Caroline County, Virginia

I just looked at my last two posts, and how busy I was with the election and its aftermath, and how I skipped town in March to visit my sister and Caroline County, Maryland. I try to leave town monthly to visit a new place. I didn't go anywhere in April.

This month, I've done two trips. My sister Robin bribed me and Joe to visit her over Mother's Day weekend with tickets to see "Fun Home," a musical about a young lesbian coming out and her closet-case father. Alison Bechdel, a cartoonist, wrote the original book as a graphic. It bothered me almost as much as "Maus," Art Spiegelman's graphic about his father, a Holocaust survivor. We had wanted to see the play in New York, but missed it. We enjoyed our weekend with my sister.

Still, I was determined to take off and see another county I had not been to before the end of May, having missed April. Since I'm doing this alphabetically, the one after Caroline, Maryland is Caroline, Virginia. Both counties are named for Caroline of Ansbach, the wife of King George II. Bowling Green, the county seat of Virginia's Caroline County, is 77 miles south of Washington, D.C. and 42 miles north of Richmond.

I left about 1 P.M. Sunday, since Joe hinted that I should go to the end-of-the-school-year Sunday school picnic. I had fun at the picnic. I don't often see the Sunday school kids and parents, and I enjoyed being with them. I managed to stay awake driving all afternoon, with the help of one of the chocolate bars  Joe ordered with a wrapper showing a picture of the temple to give the kids. There were lots of them left over.

I stayed at the cheap branch of my usual motel chain at the south end of Caroline County, a place called Ruther Glen, consisting of a bunch of truck stops and fast food places. My two dinners were at a Denny's and a Golden Corral, at truck stops near an interchange on I-95. The main roads through the county are U.S. 17, which runs from Winchester to Norfolk in Virginia, and U.S. 301, once a bypass from Baltimore to Richmond, now mostly suburban. I-95 and U.S. 1 run along the west side of the county, away from Bowling Green, the county seat, and Port Royal, the original port on the tidal Rappahannock River. There are nineteen places in the county on the National Register of Historic Places. I mapped them all out before I left Morgantown.

After a quick breakfast of empty carbs at the motel this morning, I headed out in the rain and cold to look for my places. It was warm in Morgantown Sunday, so I came in a polo and shorts, figuring it would be warmer in the coastal flatlands to the south and east of us, but it was cool and rained most of the morning. I had a flannel shirt and jeans packed just in case, so that's what I wore today. I worked from the south end of the county, where I stayed near the truck stops, to the north, where Port Royal is located.

I stopped at the county's visitor center and ran into Peggy Smith, the worker there. She told me that her family has lived in the county since colonial times and they were English. I guess this was because I noted that her accent sounded like my friend Spencer, from Norfolk, and a little like my Canadian friends who say "a-boot" for about. I told her how my family has only been in the US since the late 19th and early 20th century. "So you're an immigrant," she said. "No, my great-grandparents were immigrants." She corrected herself. "You're an All-American." Still, some in Virginia, including the former western part, now a different state, think it important that one's family has lived in-state more than two hundred years. This Ms. Smith and I  had a nice chat. She is about my age, and remembers the Loving case well, about the interracial couple who were arrested for just that. Peggy knew the arresting officer. She had a brochure about the case. She also told me that schools in the county were segregated until 1970, but that was all the government. She was raised on a farm, she told me, and blacks and whites mixed freely in private.

So I chased around narrow country roads looking for historic places, many of them plantation and manor houses, down long driveways behind trees and gates and "No Trespassing" signs. Peggy had told me that the county's plan was to stay rural, except along I-95, away from the two small towns. The Washington and Richmond suburbs are fast approaching, and there is some attempt to control growth.

