, I endured the smothering until well into the night, at which time I switched on the starter only to hear a click and a buzzing noise. Oh yeah, the battery was dead all right! And, unable to crank the newer car, we walked hand-in-hand all the way down 213 to Cecil Street and her doorstep. Then I jogged across Sisters’ field, up the long bridge steps, and eventually to my farmhouse. I woke up Pop and we borrowed a neighbor’s truck to jump start the battery and bring home the family car. As you might imagine, I couldn’t borrow it for quite a while after that.

        Since that nocturnal excitement, my girlfriend has kept me around for the last 61 years, and in late summer we take mini-vacations to the Ocean City area. Even now, when the time of night is right, she still pleads to park . . . but this time at the ocean’s edge to watch the moon puncture the distance darkness, and rise to color the glistening waves with breathtaking shades of gold. And, reclined there, it’s then that I secretly thank whoever invented those snuggle-restricting bucket seats, because regular breathing is important at my age. Now our embraces make up in contentment for what they lack in fervor. After a while, when the splendor wanes and I switch on the ignition to leave, the car never fails to start, so that we miss the dubious adventure of a long, exhausting walk in the dark.

The Day the ship knocked Our Bridge Down

The Day the ship knocked Our Bridge Down

There was not much clearance for ships to pass between the lift bridge towers. Inset: Link from the chain that raised and lowered the span. Link measures 13x8x7 inches and weighs 100 lbs

Scriver’s Marina at Court House Point, second site of Cecil County’s court house. Our first court house was at Ordinary Point.

440 lb sturgeon, with victorious anglers: Arch Foster, John Schaefer, and Eddie Taylor, circa 1939

            Up until a July morning in 1942 things had been pretty quiet for most of us in our little town along the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. Pop worked for the Corps of Engineers, my mother was heavy with child (not to be light until late October), and at six years old the most important thing I had to worry about was how often I could hit a telephone pole at fifty feet with stones from our pot-hole dominated lane. But then the spectacular happened. At 11:38 AM, after negotiating the curve near the pump house, the tanker, Franz Klasen, sheered uncontrollably to port and crashed into the south tower of our lift bridge.

            From our farm about a quarter of a mile away, I heard a sort of dull clanking sound coming from town. I looked over towards the sound and saw that the bridge had disappeared. In those days the fields between our farm and the bridge were dotted with saplings, not the tall, dense trees that now block the view. Back then, I could always see the black lift bridge looming in the distance, outlined against the sky. My grandmother came outside and I pointed and yelled. She said, “My word, where’s the bridge?” She then told me “not to fret” but to wait till my father came home.

            When Pop did come home that evening he took me to town to see what happened. He drove down Bohemia Avenue and turned left on the dirt street that ran between the canal and the Hole-in-the-Wall. He stopped the car just before we got to Mallory Toy’s building (now the Shipwatch Inn) and we looked out at all of the wreckage. The big ship was where the bridge used to be and the black steel from the bridge was strewn across its bow. The steel was twisted out of shape, with some of it jutting high out of the water. I was excited and started jumping around in the car. Pop explained that the bridge was constructed between 1924 and 1925, was opened for traffic in 1926, and served our town for only sixteen years.

The bridge excitement had just died down when Uncle Ernest came for a visit and told me about the exciting time he once had in the North Atlantic. “Well now, Moose the Goose,” he began, jostling the ice cubes in his glass, “a while back, after those Delaware Park ponies let me down, I went fishing off the coast of Maine to make some money. Taking with me my best friend, Jack Daniels, I sailed pretty far off shore in my run-about and just started landing some big trout when a tornado blew me far out to sea. After a while, I saw something large floating in the water. When I paddled up to it I saw a sorry-looking, water-soaked guy hanging on for dear life to a log. He must have had a strong will to survive because he clutched the gunwale and flopped aboard before I could help him. His name was Chuck and, after a long pull on my bottle, he explained that his ship, the H.M.S. Bagel, a majestic Jewish steamer, had foundered in the Bermuda Triangle on its way from the Galapagos Islands to England.

