My! how time flies. 2001 used to seem so far in the future. Now we’ve gone and used it nearly up. When you see Bay Weekly again, 2001 will be history. Before it’s gone, here’s a last look at the times of our lives in this most remarkable year.
The Times of Our Life
Deep Freeze: New Year’s Ice Threatens
Chesapeake Bay tributaries haven’t frozen this early since 1972 … The freeze that deepened this week has closed ports on both sides of the Bay while threatening boats, docks and any humans with the temerity to venture beyond the slick shoreline.
Bill Lambrecht & Sandra Martin • Dock: No. 1, Jan. 4
Hybrids Hit the Road
“What the heck’s that thing you’re driving?”
If Jerry Karsh had a nickel for every time he’s heard it, he’d be filling up his tank for free. Of course, he doesn’t need many nickels considering that he’s getting 46.5 miles per gallon driving his new gas-electric “hybrid” to work from his home in Arnold to Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt every day.
To find out more about new generation of environmentally friendly autos arriving in Chesapeake Country — which includes the Honda Insight as well as Karsh’s Prius — Bay Weekly took a trip.
Sandra Martin • No. 3, Jan. 18
The Bell Tolls for Johnnies
In the earliest hours of Sunday morn, when the sun has barely crested the horizon of Greenwich, downtown Annapolitans might stir to an awkwardly timed knell cascading from somewhere over by College Creek. Once. Twice. Ninety-five times the bell tolls, as though some daft vicar has gone swinging on the rope.’Tis the joyful noise of Johnnies celebrating the completion of their senior essays.
Mark Burns • Dock: No. 5, Feb. 1
Iced Twice: My Second Polar Plunge
It’s not a mistake as long as you don’t do it twice.
Stripped down to my gym shorts and shivering on the beach at Sandy Point State Park Saturday morning, I wonder how I got myself stuck in the cold again.
Once again, I was one of 1,823 plungers rushing into the 35-degrees waters of Chesapeake Bay. Together we would raise $315,000 for Special Olympics Maryland.
Christopher Heagy • Dock: No. 5, Feb. 1
At the Walters, Nature Imitates Art
Here comes the weekend when Baltimore City’s famous art museum turns into a flower gallery. Interpreting old masters whose craft has stood the test of time are champion floral arrangers from 25 regional garden clubs, including Annapolis’ Four Rivers Garden Club. The Walters will be abuzz as designers arrive from three states.
Sandra Martin • No. 8, Feb. 22
Girls Rock at Battle of the Bands
A motley crowd of 571 music lovers, some pierced and tattooed, others a bit more conservative, filled the Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts in Annapolis last Saturday to absorb the third annual Anne Arundel County Battle of the High School Rock Bands. Eleven bands from nine schools competed in a six-plus hour frenzy of punk and hard-core pandemonium. Ten played for scholastic bragging rights. But the divas of Broadneck High, Angelfire, will be headed in June to perform at this year’s Philadelphia Music Conference, one of the largest music festivals on the East Coast.
You can hear for yourself Annapolis at First Night, New Year’s Eve 2001.
Matthew Thomas Pugh • Dock: No. 8, Feb. 22
You’re Reading a Prize-Winning Newspaper
Bay Weekly took home five prizes for exceptional writing, illustration and design in the Maryland, Delaware, D.C. Press Association’s 2000 Editorial Awards Competition. We claimed the prizes at the annual meeting of the three-state federation of newspapers, which range from giants like The Baltimore Sun, named newspaper of the year in its class, to against-the-odds start-ups like ourselves
Dock: No. 9, March 1
Maryland Tobacco Goes to Market
The farmers are calling it beautiful, perfect, the best crop to come to market in 10 years. That’s ironic, for this crop signals the end of a 350-year tradition in Southern Maryland. The end of raising what’s been called Maryland’s living link to history, tobacco.
Connie Darago • Dock: No. 11, March 15
Dressing Three Centuries of Marylanders
When Marylanders from three centuries met at Calvert Marine Museum last week, they talked about clothes. How did the length of pantaloon worn by Leonard Calvert in 1634 compare with the Frederick True’s knickers in 1908?
Sandra Martin • Dock: No. 12, March 22
Chesapeake Country’s Ride of Spring
For 27 years, the promise of horses and racing have enticed and excited Chesapeake Country to the fields of Roedown farm in Davidsonville for Maroborough Hunt Club’s ride of spring.
