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The Library Guy: Celeste-Marie Bernier on Frederick Douglass’s Family

September 26, 2020 by Bill Peak 1 Comment

In honor of Frederick Douglass Day, Bill Peak’s guest today is Professor Celeste-Marie Bernier, Professor of United States and Atlantic Studies at the University of Edinburgh, and a world-renowned Frederick Douglass scholar. Bill speaks with her about her latest book, If I Survive, and the remarkable Walter O. Evans archive of Frederick Douglass Family correspondence and art it chronicles, including letters home from Lewis Henry Douglass, who fought with the illustrious 54th Massachusetts at Fort Wagner.

This video is approximately thirty-four minutes in length. Photo credits; National Park Service, Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, Washington D.C. For more information about the Talbot County Free Library please go here.

Food Friday: Sleight of Hand

September 25, 2020 by Jean Sanders 3 Comments

Originally I thought I would write a timely piece about tacos to cleverly coincide with National Taco Day, which is October 4. I am a week early, which should give you plenty of time to experiment and try every variation and permutation before the big day actually arrives. It is funny how the calendar keeps playing tricks on me this year. 2020 has been a weird one, to say the least.

Spring was lovely – it didn’t feel like a burden to stay safely at home and watch the daffodils emerge from corners of the garden. The tulips bloomed late and then disappeared in a week. The daffodils hung on for weeks. There were buckets of warm spring rain, which suited the hydrangeas. And the burgeoning mosquitoes. Summer was long and hot. The minute fall arrived (this past Tuesday at 9:30 AM, EDT) it cooled down and I reached for a sweater, which I have since tossed onto the back of a kitchen chair because it has gotten summer-warm again. Just because the calendar says it’s fall doesn’t guarantee that the weather will cooperate.

I used to love running out to the grocery store whenever the whim or the obscure recipes demanded it. Those were the days. Carefree. Mask-free. The wind blowing through my artfully coiffed locks. That was back when I could get haircuts. (I was taller and blonder and thinner in that Katmandu state of mind, too.) Covid-19 has required that we plan ahead, shop less frequently, stay home more, mask up and be mindful of others.

I like to think that I am a frugal New Englander; that I remember to “Use it up, wear it out, made it do, do without.” Somehow I always picture that phrase as coming to me from repeatedly reading Little Women. Surely Beth embroidered it as a lovely cross-stitched sampler that hung over her piano. Or Laura Ingalls Wilder muttered under her breath as she grimly churned butter in a sod-house in Minnesota. But no, it turns out that it was a phrase used in World War II, encouraging us to cheerfully make do with rationing. I guess I need to re-read Little Women.
https://www.eisenhowerfoundation.net/ikeducation/lesson-plans/use-it-wear-it-out-make-it-do-or-do-without#

We have been watching lots of videos, as have you. We fell into Netflix’s Chef’s Table recently. After watching an hour of grim pandemic news it is a relief to see images of people with passions and skills, living happy, pre-pandemic lives, puttering around their well-appointed kitchens making wonderfully bizarre foods. https://philly.eater.com/2019/4/15/18282518/south-philly-barbacoa-cristina-martinez-mexican-restaurant-philadelphia

I used to think narrowly about tacos. I have been amazed to find that tacos are not just browned ground beef, flavored by Old El Paso seasoning mix, served in fried, hard corn tortilla shells, topped with orange cheese. Now I know that tacos will save us during the pandemic, because they make ordinary leftovers exotic. Tacos are magic. I give to you some taco legerdemain:Nights when I have trouble sleeping, instead of worrying about the state of the world, over which I have no control, I try to think about what grooviness I can serve for dinner without going to the grocery store. What is lurking in the fridge or is tucked away in the pantry that can stretch the time until I need to mask up and tear through the grocery store.

Leftovers are our friends, and leftovers as tacos are friends with beer and chips. Tacos are better than casseroles. Consequently I have learned to keep a stash of corn tortillas in the fridge, which are the basis for tacos. (Sometimes I have flour tortillas, too. In a pinch we can make quesadillas, which make an easy, cheesy side dish.)

Most all of the time we have these items, too. Although I have to ask the Family Nose to test the sour cream container for viability:

Meat – leftover roast beef, steak, chicken, salmon, pork, lamb
Refried beans – try to get the vegetarian kind to avoid lard
Rice – we always make too much, so there is always a stash in the freezer
Corn or flour shell tortillas
Toppings
Shredded lettuce or cabbage
Chopped tomato
Chopped Vidalia onion, green onion, red onion
Radishes (some may lurk in the way back)
Cilantro (it is amazing how much fresh cilantro will add to a store-bought salsa)
Guacamole (I never have avocados, but you might)
Salsa
Salsa verde
Sour cream (from a couple of weeks ago, usually)
Shredded cheese – we mix mozzarella with cheddar
Jalapeños – we always have a jar of pickled jalapeños, but fresh pack a better kick, and will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks
Lime juice for a refreshing citrus jolt – bottled will do in a pinch
Olives
Hot sauce
Corn

I used to fry the tortillas to death, thinking that the packaged hard shells we found in the grocery store were authentic. Such foolishness! Now I either lightly fry the shells in a skillet or griddle and warm both sides of each tortilla until they are warm and soft. Or, to keep the stove top from getting splattered, I drape the shells over the wire oven racks in a 350°F oven for about 5-7 minutes. Some recipes say spray with oil, but really, spray? Aren’t we trying to save the planet? I say leave the shells in the oven until you have found the degree of crispiness you enjoy the most. Low cal, and ozone friendly

Good luck with your National Taco Day celebration. You can never rehearse too much, or too often. Just remember to keep some tortillas (and beer) in the fridge, and some extra chips in the pantry. Make yourself happy puttering in the kitchen.

