Ship Quits Seas After 69 Years

That's the headline from a 1958 edition of the Tonawanda News that I came across while researching information about the ship Eva S. Cullison.  The Eva S. Cullison was a schooner owned by my great great grandfather John Aaron Jackson.  He used her to harvest oysters from the Chesapeake Bay.

 The article I found reads:

Rockland, ME, The two masted schooner Eva S. Cullison has been dry docked after 69 years of sailing along the East Coast.  The all white craft recently was towed into Lermond's Cove here where she will be used a a training ship for the local unit of the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve.  The vessel was built in Baltimore in 1888 and formerly plied the Bahama fruit trade.  Since 1951,  Capt. Frank Swift of Camden, ME had operated the Eva S. Cullison as one of his summer windjammer cruise ships.  She has been called the last of the Baltimore-built Chesapeake Bay coastal schooners.

My great great grandfather owned the Eva S. Cullison after she was used in the Bahama fruit trade and before she was sold  to be used in Capt. Swift's windjammer fleet.

Deltaville According to the Brat Child

So, I was having a brain fart about what I should blog about, so I did what every smart person would do-

 I asked the 8 year old. 

What should I write about Deltaville tonight?

His response:

Well, there used to be pirates around Deltaville.

There used to be a lot of beaches and islands.  

This one island went under water and never came back up.  

 It has couple of bridges too. 

You can ride boats there

and you can buy a lot of oysters and crabs 

but there aren't a lot of McDonald's.  

There really isn't.  

I think that's kinda weird.

So there you have it. 

Stingray Point

I'm not a fan of change,

and change in Deltaville is worse than change anywhere else.

I'd really prefer it still be the way it was back in the 80's

when the Stop N Shop was still there

and The Little Sue was still The Little Sue

and there wasn't any traffic.

But most of all, 

I'd still like to be able to swim here 

at Stingray Point.

I wish I could build giant sand sculptures of sharks and crabs 

with my son the way I used to build them when I was his age.

Or try to catch minnows in buckets,

float around on a raft

or dig in the sand looking for Captain Smith's body

(he didn't die there but as a kid I thought he had and thought he was buried on the beach).

Yeah,

change sucks.

Horne's

One of the most iconic places along the road to Deltaville
is Horne's Restaurant.
You can see its bright yellow roof
snugged between routes 301 and 17 in Port Rotal, VA.
It was our bathroom stop.
Back in the day,
it was one of the only places to stop between Waldorf, MD and Tappahannock, VA.

Horne's was the brain child of a candy salesman named Mr. Horne.

He modeled his store after Stucky's stores.

After the building of I95,

old roads heading North and South weren't as well traveled 

and many of the Horne's stores closed.

The location in VA is one of only a few Horne's left

operated by independent owners.

They have food and ice cream,

gas, souvenirs

and bathrooms.

And they're open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week including holidays

Stop at Horne's

and make your bladder happy!

Doing Things Differently

Normally this is the time of year that I make an exhaustive list of resolutions 

of things I want to completely change about myself.  

And then, 

around December 30th or so, 

I get all depressed when I review the list and realize 

I never managed to complete any of them. 

So this year, I don't have resolutions.  

This year, I have just one goal: 

Hike the Maryland section of the Appalachian Trail. 

By preparing to complete this goal,

I need to be healthier and get into backpacking shape,

 something that's typically on my resolution list. 

 But now they aren't the main goal, just part of the process. 

 The goal is a fun adventure that I'm really excited to do and I think 

that's the key.

So, now that the new year is here, I've begun seriously planning.  

I went on a small hike on January 1st 

(the very day after puking my guts out from a stomach virus- what can I say, I'm dedicated). 

 There are many other hikes planned and the whole family is involved.

This is going to be MY year