Christopher Heagy • Dock: No. 13, March 29
Earth Day: Our Part of a Global Celebration
Much has changed in 31 years. Federal Clean Air and Safe Drinking Water laws have gone a long way to protecting our health, not to mention our environment. Here at home, we have taken strides toward restoring the Chesapeake Bay.
Yet as people gather for Earth Day in Maryland, environmentalism is in retreat in Washington.
Dock: No. 16, April 19
Spring Unites Johnnies & Mids
Another of Chesapeake Country’s spring rituals is here. The annual five-game croquet match between the Johnnies and the Mids is the centerpiece of a long day of watching, talking, drinking, laughing and enjoying a spring afternoon in the green grass on the St. John’s campus.
Christopher Heagy • Dock: No. 17, April 26
A Working Mother’s 10-Hour Day … With Your Kids
Monday through Friday, I spend my days with up to eight children. Their parents are busy managing, teaching, engineering or whatever it is they do for a living. I serve as educator, nurse, nutritionist, librarian, playmate, safety director and surrogate parent. Am I mom to these kids? No, but if the parents have chosen wisely, I am the second-best thing.
Hanne Denney • No. 19, May 10
That’s Not Just Chicken #*!@
Farmer Granados just got a big load of manure, and he’s delighted. His 3,000-ton load is part of 43,000 tons of manure which has moved from Maryland’s Eastern Shore to its Western Shore and beyond as part of the state Department of Agriculture’s Manure Transport Project.
Because of the project, farmers are applying less fertilizer, and they are not applying it to land over-enriched with phosphorus, so we’re reducing the amount of phosphorus run-off from those soils into Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.
Sandra Martin • Dock: No. 22, May 31
Reconciled with a Pardon
Keeping time with the gospel choir singing “Maryland, My Maryland,” Gov. Paris Glendening marched down the aisle to the pulpit of Asbury United Methodist Church. He was in Annapolis to accept the thanks of a family, a church and a community for the pardon he signed on May 31, exonerating John Snowden, the last man hanged in Anne Arundel County.
The joy at the celebration was in crisp contrast to the mood of February 28, 1919, the day Snowden was hanged.
Greshen Gaines • Dock: No. 26, June 28
An Audiobook Addict Confesses
Audio publishing has followed something of the curve of the Gold Rush. In the beginning was a resource crying out to be exploited. In late-20th century America the resource was idleness. More specifically, enforced highway idleness.
Thus was conceived Recorded Books, a native Maryland company, and many others like it.
Sandra Martin • No. 27, July 5
At UMD, Invention is For Kids
Squirreled away in the maze of brick walls and hallowed halls at University of Maryland’s College Park campus is a small laboratory. Within, eight kids, ages seven to 12, are shaping the technological future of the young set.
“We see them as short graduate students,” says Allison Druin, leader of the lab’s intergenerational research team.
Mark Burns • Dock: No. 28, July 12
Day Camp Isn’t Just for Kids
Through the 1950s, ’60s and early ’70s, thousands of girls from the hot climes of the District of Columbia, Virginia and Maryland escaped to Bay Breeze Camp for a week during the hot, hazy days of summer. Now, 25 years later, another generation of girls is returning to enjoy the pristine, primitive camp with its four hiking trails, working beaver dam, two fossil-hunting beaches and lots of history.
Connie Darago • No. 28, July 12
Ornaments on the Lawns of Chesapeake Country
Its 25-foot conical tower tapers to a lantern room topped by a finial owl. Its base is immersed in a 12-foot wide moat. In a tradition thousands of years old, its lighted top reflects a luminous beam.
No, it’s not one of the famous John Donahoo Chesapeake lighthouses moved inland, but a Richard Walls original. It’s a lawn ornament beside the plumber’s sprawling two-story eclectic home in Huntingtown.
Connie Darago • No. 32, Aug. 9
Annapolis Goes African
Once again the Kunta Kinte Heritage Festival transformed Annapolis into an African-rooted festival marketplace.…
Since 1989, more than 125,000 people have trekked to Annapolis for the annual celebration of African American, African and Caribbean culture named for author Alex Haley’s ancestor and the title character of his watershed book and TV series Roots.
