MAY-B-11

AN EASTERN SHORE TRIP

TO ATTEND A SOMERSET COUNTY GUN AUCTION,

A TURKEY HUNT AT DAWN WITH BILL WEBSTER,

A TAXIDERMY TRIP TO MARION MARYLAND,

A RETURN THROUGH TRAPPE TO COLLECT ITEMS,

AND AN INAUGURAL VISIT BY CRAIG AND CAROL SCHAEFER TO DERWOOD TO TOUR THE NEW HOUSEHOLD,

SETTLE IN AT THE GUEST ROOM, HEAR THE CICADA CHORUS AND SPOT THE PAIR OF PILEATED WOODPECKERS, VISIT THE PRE-DEDICATION WW II MEMORIAL

AND ENJOY THE EARLY SUMMER IN THE DERWOOD WOODS—THE FIRST MOWING OF THE WILD GROWTH

IN A YEAR OF REDEVELOPMENT

May 21—23, 2004

As I had been scrambling to fill in plans fort a mid-summer medial mission to the two sides of the island of Hispaniola, I had a plan also to parcel out my time in re-settling Derwood, and running out to the Eastern Shore to collect a lot of things that had been left with Craig and Carol Schaefer in their new home in Trappe, ever since our Alaskan big game hunt last September, with the new trophy not yet completed—the Wolverine tanned hide to be delivered with pictures and story to Gina Tyler of Eastern Shore Taxidermy in Marion Maryland near Crisfield, working in a turkey hunt on the last days of the season with Bill Webster in follow-on to the sighting last weekend of the strutting tom turkeys in full swagger. The occasion was a break away from work at GW on Friday to drive over the Bay Bridge and go with Craig who was off call for the weekend to Somerset County Civic Center for an auction. An elderly Game Warden who had loved hunting all his life was having all his worldly possessions auctioned off by auctioneers who were trying to scrape the most they could from an outdoorsman’s bequest of all his worldly goods to his heirs—in other words, a foreshadowing of what each of us could expect to happen to our respective “estates” if they are so fortunate as to not be swept in the aggregate into dumpsters after being picked over by a few interested survivors.

It was sad—like attending the wake of someone you did not know, without a body present, but his life style apparent by the material goods he had left behind. What he had left behind were guns, about a hundred long guns and half that number of pistols, along with the paraphernalia of the hunt, including re-loading kits, ammo, gun safe and the kinds of stuff that have cluttered our attics and interests alike. Some of them were very high quality, and one was a Parker double, a working gun, not a mint collector’s item, but one that would very nicely satisfy the specific craving for a good Parker shotgun expressed by a friend in need of a memorable fiftieth anniversary present. Craig and I arrived at five o’clock to see all the other stuff of lives completed—double beds, furniture and stuff I have just paid top dollar for, whereas these were genuine working antiques that were not looking for a home in a museum, but in some scavengers’ rooms. Such was I, a bone picker, looking for a few bargains among the residual value to a stranger of a lot of memories in hardware for which the person who bought them paid ten times more. I bid on the shotgun, but it went up to the price the “book” said it should fetch--$675, when I was hoping with a little rust and neglect, I might be able to pick it up for around five hundred dollars. Most of the working guns were sold for about half their prices, but each represented a category of gun I already had and did not need duplicating (except for the fatuous hope that I might be able to take my sons hunting and equip them, while my only distant hope is that my grandsons might be able to do so with me!)With one exception. I do not have and always wanted a .22 rifle with a scope. There were several and most went for about what they were worth, but the one Craig was quick to see was going to go for far less than its book value—about the price of its scope—was a Marlin .22 long rifle autoloader (#12443708) in pristine condition with a Simmons 4X Waterproof Scope on Kwik Site see-through mounts. Craig bid on it and I bought it, completing my collection and now overfilling the gun safe at home.

