HAPPY 4TH OF JULY, 2012

Happy Fourth Everyone....play safe!

Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.

Ya mean, it's not all about hamburgers, hot dogs and beer?  Who knew?  And no, it's not just another excuse to make a long weekend out of a mid week holiday.  And those fireworks your neighbor puts off in an attempt to burn down your house....it's not about that either.

No, it's about something that started this 200 plus year experiment in freedom.  It's been a tough long road to get to this point.  Wars, famine, recession, depression, unequalled prosperity all went into creating the greatest and most giving country on the planet.  Don't let them change all that.

Have your cookouts.  Enjoy your family.  Pray for your country.  Celebrate your freedom.  And have a great day off.

 

Now get back to work!

The 3rd of the 7th

Cook out!

The sun has just peaked up over the corn and soybean fields of the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake as I quietly slip along the dock.  Waiting at the end is a sleek 30 foot Aquasport, center console, with an inboard/outboard engine (an IO).   Even though it is early July there is a slight film of dew on everything and the air smells of cleanliness and salt.

My mission is simple.  Catch a few stripped bass for a cookout on the fourth.  Normally, a day for hamburgers and hot dogs....ours will be stripper, perch, crab, clams and shrimp done up on the grill.  Side all that with fresh sweet corn, tomatoes, and watermelon and you gotta wonder how the other half lives.  Sprinkle in family and a few friends and it doesn't get any better than that.

I ease away from the dock toward the dark western shore and past the anchored hoard of sailboats spending the night in protected waters.  The bay is a sheet of Mylar that promises temperatures close to the century mark later in the day.  Swan Creek has no traffic other than a waterman or two headed out to tend crab pots.  I'll stop one later to purchase a bushel of the Chesapeake Bay's blue gold.  But for now my nine foot fly rod is fully loaded and I looking for the gulls that accompany fish feeding on the surface.

I am on cruise control as I leave Swan Point in a direct line south to the mouth of the Chester and Love Point.  Off to the southwest lies the bay bridge.  At any moment, I could see the tell tale swirl of large fish chasing small fish.  The sign that the catch will be on.  I am not looking for the large fish they catch off Montauk or Cape Cod Bay.  But a few four and five pounders that are the best eating outside a fine Charleston restaurant.

My first cast is just off shore of Hickory Thicket.  The fish are driving alewives towards the flats at Eastern Neck Island and an occasional bucket sized swirl is my casting target.  The first fish is on just as a crimson line sneaks over the black shore line and I am fast to a charging, diving, delicacy of the deep.  The only sounds are the sea gulls alerting each other to the meal at hand and the wine of my fly line screaming off the real.

Quickly there are four fish in the keeper.  My fly needs repair and I now have to opportunity to cruise back to the dock at a slower pace.  Taking in all the scenes with which I grew up.  Pound nets with blue herons, egrets, and cormorants looking for a free meal.  Osprey screaming to mates on some distant nest.  Eagles patrolling for a fish too close to the surface.  Pods of bait fish circling in the shallows.  Crabs skittering across the glassy surface with a mate in tow.  A waterman working his crab pots in eight feet of water.  The sail boaters are still asleep and the sound of lines slapping mast as the boat rocks is everywhere.  At this place, at this time, all is right with the world.

You need to click on the links in the text to see the purdy pichurs.

The second of the seventh

We have had none of the weather damage that was experienced in the Mid-Atlantic, but we did have a bunch of storms yesterday and last night.

It all started late in the afternoon with the temperatures in the 105 range.  In about a half hour, the temps dropped about thirty degrees.  A lot of lightning but not much wind.  About a dozen hail stones the size of a kidney stone.......well, no that would be a serious "Ouch".  But we had a few.  Temps to get to 100 again today and more late afternoon storms called for.  Not quite as warm now, but we'll see.

The first of the seventh

Well, we made it through the first six months.  Give yourselves a hand.  The fire at the plastics recycling plant is still burning and the town has restricted water use so we won't poison ourselves with the run-off from fighting the fire.  I can only imagine those poor folks out west losing thier homes. 

Water restriction is ok cause my tomatoes would probably have tasted like petroleum based vegetables if I kept watering them.  You know how the tomatoes taste from the supermarket in January.  Going to be over 105 again today, so everything from grass up is going crispy critter.  But we made it through six months already.  Hooray!

This is what happens when you take a camera from an air conditioned house set at about 74 out into the arms of mother nature where it is pushing ninety with 3000 % humidity.  The lens immediately fogs over.