“I got the impression that Chuck was some kind of important person because he said that he had written a book called The Origin of the Spacies, a science fiction story I assumed, but to tell you the truth I thought he was some kind of kook, because every so often he would raise his fist and yell, ‘Only the fit will survive.’ Geez, Moose, he was overdosed on salt and sun. Anyway, he blabbed that he was a scientist and had been studying the animals around Ecuador. I couldn’t understand most of the stuff he talked about but I think he believed that all living things, over a long, long period of time, could somehow change into other, different living things. At any rate, I needed somebody to talk to and help with the boat so I kept him aboard. He said that if he survived he would return to England and write more books, which I would never want to read because he admitted that none of them would have any pictures in them.

“But staying afloat wasn’t easy, Moose, because the weather turned really dirty. A vicious, driving storm drove us north, and then we began seeing larger and larger ice chunks in the water. A while later Chuck pointed to a gigantic iceberg off our bow and we both were shivering something awful. Soon after passing the iceberg we saw a deadly sight. A mammoth ship, an ocean liner, was half submerged in the sea, its stern under water and its bow jutting straight up into the sky. The liner looked almost new, and its name on the bow was scraped off except for the last four letters: ‘---anic.’ And, Geez, I’d give anything to know that poor ship’s full name.

“This is the part of my story that I don’t like to tell, because people were screaming and crying something awful. It was about this time that we saw a man bobbing in the water. I reached down and pulled him aboard. The fellow was almost an iceberg himself, so I gave him a hefty shot of Jack Daniels to warm him up.

“And then, luck must have been on our side because a strong current and warm breeze carried us west towards the good old U.S. of A. We sailed into the Chesapeake Bay, passed Scriver’s Marina at Court House Point, and made our way beyond Schaefer’s Wharf to the yacht basin. We arrived just in time to see John Schaefer land a 440 pound sturgeon. The giant fish almost caught John, whom we watched struggle at the line for about an hour. Finally, with the help of Arch Foster and Eddie Taylor, the exhausted sturgeon was hauled aboard John’s boat. Then they hung the fish up for display at Schaefer’s Wharf.

After that excitement we learned more about the little guy we had rescued from that icy water. His name was Al and he sure was an odd looking bird, with an unruly mustache and hair that was fluffed up on the sides of his head. He told us that the first time he ever did anything for fun was to sail on that ill-fated ocean liner, and then he started telling us about himself. Laboring with the English language, he told us that he had come from Germany, and although he had had trouble with math in school, he was relatively sure that he knew some new theories about the universe that no one else did. But he made a funny statement that gave him away. He said, in his stilted English—now, Moose, I think I’ve remembered it right; he said something about an E equaling a square MC. And when he went on about relatives in space and warped time and all, I knew that we had rescued a goofball and, I swear, I almost booted him into the canal.

        “I restrained myself, though, because I’ve always felt sorry for slow learners. And it made me feel good when he told me that he had managed to get a job at an obscure college in New Jersey called Princetown. For all we know, he may be performing his janitorial duties now, even as we speak. And I wish him well because some people say that I’m not that smart myself.” But, dern, I sure thought Uncle Ernest was smart, as well as brave, never mind lucky to have survived such a dangerous adventure.

Chesapeake City and The Two Marys

Chesapeake City and The Two Marys

American Store (now Town Hall), the town’s most patronized grocery store in the mid1900s. L-R: Betty Jean Needles Watson, Tillie Blendy, Kathleen DeShane, Olive Spear, Anna Merchant, Dorothy Downs, Wilber Needles, Walter Bennett, Harry Potter, Hazel Hessey, and Inset at right: Frank Bristow (who was missing from original photo)—April 1946

Harry Bouchelle’s store, circa 1910. Later it was H. B. Bungard’s and after renovation the building became Walter Cooling’s general store for many years (now called Black Swan Antiques). People L-R: George Metz (blacksmith), Lou Blanchfield, 2 girls: one married Joe Schaefer (John’s brother) and the other married Mr. Mason, Mrs. Bouchelle, Harry Bouchelle, Tucker Steele, Charlie Banks.

Henry Hager’s butcher shop at Bohemia Ave. & 1st St., later the site of Mewhiter’s Drug Store and now a vacant lot next to The Victorian Lady—circa 1910. Inset: Henry Hager, said to have been a large man who delivered meat to both sides of canal 

I was in love with Mary Boyko, plain and simple. She was a blonde beauty who visited my mother from her house across the road from our small farm. I remember how she would help my mother with the dishes—Mom washing and Mary drying. The last time I saw her I was rolling around on the linoleum floor of our kitchen when I heard her say that she was soon to be married and would be moving to California. Oh, sensitive reader, what a falling off was there! For the first time in my life I was heartbroken, but I was to remember her beauty and the sound of her soft, girlish voice forever. As time passed I was to learn that we had had nothing in common—she had been nineteen and I had been five. Yet it’s surprising how the prospect of her not continuing to share my secluded world shocked me at the time and continued to haunt some remote section of my brain for decades.