S.A. Kalinich • Dock: No. 34, Aug. 23
20th Cancer Gala Nears $250,000
The August moon — two days shy of full — was good enough. As were the champagne and the lobster, the martinis and the roast beef. …
All in all, Calvert County’s 20th annual Celebration of Life at Rod ‘n’ Reel was good enough to raise a quarter million dollars to fight cancer in 2001. It was good enough to show that life is sweet despite the long shadow of sorrow.
Sandra Martin • Dock: No. 34, Aug. 23
The Curtain Opens
For the few nights of a play’s life in Chesapeake Country, hours have been invested in shopping for fabric, studying script, hammering and painting, working sound and light boards to create just the right mood. For every six actors on stage, there are 25 workers off stage. What the audience sees is the tip of the iceberg.
Carol Glover • No. 37, Sept. 13
Chesapeake Country Carries On
“Back to normal.”
Normal will never be the same again and, though we’d like to get back there, we never will.
Like the rest of the nation, we’re carrying on here in Chesapeake Country. Under Mother Nature’s blue skies, a queen was crowned, a candidate threw his hat into the ring, a community got together on Murray Hill, hundreds of neighbors gathered in solidarity in the Twin Beaches — and Star-Spangled Banners flying all around remind us what it means to live in the land of the brave.
J. Alex Knoll, Sandra Martin and Rachel Presa • Dock: No. 38, Sept. 20
Calvert’s Mosque Opens Its Gates
Until September 22, Prince Frederick’s Southern Maryland Islamic Center had never seen so many people. Tonight, traffic backed up from Route 2-4 into the mosque. A house of worship used to a congregation of some 70 families stretched three or four times beyond its usual capacity as the Southern Maryland Islamic Center threw open its decorative iron gates. Inside streamed a multicultural parade.
Sandra Martin • Dock: No. 39, Sept. 27
For 9/11 Relief, Breezy Point Yard Sale Nets $2,500
Festooned in red, white, and blue, the Kearney home at 3406 Meadow Lane in Breezy Point has turned into a flea market in aid of the New York Relief Fund.
As the sale closed after three weekends, organizers were stunned to see that they’d taken in $2,427 in sales — plus $388 in coins tossed by well-wishers into a rusty wheelbarrow.
Patricia Kirby • Dock: No. 41, Oct. 11
And College Manor Sold Cupcakes
How many cupcakes does it take to raise $550? Not many, residents of College Manor in Arnold found, when people come together in a spirit of giving.
Martha Blume • Dock: No. 41, Oct. 11
Giant Blocked
The bottom line, in Chesapeake Country, is often a sewer line. Which is why a Giant is now less likely to rise a scant 2.3 miles from the Bay.
On October 23, the Calvert County Commissioners refused by a vote of three to two to extend the Windy Hill Sanitary District to the intersection of Route 260 — the main highway to North and Chesapeake Beach.
Sandra Martin • Dock: No. 43, Oct. 25
Annapolis Elects a New Mayor —and She’s a First
Polls closed at 8pm in Annapolis on Nov. 6. A hearty ovation went up just after 9:30 when, with the 16th precinct reporting, Moyer became the first woman elected mayor of Annapolis, winning with just under 55 percent of the vote.
Christopher Heagy • Dock: No. 45, Nov. 8
What Do You Do with an Old Pumpkin? Chase a Dream
For the men and women who compete, punkin chunkin is an addiction. It’s the event they look forward to and plan for all year long. For 12 months, the chunkers draw, build and tinker with machines they hope can throw a pumpkin a little bit farther than the year before. On the first weekend after Halloween, punkin chunkers rally on a soybean field. When they put their elaborate chunking machines to work in the annual world championship, pumpkins fall through the southern Delaware sky.
Christopher Heagy • No. 46, Nov. 15
Tobacco Farmers Seek Gold
From the 17th century until recent times, Southern Maryland farmers owned a piece of a lucrative and dependable monopoly: tobacco. But demand for tobacco has plummeted even as Maryland’s farmer are buffeted by other market changes brought about by new lifestyle tastes. To survive, our farmers have no choice but to adapt.
Among their alternatives: aquaculture, snail production, miniature rose bush cultivation and earthworm farming.