And an already stunted sunflower looks all the more like last year's dandelion.  Well, the next six months look bright.  We can replant a winter crop.  The Govt. has pushed health care down our throats and the Supreme's have pounded it up the other end, so there not too much more they can do to us on that front.  Mainstream TV will be wall to wall political lies till November, so we can scratch that as an entertainment source.  If you intend to take your wife/girlfriend to a movie--like maybe "Magic Mike", I would suggest that she go with her girl friends and leave you at home.  You would be only one of about five men in a full theatre.  Google it and you'll see why!  Me I want to see "Shades of Grey", the movie, if anybody has the balls to make it.............and you know they will.  You can google that too.  This is a family blog ya know!

In the mean time, we have a few hurricanes to look forward to, the first frost, the beginning of the school year and a few meaningful holidays.

 We'll start with the fourth.

  I will miss the pile of steamed crabs at the Rock Hall Celebration and the fireworks over the River in Chestertown.  My favorite lady of the rubber hand.  My kids oooooohing and ahhhhhhhing over the displays.

But we, in a neighborhood of 1/12 acre lots, will have fireworks.  They sell them down here to anyone. And that means that anyone who never made it past the eighth grade has the totally legal opportunity to set his neighbor's house afire.  Should be fun standing out in the back yard,  hose in hand, and watching all the yahoos drink, and crash, and burn.  Happens every year and is a really sweet way to pay tribute to the country.  Just hope the water restrictions have been lifted by then.

Anyway, welcome July.  The month of hamburgers and hotdogs on the gril, micro bikinis at the beach, brown grass that should've been green, car interiors of two hundred degrees, electric bills large enough to finance a year at a college, and just more lies in the national news.

Oh, and I see spell check is out again.  So suffer!

The 30th of June

Human Curiosity

I see spell check is out here, so you are just going to have to deal with my inability to spell and the gad (just double chcking there) grammar.

No matter how many years I spend on this planet, human behavior always seems to puzzle me.  Either it is truly amazing or I am just too dumb to recognize what really goes on.

The poor people out west are losing it all to an inferno, yet the TV spends mega time talking about Tom Cruise's divorce...Huh?

A simple flame could stir the heart to all kinds of things human.  Love and hate!  Passion or neglect!  Warmth or cold!  Weddings and divorce.  Even war! And we humans are right there demanding a front row seat!

Yesterday.   Mother Nature, neglect, stupidity, maybe even intent, but I doubt it, started a blaze in our little town.  A pretty big blaze but certainly nothing like the wildfires consuming parts of Utah and Colorado.  But a decent fire in itself.

OK, it's a big local fire.  Lots of smoke.  Lots of radio and TV coverage.  And lots of photographers (like me).  I guess my Mother was right.  I should have been a lawyer.  I just love to ambulance chase!  So I was one of them.  And then I stand back the next day and write about how amazed I am that so many people showed up to watch. 

I worked in New York City for 20 some odd years,,,,and they were odd,,,, and spent most of my lunch hours just wandering around the city people watching.  Unbelievable what you can see when you open your eyes.  A soda and a "Dirty water dog" for lunch and I had an hour just to watch what people were doing.  Truly incredible.  Try it some time.

I understand that it was some kind of plastic or petroleum based re-cycling plant.  Well, I guess they found a way to re-cycle the re-cycling plant.  But my point is, I have never seen so much vehicular traffic on our little streets. 

Stick yer nose up in the air, see the smoke and follow it.  That seems to be the credo for us ambulance chasers.

Yesterday, 113 degrees here on the south side of the Sun.  I'm going out now and watch my bird bath boil.

The 28th day of the sixth.

YIKES!

I am having a real rough time, not turning this blog into a political discussion.  But then I don't run a benevolent democracy here!  So I probably should not.

RECOVERING

Not from the recent trip up north.  Not from some insidious illness which will probably overtake me within the next twenty years.

BUT

From Gamecock overload!

That's Gamecock like in the University of South Carolina baseball team.

Every year at this time the "Boys of Summer" become the "Men of Omaha". 

And this year is no exception.

The fans are all set and as a fan, I for one am shaking my head in awe.  Last night we earned the right, for the third straight year, to play in the finals of the College World Series.  Of course it was tense and late (12:30 our time), and we beat a great Arkansas team for the right to play Arizona on Sunday in a three game series.

That's sort of like eating your spinach just to get to the broccoli! 

Ray Tanner, the coach, brings this team to the top at just the right time and they all play their hearts out.  That my friends is the difference between College ball and the pros.  The pros are always so worried about breaking the multi-million dollar bodies that the game is simply different.  But the coach just seems to get it done.

Tanner at last year's parade.

And the fans are ready for a 3-peat!

It's just a good thing they're not playing on the West Coast....I never would get any sleep! 

Congratulations to the "Men of Omaha"---- Go get um!