“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”
-Calvin Trillin

Salt Fat Acid Heat guru Samin Nosrat’s brilliant take: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/dec/29/slow-roasted-pork-taco-recipe-salted-caramel-cookies-samin-nosrat

Here is a vegetarian take on tacos, too: https://shaneandsimple.com/crunchy-baked-taco-shells/

Fish: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/10/grilling-tilapia-fish-tacos.html

https://everydaydishes.com/simple-food-recipes/leftover-roast-beef-street-tacos/

https://www.howsweeteats.com/2017/06/lets-set-taco-bar-fathers-day/

Chesapeake Arts: Artist Marcy Ramsey is Back at It

September 23, 2020 by James Dissette 1 Comment

Marcy Ramsey’s annual show is up at MassoniArt through October and, due to the pandemic, by appointment only.

While that may sound constrictive, for those of you who know Ramsey’s work, the “by appointment only” requirement will offer visitors time to enjoy the show without distraction. So far it has worked out well and, who knows, it could be the way of galleries going forward.

For fifteen years the Chestertown artist has been entranced by the limitless play of color and light along the rivers of the Eastern Shore and the woodlands nearby. Her trademark meditations on flotsam and jetsam, reeds, floating leaves, and light reflected off of water are widely collected.

These familiar themes are revisited in much of Ramsey’s new work, but the interpretations are fresh and her color palette continues to evolve into luminous canvasses of the natural world around us.

And she is exploring some new themes, but we won’t tell you about them—you have to go see for yourself!

This video is approximately five minutes in length. For more information about MassoniArt is at 203 High Street, Chestertown, Maryland. For an appointment, call 410-778- 7330. Masks are required. To find out more, visit their website here.

Oxford Community Center Takes to the Road

September 21, 2020 by Val Cavalheri 3 Comments

This past Saturday, September 19, over 60 classic and vintage cars took part in Oxford Community Center’s (OCC) inaugural Charity Road Rally. The vehicles gathered at OCC, where they received a home-cooked breakfast, courtesy of Fred Zell, owner of Prestige Auto Vault. The rally then traveled 62 miles to 98 Cannon Riverfront Grill restaurant in Chestertown, where awards and gourmet box lunches were given out. Winners had to identify various items along the route to score points.

Zell, who also sponsors the monthly Cars & Coffee at OCC, said that the idea for a rally started at these meetings. “We’ve been having more and more people show up each month. So, the thought came to us to try to do a COVID friendly road rally because people are pent-up up at home and frustrated that there have been no events for their cars.”

The popularity of this rally, however, was a surprise even to him. “We initially had hopes of getting 20 or 30 cars,” he said, “then 40 signed up, then 50 signed up, and all of a sudden 60 signed up. We’re very delighted at the response. We got a variety of cars from the early 1900s up to present-day cars, sports cars, convertibles, etc. It’s such a pleasure to get out over 60 cars and some 127 participants, and have a beautiful day for it. So, this is really special.”

Looking around as the cars were lining up pre-start, was OCC board member Byron “Brud” LaMotte. “After so many events at OCC were canceled,” he said, “we kind of came up with ways to have some fun activities where people would still be socially distant and have fun with old cars. The rest kind of happened.”

Tom Costigan and his wife Pat stood by their Triumph Spitfire waiting for the rally to start. “When this idea first got floated out there, it was ‘well, yeah, probably might be fun.’ And then the avalanche came! The outpouring of cars out here is just amazing. And the quality of it as well. It’s all pretty spectacular.” Costigan hopes it will be an annual event.

Liza Ledford, Fred Zell, Brud LaMotte

Liza Ledford, Executive Director of OCC, might just be making that hope a reality. “What a day,” she said. “The cars were incredible, and each driver was ready to roll! It was a blast to see them pulling out and then again at the finish line. Beautiful weather and excellent breakfast and lunch completed the day. Everyone was very happy, and we are gearing up for next year!”

The winner of the road quiz “All around Best Driver Award” was Joe Robillard, who took home a $100 gift certificate from Doc’s Sunset Grille. Peter Stifel won the “Oldest car to complete the course” with his 1910 Thomas Flyer, and the “Klunker Award” went to Paul Scuderi’s 1973 Triumph Stag. that came across the finish line smoking.

The event was sponsored by Fred Frederick, Koon’s Toyota, Benson & Mangold, Campbell’s Boatyards, Prestige Auto Vault, Doc’s Sunset Grille, Latitude 38, and artist Polly Cox. Proceeds from the rally will help to underwrite the many activities and services OCC provides the community.