Russ Barnes • No. 47, Nov. 21
The King’s Oyster
Whether to eat an oyster used to be the simplest question in Chesapeake Country. If you loved ’em, you ate ’em. If you didn’t, you didn’t. At the National Oyster Cook-Off in Leonardtown, those good old days return at least for a fall weekend each year. Not only are oysters rampant — shucked, scalded, souped, or fried. There’s even a king to command they be eaten.Cooks come from near and far to vie for the championship.
Sandra Martin • Dock: No. 47, Nov. 21
Chesapeake Christmas Pageants
Each December, a round of familiar holiday pageants returns to renew our lives through the magic of the arts. Our Frosty Follies, Nutcrackers, Christmas Carols, It’s a Wonderful Life and — new to Chesapeake Country this year, Little Women — are traditions we look forward to each year. These annual experiences bring us comfort, welcome escape and carefree moments to share with people we love. But there’s more to this magic.
Shirley Brewer • No. 48, Nov. 29
Chesapeake Choo-choos Chug with Christmas Cheer
Chugging around Chesapeake area firehouses, malls, museums, garden nurseries, and railroad stations — as well as homes — this time of year are miles of model railroad track. Behind many of the more elaborate exhibits are regional model railroad clubs. For there are legions of railroad buffs who, once having unwrapped a model train in childhood, were hooked for life.
Patricia Kirby • No. 50, Dec. 13
People
Swivel Your Hips, Shake Your Belly
Swallow your inhibitions and slink into the curves of the figure. Join Patricia Wilcoxon, a Severna Park massage therapist tenured in many forms of dance, as she swivels her hips through the sands of time in her hour-long belly dancing class. Shake your belly in celebration of an age when sumptuous movement of a woman’s body as an instrument of survival. These days, belly dancing is exercise at its sexiest.
Jennifer A. Dawicki • No. 2, Jan. 11
Paul Goetzke Comes Home
When Paul Goetzke returns to St. Mary’s High School, his alma mater, Saturday night, there’ll be tears mingled with the celebration. Everyone there will be thinking how strange is the way the world works, how fragile our lives are. One moment Goetzke was enjoying a summer afternoon; the next moment his life had forever changed.
On a Thursday afternoon early last August, Goetzke, the Annapolis city attorney, made a shallow dive into the Potomac River. The dive fractured his fifth vertebrae, paralyzing him from the neck down.
Christopher Heagy • Dock: No. 2, Jan. 11
A Different Drummer
In a tiny backyard shop in Arnold, musician Kevin Martin pursues his passion by building instruments from the far away shores of Trinidad. Today, after a decade of trial and error, blood, sweat, burns, the Geckos’ virtuoso is fine-tuning the science of steel drum construction.
Matthew Pugh • Bay Life: No. 4, Jan. 25
Dancing After All These Years
In creating its name and claim to fame, the Ballet Theatre of Maryland made history — and a load of stories. Opening its 20th anniversary season, two decades of dancers gathered to reminisce.
Norbert M. DuBois • No. 10, March 8
Writing the Bay
We offer the stories of four authors — children’s writer Priscilla Cummings, novelist Marlin Fitzwater, environmentalist Mick Blackistone and historian Donald Shomette — as testimony to the inspirational powers of the Bay and as encouragement to all the other writers of Chesapeake Country.
Hanne Denney • No. 11, March 15
NPR’s Diane Rehm: The Woman behind The Voice
Before coming to Solomons for Calvert Public Library’s Authors by the Bay series, world-famous public radio talk show host Diane Rehm shared her story with Bay Weekly readers.
Of working with the rich and famous, she said:
“It all comes down to a human being. I don’t think about the nature of or the aura of the people I interview. The president or the first lady, they’re people, they’re human beings.”
with J. Alex Knoll • No. 12, March 22
Straight from the Horse Whisperer’s Mouth
The Horse Whisperer’s horses have a lot in common with the kids who ride them at Maryland Therapeutic Riding. When a horse is undergoing traditional saddle training, he is often not unlike the disabled child, restrained without control of his body or his circumstances. He is expected to be without feeling, and no attempt is made to understand his communication. This does not have to be so — for either child or horse.
Teaching those lessons brought Horse Whisperer Monty Roberts to Maryland in a benefit demonstration for Maryland Therapeutic Riding, now at Arden Farms in Crownsville,
Hanne Denney • No. 13, March 29
Fitzwater Back at the White House on West Wing
When Marlin Fitzwater left his job as White House press secretary for President George Bush, he saw himself living the good life in Deale as a writer and occasional speaker or consultant. But the good life often involves unusual twists, and his many titles now include writing consultant for the television series West Wing.
