Letters to the Editor
We welcome your letters and opinions. We will edit when necessary. Include your name, address and phone number for verification. Mail them to Bay Weekly, P.O. Box 358, Deale, MD 20751 • E-mail them to us at [email protected].
Got the Chesapeake Homesick Blues
Dear Bay Weekly:
I’m an Annapolitan living in Ohio for two years, and I miss Annapolis and Chesapeake Bay more than — well, you could imagine. It’s beautiful here and the people are very friendly. But no place is as beautiful as Chesapeake Bay.
Reading through an old copy of Bay Weekly, I realized how much I also miss you all, especially Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology and Chuck Shepherd’s News of the Weird.
I hope to be coming back home soon, but it’s going to be a couple of months. Until then, reading Bay Weekly would let me show all my new friends what I’ve talked to them about.
How can I get you to mail me a weekly copy? I would be willing to pay any cost for postage, handling, ink, paper. Sorry, I can’t cover any retirement plans. But I’ll do whatever to keep Annapolis in my existence.
— Craig Byers, Newark, Ohio
Editor’s reply: Craig misses the paper that’s Always Free to Chesapeake citizens for the picking up. Bay Weekly is also free to on-line readers at www.bayweekly.com. But if you want your copy to come by mail, $40 covers “postage, handling, ink, paper” for one year. Order subscriptions for homesick friends by phone (410/867-0304), mail (P.O. Box 358, Deale, MD 20751), or on-line ([email protected]).
What’s Wrong with Our Oysters Is Wrong with Our Bay
Dear Bay Weekly:
Our native oysters are sick because of terrible water quality. The oyster can’t swim. It has to stay in its habitat and take whatever comes its way. Fish can get up and swim out of the dead zone, but our oysters have to take whatever.
If water quality were up to speed, our oysters would have immune resources to overcome MSX and dermo. But because our oysters live in a slop bucket, it’s hard to build that resistance.
They are the benchmark that will tell us when we’ve got something going right. If we can’t clean the Bay up to save our own native species, we don’t deserve oysters. That’s the way I feel.
The bottom line is water quality. If we ever get the water anywhere near where it used to be, this very resilient estuary would come back on its own.
— Bernie Fowler, Prince Frederick
Editor’s note: Fowler spent 12 years in the Maryland Senate as an advocate of the Bay. His Sneaker Index is a famous, if impressionistic, yardstick of Bay health.
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