Sixty-seven years later I thought about the power of that childhood fascination and, obtaining her California number from her sister, I called her. A chill migrated up my spine when I heard that same soft, girlish voice radiate surprise at hearing from a man whom she remembered as a toddler from her teenage years. She said that she would come to see me when she visited her sister in a few weeks, and when she finally did arrive it was something special. Now I was a foot taller than she and we laughed about it. She brought a photo of herself as a girl and one of me as a five-year-old. She was married with kids and I had a wife and a whole tribe of kids and grandkids. We were both happy.

And now, let me take you back to five years after Mary left (when I was eleven) to a time when another Mary entered my life with almost equal impact. She came to live with us unexpectedly, and she was dramatically different from my first Mary. This Mary was a short, energetic, platinum blonde with green, bulging eyes. She was more talkative and expressed herself loudly when the occasion called for it. A chill still bolts up my spine when I recall how that strident, staccato voice rattled my brain. She didn’t dry dishes or have much to do with my mother, but she was a fast runner and to my delight followed me all around the farm. 

Oh, I almost forgot. When she first became a family member she didn’t even have a name, so Pop let me pick her appellation: “Mary,” after the long-departed Mary Boyko.But now I must tell you that Mary II had some curiously bad habits, such as refusing to wear shoes (when I used to put them on her she’d always kick them off). And my but she did make the most annoying slurping noises at dinner, so bad that Mom insisted that she eat out on the porch. Not only that, but she displayed such a lack of hygiene that we all agreed that making her sleep in the barn with the cow would be a much better arrangement. But I liked her, never mind her habit of knocking people off balance when they least expected it. And I sort of admired the unique quality of her elongated chin. Another alarming thing was that Mary had a stupendous appetite during all hours of the day, sometimes eating unsavory things such as certain kitchen leftovers and normally unpalatable items from the garden.

After she got used to living on the farm and after she had fattened up a bit, Pop and I constructed a cart so that we could hitch her up to it with a harness and have her pull me into town, where I would be able to sell our excess corn and tomatoes. I don’t know why but, especially going uphill, Mary would sometimes balk at the strain of having to pull me and a cartload of vegetables, causing me to switch her on the rump to keep us moving.

I mean to tell you, we sold our goods to many grateful Chesapeake City families and businesses. We sold mainly to the South Side but also made our way across the lift bridge to the North Side. I remember how Mary and I talked to Mr. and Mrs. Harry Bouchelle, the proprietors of Bouchelle’s General Store. More recently the store was bought by Walter Cooling and is now owned by Black Swan Antiques.

Back then it was one of the places where townspeople gathered. I recall how, in the mid-forties, certain residents and I would stand in front of the store to watch the Friday night fights on a TV that Walter displayed from his front door. He was attracting customers, of course, even though not many families could afford to buy one back then, mine included. I remember seeing Dr. Davis pull up almost on the sidewalk to watch the fights in the comfort of his car. Surely he could afford to buy a TV, but he must have enjoyed the ambiance of that boisterous crowd of fight fans.

At any rate, years earlier, when Bouchelles owned the store, Mary and I sold our tomatoes to Mrs. Bouchelle, and while there we talked with undertaker, Charley Banks, and George Metz, the town’s blacksmith. After that, Mary pulled me and the cart down Bohemia Avenue to the American Store, where manager, Wilber Needles, bought our produce and where Frank Bristow, the store’s butcher, joked around by insisting that I must have stolen the vegetables. Across the street was the bank, where we said hello to Banker, Fletch Nickerson, and Janet Pyle, the teller.

