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.

White Crystal Beach in 1952—a Time of Sweets and Sours

White Crystal Beach in 1952—a Time of Sweets and Sours

Dancing on the boardwalk at White Crystal Beach, circa 1950

The Turkey Point Lighthouse, circa 1930. Note vestige of wooden steps and chute ascending the cliff. Supplies, unloaded from a boat, were hauled up the chute to the keeper

For the life of me I couldn’t rouse Uncle Ernest that Saturday morning in 1952. Having just arrived from Nola’s Bar, he was in no condition to talk. So I went outside for a while to cool my heels. It was late August and you know what it’s like when it’s especially hot and humid. It would be years before we had air conditioning, so we’d sit under our maple tree and bless the occasional breeze that cooled us off. Sometimes abrupt, violent thunder storms would really cool us off. The wind, teeming rain and occasional hail would rage, bending our orchard saplings double.

Anyway, I had big plans for that particular afternoon. Time was valuable because school would reopen in two weeks and I wanted to make the most of my remaining free time. I walked into town and collared Dick Sheridan (my best friend and 42^nd cousin) so we could run my sea sled to White Crystal Beach for a day’s swim. We walked down Bohemia Avenue, past Dr. Conrey’s mansion (now the Blue Max), and down Ferry Slip Road to Stone Bridge where I had my boat and motor pulled up on the shore.

        We got to White Crystal in no time, took a long, cool swim, and then went up to the small boardwalk where kids were dancing to juke box music. We watched for a while and then I saw, in the midst of the dancers, a girl so pretty that I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She was about 5’5” with short, light brown hair and a thin, well-formed body. And her eyes . . . how can I tell you about her eyes—those eyes that were so sparkling and playful and full of life? She and another girl were jitterbugging to Bill Haley and the Comets’ “Rock Around the Clock.” She wore a pure-white terry cloth blouse that was open at the throat and trimmed in navy blue. Her shorts were terry cloth trimmed in navy blue also. She . . . was . . . beautiful!

        Well, I knew that if I didn’t meet her and dance with her I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Just then, as if Cupid planned it, the perfect song started playing: Jo Stafford’s “You Belong to Me.” Could it be, musical reader, that you might remember that magical tune? Surprisingly, she agreed to dance with me, so there I was actually holding that rare beauty and swaying to the beat of my favorite song. When I pulled her gently closer and she put her damp hair against my cheek I could tell she’d been swimming.

And then something unusual happened that surprised me. Coming, I thought, from her terry cloth blouse was a faintly sour scent—not disagreeable but distinctive, uniquely and paradoxically pleasant. The graceful-moving closeness of her body was wonderful, and the image of her white and blue terry cloth attire combined with that ever-so-slight tartness embedded the encounter securely in my mind.

For those few minutes we were one body swaying in tender motion to the mesmerizing music. When the song ended we walked to the railing and looked across the bay at Turkey Point, and there, as if emerging fresh from the foliage especially for us, was the Turkey Point Light House, its pure whiteness breathtaking in contrast to the surrounding panorama of darkening sky, dark green foliage, and dark emerald water.

But then, just as she squeezed my hand to enhance the scene’s splendor, the spell was broken by a startling flash of lightening and an immediate, deafening clap of thunder. Suddenly I felt Dick yank me away as he yelled, “Let’s get out of here!” Lunging backwards as he pulled, I got a glimpse of Terry Cloth’s eyes and saw that she was as distraught as I was. We hadn’t even exchanged names! I thought, “My God, I’ll never see her again.”

Dick and I dashed to the shore, pushed the boat in and, surging through the high breakers and drenched by the driving rain, we somehow made it back to Chesapeake City’s Basin. Something told me that I’d never see the girl again. And I never did, though I returned to White Crystal Beach several times until school started. She probably had been there for a few days from some Pennsylvania town . . . so we were never to meet again. But it’s funny how strong that memory of sour sweetness is, even now, years after that tender encounter in 1952 on the boardwalk of White Crystal Beach. Yet I knew then that I’d never forget her—her beauty, her grace, and her beguiling fragrance.

Back at the farmhouse Uncle Ernest was fully alert and ready for his nightly escapades. He mentioned a redheaded girlfriend he’d once had. “You won’t believe how gorgeous she was, Moose the Goose.” “Yeah,” I thought, “but she’d never match the beauty of the girlfriend I almost had.” Still, I know that readers will be anxious to hear about Unk’s redhead in my next week’s story.