We watched as many of the other items were hammered down for either bargain prices we did not need, or were more expensive items of the kind we could not get—but after a lifetime of collecting, I noted two things from this old now-deceased outdoorsman named Been—most things were sold “right out of the box”—that is, he did not get to use many of his toys as he might have wished; second, the total revenue of what he had collected over a lifetime for which he probably spent most of his disposable income of around a hundred thousand dollars fetched, after the netting of the auctioneer’s fee, certainly no more than $12,000 and much of the higher value smaller stuff—like ammo and unused re-loading equipment was essentially compiled with other things and given away for anyone who would bid five dollars. Even an old pine gun cabinet that stretched all the way across the wall sold for less than the value of the hinges, let alone the glass doors and lighting and drying elements inside it. Such is life after the moth and rust start to work on what is left, and the little we have and think is rather good stuff and the pride and joy of collecting is disposable chattel.

We went turkey hunting at dawn, with me sitting in exactly the same patch of briars and standing this time at alert, holding the shotgun in ready position so as not to have to move it more than inches when those same big toms strutted in after dawn. I was looking for the one with the double beard and the colorful head and fan. I was ready, and clucked sparingly on the box call in full camo and face mask on full alert as I heard the gobbles from the tree roosts in all directions around me. I identified at least four sets of turkeys calling before they flew down from the roosts. I waited for the ambush as they should surely have approached the hen and jake decoys. I had a sudden buzzing right at my eye sockets in the face mask—a hummingbird came down to investigate. Last week, Bill Webster had sat in his patch of woods and watched as a hummingbird came right before him and stopped to sip the dew drop from the end of the twig over his head. That was the highlight of Bill’s day as mine was the sighting of the strutting toms just at the outside limit of my shotgun range—for which I am still grateful that I did not shoot but just watched them. As I waited to day, a sudden movement to my left got me to move only my eyes—and there were two very big deer that ran across the diagonal length of the field right at the decoy in front of Craig, but he was facing the other way and heard but did not see them as they crossed behind him as close as six feet.

And never feather one of any turkey appeared to any of the three of us in ambush—Bill Webster, Craig Schaefer nor I. Still it was a pretty morning in the woods, the last of our turkey hunts, despite my eagerness to get a big tom to use the fan to repair the mount I have that the mice chewed into while it was in basement storage during the reconstruction.

We went to breakfast again at Mom’s Cafe. It has been open for business for fifteen years for the same regulars, among with is Bill. Each of the regulars puts in $2.00 a week into a lottery and if the name of one of them is drawn, they get the pot. If that name is drawn and they missed putting into the pot that week, the whole is rolled over and goes to the next week—Bill’s name has been drawn three times each on the only three weeks he was not here to put in his two dollars, so in fifteen years he has never won! It is good to see the small town America of the Eastern Shore, where everyone is excited about next weeks strawberry festival and the superb strawberry shortcakes and fried oysters and crab cakes that the feast provides Princess Anne, like Derwood, is very inviting to just sit and contemplate the little and good things of life, but I must do the one before the other.

Craig went to a funeral of Pansy, a poor unfortunate who had no insurance and no friends and had several cancers which recurred, for which he had treated her free. She had been a taxi driver and other less reputable professions all of which were in an effort to just get by, and she did, to an age when most of us can’t get by anyway. I had an appointment with Bill to go to see Gina Tyler—a pure “Shore Girl.”

EASTERN SHORE TAXIDERMY:

A NEW ENTERPRISE, WITH A NEW MASCOT PROJECT

Gina has a classic Eastern Shore name and ambition. She is a former student of VoTech where Bill still teaches for another three weeks to complete his 28^th year. She lives to fish and hunt, so she is setting up a taxidermy and charter boat and guiding company. She has done deer, and a few waterfowl, and will be doing a wood duck drake for me. She almost has the buck I got with Bill last fall ready to go, and it will be delivered in two weeks when Bill comes to visit me in Derwood making his second trip across the Bay Bridge in the last 28 years, the firs being when he had joined us in Cumberland Island. She is very excited since she will be doing a “Wolverine!” She has been researching pedestals and other mounting advice from her teachers to learn how best to do this premier piece in her portfolio. I showed her the whole photo album of the Alaska Hunt in which Craig and I got the moose which Craig returned to have his Dad make the bracket on which the skull is European mounted on the wall, and my wolverine which just had the hide and skull returned last week. So, in stead of the explicit instructions I had left for it to be shipped directly to Marcus Zimmerman immediately frozen, the Alaskans who had fouled up everything else about the trophies—losing almost all of our moose meat so carefully packed back, and now I learn they have completely lost the caribou cape—the caribou trophy having been selected on the basis of its hide for a full rug. So, the fellow who wanted desperately to get his hands on the wolverine (“You don’t understand. I have never done one of these!”) finally let it go after he had “wet tanned” it for $180 and it is now in Gina’s hands. We showed here the Red Fox full mount that Parker’s Taxidermy had done and I had picked up last week, telling her I had wanted two identical pedestals for a mount on top of each of which would sit the fox on one and the wolverine on another. Since she has not yet found the perfect mount, she has said she would probably make tem, and Bill may assist her in this. I left her with the plaques I still need for the mounts already in process, since I have engraved plaques for each of the other trophies now hanging after Dale Kramer’s careful planning and after Tuesday, will have all of those available to date on the wall if I can retrieve the Phantom of the Derwood Deer Woods.”