Hanne Denney • Dock: No. 13, March 29
All Kinds Make a Symphony
Annapolis Symphony’s musicians are migratory souls who gig around to make fame and fortune. The traveling circles can grow pretty wide, since opportunities for professional musicians are hard to come by. “You have to be willing to go wherever the opening is,” says flautist Kimberly Valerio.
Mark Burns • No. 17, April 26
A Senior in Spring: Johnnies Talk Their Way out of College
In January, St. John’s seniors entered a time like none they have known: a month with no classes. But freedom comes with a price. At the end of the month an essay is due, and that essay must be completed and judged satisfactory if they are to graduate from this college.
Andrew Kolb began his final semester with an open and easy mind.
“It sounds great,” says Kolb. You’re 21. You have a month with no school. You don’t have a job. Everybody goes in thinking ‘I could work for an hour a day and spend the rest of the time drinking.’”
Christopher Heagy • No. 21, May 24
Fourth Graders Launch Water Bears and Dental Gum into Orbit
Exploding fish eyes comprise but one of many proposed space experiments pitched by some 270 fourth graders at Space Expo 2001. Now in its fourth year, the expo draws some of the brightest minds from 20 Anne Arundel County elementary schools to tout their projects to roaming NASA scientists.
Mark Burns • Dock: No. 21, May 24
Painting Papa Burton
From Burton to canvas, eyes dart. From palette to canvas, hands rise. For 20 minutes, painters and canvas are locked in rapt, rhythmic concentration.
Once again, Maryland Hall’s Portrait Coop is at work. Another fish has taken the lure of co-op coordinator and portrait artist Phyllis Avedon, who must supply her co-op a new subject every six weeks.
Sandra Martin • No. 24, June 21
Bay Weekly Interview: John Eisenhower
“I consider myself not a historian but a storyteller. Almost a biographer of the U.S. Army. I have covered everything with the exception of the Civil War, which I don’t want to bother with because it has been covered so well.
“Yanks — after all, I walked over those battlefields as a kid with my father — was sort of a logical thing to do.”
with Mitchell Yockelson • No. 36, Sept. 6
Bay Weekly Interview: Bill Lambrecht ~ Like It or Not, The New Gene Cafe is Open
In his just published book, Dinner at the New Gene Cafe, Bay Weekly co-founder and editorial adviser Bill Lambrecht tells how scientists, mainly corporate scientists, set about rearranging the building blocks of our food by gene splicing.
Q Are we eating any of those experiments?
A Thousands of processed foods around the world contain genetically modified ingredients.
No. 38, Sept. 20.
Heroes Among Us ~ John Rivera: At Ground Zero
On Thursday, Sept. 13, I was listening to the radio. The firemen said they were getting a lot of donations, but not the things that they needed. When I heard that, I knew I could make five phone calls and have a truckload of equipment. I run a construction company and crane rental business, so I understood what kind of work they were doing and what was needed.
On Friday morning, I started making phone calls. From maybe eight or nine people and businesses, I took a large pickup truck, filled to capacity, a couple thousand pounds …
as told to J. Alex Knoll • No. 39, Sept. 27
Horsewoman
Phil and I spent a lot of time getting lost, and Misty and Dakota spent a lot of time getting us home. Without fail, Misty and Dakota knew a trail after traveling it only once.
The long hours on the trails drew me closer to Misty. I began to admire her intelligence, her keen senses and her strength. I was also surprised to find that I enjoyed her quiet company. It was the beginning of our partnership.
Nancy Hoffman • No. 42, Oct. 18
Halloween Hauntings
A large, boomerang-shaped craft glowing orange floats over Pasadena woods; it seems to fixate on you alone.
Who do you call to make sure you aren’t going crazy?
You might start with Annapolis psychotherapist Peter Resta, who has treated alleged abductees …
Mark Burns • No. 43, Oct. 25
The King Is Dead
For 13 seasons, the Maryland Renaissance Festival has opened with the words “Make way for the King! Make way for the King!”
Each August, hundreds of thousands followed his majesty and his court into a land of historic make believe.