But no, wait! Geez, I almost forgot to tell you something. That same year, in the fall of 1952 when school had been back in session for a few days, something magical occurred. I was behind the wheel of Pop’s ’48 Ford, parked next to a line of buses and waiting for Dick come out. I was watching students boarding a bus when a girl with sparkling, playful eyes and short, light brown hair made me lunge forward against the windshield. It was the terry cloth girl! She was just as stunning as ever, despite the fancy school clothes. And, sure, alert reader, you knew all along. You weren’t fooled by my deception.

You knew that no love god worthy of his bow and arrow would ever let me lose her. She lived on Chesapeake City’s North Side and I had somehow missed her throughout school. So I rushed over, held her hands, and looked into those playful eyes and watched as tears seeped in to flood and distort what once was clear and bright. Then they overflowed their banks, releasing swollen pearls that migrated leisurely down her cheek. They picked up speed towards her chin, hesitated, and then plopped with abrupt invisibility to her blouse until I held her close.

As you might expect, we started dating regularly and, after a while, one night as we embraced she murmured with soft, musical tones, “You belong to me.” And durn! I did. And I have belonged to her, but only for the last 61 years. And sometimes, after the kids have gone and on rare occasions when we have some leftover energy, we’ll dance gently to Jo Stafford’s tune and eyeball our painting of Turkey Point. And it’s only because that White Crystal memory is languishing in some remote crevice in my brain that I can just barely detect the faint scent of tainted terry cloth.

The Whizzer Motorbike, and Uncle Ernest’s Beauty, 1950

The Whizzer Motorbike, and Uncle Ernest’s Beauty, 1950

Foard Brothers’ Hardware Store, circa 1950 (now R. T. Foard Funeral Home). Note Good Shepherd steeple at left.

The C&D Canal, east view, with the Corps of Engineers’ wharf at middle and pump house at right. Note State of Baltimore steamer and Canal Street at left, circa 1940.

How can I tell you about a certain northern sky in one of September’s warm, sedated early evenings? Maybe you’ve even seen one similar to mine, mine with a skyline border of trees of uneven heights, and hues of green so varied that in contrast the beauty of the powder-blue sky above doesn’t even enter the eyes. Instead, its splendor seeps directly into the chest and then flutters into the spine with chills that make you catch your breath, chills that trigger your eyes to finally widen with wonder. Oh sure, you know what it’s like to have stretched out above you a massive horizontal sheet of colored paper, bordered at the bottom by the tops of linked trees so jagged that if you tried to ride your bike across them you’d be jostled out of your senses. I’d never seen a sky of such clear light blue—unblemished and pure as a child’s hug.

But a sky was just a sky back in 1950, because my 14-year-old mind was obsessed with owning a Whizzer motorbike. You may remember the old Whizzer; it was a regular-sized bicycle with a gasoline engine mounted under the top bar. At that time I worked at Foard Brothers’ Hardware Store on George Street (now the R.T. Foard Funeral Home). I heard that Richard Callahan had his Whizzer for sale, and I just had to have that beauty or bust. Not making nearly enough money at Foards’, I had to make it some other way, so I decided to start selling old man McNolt’s sweet corn on the streets of South Chesapeake City.

Local farmer, Dave McNatt, planted the corn in our fields, and I felt bad about stealing it until I learned that he paid Pop nothing to till our farm; I figured he owed us a few dozen ears, so for several days in early September I picked the short, worm-imbedded ears, hauled them into town and at a dollar a dozen made a few bucks. I had some regular customers who always bought that sorry corn. On George Street they were Miss Jenny Whiteoak and Mrs. Ed Sheridan, the Captain’s wife. Mrs. Ebbie Cooling, Mrs. Mason, and Mrs. Ireland, all on Bohemia Avenue, always bought them. And by the time I got to Bennett’s Feed Store I had sold every ear.

Well, I made some of the needed money and, with Pop adding the rest, I bought the $70.00 Whizzer. And, for that year and the next, I had a thousand dollars worth of fun with it. But on one of those steamy afternoons I gave the bike a rest so I could talk to my Uncle Ernest. I jumped onto the porch swing and swung so high that it started crashing against the porch column and the house. That roused Unk, who was resting his eyes on the couch after arriving at dawn from Dolph’s Tavern. He came out, grabbed the chain to slow it down, and then reclined next to me with the exaggerated delicacy of the infirm. He always came intending to help Pop with the farming, but somehow more important things came up. He once told me: “Hard work never killed anybody . . . but I’m not taking any chances!” Anyway, sitting next to me, caressing his refreshed glass as if he held a day-old baby, and after my pleading, he resumed the story he had started on his last visit. You remember, thoughtful reader; it was about his adventure in that exotic country across the sea.

