Thanksgiving Pilgramage IV - Maryland

Finally, it is time to talk Turkey. And yes, that is a Teddy Bear you see on my bed, with a Turkey hat on. It is the hat that Fran somehow found at a dollar store, and that we wore over a year ago when we met Jon and Steph in Amsterdam for Thanksgiving. I brought it along, and wore it when Jon picked me up at the airport, and when my friend Eric Chandler picked me up at the Baltimore Airport. Eric's wife Carol decided it would look good on the bear they were loaning me while I stayed with them for Thanksgiving.

But before I go any further, let me tell you about getting from Albany to Baltimore. I am not necessarily a skin flint, but when I found out that it would cost me one-third the price for a one way ticket from Albany to Baltimore if I did not mind two stops along the way, I jumped on it. For less than one hundred dollars, I was able to fly from Albany to Washington - Reagan, then on to LaGuardia in New York City, and finally on to Baltimore. Time is something I had, why not. The flights were almost on time (I say almost, because my Washington to New York shuttle was actually almost an hour late, but I got one that was supposed to take off an hour early, so I got to New York just about right on time!!). And of course, for the second time (I had now taken two sets of flights) the office of fatherland security had left a little note in my suitcase that they had looked in it, and apparently found nothing they wanted or needed.

Anyway, I had last seen Eric at his New Jersey townhouse. He was in the throes of finishing a wonderful house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where he and his wife Carol now life. Eric and I went to separate high schools together, and if I did not really, in my heart of hearts, think that my youth was well spent, I would say that we shared our misspent youths together, along with the third member of our Musketeer group, Carl Buchin. Through the wonders of e mail and skype phone calls, Eric and I have again become close, and I am elated to say that I also consider his wife Carol to be one of my friends now too.

As you can see below, they have a wonderful view of the water that flows behind their house, as well as an amazing look at sunrises across the road from their house, where the sun also seems to rise out of the water that flows by near the Chesapeake Bay.
Even in the fog, the view was spectacular. The shot below shows Els, a neighbor and what the Eastern Shore folks call a 'waterman', gliding by in his fishing boat. As Eric got to know Els, he found out that he had been a navigator on a B-52 very much like the one that Eric had been a crew chief for during the Vietnam War. One day, after coming back from fishing, Els brought a huge fish over to give Eric and Carol, as they saw he had company (me) and thought we could use it. Then he opened his fish chest, and showed off an absolutely huge fish he had caught that day, that he had named Bubba.

The Eastern shore, and the water views, brought me a wonderful sense of peace. Of course it was helped along by Carol's unbelievable cooking. I just finished the book 'The United States of Arugala' and I think that Carol should have been interviewed by Craig Claiborne, from what I can tell from the book. At any rate, I did stay for Thanksgiving dinner, and Eric's son Fred and daughter Meg, along with her boy friend Dave. Unfortunately, Carols son was not able to make the trip up from DC, and her daughter and family decided to stay closer to home in New Jersey, and enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with her aunt and uncle there.

I had met Fred and Meg before, and they are wonderful kids. Fred is a computer nerd, like Jon, although I think he prefers the title IT specialist, or something like that, just as Jon prefers some obscure initials to hide the fact that he plays video solitare all day. Meg is a nurse, an EMT, and is soon to be studying for Nurse Practitioner, I think. She is a wonderful and caring young lady, and I am sure that anyone in her care will fare very well indeed. Dave is also a medical person on ambulances, so I was regaled with that special humor only folks who ride, fully conscious, in the backs of ambulances are usually able to hear. I promised I would not repeat any of their jokes or vocationally related slang vocabulary, but it was good.

Have I mentioned that Carol is a wonderful cook. Well, she is indeed, and she out did herself with preparing Thanksgiving Dinner. When I say it was Turkey with all the trimmings, I mean it had ALL the trimmings. Having been out of the states for the last 6 Thanksgivings, and not having access to turkey that we could easily prepare in our smaller than US size oven, it was wonderful to have Turkey once again.

As you can see, while Carol did the cooking, it was up to Eric to try to figure out how to carve the Turkey. It seems to me that American men should be taught in school how to do such things, as all too often the task is thrust upon us with no training whatsoever.

At any rate, following a few false starts, Eric finally got the appropriate equipment, and had at it, doing a fine job of cutting, and hiding away enough leftover to keep even me happy for a few days. And not only was there Turkey left over, but wonderful fresh pumpkin and apple pie, stuffing, oh my, I could go on and on and on. And the best thing, the thing that really makes me take my toque off to Carol, the thing that would make the heart of all Sicilians proud (although she claims no Sicilian heritage) is that she used all fresh ingredients - not a can or frozen food container to be seen anywhere. BRAVA CAROL! BRAVISSIMA!!

With that, and a truly spectacular week with them, I will leave Eric and Carol for this trip, with my heartfelt thanks. The Tuesday after Thanksgiving Eric braved the crazy traffic to the Philadelphia airport, where I was scheduled to take flights to Rahleigh Durham, on to Washington Reagan, and finally to Buffalo (you guessed it, saving two-thirds the price of a direct flight on the same airline). When I got to the airport, one of my connections was going to be late, so I was rerouted through Boston with one less flight, and landed in Buffalo four hours earlier than I had expected.

Thank you Eric and Carol for a truly wonderful stay on the Eastern Shore.