Now, the Maryland Renaissance Festival has lost its king.
On November 12, 2001, William G. Huttel, 48, the man millions of knew as Henry VIII of England, died of a massive heart attack.
Pat Taylor • Dock: No. 47, Nov. 21
Passage To a Perfect Heart
As the gurney transports Steve Ferralli from 4NW into the operating room, he fights back tears as he raises his arms in victory. On the evening of September 7, family and friends have, with Steve, placed their trust in the dedication and skill of the transplant team soon to stitch a new heart into his chest. Their prayer is that Steve’s fearful journey of these last seven months is about to become the passage to the perfect heart, linking the tragedy of one family to the rebirth of another.
Kathleen Murphy • No. 49, Dec. 6
Places
Your Tiffany Gem: Up & Shining
You own a Tiffany.
Come on down to 11 Bladen Street, a block west of the Capitol. Walk into the new $24.2 million, four-story, red brick, Georgian revival Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. Senate Building. Look up four stories into the dome. Sunlight streams through your Tiffany, falling four stories to stain the state seal and surrounding marble floor amber, lavender and green.
The much-moved 99-year-old skylight, designed in 1902 for the Court of Appeals building, now sees the light after 25 years of darkness.
Sandra Martin • Dock: No. 2, Jan. 11
Bates High Reawakens
From the very beginning, Wiley H. Bates High School was the only black high school in Anne Arundel. At its peak, some 2,000 students collected there from all over to create a community. Its teachers reached beyond books to touch the lives of their students. Bates helped catapult many graduates into productive, prosperous lives. But perhaps Bates was most special for one reason: It was a place where black students could finally enjoy the basic elements of high school life — dances, sports, science labs — that so many white students took for granted.
Now the old school is looking forward to new life with old lives …
Mark Burns • No. 7, Feb. 15
Smith Building Supplies Sells
After “two years and one month” of negotiations, Jack Smith of Smith Building Supplies has settled with Virginia, developer J Donegan Company. In 60 days, Donegan will become owner of the six and one-third acres at the crossroads of Rt. 256, Churchton Road, and Rt. 468, Shady Side Road.
Which ends the Smith family’s stake in the lumber yard that’s occupied that crossroads since 1935, supplying Southern Anne Arundel’s boards, nails and answers.
Sandra Martin • Dock: No. 10, March 8
Six Lessons from Chesapeake Gardens
The lessons learned for growing a Chesapeake garden are much like the lessons learned for living a good life. Dream big. Add a lot of love. Bring together good friends. Follow the example of the natives, but don’t be afraid to get a little exotic. To these I’d add faith because, sure enough, with good compost and some water, the shoots will burst forth. The flowers will bloom.
Martha Blume • No. 15, April 12
Northern AA’s Own ‘Hall’ for the Creative Arts
The new Chesapeake Center for the Creative Arts in Brooklyn Park began life as a winner. Only three months old, it’s earned a first-place award from Gov. Parris Glendening’s Smart Growth Initiative for innovative use of an existing structure.
Shirley Brewer • Dock: No. 15, April 12
Moo-ving into Organics
Does the status a seven-letter word conveys make a half gallon of milk worth 75 percent more than a conventional half gallon’s price of at about $1.69? To a lot of buyers, it does.
After fruits and vegetables, milk is the next product that new organic consumers will try. Sales of one of the big national organic dairies, Horizon, grew 50 percent to $127.2 million last year.
At the new Horizon Discovery Barn at Old Naval Academy Dairy Farm, visitors learn what it means to go organic.
Sharon Brewer • No. 16, April 19
At Jug Bay, a New Name and Double the Space
Among a crowd of corduroy- and flannel-clad friends of Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary, Gov. Parris Glendening, Anne Arundel County Executive Janet Owens and Jug Bay’s Chris Swarth and Doug Kuzmiak pulled a string to raise a blue curtain. The lifted curtain revealed large sign reading “The Parris Glendening Jug Bay Nature Preserve.”
Glendening got the credit because, by a stroke of the pen this August, he doubled the size of the Sanctuary, adding over 600 new acres.
Martha Blume • Dock: No. 44, Nov. 1
Creatures
Update: Trumpeter Swans Wouldn’t Fly Away
Apparently life on the Chesapeake Bay has been a bit too good for the UltraSwan3 trumpeter swans who were coaxed into migrating to the Chesapeake shores from New York State by an ultralight plane last winter. Swan handlers from the Trumpeter Swan Migration Project hoped the wild swans would migrate back to their training grounds in New York State when spring came. But the swans showed no signs of leaving.