“Oh yeah, Moose the Goose, you remember how I sailed to that backward land, that land of crocodiles, four-sided, pointed, stone towers, and an enormous stone lion with the head of a person? Well, that’s where I saw all those slaves dragging boulders and those whip-wielding slave drivers flailing them. And that’s where I fell in love with Patti, a gorgeous brunette with milk-chocolate skin and alluring dark eyes. And when she stepped down from that crude sled (they hadn’t invented the wheel, remember?), I took her hand as she gazed lovingly into my eyes.

“Then, as we smiled at each other, she winked at me so I kissed her dainty fingertips and told her that she was cuter than a frog’s ear. And so, I guess because of my handsomeness and clever manner, she hugged me and asked if I would be her steady boyfriend. ‘Absolutely,’ I said, ‘and along with that I’m going to make this sorry country a better place.’ And so, I got to work by using the skills I had learned in Chesapeake City. First I told the leaders how to make wheels so that their travel and work would be a lot easier. I made a horse-drawn buggy for my new girl friend; we called it the Patti wagon.

“Next, I showed them how to stuff the bodies of their dead leaders by using my taxidermy skills. Then I sculpted Patti’s face onto the head of that giant stone lion, which made her whimper and hug and kiss me until I couldn’t catch my breath . . . Oh, it was hard on me, Moose! But the best thing I did over there was to free those thousands of slaves. We had a secret union meeting where I told them to meet me the next day on the shore of a river they called the Crimson Sea. I had a plan about how to get them across to the Freedom Land on the other side, the land of beer and pizza.

“I made a guy named Marty, a natural leader, the shop steward. He was a foundling—discovered as a baby floating in the bulrushes of a swamp. He grew up to become a magician, because a fellow told me that he once struck a desert rock with his staff and out spouted a barrel of water. I think that’s stretching things but, anyway, he assembled the whole tribe of those slaves and had them all singing in unison. Yeah, it was sure touching to see him conducting with his staff and hear that multitude singing We Shall Come Over. It brought tears to my eyes, Moose. And do you know that it didn’t bother me at all that the ones singing the loudest were tone deaf, because I knew that the lungs that bellowed out those croaking sour notes were yearning to breath free.

“After four verses of enjoying that uplifting hymn I got to work. Using what I had learned from a drinking buddy from Wilmington named Al DuPont, I made three sticks of dynamite. So, when the horde was poised at the shore and ready to sprint (like the runners at the start of the Boston Marathon), I tossed that dynamite out to the middle and the explosion parted the water long enough for them to scamper through to freedom. Freeing them was a great feeling, even though Patti’s father, King Tootanhanna, was furious.

“But he soon got over it and even gave permission for Patti and me to marry. So you see, Moose, I would have become the king when Tootie died, and I would still be there if it hadn’t been for the tragedy, the awful thing that happened to Patti. One evening, as she fed her pet snake, Aspi, he bit her. So sad . . . she lasted only a few minutes. But I made the best of it: I pickled her nicely and entombed her in the largest of those pointed towers, where she’ll rest undisturbed forever. I was so upset that I returned here to Chesapeake City to be with my kin folks.” “That’s awfully sad,” I said, as Uncle Ernest slid off the swing and lumbered back to the couch.

Oh, I was sad, but not sad enough to keep me from hopping on my Whizzer for a ride to the Corps of Engineers’ wharf to try to catch some catfish lurking near the pilings. And I know you’re saddened also, concerned reader, but you’ll be sure to brighten up when you read my next week’s story.

Double Dating and the Gallant Uncle Ernest—Autumn, 1950

Double Dating and the Gallant Uncle Ernest—Autumn, 1950

Chesapeake City School, K thru 12—Late Fifties.

Mr. Bob Foard’s general store and post office at Churchtown (St. Augustine). Photo was taken just before renovation in the late fifties. Mr. Foard operated the store into the early fifties. Note gravity gas pump at right.