With still more vegetables to sell, we rumbled down past Henry Hager’s butcher shop (later Mewhiter’s Drug Store and now a vacant lot) and descended to the oldest building in town, the famous Harriott Hotel. Bill Harriott bought some of our stuff, after his son, Punch, sampled a tomato. While there a juvenile Birdy Battersby emerged dripping wet from the canal and tried to ride Mary, who, indignant, reacted by butting him back into the canal, across which he swam back to Canal Street to lick his wounds. Birdy was to become the town’s most famous and well-liked bartender at the Hole-in-the-Wall, that exotic bar beneath the Bayard House.

After that, nearly sold out, we labored across the lift bridge to Schaefer’s North Side store where Kitty Schaefer bought us out and even offered to buy Mary—an offer we both graciously refused. While there we gabbed with Wilson Reynolds and Monica Breza before heading home, stopping only on George Street to wave at Jumping-Jim-the-Barber and to shoot the breeze with Walter Cooling who, with us, was perusing the “Coming Attractions” on display at the Rio Theater. Finally, tired but happy about making some money, we made our slow trek back to the farm.

       After two productive summers of our partnership—and I’m sorry to have to tell you this, sympathetic reader—I awoke one fall morning to discover that just like my old Mary, my new Mary left me as well. And you can imagine my sorrow when Pop explained that he took her to live with a farmer who needed the honeysuckle and wild rose bushes cleared from his fence rows. Later I learned of another reason (maybe the real one) as to why she was relocated. In a fit of hunger she had provoked Pop’s acrimony by eating the windshield wipers off of his 1941 Ford. And yet, it’s so sad to realize even now that Mary must have known she was leaving me, because on the previous evening, telling me farewell in that gruff yet endearing stammer, she exclaimed: “Naaaaa-aa-aa-aah. Naaaaa-aa-aa-aah.”

Life in a Tree and Uncle Ernest’s Adventure

Life in a Tree and Uncle Ernest’s Adventure

Collins’ Market, circa 1970. Both buildings comprised the store. The wooden right side was built about 1885. The building at left was a private school in early days. Lewis Collins, Sr. bought the store in 1941.

John Schaefer’s store, with L to R: John Schaefer, Winifred Schaefer (John’s mother), and Kitty Maloney (John’s sister). Inset at right: famous butcher, Frank Bristow

When I was a poor, lonely pre-teen I used to practically live near the top of our gigantic maple tree alongside of our farm house. Strangely enough, I enjoyed reclining high in its fork of branches, among the secluded, majestic leaves where four of my senses were especially keen. I could see for miles about the countryside: Chesapeake City with its picturesque lift bridge to the north, Bill Herman’s highly cultivated farm (with his work horse, Babe, pacing her pasture) to the west, the wide cornfield to the south, and to the east the grandeur of the deep woods. I had only to look at the bark near my hand to see a tiny ant foraging as if his life depended on it, or glance at an outer branch to grin at a blue jay scolding me for invading her domain.

But don’t think, attentive reader, that I always lounged there comfortably, for I had to readjust my position frequently because of the solid branches compromising my aching bones. Despite that, and the sore hands and feet from climbing the rough branches, I was sensitive to the dialog of the wild geese as they assured one another of the correctness of their flight. I’d hear the Bob Whites’ echoing whistles and the killdeers’ shrill melody. And every evening after dusk I’d be attuned to the haunting cadence of the whippoorwills from the deep woods. And through it all I marveled at the varied aroma of leaves and bark found only in the midst of the great tree, aroma enhanced by the gentle stirrings of the purest air on earth.

The tree was about ten feet from our porch roof, so one day I tied a rope to a high overhanging branch and would swing back and forth between the two. For quite a while it was great fun, but one time—the last time—swinging from the roof, I found myself on the gnarled roots at the base of the tree, moaning with pain. It was the fastest journey I had ever taken, for my hands slipped and in a split second I was lying crumbled on the ground. And someday when I’m sent to the bad place I suppose the trip down might be something like that. When I looked up—bruised but intact—I saw Uncle Ernest staring down at me with a silly grin on his face. He chuckled and quipped, “Nice trip, Moose the Goose; see you next fall!”

My pain subsided quickly because I remembered that he had promised to tell me another true adventure story. He said that he just had time to do so before he was off to spend the night partying with Snake Johnston, the well-liked bartender in Martin’s Tavern, Chesapeake City’s popular Second Street bar. First he said he had to catch the ferry to the North Side to meet at Lewis Collins’ market with Jazz and Eddie, his two best drinking buddies. The trio would then stroll over to Canal Street to get Birdy Battersby and then ride the ferry back and collar Bobby Sheridan, whom they knew would be frolicking with the gang on Postell’s Corner.