Snapshots of Daily Life: Artifacts by George Merrill

September 20, 2020 by George R. Merrill Leave a Comment

Recently, a northwest wind combined with a tidal low, emptied water from our cove. Herons and gulls lit on the mudflat to feed. They lingered there while the water was out. As the water rose, the birds retreated. They’ll return when the flats are exposed.

We, too, are always searching. It’s a sign of life.

The Thames River snakes through London, England. Tides range anywhere from fifteen to twenty feet. Low tide exposes the riverbanks. There, mudlarks (people, not birds) scour and dig along its banks, ‘forebanks,’ in search of artifacts of London’s past dating from pre-Roman times. Mudlark and writer Lara Maiklem, seeks to nourish her spirit by feeding her imagination. She writes of mudlarking in her book, Mudlark: In Search of London’s Past Along the River Thames. “Mudlarking is a quest in two parts,” she says; “the hunt for the object and the journey to identify what it is and learn more about it.” Her imagination is fed by the ways that her fragmentary discoveries might open windows into the lives and habits of those who once lived in London. Her story is haunting. She caught my imagination in two ways: in describing her own imagination and the way she satisfied its hungers. Imagination is the locus of the spirit. It has appetites as the body does. We recognize its hungers when we feel curiosity. When curiosity is laced with wonder, we know our spirits are ravenous.

Her portrait of her school days was similar to my own. She, too, was a dreamer. She lived a kind of alternative world in her classrooms. She writes, “… my school reports… they were in all honesty, dreadful… one overriding theme throughout: my ability to dream my way through class… inclined to be rather dreamy… must be willing to concentrate fully… would benefit with more interaction in class… does not seem to realize that she must concentrate at all times.” Hers was my story, too.

Her teachers were gentle. Mine played hardball. In an irritated tone, my mother would hear how “George is always daydreaming in class… never pays attention… will not apply himself… he doesn’t stay on task… I don’t know where his mind goes.”

As Maiklem described her own school days, I felt my past legitimized by this kindred soul. She also enthralled me with her descriptions of mudlarking, the curiosity driving her messy and tedious tasks of eking out clay pipes, glass, pottery shards, Roman coins, and pins from the mud. She was really after the story they might tell.

Maiklem is a self-confessed dreamer. Dreamers romanticize. I would offer that certain romanticizing is more than just wrapping a gauzy film around the stern realities of life. It’s more a hunger to understand, while living in the now, how it was for those living in the then. Like compassion, romanticism is a way of knowing, attended by a feeling of belonging to the lives of others and participating in their reality. Romantics and mystics try unraveling stray threads by which the entire human family is knit together. Maiklem describes her search as “grounding.”

When I was young, my father and I would search for Indian arrowheads. He had a large collection. Some seemed new, others battered with time. He said they belonged to the Lenni Lenape tribe who lived in the Mid-Atlantic, roamed the coast and hunted here on the hill where we stood. What were they liking? Did they see the same landscape I did, I wondered? How marvelous it was to stand where they once stood, at a time long before I was.

My kin rarely talked about family history. I regret that. I’ve had so many questions. I knew only that my mother’s family were in the marine trades around New York Harbor and the Hudson River from at least a turn of the 19th century, and that my paternal grandfather was an “oyster dealer.” As I’ve aged, my imagination has hungered to know more. I began my own mudlarking. I didn’t scour the shores of the island on which I grew up. Instead, I perused the contents of an old file box dated ‘1946.’

The box contained only a few artifacts of my family history. The contents were a hodgepodge of legal documents, cards, correspondences, a few yellowed photographs, birth, death, and marriage certificates. Like Maiklem’s findings along the Thames, I Identified some objects, but not their story. I found a yellowed photograph of a Victorian sitting room. It felt strangely familiar. Why was it saved at all? Was there a story for me? Would the corridors of my memory reveal anything?

The room was small, cluttered with bric-a-brac and there were pictures on every surface. Tapestries hung on two walls; doilies were placed on chair backs, and a table stood in the middle of the room. A tablecloth covered the table, and sitting on the floor at each end of the table were cuspidors. All I recognized for certain was the chair –– a platform rocking chair, the Morris Chair that I had in my room as a boy.

Tiny fragments of life experiences, like the ancient shards Maiklem unearthed from the Thames, endure over time in the corridors of memory. The photograph revealed a room, but not one I recognized. Time had altered its looks, but the fundamentals remained intact. Would my imagination reveal the whole from the part? Eventually it did. I felt a thrill of discovery.

The photograph was the sitting room of my grandparents’ old Victorian house along the Kill Van Kull. I’d been in that room with my relatives for some fifteen years on Thanksgiving Days during my youth. Then, in the late forties and fifties, all the Victoriana, appearing in the photograph cluttering the room, had since gone. Like all ancient artifacts, time altered it.

I thought I saw the presence of what was absent in the photograph, the presence of my father. I remember him there in that room for the last Thanksgiving of his life. He died two days later.

