Bayside 26

The cornfields that I so love to view are no longer towering in brilliant green. Seemingly overnight, the stalks look crispy-fried and brown, and autumn is on it's way.
It's my anniversary, too. Exactly one year ago I did a fair imitation of The Beverly Hillbilly's, loaded up a moving truck and moved to Delmarva.
Perhaps your cousin Tillie from Long Island is thinking about doing the same thing. Perhaps you ARE cousin Tillie, and this column will strike a chord within you. Or perhaps you are a local, born and bred, and you will get a peek at how an "outsider" perceives Delmarva.
This is a land of startling contrast. Wide fields with work creased farmhouses stand side by side with cookie cutter sub-divisions. Raucous, crowded Ocean City boardwalk is only a spit away from serene Assateague Beach. There is huge money to be made in tourism and real estate, but I have seen people with a master's degree in social service making eight dollars an hour.
So why did I stay? Because Delmarva is truly beautiful, and a place to make dreams come true. It is here I thank The Bayside Gazette, for taking a chance on an unknown writer, with a thirty year writer's block, and making my dream a reality. This is a community that honors and respects the arts, at a grassroots level. Where I came from, accessibility and entrance into the art world was only for the elite. Here, there are so many events, many of them free, for the artist or writer or musician, I can barely keep up with them all. It is a strangely smooth blending of little town coziness with big city sophistication. Pig races on the Main St. in Berlin? Followed by a first rate Fiddler's Convention? Yes, and it works.
I could go into the things I found that DON'T work here on Delmarva, like the vanishing rural landscape that we all moved here to enjoy, but that's not my place here to do. I could talk about the great gap between the retired folks and working poor trying to grocery shop and pay oil bills on salaries way behind inflation, but that's not my purpose with this column, so I won't do that, either. Let it suffice to say, regardless of those things, Delmarva's biggest crop isn't corn or chickens (are chicken's a crop?) it's dreams.
I am revving up for next week's Coastal Day at Assateague, and the Fiddler's convention the following week in downtown Berlin. There are really cool happenings going on EVERYWHERE in the next couple of weeks, and I intend to be a part of them. (The day job is just going to have to go.)
A final note: last week I wrote about the threat of Katrina hitting New Orleans. We all know what tragedy did befall that city. I lived in South Florida and survived Hurricane Andrew years back, and I feel obligated to share what I learned during that time. Please, please, prepare before there is a hint of a storm coming. How? Stock up on water and canned goods and candles. Lots and lots of batteries, and a landlocked phone. Plywood and duct tape to cover windows was the first thing the stores ran out of. If the word comes to evacuate, GO. I am sure Aunt Tillie in Long Island will be glad to see you. Thank you for sharing my anniversary with me, and... See you next week!