By lunch time I was in Bowling Green, a town about three blocks long and wide. I recognized the courthouse from the "Loving" movie, and there were many stately old homes on the few streets. I found a small brick shopping center with a chain drug store and an Italian restaurant. I treated myself to a chicken parmesan sub, fried (sinful!) and "unsweet" iced tea. The accents at neighboring tables were thicker than Peggy's. Someone was talking about neighboring King George County (Joe-urge). I spent most of an hour wandering around the town. There is a map of the town during the Civil War at the courthouse, mounted on a brick stand, with a caption in bold letters saying "Union Occupation of Bowling Green 1864." I couldn't help thinking "American Soldiers Quelling The Illegal Rebellion in Bowling Green." In front of the courthouse is a statue of a Confederate soldier. U.S. 1 is "Jefferson Davis Highway." I don't know how much people who live here notice these things. Since I also travel in Pennsylvania and Ohio, I see how different Virginia is. A house in Port Royal had a flag emblazoned with "Sic Semper Tyrannus," what John Wilkes Booth said after he shot Lincoln. Booth fled to Caroline County, and was shot running from the barn where he was hiding, near Bowling Green, after troops set it on fire.

I ended up in Port Royal, where Joe and I stopped for lunch on our way from my sister in Maryland to our friends in Virginia Beach two years ago, July 4 weekend. This is a small, pretty town on the Rappahannock, once a major port for tobacco, bypassed by the railroad and now quiet. I got back to my room by 4:30, slept for an hour and headed out to Golden Corral in one of the truck stops. Not everyone there was fat, the staff was friendly, and while I stuck to healthier food (salad, baked fish, spaghetti with marinara sauce, fruit, and, uh, chocolate pudding) I ate too much of everything. By 7 PM. it was 72 and sunny, the nicest it had been all day. I drove up U.S. 1 to Ladysmith, the most suburban part of the county, with a supermarket and some "real" restaurants off I-95. I bought marginally better food at the market for breakfast tomorrow.

I missed a political meeting yesterday, and I'll miss a dinner I was encouraged to attend tomorrow night, but as Joe says frequently "I am unrepentant." We'll see if I can get out next month. My term on Morgantown's City Council doesn't officially start until July 5.

The Grove, 1780-1800, north of Hanover

Jericho School House, Ruther Glen, c. 1910, two-room school house for African-Americans

Green Falls, c. 1710, south of Bowling Green

wheat field south of Bowling Green

"Old Mansion" c. 1741, Bowling Green

Main St. Commercial District, Bowling Green

Auburn, c. 1843, N. Main St., Bowling Green

House in Bowling Green Historic District

Baptist Church, late 19th Century, Bowling Green

Stonewall Jackson Shrine, Guinea Station. This is the office for the plantation where Jackson died in 1863. The plantation house was demolished in the early 20th century

Looking east on the Rappahannock River from the pier at Port Royal

West on the Rappahannock at Port Royal. The bridge (under going repair) is from the 1930s and carries U.S. 301

Episcopal Church, 1830s. Port Royal

Riverview, 1845, Port Royal

Caroline County Courthouse, Bowling Green, 1830, with the statue dedicated to Confederate soldiers

March in Maryland

It wasn't a good time for me to leave Morgantown, in the middle of a political campaign. Still, I thought I had a few free days ( I missed two events). Like many people, I've been emotionally raw since the election in November. I found out a few weeks ago that my nephew was leaving the Washington area for Florida the first of April, and March 17 and 18 are the dates my father and mother died, twenty-six and fourteen years ago. I wanted to be with my sister, and see my nephew.

My county to visit for March was Caroline County, on Maryland's Eastern Shore. The county seat, Denton, is an hour drive from my sister's house, near Washington. I wanted to go Thursday to Sunday, but I couldn't leave until 1 P.M. Thursday because I had a Library Board meeting. that morning.

I'm usually too tired to do much in the afternoon, and I slept fifteen minutes at a rest stop in Maryland a few hours out. Traffic was backed up heading south from near Baltimore Airport to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge at rush hour. There didn't used to be anything there fifty years ago, when I lived in Baltimore; now it is all built up and the relatively new I-97 is crowded.