Then the five revelers would stride a few steps down the street to Martin’s Tavern for a night of shuffleboard and liquid entertainment until the morning hours. And so, with limited time available, as he sat next to me there in our double lawn chair and, interrupted only by his frequent trips inside to freshen his ice cubes, he told me about his brave escapades in the Brazilian jungle. “Yeah, Moose, a while back I had the urge to visit South America, so I stowed away on a freighter headed there, but some burly ruffian tossed me overboard next to a jungle, many miles north of Rio de Janeiro, where I had hoped to visit.

“I swam ashore, walked a short distance inland, and entered a small encampment of folks who spoke a language that was Dutch to me. And it was a good thing they knew enough English so that we could communicate. But they’d say things like, ‘Guten Morgan,’ and to their leader they’d yell, ‘Heil Dolphie.’ This Dolphie guy was a scrawny devil, with a black, toothbrush-sized mustache and a band of jet-black hair that sort of slashed across his forehead. I’ll tell you, I didn’t like that bird at all. Something he had though was one gorgeous girlfriend, who was as pretty as he was ugly. Her name was Ava, the most beautiful buxom blonde I had ever seen, with luxurious golden curls that sort of tumbled down in ringlets, accentuating her stunningly beautiful face. And her figure . . . how can I tell you about her figure? It was breathtaking, designed and molded with curvaceous perfection, one that would put to shame any model or movie star you’ve ever seen.

“Anyway, after I decided to build a sturdy canoe to get me to Rio, and just as I yelled ‘Timber’ and my axe severed the last fiber of a giant Brazilian nut tree, it fell and busted old Dolphie, who was lurking nearby, right on the noggin, driving him six feet into the Brazilian turf. Well, Moose, to my surprise all the people bowed to me and called me a hero. I discovered that Dolphie ruled them as an evil tyrant; everybody hated him.

“Ava, it turned out, had been kidnapped and dominated by him, whom she hated because of his brutal treatment of people. Anyhow, because I freed her of him—never mind my handsome, muscular looks and my irresistible way of sweet-talking—she fell instantly in love with me. Yeah, and it was tough on me, too, because she embraced me with so many kisses and hugs that I had to beg her to ease up or be smothered. I finally got her to relent by promising to become her ever-lovin’ steady boyfriend and by assuring her that she could accompany me as I sailed to Rio once my canoe was finished and equipped.

“And so, after I finished the canoe we shoved off into the vast Atlantic Ocean. We stayed on course until a hurricane drove us north for several hours. It then blew us up onto a small island, which we soon discovered was moving. Geez, Moose, we were riding on the shell of a giant snapping turtle that had been blown off to sea by the hurricane. It was returning up the coast to Chesapeake City’s Back Creek swamp. And so, with us clinging on for dear life, he carried us up the Chesapeake Bay, past Welsh’s Point, and up Back Creek towards the canal.

But when we got near Schaefer’s Wharf we saw John Schaefer and his sister, Kitty, along with Frank Bristow. They leaped into John’s boat, lassoed that snapper’s head, and dragged us ashore. My, but it was amazing the way Frank Bristow handled that angry turtle. Then John and Kitty got to work and prepared the most delicious snapper soup I’d ever eaten. And, for the next two years the gentle people of Chesapeake City feasted on Schaefer’s Restaurant’s snapper soup.”

         And with that true adventure account, Uncle Ernest jumped up and told me that he was expected at Martin’s Tavern for his night of partying, and I thought that I was the luckiest 10-year-old alive, because what other boy in the world had such a resourceful hero as my Uncle Ernest?

Canal Street – Chesapeake City

Canal Street – Chesapeake City

North Side school children boarding the Victory, the temporary passenger ferry from August, 1942, until the car ferry, Gotham, arrived in March of 1943. Many children aboard and boarding lived on Canal Street.

 

Large Canal Street house being razed—Inset: Aunt Kate (Battersby) Lloyd, who cried, “They’ll have to carry me out before I move!”

