eastern shore/delmarva

summer/campus life continues to bop along at a rapid pace. i've been giving two tours a day during my morning shift in admissions...eek...but really enjoying my increased responsibilities (designing handouts for the career development office, proofreading proposals for the graduate studies dept, scheduling interviews in admissions, etc.)

last weekend was spent exploring the delmarva peninsula, a marshy, largely rural region encompassing the three states in its name. the chesapeake bay divides the "eastern shore" from the rest of maryland and virginia; one typically arrives via the insanely long bay bridge by annapolis. last friday evening i left baltimore with three of my good friends; we made it to the town of onancock, virginia, in about four hours. the next morning we backtracked a bit, going north and then west to crisfield, maryland. along the way we saw a surprising amount of chicken "farms"-- similar to the ones described in fast food nation, owned by the tyson corporation-- that smelled absolutely horrible. we took an hour-long ($25?!) ferry from the sleepy, crab-themed town to smith island, a place i learned about two years ago after reading tom horton's an island out of time (which happened to be the assigned reading for all students entering goucher in 2006). what i learned about the island seeped into the back of my brain until recently, when a fabulous folklorist friend/mentor of mine, elaine eff, told me about her work there. she helped create a museum to preserve and stimulate the unique, and somewhat odd traditions of the island. the population-300 archipelago of marshy land has been almost entirely isolated since a few families from england established a post there in the early 1600s. the chesapeake has been the lifesource for generations of smith islanders, its crabs providing food, opportunity for trade, and a focus for their culture. the watermen lead a weathering lifestyle that less and less chose to lead. women of the island are famed for baking 10-layer cakes and picking crabs faster than you can imagine. the united methodist church acts, unofficially, as the government, social scene, and driving force for many islanders. it is a very interesting and very endangered place; elaine estimated that a combination of erosion and rapid depopulation (many of the younger islanders move to the main land to study and find work, seldom returning to the isolated, traditional community) will leave smith island bare within our lifetime.

the ferry schedule left us only two hours on the island, but on smith island time passes so slowly that we felt reasonably acquainted with it by the end of our afternoon. we ate a lunch of cake (first) and, for my companions, incredibly fresh crabcakes. we followed lunch with a trip to elaine's exquisitely composed museum, which we sped through near the end in order to allot enough time to wandering around the neighborhood of ewell. some of the houses looked artsy, most neatly maintained, and a few were definitely fixer-uppers. we didn't see as many families as we had hoped; however, there were several other tourists walking around. i honestly cannot fathom living in a place so far removed from mainstream society. i am fascinated by it but would personally go crazy after a few days. it is no great mystery how the church holds so much sway over the island residents; the church plays many roles, as mentioned above.

our lovely and relatively insect-free afternoon was completed with the ferry ride back to crisfield and the drive, again, down route 13 to onancock. our friend sally shared her family home with us, acting as a gracious host and allowing us to enjoy her 300-year-old house. the building itself was a serious highlight of the weekend. 300 years old!! that is outrageous. she said they have found native american arrowheads on the property, as well as a mortar and pestle-type tool. traders and other settlers must have come down the "creek" and staked out the land; her six acres are today covered with the spacious house, a guest house, a gorgeous garden and many many rows of feed corn. her parents have done a marvelous job of restoring and maintaining the place, filling it with artifacts from their world travels, interesting local art, and thousands of books. it felt so good to be in a real home, to cook wholesome, slow food, and to relax without checking my email or voicemail at all. i can't thank sally enough for having us.

we spent sunday morning around the house and then ventured into the town of onancock. once a bustling trading town, the decline of the railroad industry has left it quaint and also a bit isolated. we window-shopped the main street, unable to go into any stores because not a single one was open on sunday morning. we then made a stop at her grandmother's house in town and had the pleasure of meeting her. again, the change of pace was refreshing for us all.

beach traffic wasn't too bad and we made it back to baltimore just in time for a giant, almost violent, thunderstorm. it was a very memorable excursion that i will remember for quite a while!