Chesapeake Forum’s October lineup ranges from meadows and a rare historic-house tour to a steam train, obituaries, publishing, Revolutionary newspapers and Mah Jongg
You could spend October turning your lawn into a meadow. Or riding a steam train through the mountains in peak fall color. You could tour a historic Eastern Shore estate, learn what really happens inside the publishing business—or sit down and write your own obituary.
And that’s just the beginning.
Chesapeake Forum opens October with an unusually eclectic stretch of courses and experiences—some outdoors, some around a table, some rooted in local history, and some designed simply to make you look at something familiar in an entirely new way.
Explore Chesapeake Forum’s fall courses and register at chesapeakeforum.org.
If the class you want is already full, don’t give up: join the waitlist. Plans change, seats open and waitlists move.
Making a Meadow — Oct. 1 & 8, 10:30 a.m.–noon, $40
What does it really take to replace turf with a landscape of native grasses and flowers? Mikaela Boley of University of Maryland Extension and Easton homeowner Clare Meade combine the science with the reality. The first session explores site preparation, seed selection, planting and weed management; the second takes participants into the five-acre meadow Clare and Paul Meade began establishing in 2025 to see what worked, what didn’t and what they would do differently. The Oct. 1 classroom session may be attended in person at the Easton Family YMCA or via Zoom; the Oct. 8 field visit is in person at a private Easton home.
Tour of the Historic Wye House and Grounds — Oct. 2, 1–3:30 p.m., $30
A place most Eastern Shore residents can’t ordinarily walk through opens its doors for this rare guided visit. Richard C. Tilghman Jr., owner and steward of Wye House, will lead participants through the privately owned National Historic Landmark near Tunis Mills, including its historic rooms, original furnishings, gardens and remarkable 18th-century orangery. The visit also confronts the estate’s complex history, including its connection to Frederick Douglass, who lived at Wye Plantation as an enslaved child.
FT to Frostburg: A Fall Colors Steam Engine Adventure — Oct. 3, $120
The soundtrack is steel wheels, a steam whistle and No. 1309 working its way up the Allegheny grade. Chesapeake Forum’s day trip carpools from Easton to Cumberland, then boards the Frostburg Flyer for a climb through the Narrows, around Helmstetter’s Curve and through Brush Tunnel before reaching Frostburg. Rail professional Thomas Mackay, who once worked as a guide on the railroad, provides onboard commentary. The trip is currently accepting names for its waitlist; participants may return to Easton that evening or arrange their own overnight stay in Cumberland.
No One Gets Out Alive: Crafting Your Obituary — Oct. 7, 10:30 a.m.–noon, $30
It may be the only writing workshop where knowing the ending is the easy part. Suzanne Hood and LeeAnn Hutchison take a subject most of us avoid and turn it into a thoughtful, light-hearted exercise in deciding what matters enough to be remembered. Participants can work on their own obituary or one for someone they love, using examples and step-by-step guidance to leave with a rough draft or outline. The class is hybrid.
Page, Print & Writers — Oct. 8, 1–3 p.m., $30
After 46 years buying, selling and publishing books, Richard Gavin Brockett takes readers behind the cover: Who decides what gets published? How does a manuscript reach the marketplace? What makes a bestseller, and what happens to all the books that don’t become one? The hybrid class explores the business, judgment and economics behind publishing—and why the physical book still matters in a screen-filled world.
Ink and Independence: Reporting the Revolutionary War — Oct. 15, 10:30 a.m.–noon, $30
Long before push alerts and live feeds, Americans followed a revolution through ink, paper and news that could arrive weeks late. Steve Goldman brings rare original newspapers from 1754–1783 into the classroom to show the Revolution as readers of the time encountered it: battlefield dispatches, political argument, public outrage and the limitations of 18th-century printing. Goldman has collected historical newspapers and their precursors for more than 50 years; his collection formed the nucleus of the News History Gallery at the former NEWSEUM in Washington. The class is hybrid.
Mah Jongg for Beginners — begins Oct. 15, 1–3 p.m., $75
If the rows of unfamiliar tiles have kept you from joining the table, Zandi Nammack and her assistants will spend four Thursdays demystifying them. Beginners learn how to set up the American game, read the tiles and card, understand basic strategy and build enough confidence to start playing with others. The registration fee includes a National Mah Jongg League card. The course meets in person at the Easton Family YMCA; attendance at the first two sessions is required.
Taken together, the lineup is a reminder that lifelong learning doesn’t have to look like school. It can mean standing inside a house that holds centuries of Eastern Shore history, watching a meadow take shape, hearing a steam locomotive climb a mountain—or finally learning what all those Mah Jongg tiles mean.
For course information and current registration availability, visit chesapeakeforum.org. If the course you want is full, join the waitlist—openings happen.
Chesapeake Forum is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing lifelong learning opportunities to residents of the Eastern Shore. Chesapeake Forum is part of the YMCA of the Chesapeake. To receive Chesapeake Forum’s newsletter, please send your name and information to info@chesapeakeforum.org.