You know how it is on an early October day, when the morning chill makes you think you're two months into December, and makes you pull April's sweatshirt over your shoulders and hug yourself for warmth. But then, by early afternoon, before you have time to think about it, cosmic batteries charge the eastern floodlight, so that beams of magic radiance warm the earth, taking you back two months into August and making you chuck that sweatshirt and fling open your arms with delight.

It was one of those days that Saturday, that Saturday in 1950, so many years ago. Let me take you back to that day, that day filled with youthful bewilderment and uneasy anticipation. I promise to return you to the present, and leave you tainted only temporarily by the tender turbulence of those teenage times. It all started in our eighth grade science class. Temple Smith and I were pretty good buddies at that time, and he and I were fooling around—talking and having fun with Libby Jean Powell and Betty Fasbenner, trying to sweet-talk them, I guess, if we had the knack or even the inclination to sweet-talk at that age.

Now, wistful reader, think back to your early high school years and, whether you lived in Cecil County or Seattle, think of how those adolescent yearnings were especially active, sort of in a jitterbugging frenzy throughout your body. Well, that was our condition that day as he and I bantered with those pretty girls. Anyway, it was Friday, near the end of class, and at one point during the interplay, either Libby or Betty said, "Hey, why don't you two come out to see us tomorrow? We can have more fun together away from school."

Well, we talked it up and decided that Temple and I would meet Libby and Betty at Churchtown, just past Mr. Foard's big brick general store on the corner and near the historic Saint Augustine Church, not far from where the girls lived. It was settled: we'd meet at 1 p.m. the next day, Saturday. I was to meet Temple at his Uncle Sam Caldwell’s farm, which was on the way to Churchtown. From there we’d cycle to meet the girls. I pedaled home from school that afternoon with all kinds of thoughts swirling through my mind: "Should I bother to go? Did Temple like Libby or Betty? Where would we go when we got there? What would we do, anyway? I always make fun of girls. What's going on here?"

Saturday morning I got up before dawn to hunt ducks along Long Creek, up above the Marine Construction Company (where the Delaware Responder is now at Capt. Dan’s). But my heart wasn't in it. I was turning over in my head what that double date was going to be like, and whether I was bold enough to even ride out there. So I tied off my boat at Borger’s Wharf (now the Chesapeake Inn) and trudged on home the back way: up Mount Nebo, past Mallory Toy’s fish pond, and through the woods to our farm. As I approached the house I started jogging because there sprawled out on our wooden lawn chair was Uncle Ernest, with a crooked smile on his face, the result, I knew, of many glasses of liquid entertainment.

After a while I was able to persuade him to tell me another story about his magic submarine. I had plenty of time before my double date so I sat back and listened. Interrupted only by trips to the house for refills, he told me his tale. “Yeah, Moose, this time I boarded the sub at the wharf next to the Hole-in-the-Wall, and pretty soon it transported me up a long river, one much wider than our canal. Every so often I saw a crocodile emerge from the muddy water so I made sure I didn’t fall in. Soon I stepped ashore onto an exotic but dusty land.

“I looked around me and saw some amazing sights: a large, stone body of a lion with a person’s head, three huge, four-sided stone structures coming to a point at the top, and several slave-drivers brandishing whips and yelling at hundreds of near-naked slaves as they dragged enormous boulders for another pointed tower. I guess that’s why we call that the Stone Age Period; they hadn’t even invented the wheel yet. My but they were a backward people. I’ve never seen anything like it, Moose, not even in the western wilds of Cecil County.  

“And so, just as I was about to clobber those slave drivers and take their whips, a guy with a crazy hat and a long black beard pulled up in a big sled pulled by four black horses. ‘Are you the boss?’ I asked. ‘Boss!’ he yelled. ‘I’m Tootanhanna, the king of this land. And this is my royal daughter, Princess Patti.’ At this point a young woman unwrapped herself from a sheet that had protected her from the sun and dust. When I saw her face and figure I almost collapsed into the sand. She was an outstanding beauty, blessed with pure, milk-chocolate skin.

She had lustrous black hair and dark, alluring eyes, and her curvaceous form, standing above me, was accentuated by a skin-tight dress woven of pure gold. Her fully-formed, chocolate legs emerged from the gold and terminated in a pair of black, velvet slippers, matching perfectly her gleaming hair. I was to fall in love with her, the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. Some time I’ll tell you all about it.” With that, he tramped into the house to prepare for a night of partying. I followed him in to check the clock and sure enough I had almost enough time to get to my double date.

