Spring Forward!

By Meg Walburn Viviano

Readers, this is the CBM Bay Weekly issue I’ve looked forward to sharing with you for just shy of a year. No, it isn’t a special edition, like our trademark Dining Guide or the inspiring Home & Garden issue—though we’re hard at work getting ready to bring you both of those resources in the next month. 

The remarkable thing about this issue is that it’s chock-full of events, news and key issues—none of which are pandemic-related! This wasn’t intentional; in fact, our dearth of COVID-19 impact stories just dawned on me two days before this paper went to press. 

To me, this is a natural, organic sign that Chesapeake Country is moving forward. Finally, there are new things to occupy our brains, including controversial issues at hand in the Maryland legislature that could directly impact our communities. 

In our public schools, there are proposed bills to take state funding away from school resource officers or change their role significantly (https://bayweekly.com/school-resource-officers-in-question/). 

In some of our waterways, there is a proposal to allow commercial haul seine fishing, under which fishermen could bring a 750-foot-wide seine net into a small tributary, potentially impeding use of private piers and marinas and hinder water recreation (https://chesapeakebaymagazine.com/bill-to-allow-commercial-seine-fishing-in-some-annapolis-waters-draws-outcry/) and neighborhood groups are banding together to fight the bill. 

In other non-pandemic news, our popular Bay Planner has a great mix of this week’s happenings, and we answer the question, “What’s there to do for St. Patrick’s Day this year?” Well, a few things:  https://bayweekly.com/a-quieter-st-patricks-day/. 

Even our columnists must have pandemic fatigue, because they’re all sharing insight on fresh spring subjects: what kind of rockfish season it will be, when you might start spotting those cute cottontail bunnies in your yard, how to create a garden that will attract butterflies. Bring on spring! 

Please don’t misunderstand my enthusiasm: the COVID-19 pandemic still exists, and our world is not back to normal. We’ll continue to operate with caution and look forward to growing vaccination levels.  And we’ll never look at things exactly the same as we did before; the past year has shaped our human experience to an extent we can’t fully comprehend yet.  

But seeing Chesapeake Country begin to take on new priorities feels like a step forward. The wide range of other subjects we’re able to cover this week (quite by accident) tells me that people are ready to get out of their pandemic rut. And what better time to move forward than during this week’s stretch of lovely springtime weather that ends with a “spring forward?”  

Don’t forget to set your clocks ahead for Daylight Saving Time, which begins Sunday, March 14 at 2 a.m. and allow your mindset to spring forward, too.