I wish I could remember what I had done wrong that caused all the excitement in my house on that bitter-cold, late December day. 1942 was about to end; it had been the best of years and it had been the worst of years. Relax, and let me take you back there for a spell. In that year many pleasurable events occurred. Bing Crosby was crooning White Christmas, The Andrews Sisters were singing Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree, and Glenn Miller was conducting Moonlight Cocktail. In the movie theaters James Cagney dazzled us in Yankee Doodle Dandy, Bogart and Bergman held us spellbound in Casablanca, and Walt Disney astounded us with Bambi, an animated marvel. On a personal basis I was managing to make it through the first grade, never mind my doubts about completing the second. And my family was happily excited because my only brother was born in October.

On the disheartening side, our nation was at war. The Germans were bombing the daylights out of Great Britain. We were fighting the Japanese in the vicious Battle of Midway. Locally, our lift bridge was destroyed by a freighter on July 28^th and our car ferry didn’t arrive to serve us until March of 1943. Furthermore, for me personally, as I mentioned earlier, our household was in a frenzied uproar one day because of some devilish thing I had done. And it must have been something pretty bad for it to make my mother and grandmother furious with me. Maybe I had hurt my little brother, or maybe I had stoned one of our settin’ hens. But no, wait! I think I do recall now. Granny was babysitting me and my little brother there in the farm house. I was not behaving for her at all. I don’t remember what I was doing wrong, but I recall Granny’s warning: “Boy, if you don’t behave yourself I’m going to go out and cut a switch and go aboard you with it.”

 Well, she did walk outside for a switch so I locked her out in that fifteen-degree weather. It was so cold that two-foot icicles hung from the shed roof, and one even extended from the roof into the frozen-solid rain barrel. When my mother came home with the key about an hour later, she and my frozen Granny screamed their heads off at me.  “You just wait, young man, until your father comes home,” they yelled. “He’ll whip you within an inch of your life.” Granny was especially disgusted with me, crying out, “I just don’t know what to think of such a nasty rascal.” My mother cried, “The very idea! Your father will be home soon. You just wait, buckaroo.”

So when I saw Pop’s car rolling up the lane, I ran upstairs and lay stretched across my bed, sobbing to beat the band. Then all three of them came up the stairs, and I could hear their animated chatter in the hall. Then they came into my room. Pop didn’t say a word, but Mom and Granny were both talking at once. I started crying as Pop stood there, belt in hand, glaring down at me. Then he came towards me and in a flash my mother was next to me. She put her arm around me, looked up at Pop and screamed, “You’re not going to hurt him; you’re not.”

Almost at the same time, Granny lunged in front of her son, grabbing the belt as she said, “Now, Ralph, you leave him alone. He’s suffered enough; leave him be; you hear?” Pop then shook his head and slumped out of the room as Mom and Granny comforted me. As I sobbed softly, Granny stroked my head and whispered, “You rest yourself now, good boy. When you’re feeling better, you come on down and get your supper.” So, understanding reader, from this you can see the kind of hard life I led; how I survived it I’ll never know.

It was ten years later, 1952, when I was 16 and driving Pop’s ’48 Ford that I eyed with special interest the Dungaree Girl of Canal Street. You know about Canal Street, of course, that ran along Chesapeake City’s North Side, the one where so many wonderful people raised their children, worked their jobs, and lived their lives in sight of the vibrant waters of the C&D Canal. Over thirty houses of varied architecture lined the narrow street, and out front, toward the 250-foot waterway, was a steep bank that descended in certain places to sandy shorelines that provided joyful recreation for generations of children. Sometimes joining the fun, I recall sliding down the bank into the water on a piece of cardboard.

But then, in the mid-sixties, all residents of Canal Street were relocated when the Corps of Engineers widened and deepened the canal. Except for the Stapp House and the Snyder House, which were moved to other locations, all of the houses were demolished. Many people were distraught at having to move, especially Aunt Kate Lloyd who, crying, had to be carried off her front porch the day before it was razed. Many Chesapeake City notables were displaced, including one-time mayor, Jim Wharton, Harold Reynolds, Mable Thornton, Eddie Bedwell, and Capt. Albert Battersby, father of Birdy Battersby, who became a respected councilman as well as the town’s most popular bartender.

But wait. Geez, I almost forgot about Canal Street’s Dungaree Girl. So let me return you to 1952, to when I was a teenager with wheels and paying attention to those beautiful and lively girls who flowered that ill-fated street. Why growing up near the water there made them so attractive I’ll never know. There were Betty and Dotty Thornton brightening the East End where Birdy Battersby lived. Other beauties were Ina Lloyd, Betty Dixon, Louise Bedwell and, of course, the enchanting Dungaree Girl.