Columnist George Merrill is an Episcopal Church priest and pastoral psychotherapist. A writer and photographer, he’s authored two books on spirituality: Reflections: Psychological and Spiritual Images of the Heart and The Bay of the Mother of God: A Yankee Discovers the Chesapeake Bay. He is a native New Yorker, previously directing counseling services in Hartford, Connecticut, and in Baltimore. George’s essays, some award winning, have appeared in regional magazines and are broadcast twice monthly on Delmarva Public Radio.

Food Friday: Saying Goodbye to Summer

September 18, 2020 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

I love the simplicity of summer cooking, mostly because my summertime philosophy is to send as much of the cooking outside to Mr. Friday and his grill as I possibly can, without seeming churlish. Or manipulative. Or lazy. He is better suited to repel the advances of mosquitos, and Luke the wonder dog lives in hope of a game of The B Word. I am naturally inclined to stay in the kitchen, monitoring the wine levels, while washing berries or whipping cream. Or checking Instagram.

The end of September is that odd time of the year when some mornings it is cool enough for a light jacket, which we will regret wearing along about eleven, when the temperature rises. The angle of light is changing, the sun is going down earlier, a handful of leaves is falling, and we are about ready for a change. Summer is a grand season, but I am looking forward to sweater weather.

And while we wait for the weather to catch up with the calendar, let’s move out to the back porch for a glass of wine. It’s almost dinnertime. There are more cardinals squawking in the hedge. I can hear geese some afternoons, and I watch the squirrels’ hunting parties rustling around while they are checking on this year’s pecan harvest. Luke is grateful for the extra distractions.

I anticipate the delights of the upcoming change of season, but I am also kvetching about the things I didn’t accomplish this summer: books I didn’t read, the croquet we never played, the back porch we didn’t paint, the European trip that was cancelled because of COVID, the domestic travel we couldn’t manage because of COVID; just lots of time at home, frozen in anxiety-ridden pandemic angst. Something has got to give!

Cooler weather means I will return to the kitchen and will rummage about for the big stew pots, the loaf pans, the Crock Pot and the recipes that will stick-to-our-ribs and our COVID bellies. Stews, chilies, spaghetti sauces, meatloaves, lasagnes, breads, brownies and pot pies. Spices swirling in the air. Baking. Planning Thanksgiving. I’m dreaming of a change from this stinking hot long, long summer. And then there are sugar plums that arrive in December! And having to figure out what to do for the Christmas card this year!

We do not ease our way back inside from the summer spent cooking outside on the grill. It is an abrupt change. Labor Day has come and gone, slamming the screen door behind it. I hear there might be some football. And while we wait for a vaccine I might as well get back into the kitchen – the summer holiday is over.

It’s going to rain this weekend with remnants of Hurricane Sally tooling around out there and if you can’t get outside to the grill – never fear. This is a good transitional side dish: oven roasted broccolini with lemons and Parmesan. Mr. Friday has been experimenting with broccolini on the grill this summer, and now it is coming inside. https://heronearth.com/roasted-broccolini-and-lemon-with-crispy-parmesan

If you don’t mind shopping for slivered almonds, you can try this version: https://daniliciousdishes.com/roasted-broccolini-w-garlic-parmesan-and-charred-lemon/

I’m going to ask Mr. Friday to help me with the cast iron skillet prep for hamburgers. There is one more week of September left, and I plan on relishing one last burger.

“Do you remember the 21st night of September?
Love was changing the minds of pretenders
While chasing the clouds away
Our hearts were ringing
In the key that our souls were singing
As we danced in the night
Remember how the stars stole the night away…”
-Earth, Wind & Fire

https://genius.com/Earth-wind-and-fire-september-lyrics

Sojourn through History: Highland Beach and Frederick Douglass’ Summer Home

September 16, 2020 by Jennifer Martella 8 Comments

This past weekend while many families were heading to the Maryland and Delaware beaches for summer fun, I headed in the opposite direction to Highland Beach on the Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis. My purpose was to visit this town that has a very special place in Maryland’s history. Before my move to The Eastern Shore in 2004, my required reading began with “Chesapeake” by James Michener and a biography of Frederick Douglass. “Cedar Hill” was Frederick Douglass’ home in the Anacostia neighborhood of DC and “Twin Oaks” would have been Douglass’ summer home in Highland Beach, Maryland, had he not died before its completion. I recently learned the restoration of “Twin Oaks” began in the mid 1980’s and was the residence of Annapolis architect Chip Bohl and his wife Barbara. Walking through this charming small beach town with houses stepping up the hills above the Town Park and beach along the Chesapeake Bay was a delightful architectural and historical tour for me.

From my online research, I learned that the history of Highland Beach began twenty-nine years after the Emancipation Proclamation during the time of the Post Reconstruction Jim Crow Laws. Major Charles Douglass, who was a Civil War Veteran and the youngest son of Frederick Douglass, lived with his wife Laura in Washington, DC. During a trip to Maryland’s Western Shore in 1892, they were refused service, solely because of their race, at the Bay Ridge, a grand Victorian style summer resort that was a popular destination for vacationers from DC and Baltimore. Charles Douglass began to dream of a summer haven free from the bigotry of the Jim Crow laws.