So I got on my bike, pedaled around McNatt's corner, and labored up that long, steep hill to Temple's farm. But I didn't pedal with much enthusiasm, sort of meandered along. I rolled into Temple's lane and up to his big farmhouse—nobody in sight. I went out to the barn—nothing but cows. I rode my bike around the house several times and made a few circles out in the road. Then I said, "Aw, what the heck!" and headed out to Churchtown. But nobody was there, not even old Mr. Foard. I spun over by the graveyard, rode out a little towards Cayots Corner—nobody, not even any cars went by. Why did I think I might see Libby or Betty in the distance, waving with happy excitement to see me? But it was the quietest, most deserted area I had ever seen. And so, relieved and disappointed at the same time, I sped on back home, glancing over at Temple's deserted farm on my way past.

And do you know that in school the next Monday none of us said a word about the previously planned date? It was as if that Friday conversation never took place. To this day I don't know what went on that afternoon. Could it have been that, because I was late, Temple had the company of both girls that day? Geez, I hope not! More than likely, I'll bet that Libby Jean, Betty, and Temple don't remember even the slightest thing about it. I thought of Uncle Ernest’s reality story and how beautiful girls found him irresistible, and here I was not even able to get girls to meet with me to talk. Oh, I was to have some nice double dates when I grew older, but none as memorable as the one I had with myself on that special October Saturday in 1950.

Chesapeake City’s First Little League Team, Martin Poore (1920-1977), Manager

Chesapeake City’s First Little League Team, Martin Poore (1920-1977), Manager

The team posing at the North Side field (now Titter Park) - a 1951 Photo

Front: Bobby Biggs, Freddie Craig, Ronnie Poore, Lucky Lloyd, Jim Crawford, Marty Poore, Jr.

Back: Martin Poore (Manager), Hyland Vaughan, Bill Karbonic, Lane Ginn, Wayne Peaper, Jim Peaper (Assistant Manager), Ray Stevens.

Members of the first team, circa 1952

  

With the baseball and softball season in full swing, I’m reminded of what an excellent little league system we have here in Chesapeake City. We didn’t have a little league team when I was a boy, but in 1951 Martin Poore got the town boys together and started one. Many Chesapeake City residents remember Martin and how hard he worked not only to organize the team, but how diligently he taught baseball fundamentals to young boys in the area. Marty’s son, Martin, Jr., remembers that first season with his dad as manager:

            “Dad always wanted to be a ballplayer, but couldn’t because of some physical problems and because, being raised on a farm, he had to quit school early to go to work. So, I guess he lived his dream through my brother, Ronnie, and me as well as the other kids. He lived baseball and always made sacrifices for us.”

            Ray Stevens has some vivid memories: “Oh yes, I played on that first team. Martin Poore was the manager and Jim Peaper was the coach. I was the third baseman and Wayne Peaper was the pitcher. I remember most of the players. Marty was a nice man. He tried to instill the game of baseball in our minds — the right way to play it. But, oh, we had fun, although Marty was all business when it came to baseball.”

             Bill Karbonic, the team’s catcher, has fond memories also: “We didn’t even have uniforms that first year; we wore red hats, tee shirts, and blue jeans. The following year the Lions’ Club donated uniforms. Marty really did a lot for the community. My goodness, when we started the whole town would come out; even the businesses would close for the game. It was something special!”

            “Martin never got enough credit,” explains outfielder Hyland Vaughan. “He was a real founding force for our Little League program.” Wayne Peaper, the team’s first pitcher, remembers how much Martin was dedicated and enthusiastic: “I recall one time when the field was covered with water. Well, he actually went out and threw gasoline into the water to burn it off so we could play that evening. Another time he loaded the whole team into his car for a game at Cecilton. Wow, were we packed in there! That’s just two examples—he was really into it. Also, he was always upbeat, never negative.”

            A coach, of course, is a teacher, and teachers impart more than the particular skills of their expertise. As his students have just indicated, Marty’s influence as a teacher was extensive. He expected excellence not aggression. He made learning fun not arduous. He provided opportunities for the youth of Chesapeake City, many of whom, as we’ve seen, have clear memories of his teaching skills, his dependability, his enthusiasm, his gentle leadership, and his love for the game. They remember and appreciate their first coach, even after over sixty years.