Cousin Dick Sheridan and I used to ride or walk over the bridge to talk to them for hours, sometimes even amusing them with our adolescent sweet-talk. I first saw the Dungaree Girl astride her bike alongside of George Gorman’s gas station and candy store. And I wish I knew why talking to or even eyeballing her increased my heartbeat the way it did. Maybe it was the delicate way she rode that bicycle when I pulled up next to her and smiled. Maybe it was the way she flickered her eyes at me. There was for sure something elusively special about her. Her eyes, that was it—those eyes that seemed to glance about fleetingly with a kind of equivocal playfulness that appeared sometimes to have me as their focus.

 And yet, now that I’ve thought it over, it must have been the combination of bike riding and eyes, never mind the way she sort of flipped her pony tail, and the way she wore her white socks above her penny loafers, socks that left a three-inch gap of leg below those delightfully faded, rolled-up dungarees. Anyway, after what seemed like months, she agreed to attend a movie with me and eventually she was my date to the prom. So 1952 was absolutely the best of years for me. But when I picked her up I was shocked silly: She was not a Canal Street Girl at all! She lived on Cecil Street.

          But I let it slide and, regardless of her disappointing location, she was awfully pretty when I strode in to get her for the prom, despite the comical prom dress and the doctored hairdo. At any rate, her tentative agreement to go steady has lasted 61 years so far, and when I ask when she can make it permanent she just shakes her head and says: “Give it time! Give it time!”  But you know it’s sad that she doesn’t ride her bike anymore, and I don’t know what happened to those engaging dungarees. But don’t you wish, as I do disappointed reader, that she had turned out to have lived on that historic street, just so, along with the real Canal Street girls, she could say with an emotional catch in her voice: “Where I grew up is now under thirty feet of water.”

Riding a Dead Horse and Chesapeake City’s Crystal-Ball Doctor

Riding a Dead Horse and Chesapeake City’s Crystal-Ball Doctor

Locust tree at left where Jack strangled himself. Tent occupants: Wiggsey, the dog for all seasons, with his best friend.

Dr. Van Norden’s house and office, built by Mr. Lindsey in 1917. Dr. Van Norden lived there from 1941 until about 1948. Jim Peaper and family lived there and the current residents are Cathy and John Watson. Stone fence built by Taylor S. Stubbs

I woke up early that mid-summer morning in 1946 and ambled outside to pick some grapes from our flourishing arbor. And before I sat down on the back steps to enjoy them I did a few forward rolls and, dizzy, sat up just in time to see a robin dart onto the grassy island next to our pump trough. She stood erect and motionless, proud red breast puffed out, and beak lifted high. She then skittered quickly across the grass with her body tilted level with the ground like a speed boat leveling into its plane. Stopping abruptly, she again presented that boasting chest and attentive head. In a flash, she pivoted her body downward, placing her beak about an inch from the ground, with head tilted as if listening for some weak though important message. She stabbed the ground, bringing up a wriggling, startled worm. Repeating her quick-footed, level dash and her martial stance—with the frenzied worm dangling in her beak—she lifted off and glided with a graceful swoop into the pecan tree.

Then I turned toward our lane just in time to see Uncle Ernest, who stumbled up next to me and squatted with exaggerated effort accompanied by a long groan of fatigue. He had just arrived from a night of bar hopping that ended with his eviction from Earl White’s tavern on Chesapeake City’s North Side. He promised to tell me an adventure story after he rested his eyes on our couch. And, geez, I just couldn’t wait until I could hear another one of his true stories, just as I know you can’t wait, pensive reader, until you read it in the next week’s posting.

So I cooled my heels and thought about a crazy thing that had happened earlier that summer. Old man Dave McNatt, a local farmer who tilled our forty acres, had horses, mules, cows, and many other domesticated farm animals. The cows he’d graze on our fields occasionally, but the mules and horses were there often. Well, one of the horses he had was a bad one. As you know, sometimes an animal can be as ornery as a person. At any rate, this horse, a large, brown stallion named Jack, was wild and hard to manage, and one evening, before McNatt returned to his farm with the other mules and horses, he had tied Jack to one of our locust trees. Well, old Jack snorted, whinnied, and stomped the ground like crazy that evening before bedtime.