I had booked a room at a nearly-new chain motel (not my usual chain) on the bypass around Denton. The young man at the desk suggested a pub-marketplace restaurant downtown, but, when I looked it up, I saw it had Irish bar food, and it was St. Patrick's Day. I never understood why non-Irish people would think it's a big deal to celebrate this day (booze, maybe?). I never have, especially since 1991, when my father died on the morning of March 17. I ate instead at Bullock's, a local sub and ice cream shop. I had a good grilled chicken sandwich, and then, just to kill the healthy food aspect, I ordered onion rings with it. They were delicious.

I planned a five or six hour trip around Caroline County. It was all written out at home, where I left the plan. I was up late, exhausted, trying to reconstruct it. I also forgot to pack socks.

Friday morning, I awoke later than usual, and was on the road by 9:20. I bought socks for a dollar for two pairs of white socks and another three pair pack for another dollar, in black at a dollar store, just so I wouldn't have to walk into Wal-Mart. I had twenty-three historic places to see in the county. There is no college and no Jewish presence to document in Caroline County. It's a pretty area, with some farmland separating the small towns. Suburbs are just starting to encroach. People who work east  of Washington and south of Baltimore commute, but it is far from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge into the county. The Choptank river forms a border of the county, and the southern part of the river is tidal.

I had a fish sandwich at Royal Farms, a Sheetz-like convenience store. I was not impressed with the food. I left the town of Greensboro to head to my sister in Greenbelt at two, having been to Federalsburg, Denton and West Denton. I ran into more historic places on the way out of the county, near Ridgely and in Hillsboro, and arrived at Robin's about 4:15.

Caroline County Courthouse, Denton, 1895

Boat ramp on Watts Creek, Martinak State Park, south of Denton

Early 20th century bank, with mid-century modern addition, Federalsburg

Nanticoke Lodge, A.F. And A.M., Federalsburg, 1920

Mill on the Choptank, West Denton, building is a visitor center now

Williston Mill House, south of Denton, 1840s

Denton Armory, now a community center, 1938

Denton Schoolhouse, 1883

Marblehead, near Ridgely, early 19th century

Main St., Hillsboro

A friend from Morgantown, now living in Greenbelt, invited Robin out for dinner Friday. Robin called me and asked if I wanted to go out with this couple, who are good friends. I thought I would be tired, so we both voted to stay home. I slept at least an hour and a half after arriving in Greenbelt, and Robin and I had a ready-made dinner courtesy of Wegman's. We lit candles in memory of our parents and stayed in for the night.

Saturday, we attended services at Mishkan Torah in Greenbelt, where my sister is a long-time member. The rabbi, who has been there many years, is retiring, and they were auditioning a new guy, who was a member of the congregation for many years before going back to school to be a rabbi. He was great, but they had already auditioned others for the post, and it wasn't clear that he would be hired. Robin and I rose for kaddish, the prayer for the dead. On March 18, 2003, I was at my mother's apartment in Baltimore when the phone rang. I remember looking at the clock and it was 8:35. The call was from the hospice where my mother had been staying for the last eighteen days, and although they wouldn't speak to me, I knew she was gone. The Saturday morning at my sister's before services, I was eating breakfast, and glanced at the clock. It was 8:35.

We skipped most of the lavish refreshments after services, and met my nephew Evan and his fiancée Kellie, and their dog Sterling back at Robin's house. We left the dog and went to eat at Silver Diner.The diner now has an assortment of healthy and gourmet items and seems to be always crowded with a lively multi-ethnic crowd. We came back to the house, and said goodbye to Evan, Kellie and Sterling. As Evan is leaving Washington for Tampa in his twenties, I left Baltimore for Miami thirty-nine years ago, when I was in my twenties.

Late afternoon, Robin and I saw "I Am Not Your Negro," a documentary about the life of author and activist James Baldwin, one of my favorite authors. The Greenbelt Theater is now owned by the city and plays  the kind of movies typically only found at art houses in trendy neighborhoods in big cities. Baldwin died years ago, but his ideas about race are still relevant. 

I left Sunday morning to come back to my "real" life and the important election campaign I am running. I was able to attend a 6 P.M. gathering of candidates and invited guests in Morgantown.

Left to right: Me, Kellie, Evan, Robin at Silver Diner in Greenbelt