Dock: No. 29, July 19
Bald Eagles Among Us
Don Avery has been keeping his eye on a pair of bald eagles around his ancestral home near Parkers Creek in Deale. These year-round eagles are part of Maryland’s growing population of nesting bald eagles. There’s been a sixfold increase in the number of bald eagles nesting in Maryland since 1977, from 41 that year to 270 in 2000.
Gary Pendleton • Dock: No. 12, March 22
Living with Bluebirds
Bluebirds were all but lost in the late 1960s with the entry of the grackle into North America. Ninety percent of the population fell victim to starvation and excavation as grackles ate their food, over took nesting areas and forced them into the deep woods where they had little protection from predators.
But thanks to humans who’ve given support and shelter, bluebirds have a second chance. Their numbers are again strong in back yards, on farms and along bluebird trails. In that success, bluebird houses play no small part.
Connie Darago • No. 14, April 5
In Spring, Frogs Rule the Night
Beginning as early as mid-February, frogs and salamanders emerge from their forest homes and migrate to their breeding ponds. There male frogs and toads begin advertising themselves to females through their calls. Calling peaks on warm, damp nights.
With the moon full and the April night warm and humid, conditions were perfect for the Jug Bay Wetlands Sanctuary’s Frog Calling Survey. We began at sunset, following moonlit trails to several wetland habitats. Each species has its unique call, so identification is done simply by listening.
Gary Pendleton and Karyn Molines • Dock: No. 17, April 26
For Blaze, It’s All in a Day’s Work
Ah, the modern Supermom. She’s expected to carry quite a load. But she can’t hold a candle to the Belgian draft horse Blaze.
As an expectant mom, Blaze had to work just as hard as her pulling-horse partner when the pair got some pro bono exercise pulling logs at Calvert Cliffs State Park. But on April 22, there was only one doing the work of giving birth to a spunky little stallion, Ben.
Connie Darago • Dock: No. 19, May 10
In Our Bay, Seahorses Play
Seahorse family traits include an array of curiosities. They can change color to blend with their surroundings. They can willfully grow ornamental head decorations when they want to show off their power or virility.
With the new show at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, you can get up close and personal with these remarkable fish. But that’s not the only locality seahorses roam. This year, aquarist Carin Stringer, of Calvert Marine Museum, put the word out to area watermen that she would adopt stray seahorses that got caught in their pots.
Rachel Presa • No. 30, July 26
At Quiet Waters, Dragons’ Racket
From the resounding roar emanating from the woods, you would not guess you were in a park named Quiet Waters. As you approach, the angry din grows louder. Something is moving in the trees, and you can make out a dragon. The creature wags his mighty head, baring his giant teeth. Sawdust and shards of chewed-up wood fly through the air.
Suddenly, the noise stops. The sawdust settles, and the smoke clears to reveal a woman standing in the shadow of the six-foot-high, 25-foot-long beast. Her head is only inches away from his formidable jaws. She wields a chainsaw.
Rachel Presa • Dock: No. 30, July 26
On the Bay, Osprey Again Play
Wherever I go, there are osprey. This is remarkable for two reasons. First, this is my second summer near Chesapeake Bay, but I hardly noticed them before I started actively looking. Second, before the ban of DDT in 1972, osprey had all but disappeared from the shores of the Bay.
Now about 3,000 osprey pair nest along Maryland and Virginia shores for one of the world’s largest osprey concentrations. Why they nearly disappeared and how they made their comeback make a nature story with a happy ending.
Martha Blume • No. 34, Aug. 23
Fish Invade Baltimore
They’re everywhere: strange large fish on the streets of Baltimore. Most of these creatures are six feet long, three feet high and a foot wide. They move through space at a velocity and course identical to that of the planet.
Individuals of the species Ichtayaerius baltimoris fell into the hands of local artists, who practiced gruesome genetic experiments on the creatures.
Christopher Jensen • Dock: No. 34, Aug. 23
Dances with Cranes
Tucked away like a secret in the woods between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the crane man and his subjects whoop it up. He, unassuming and jovial, is eager to show off his feathered friends. They, long-legged, long-necked and beady-eyed, will delight the curious observer, if she is lucky, with a dance that has survived the centuries.