Across the Bay Ridge Resort on Black Walnut Creek was a property owned by a local black family. In 1893, after several months of negotiations and with some financial assistance from his father, Charles Douglass became the owner of a large parcel of the former Brashears estate in 1893 and became a developer. He created lots for family members and friends to build summer residences. A year later, Charles Douglass built Highland Beach’s first cottage for his family. He also reserved the prime corner lot for his father’s house, across from the shoreline park, beach and the Bay. Construction began and the house was christened “Twin Oaks”. The key design element was the second floor balcony, strategically placed with a direct view across the Bay. Frederick Douglass could stand there and savor his freedom as he gazed at the mouth of the Eastern Bay leading to the Wye River where he was born a slave.

The allure of 500 feet of a gently curved beach on the Chesapeake Bay and the proximity of Annapolis and DC to the Town soon became a gathering place for many of the well-known African Americans of that time and later years. As I gazed at the front elevation of “Twin Oaks”, I imagined the wrap-around porch would have been a popular gathering place for residents and guests who were the ”firsts” in their fields. If there had been a guest book at Twin Oaks, names listed would have included Judge Robert Terrell (one of the first municipal court judges in DC ) and his wife Dr. Mary Church Terrell (one of the first African American women to earn a college degree who later became nationally known for her activism for women’s suffrage and civil rights); Booker T. Washington (advisor to US presidents, author, educator and orator); Paul Lawrence Dunbar (novelist, playwright and poet; W E.B. Du Bois (author, civil rights activist, historian and sociologist); E. Franklin Frazier (author and sociologist); Paul Robeson (stage and film actor, concert artist and political activist); Langston Hughes (novelist, playwright, poet and social activist); Robert Weaver (first African American to be appointed to a cabinet position as the US Secretary of Housing and Urban Development) and Alex Haley, whose groundbreaking book and TV series “Roots” started a nationwide interest in genealogy.

Through the years, “Twin Oaks” passed through several generations of the Douglass family until one day it caught the eye of Annapolis architect Chip Bohl and his wife Barbara, who were involved with the preservation of Anne Arundel County’s historic structures. Chip was intrigued with “Twin Oaks” association with Frederick Douglass and on summer drives he and Barbara would pass by the house and soon began to notice its slow exterior decline. They inquired about the house in the hope of helping to promote its preservation. One of Douglass’ descendants still owned the house and sold it to the Bohls. They acquired the house in the mid 1980’s and began its restoration per the National Park Service Standards of Rehabilitation to its 165 appearance including the original exterior color scheme.

To protect the historic structure, they raised the house’s main floor four feet above FEMA’s designated floor level. The exterior wood siding was carefully removed to examine and repair the wall cavity and add insulation before the siding was restored to its original coursed positions. The couple were greatly relieved to discover on their first walk-in that the interior of the house required little alteration. The wood floors were in good shape and much of the 1895 glass was still intact. Since the house had been built as a summer home, the interior wall and ceiling finishes were triple bead pine boards instead of the plaster prevalent at that time which would not have withstood years of temperature differential in unheated spaces. The bonus was that since its original construction in 1894, the pine boards had acquired a beautiful patina that required very little upkeep. Installing HVAC, updating electrical and plumbing were the final touches to make the summer house the Bohls’ year round residence.

The Bohls unselfishly understood they were temporary stewards of “Twin Oaks” and the house belonged to the people of Maryland and to the Nation. To preserve and secure the future of “Twin Oaks”, the Bohls enlisted the help of Donna Ware who at that time was the Chief Preservation Officer for Anne Arundel County. She was instrumental in listing the house on the National Registry of Historic Places in 1991. The Bohls subsequently sold the house to the State of Maryland in 1995 and it was deeded to the Town of Highland Beach. The property is now the Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center. The Bohls’ wise decision to raise the house’s foundation during their restoration saved the Museum collection from the aftermath of the storm surges of Hurricane Isabel in 2003.

Highland Beach is believed to be the first African American summer resort in the United States. When Highland Beach was incorporated in 1922, it became the first African American municipality in Maryland. Today it is home to both full time and summer residents who zealously continue not to permit any commercial establishments within the Town limits. Many of the houses are still owned and occupied by descendants of the original homeowners. On the day I visited, I enjoyed strolling along the street by Town Beach with its park and pier for residents and their guests only and enjoying the salty air and the Bay breezes. As an architect, I admired the mix of newer houses and the original houses with markers proudly celebrating its first residents in this most intriguing Town so proud of its history. I look forward to visiting Highland Beach again when the Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center is once again open.

“Twin Oaks”, The Frederick Douglass Museum and Cultural Center, Inc., is located at 3200 Wayman Avenue, Highland Beach, MD. The Museum is open by appointment only but is temporarily closed due to Covid. The Museum hopes to reopen to visitors in the spring of 2021. For further information about the Town of Highland beach and the Museum, visit the Town website at www.highlandbeachmd.org.

Restoration of “Twin Oaks” by Chip Bohl of Bohl Architects, , www.bohlarchitects.com, 410-263-2200, Chip@bohlarchitects.com. Photography by the author and Chip Bohl.

