The 4th day of the 10th month of Emergence

MINDING THE ROOTS AT TAVERN CREEK-1

In 1954, life was good!  I cannot remember which grade of school I was enduring, but I lived in a central Jersey commuter town and summered in a tiny village on the Chesapeake Bay.  Literally on the bay, not one hundred feet away from a grass filled beach.  The water was inhabited by blue crabs, white perch and the occasional striped bass.  My father had decided that investment property in "Gratitude" was his own trip back to his formative years.  Gratitude was and is the end of a road and part of a larger community called Rock Hall.  A right hand turn at the end of MD. Rt. 20 is Lawton Avenue which runs for about a third of a mile along the bay and the mouth of Swan Creek.  If one doesn't make the turn and some have not, there is a very wet end to the trip.  Lawton Avenue is Gratitude, MD.

One creek west Swan creek and into the bay proper lies Tavern Creek, at that time protected by two islands.  The islands were un-named and were most likely remnants of Swan Point itself.  The small pieces of ground being created by erosion of that locally famous finger of land which protected the entrance to Tavern from persistent westerly winds. 

This was my first published photograph, and a cover at that!  Double click to read the article.

"Gratitude" was in the fifties nothing by a sleepy street inhabited by widow ladies, watermen and occasional summer resident.  There were three marinas that catered to watermen (commercial fishermen) and the occasional sailor or pleasure boater.  But primarily the water activity was limited to the fishermen of the day.  And of course we kids.  One of the radio stations in Baltimore nicknamed bay life as the "Land of pleasant living" and for the kids it certainly lived up to that reputation.

Back then dogs napped in the middle of Rt. 20, and you had to drive around them.  Kids took their shoes off as soon as school was out, and didn't put them back on until new ones were purchased in the fall at the restart of school.  Crabs could be caught with dip nets on about every third piling on all the docks.  Thousands of ducks, geese and swan argued with each other in fall evenings.  Local baseball games ended in fist fights if the home team lost.  Sometimes even if the locals won, fights would break out because they were as much fun as the game itself.  Pinball machines in local restaurants paid five cents a game won.  We would travel around town all week with pockets bulging with nickels.  Bags of carnival glass could be won at the annual carnival by pitching those same nickels.  The Friday night movies were held in a hall with folding chairs as seats.  And as kids we were all kicked out of the corner drug store and soda fountain, repeatedly.  There were no red lights in town, only a blinker.  The local cops would hide in the dump along Rt. 20 on Friday nights to catch out of towners speeding to their summer homes.  Back then the area was a watermen's town (Roots).........today, a sailing mecca.