Finding a way to acknowledge the bitter legacy of slavery has been a challenge for historic sites across the country. Helping give voice to the stories of the enslaved are historic markers, memorials and commemorations.          Annapolis, which just unveiled an historical lynching marker on Calvert Street, is also now designated as a Site of Memory associated with the UNESCO Slave Route Project by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

      Don and Mo Walker aren’t riding off into the sunset the day they retire.       The owners of Spice Island Wicker in Owings want to work hand-in-hand training the next owner of the wicker furniture import company.       To keep the business in Calvert County for their nine employees, the couple is seeking an entrepreneur to follow in their footsteps.        And they’re offering plenty of incentive.

      A good chunk of Pennsylvania drains into the Chesapeake, which is why Maryland and Virginia routinely complain about half-hearted efforts to curb the flow of farm chemicals flowing down the Susquehanna River.

      As we get older, we pass many milestones: a decade since college graduation, 25-year school reunions, silver anniversaries and half-century birthdays. I have spent 50 years power boating and sailing on Chesapeake Bay. Fifty years! Two-thirds of my lifetime on the waters of the Bay. Fifty years filled with wonderful memories of marvelous, exciting and sometimes awesome weekends and vacations on the water.

      South County Call N’ Ride is a new on-demand ride-share service for Southern Anne Arundel County residents who can’t drive or depend on others willing help to get where they want to go. Previous shuttle programs took over an hour to run one loop. The new service, launched in August, provides curb-to-curb service.

      Think cultural sites and museums are just for the upper crust? Not true. Two popular Southern Maryland attractions, Annmarie Sculpture Garden and Arts Center and The Patuxent River Naval Air Museum, are lowering their prices to open their doors to people from all economic backgrounds.

      It may seem like members of Congress do nothing but insult one another and then depart for “home district work periods.”          But legislation advancing stealthily last month contains wording that caught our eye beneath the headline, Reauthorization of Chesapeake Bay Programs: “$90,000,000 for fiscal year 2020; $90,500,000 for fiscal year 2021; $91,000,000 for fiscal year 2022; $91,500,000 for fiscal year 2023; and $92,000,000 for fiscal year 2024.”

      Young people today know their way around a smartphone camera. But do they know how to handle the real deal? The Deale Elks Lodge and Muddy Creek Artists Guild are looking for teens and tweens (grades five thru eight) to join the 3rd annual Elkie Artists three-day photography camp to learn the ropes of photography beyond the selfie. 

      What can’t an oyster do? It builds communities for underwater life, it filters its surrounding waters and feeds many species, including humans. Now scientists at the University of Maryland’s Horn Point Laboratory in Cambridge are putting it to work to help fight shoreline erosion.

       Eventually we will bid the hot and humid summerlike weather goodbye, and the landscape will explode with vibrant colors of orange, red and yellow. Kids will be jumping into newly raked piles of leaves, and we’ll all fall back to Eastern Standard Time and grab that extra bit of sleep.        Autumn officially arrived the early morning of Sept. 23. Now all across Chesapeake Country the leaf-peepers are waiting for the signs.