Jennifer Martella has pursued her dual careers in architecture and real estate since she moved to the Eastern Shore in 2004. Her award winning work has ranged from revitalization projects to a collaboration with the Maya Lin Studio for the Children’s Defense Fund’s corporate retreat in her home state of Tennessee.

Snapshots of Daily Life: Love by George Merrill

September 13, 2020 by George R. Merrill 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking about love recently.

Like so many of the words I may glibly speak or write about when talking among friends, family or in my professional role as priest and therapist, as I get older, I am less certain just what the words mean. I was more certain I understood love when I was young, but then I was certain about almost everything. It’s frankly embarrassing to write this now, but in truth, this what I’m trying to make sense of while living in world driven so by hate.

Let me say first I love my wife and my children. I love my grandchildren and my friends. I used to love sailing. I love writing. I love photography, sunny days at a beach, the pungent smell of marshes and I love black bean soup. For each of these loves, there is a distinctive quality. Some distinctions are more subtle while many differ quantitatively, say, like how loving my wife is much bigger deal than loving black bean soup. My wife is to die for; black bean soup is not.
I’ve noticed how popular music, and country music particularly, deal mostly with romantic love. Millions of these songs permeate the media daily, like a cloud of mosquitoes on hot summer nights.

Preachers talk regularly about love from the pulpit, God’s love. That’s often a hard sell in today’s social milieu where love is almost universally considered a feeling and, more often than not, a feeling with a significant erotic component. God is a kind of abstract notion for many. Then, too, a lot of country music seems exclusively concerned about the love one’s mother ––usually deceased. But who will not love mother who, in the best-case scenario, has tended our every need since the day we were born? To speak of love then is typically to associate it with an emotion, that warm and gratifying feeling that affords us incredible pleasure and delight. There is special love, however, when expressed, feels dreadful. This love can put us in terribly inhospitable places that ask of us what we in fact like least and at times even abhor.

I know people who have loved ones struggling with addictions. They not only suffer with the victims of the addiction, but often are forced to act in loving ways that do not look or feel like love at all: they must set limits on unreasonable demands. It is not easy being firm and strict when you really wish to embrace and to comfort. Loving like this feels heartbreaking and never heartwarming.

In religious spirituality, the ongoing challenge is to live out love as a part of the divine imperative: love my neighbor as myself.

Traditional religious practices frequently offer laws and commandments to follow that will hopefully increase one’s love of God and fellow beings. Other practices prescribe rituals – another way by which men and women can express love collectively. Such practices are designed to assure us that we remain in a right relationship with God and with others.

From the ancient story of Job’s struggle with suffering until today, the wild card in the matter is what role the heart plays in what we say is love.

If love is written on the heart, as spiritual guides have taught for centuries, does that mean it’s mostly a feeling? Or is loving just knowing enough in your head to get things right and so maintain the moral high ground?

For six months, now, we have been well into the pandemic. The country was deeply moved –– I certainly was ––by the outpouring of service to those in need by those who cared and were in a position to render help. I would call this real love, most obviously visible then in those individuals in the medical and other service communities, some people with only humble abilities and others highly skilled and trained. “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his/her friends.”

Medical personnel have been and remain at great risk to themselves and their families and yet they serve others selflessly. I am sure they are often scared. They must feel vulnerable. I have wondered whether they are enabled by a sense of duty or perhaps by some kind of moral prescription. I imagine it’s a combination of the mind and the heart. This selfless outpouring of essential goodness is being offered daily by people who combine moral sensitivity with a feeling of compassion, that peculiar feeling we can have for, as well as with, those around us who are vulnerable and suffering.

In a great Christian spiritual classic, St. Teresa of Avila writes about love. I was surprised in one writing to see the word, normally used as a noun, coined as a verb. She says we “compassionate” others; I believe this “compassionating” is what I have been witnessing during the pandemic as thousands of people have “compassionated” others during the pandemic. To observe it is uplifting, but for those “compassionating” it involves grueling and taxing moments. Love, the real thing, demands perseverance and endurance.

St. Paul, in his timeless description of love’s characteristics, writes how love is patient. It’s not envious, nor does it boast or is it prideful. Love isn’t easily angered and doesn’t keep score. Love likes truth. It’s instinctively protective, trusting, hopeful and persevering. Sounds wonderful to me. When I can actually see love like this played out in real life as I have in recent months –– even during this time of great suffering –– it makes everything that can get so bad seem more endurable.

My heart is often lifted these days, not by any surfeit of love I may have in my heart, but by the love that others have in theirs. Those are the people who, at the end of the day, will save us all.

Food Friday: Lunches

September 11, 2020 by Jean Sanders

Lunch has always been my favorite meal. I look forward to it every day, even when it is just a sandwich and a handful of chips. (I’ll save the apple for a mid-afternoon snack.) I love walking away from the studio, strolling the 25 feet or so into the kitchen, where I generally sit at the counter and eat by myself. (There is nothing that relieves the existential boredom of a morning of solitary cross hatching like a little blue glass bowl of potato chips.) Perched on a stool, I can look out on the neighbors’ comings and goings, read a magazine, drop a bread crust (by accident!) for Luke the wonder dog, and just enjoy a slight change of scene. Life is not very exciting when you have always worked from home, and sometimes all it takes is a ham sandwich on rye, with a generous schmear of spicy brown mustard to get creative enough for the demands the afternoons bring .