The tree was right outside my bedroom window, and let me tell you, sympathetic reader, that when I woke up the next morning I saw a startling sight. Jack was lying dead on the ground, strangled around the base of that tree, with his eyeballs bulging out and his purple tongue dangling to the ground. He had twisted himself around and down to the bottom of the tree trunk until he had no where to go, so that his head and neck were snug up against the trunk. He had struggled valiantly—in one direction only. His enormous body lay fully across the area where I had pitched my tent a few days before.

And do you believe that Old Dave McNatt didn’t bother to remove the carcass. As days went by the body swelled up to twice its size, its belly especially, bloating up like a gigantic hairy balloon and stretching as taut as a bass drum. I remember how bizarre it was to look up at the prostrate Jack as I stood there on the ground, but it was even more remarkable to see it from the hall window upstairs, where I could take in the full absurdity of it all.

But you must know that as a kid I didn’t think it was that bad, because my buddies, Junior and Dick, and I would climb to the top of that belly and slide down it. We even switched him and pretended to ride him. We played on poor old Jack every day, never mind what my mother said: “My, the very idea! Don’t you dare climb on that disgusting thing?” And yet, sixty-seven years later I can still feel my bare feet stepping on that distended, hairy belly, a belly that grew larger day by day. And I can still feel my fingers digging into that taut, hairy horsehide as I struggled to reach the top. Yep, we enjoyed an unusual sliding board, which I’ll bet no other kid ever had, until the flies and the stink got so bad that Pop had to pay a renderer to haul it away.

Later that summer I started my first job: pulling weeds out of Dr. Van Norden’s garden. The doc lived on South Chesapeake City’s Third Street, just up from the school. He wanted me to begin work at noon, in the heat of late July. After an hour of battling the infested weeds, the heat, and the biting insects, I decided that being a wage earner at ten years’ old was not only exhausting but unnecessary. And the more weeds I pulled the more unnecessary it became. So, after about an hour, drenched with sweat, with a sunburned and welt-dotted face, I knocked on his door for my pay.

He opened the door, peered out and beckoned me in. Let me tell you about Dr. Van Norden, my first doctor and my first employer. He was a small man so it won’t take long. Thin and maybe five feet tall if you were to stretch him out, he had a head that made up in magnitude for what his shriveled body lacked. He had piercing eyes, a long nose, and a full head of pure-white hair.

He drove a 1915 Pierce-Arrow automobile, and when he ran it around town it looked as if there was no driver because he could just barely see over the dashboard. Folks said that he always drove through town ignoring the stop signs and pedestrians. Nevertheless, he paid me for my labor with a tarnished quarter. Four years earlier he had given me my school vaccination on my left bicep. The quarter I spent that evening; the vaccination I still have, and if I flex my muscle it’ll pop right out at you.

The winter before I pulled those weeds for him I was his patient. Pop took me to him because I had a bad cold with a high fever. Feeling miserable, I sat next to his desk as he told me to chew on a small absorbent, paper tab and then spit it into his hand. He made a fist for about five seconds, cocked his head to one side and said: “Um humm, 102 degrees—not good.” Then I answered his questions: “Are your mouth and lips dry?” “Uh-huh.” “Do you stick your feet out from under the covers at night?” “Uh-huh.” “Do your bowel movements have an odor?” “Uh-huh.” Well,” he said, “Everything points to nux vomica, but we’d better make sure.”

Then he pulled out from his drawer a crystal ball about the size of a baseball that had a foot-long string attached to it. He cleared his desk and poured and folded what looked like sugar (the Nux Vomica medicine) into a tiny piece of white paper. Next he placed it about eight inches from the tab I had saturated. After that he grabbed the end of the string attached to the crystal ball and held the dandling ball about six inches above the saliva tab.

I sat there wide-eyed at the spectacle and looked over at Pop, who nodded his approval. Then, believe it or not, that crystal ball began swinging back and forth between the medicine and my saliva. “There’s the proof,” Doctor Van Norden said. So Pop paid him two dollars, took me home, and dissolved the medicine in a glass of water. That evening he gave me a teaspoon full of it every hour, and the next morning I felt fine—no cough, no sore throat, and no fever. I was cured.