The scientists at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center dress up as five-foot-tall birds to preserve a 50-million-year-old species, America’s native whooping cranes, Grus americana. They have convinced some of the flock to fly following ultralight aircraft as parents …
Martha Blume • No. 44, Nov. 1
The Winter Garden: Plant Oysters Now for a Spring Crop
Who would’ve thought 2,000 slimy spat could be so cute?
These babies would be my charges for the next nine months as I attempt to grow spat into oysters. In this Chesapeake Bay Foundation program, Bay-dwellers like me raise spat for a year, growing oysters to be transplanted to one of the Bay’s sanctuary reefs.
April Falcon Doss • Dock: No. 47, Nov. 21
The Christmas Kitty
Christmas is a hard time to find a kitty, but Bill was dogged, and Kitty-Cat Sam became the best gift of the last Christmas of a lifetime.
Sandra Martin and Bill Lambrecht • No. 51, Dec. 20
Boats
Tall Trailer Tales
The trailer-boater is a different breed. They are serious folks who travel to the fish by hooking their tow vehicle to a trailer and pulling their boat to the hottest area along the Chesapeake.
It’s a life style not without problems. “I continue to be amazed at the escapades at the boat ramp,” says John Peacock. “Double personal-watercraft trailers behind SUVs never seem to be able to back down the ramp without jackknifing the trailer at a 90-degree angle to the SUV.”
Pat Piper • No. 18, May 3
No Better Way Than Sailing
I got my training for Chesapeake Bay while sailing in southern Illinois on an Army Corps of Engineers lake known as Carlyle.
Lake Carlyle sits just north of Interstate 50. Head south from the lake to Highway 50 and turn left, I would say, because there’s a better lake near the end of the road.
Eventually, the boat and I made the journey from Illinois to Maryland, out Parrish Creek and into West River toward our new slip near Galesville.
Of course we ran aground.
Scott Dine • No. 23, June 7
Rowing, Paddling & Wading into a Better River
June’s full moon was obscured by a lowering cloud lazily sliding in from the northwest. Eight boats coursed silently up the creek somewhere ahead of us.
We were rowing in the week-long, 42- mile Patuxent River Sojourn, a gathering of like-minded souls that set off June 5 from a put-in place on the river just below the point where it crosses Route 214. The sojourners wended their way to a point an easy distance from the river’s mouth just in time for the 14th annual Bernie Fowler Wade-In. All of the vessels, save the official escorts, were human powered.
Christopher Jensen • Dock: No. 24, June 14
Miriah Called the Wind to Us
The wind came straight out of the north, building choppy seas ahead of it. Motoring with sails furled, our little ship plowed directly into those waves, pitching in a fair imitation of a bull in a Western rodeo. Like rodeo performers, our three-man crew’s role was simple: sit tight and hang on.
Bob Bockting • No. 31, Sept. 2
Where Do Old Boats Go to Retire?
If an old boat is as fortunate as the 1936 38-foot Matthews cabin cruiser that sailed into the hands of Denise and George Klein, owners of Bay Harbor Boatyard in Deale, it may head down to Tall Timbers Marina in St. Mary’s County. There, many an old boat waits to be lovingly restored to its former glory.
More often, their last port of call is the local landfill, where they might arrive in one piece or in countless shards.
Rachel Presa • Dock: No. 31, Sept. 2
Governor’s Cup by Full Moon
A full moon shone on the full-out 28th annual St. Mary’s College of Maryland Governor’s Cup Yacht Race the night of August 3–4. At 70 nautical miles, this prestigious race from Annapolis to St. Mary’s is the longest overnight race on Chesapeake Bay. With gusts up to 24 knots until the wee morning hours, the three- to four-foot chop made for fast rides in well-heeled boats.
Gail Howerton • Dock: No. 32, Sept. 9
The Mystery of the Bay-Built
Spend a couple of days around the docks of Chesapeake Bay, and you’re bound to hear her mentioned.
She’s a boat instantly recognizable, yet she’s a boat that no one in particular designed — though one just about everybody has built.
In Chesapeake County, the boat called the Bay-Built is everywhere — but just what is she?
Scott Dine • No. 41, Oct. 11