This year, the COVID-19 year, there are greater challenges for some that merely changing the view won’t help. The lucky ones, we who can work from home, are now sometimes juggling a couple of children and assorted class curricula on top of our work. There are others who are able to send their masked children off to actual real life school rooms. Will the children eat their lunches in a cafeteria or from social distances at their desks? Maybe there will be picnic tables outside, while the weather is still nice? Will the children bring lunches from home, or eat school-provided meals?

Whether you are sitting at the kitchen table by yourself, or packing a lunch for someone else, you need good ideas every day. Which can be a daunting prospect. Making lunch interesting and healthy is a real concern. Energy! Nutrition! Protein! Variety! And you can’t just slide by using up the hurricane-supply-peanut butter. On Sundays, while you are planning your dinners for the week, you need to plan out lunches, too. Take a page from practically perfect Amanda Hesser from Food52. She packs fabulously original lunches for her children. We could hate her if she wan’t so clever. And her ideas are reasonable. They don’t call for too many obscure and expensive ingredients. With a little practice, we might just be trainable. Because we know there will be dessert.
https://food52.com/blog/17941-13-greatest-hits-from-amanda-s-kids-lunches

Get out the tiny little Tupperwear containers, find all the maddeningly elusive lids, and start chopping. Make little Bento boxes of luncheon-y delights for every day. Shake up your routine, and experiment. Swipe on some chutney. Dust a sandwich with a handful of sprouts. Forgo the Pepperidge Farm white bread and try Naan bread. Don’t forget leftovers! Our Tall One made some interesting combinations with leftovers from Thanksgiving, theorizing that everything tastes delicious on a crescent roll, especially when daubed judiciously with cranberry sauce.

I haul this list out this out annually, without shame. Feel free to make your own spreadsheet, so you will never have another moment of hesitation. At least with regard to lunch. The Spy Test Kitchen came up with this flexible list of ingredients for packing school lunches a few years ago. It is just as timely today:

Luncheon Variations

Column A
Let’s start with bread:
Ciabatta bread
Rye bread
Whole grain breads
Hard rolls
Portuguese rolls
French baguette
Italian bread
Brioche
Flour tortillas
Croissants
Bagels
Challah bread
Crostini
Cornbread
Naan bread
Focaccia bread
Pita bread
If storing overnight, top bread with lettuce first, then the spreads, to keep sandwich from getting soggy.

Column B
Next, the spread:
Mayo
Sriracha
Ketchup
Dijon mustard
Honey mustard
Italian dressing
Russian dressing
Cranberry sauce
Pesto sauce
Hummus
Tapenade
Sour cream
Chutney
Butter
Hot sauce
Salsa
Salsa verde

Column C
Cheeses:
Swiss cheese
American cheese
Mozzarella
Blue cheese
Cream cheese
Havarti cheese
Ricotta cheese
Cheddar cheese
Provolone cheese
Brie cheese
Cottage cheese
Goat cheese

Column D
The main ingredient:
Meatloaf
Turkey
Chicken
Corned beef
Bacon
Crumbled hard boiled eggs
Scrambled eggs
Corned beef
Salami
Italian sausage
Ham
Roast beef
Egg salad
Tuna salad
Ham salad
Crab salad
Chicken salad
Turkey salad
Lobster salad
Tofu

Column E
The decorative (and tasty) elements:
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Basil
Onion
Avocado
Cucumber
Cilantro
Shredded carrots
Jalapenos
Cole slaw
Sliced apples
Sliced red peppers
Arugula
Sprouts
Radicchio
Watercress
Sliced pears
Apricots
Pickles
Spinach
Artichoke hearts
Grapes
Strawberries
Figs

Column F
Finger foods:
Cherries
Carrots
Strawberries
Green Beans
Broccoli
Celery
Edemame
Granola
Rice cakes
Apples
Bananas
Oranges
Melon balls
Raisins
Broccoli
Blueberries

“ ‘We could take our lunch,’ said Katherine.‘What kind of sandwiches?’ said Mark.
‘Jam,’ said Martha thoughtfully, ‘and peanut-butter-and-banana, and cream-cheese-and-honey, and date-and-nut, and prune-and marshmallow…’”
-Edward Eager, Magic by the Lake

Chesapeake Film Festival: Director Claudia Myers on “Fort Bliss”

September 10, 2020 by Val Cavalheri

Claudia Myers is a screenwriter, director, and producer (Fort Bliss, Kettle of Fish, Above the Shadows) and an associate professor in Film & Media Arts at American University’s School of Communication.

Fort Bliss (Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWLtr0xYI7E), released in 2014, is a film about Staff Sergeant Maggie Swann (Michelle Monaghan), a decorated U.S. Army medic who returns from Afghanistan and struggles to adjust to civilian life and to rebuild a relationship with her young son.

In her interview with Spy, Myers discusses the film, the personal story behind how the movie evolved, and her approach to writing and directing.

Val Cavalheri (Spy): Why did you have to write this story?

