Posted on by Thomas W. Loker
Home: St. Mary’s County
August 14, 2011
Tom Loker
St. Mary’s County, Cicadas buzz, warm summer nights. Hot and humid – to everyone else, but to those of the county, it is just somehow right!
A few hours ago a summer thunder-squall made its way across the bay – a Virginia gift.
An Adirondack chair on the front porch – the one facing the water – the stars shimmering as the cooling breeze from the bays and rivers offer some respite. The astral show above – a perfect closure to the vibrant hues and shades of the evening sunset – now closing Nebraska, or Oklahoma’s day continuing its way around the world
Sitting here in this now and then, the smells of honeysuckle & mulberries, tobacco & corn, cows & pigs, fish & crabs, oysters & beer –the bay and the earth commingle in a distinctive perfume familiar to those who have called this land home.
“You must be Judge Loker’s grandson, Dr. Ford’s nephew. He operated on me in 54. I went to Leonard Hall with your uncle Billy. I remember your dad and Dipsey Combs at Bailey’s most days. Your cousin …. is married to my cousin…”
The ties to each other are the comforting linkages that make each, at once exceptional and ordinary. To put on airs or fancy ways can only cover a few beats from our common roots.
Rich or poor, we eat as one. Crabs, fish, muskrat, ham (stuffed and old), potatoes (new), goose, duck, deer (never venison), kale, field cress, winter cress (greens), magical oysters steamed, fried, stewed,
I want to meet the first person who decided you could eat an oyster – but God bless him for his courage.
scrapple, cracklin’s, beer and bourbon, whiskey and wine. A common fare we all share.
Obligations run deep in blood but it is the duty of neighbor and kinship that drives us. The love of God, born in our state’s founding charter of religious tolerance and freedom for all and our dominant catholic faith instill further the love of land and water.
Where ever we are now, in this physical world, one of us only needs to sit outside in the evening… Take a sip of beer or whiskey… Lean back – find the stars in our eyes… Close them and we are at once home. St. Mary’s County.