A SERENDIPTIPOUS FIRST TIME VISITOR,

AS WE PICK UP THE PIECES ON THE EASTERN SHORE,

AND DRIVE TO THE “NEW DERWOOD”

Craig was on call last weekend and will be on the next two, so when we returned from the taxidermist and he from Pansy’s funeral, we targeted in the new .22, and I bought scope covers and subsonic rounds for it. Then we went to Wal-Mart to purchase mousetraps for the little buggers that had got the turkey feathers n the basement, and some horn polish that Gina had recommended as well as a cooler to pack back some moose meat, caribou and the frozen salmon from my last fishing foray on the Nushigak River. With the trophies in the pick up truck and the hunting gear retrieved from last fall’s hunts, Craig and I made it back after he accepted the spur of the moment invitation to come to stay as the inaugural guests.

We toured the new Derwood and they made suggestions like putting felt pads on the bottoms of the chair legs to keep them from scratching the floor. We went to the Great Indoors, where I could pick up the Microwave Trim Package and also some stainless steel polish for the Viking kitchen, and saw the sale on the hand made Chinese rugs. The big rugs are almost as cheap as I can get them bargained down to in Kashmir, and they are already here, so I do not have to go through the efforts of getting them here. We marked several for the living room and dining room at my house and Carol and Craig are going back to measure their bedroom for one we picked out for them.

We then drove downtown on a very bright summer day and saw the WW II Memorial a week before its official dedication. It is very moving. Especially we tried to design a way that we could get Craig’s Dad to come over since he is a veteran of that war and fought in Germany, and was part of the “Saving Private Ryan” regiment. He affects disinterest, since he would rather be remembered for what he did as a Vo Tech teacher at Rutgers, than as a WW II vet, but he will come and during the inaugural would be a fitting time to do so.

We had dinner at the Buca de Beppo I had seen when escorting Mark Naylor around to these places, as the last customers of the night. I also presented Craig with a “presentation sword” the Blue Dragon since he had admired my Samurai set on the mantle. I discussed the kinds of little touches for which I will still be seeking the kinds of things I have brought back from my many travels—like the intertwined giraffe carvings of ebony whenever I can figure a way to transport them. For now, I have almost enough stuff to avoid over-crowding of what is an already overflowing Game Room, Gun Safe, and many other aspects of the New Derwood are already filled up!

As Carol and Craig left to go back to Trappe where David was coming to visit, I saw that this was the best day to get outside since it had not rained for a whole day now. In the morning we heard the very loud volume of the cicada chorus, since there are large holes in the ground where the seventeen year locusts have emerged, and now the sounds of the Derwood woods are very much louder than ever before. AS we were looking PAIR of very large PILEATED WOODPECKERS fluttered in and hammered on the tress to hollow out a place for this mated pair. The full foliage does not obscure birds of this size and their sounds momentarily overwhelmed the large chorus of tens of thousands of this year’s plague of cicadas.

It is time now, after one full year, in which, at no time did any of the grass get mowed. For the first part of that, the construction was ongoing, and new lawn put in and seeded behind the house, and then in the later parts, it was so perpetually wet, that I could not get in despite many tires to start up and attack the two and a half feet high grass. Finally, I attacked as Craig and Carol left to go back. It was hard work, and I scattered both frogs and toads and avoided the mated box turtles that Shirley and Milly discovered on our walk in the woods last week. But it is now a done deal.

Derwood is beautiful!

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