Claudia Myers

Claudia Myers (CM): I was working on a training film project for the U.S. Army about junior officers and decisions they have to make in difficult situations. In the process of interviewing a group of infantry sergeants, I spoke to a single dad who had been deployed twice to Iraq for 15 months each tour. At the time, I had a little boy that was roughly the age of the sergeant’s son, and I remember being really compelled by his situation. I asked him what he did with his son while he was away, and he said the mom was not in the picture, so he left him with his neighbors. That floored me, and it made me realize how little I understood and knew about the complexity of the military experience and what we’re asking our soldiers and their families to do when a country goes to war.

It was also was memorable to me that I was the only one who was really surprised in the room because all the other soldiers were like, ‘yeah, it happens all the time.’ I looked into it, and 40% of women in the military are mothers, and that was both humbling and compelling to me because on some visceral level, I had been wrestling with my own kind of work/life balance. I had a two-year-old son and had been away from my family for three months, filming an interactive training project. I found that I was viewed differently for leaving my kid to go to work, than, for example, my husband was when he left on extended business trips.

Spy: How long did it take you to write Fort Bliss?

CM: While I kind of stumbled on this story that I wanted to develop, it quickly went from being about a single father to being about a single mom. However, I felt I didn’t have the knowledge or the experience to write the script that I felt deserved to be written. So, I actually spent about four years seeking out additional work with the military.

I worked on a documentary about the experience of the evolution of women’s roles in the military since World War II, and I had the opportunity to profile a female army medic. I also did a documentary about severely wounded soldiers coming back from Iraq and their paths to recovery from wounds both visible and not. That was added to the film.

I also went to Walter Reed and did a big project for the army medical department about posttraumatic stress and combat stress and a survivor’s guilt and many other things that I also then incorporated into the film. So that was kind of how the script developed.

Spy: In the movie, there are several scenes in Afghanistan. Did you film there?

CM: It was actually all filmed in California and Texas. The military supported the film and allowed us to shoot at the actual Fort Bliss. The topography of Fort Bliss, if you don’t know it, has vast amounts of desert. It’s also the size of Rhode Island and the largest or second largest military post in the U.S. We filmed in Afghan training villages at Fort Bliss that replicated the geography of Afghanistan. Sometimes we outfitted actual buildings to make them look like we were overseas.

Spy: How long did it take you to shoot the film?

We shot in 21 days. As I said, you’re filming in a location, that’s the size of Rhode Island in some cases. There was a lot of the civilian part of the story that was more straightforward, but something on a military post was more challenging to shoot. We got lost a few times looking for specific locations.

There’s one scene in the movie where the soldiers come home from deployment. It was really important to me that we do justice to how emotionally powerful these events are. I also wanted to show how the community rallies in support of the soldiers who are coming home. We went to the person who was our point of contact, and I asked him if we could put the word out into the Fort Bliss general community to have them come out and act as unpaid extras.

We ended up with more than a hundred people who showed up and made ‘Welcome Home’ signs. We even had some extras who were off-duty soldiers that came in their uniforms. So, we were able to create a wonderful thing. And I think it was one of the more powerful experiences for Michelle, as well.

Spy: Speaking of Michelle, Michelle Monaghan was a fantastic choice to play Maggie. How did that come about?

Her agent thought Michelle would respond to the script, and she did. I flew out to LA, and Michelle and I had quite a substantive discussion about my vision for the script and the character. We went through the script page by page, and I made certain adjustments based on her input. So, it became a collaborative and thoughtful process from the get-go. We also organized a special training for her at Fort Bliss, where she spent a week learning basic medical techniques and got to spend time with soldiers learning from them.

Spy: I think the movie is a very unusual accounting of a very strong woman because she’s not a superhero, but a real woman with real choices. You’re asking us to experience, through Maggie, many different types of emotions. What did you want your audience to take away from this movie?

CM: It’s such an interesting comment because that’s exactly right. I didn’t want people to take away just one thing. I wanted people to question certain assumptions, but what I wanted more than anything was for people to root for her and understand her, even though they may not always approve of her choices. As a writer, I wrestled with the ending. As a writer, that’s when I knew that I had a really good script because I didn’t think there was an obvious way to end this story. And I tried a lot of different things and settled on the one that felt the most truthful, because, like very often in life, there are no good choices.

I feel the film does that. I think it shows how she’s evolved. I hope people come away with different views on whether or not she made the right choice, whether or not she changed, and whether or not she and her son will have a different kind of relationship in the future.

Spy: You’re a writer, producer, and director. Is there one role that you look forward to over the other?

CM: I think writing and directing are my two favorite things and where I’m most comfortable. I think producing, as an independent filmmaker, just comes with the territory because it’s really hard to find people that are as passionate about it as you are.

Spy: What’s next for you?

I have another project that I’m passionate about that I’ve been working on for about five years. It’s based on a true story about a death penalty case in Virginia, which is considered by some people, one of the most surprising cases in Virginia’s criminal history. I’ll just leave it at that for now.

Val Cavalheri is a recent transplant to the Eastern Shore, having lived in Northern Virginia for the past 20 years. She’s been a writer, editor and professional photographer for various publications, including the Washington Post.

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