God, did I ever love the Chesapeake Bay. Not that I ever actually went out on it much, but man… [see header image, above]
When I was still a lad, measured by the ability to stand on the driveshaft hump behind the front seat and just see over the top, we used to take the ferry to over to the Eastern Shore from past Annapolis. In the summer, there’d be cars backed up on the highway as far as you could see, mostly with their engines off. Here and there, fathers would get out, peer down the road to see if anything was moving, and wipe their faces with their handkerchiefs in the stifling, muggy heat. There were at least two ferries going back and forth in opposite directions, but they had several miles to go. If you missed your boat, you’d have to wait a while. I remember what a relief it was to finally get on board, not just for the hot dogs and sodas we could buy on the upper deck, but for the shocking coolness of the breeze once the boat got underway.
A few years later, yet a whelp, I was standing with my uncle and my father on pier in Rock Hall, looking out at the brand new Bay Bridge way off in the distance, amazingly visible at that time. I must have wondered why I couldn’t see the other side, because I remember one of them explaining the curvature of the earth. The reason the bridge was so high was cool, too, I thought: the battleship Missouri, largest in the fleet at that time, had to make it under the span.
A couple decades later, I showed up to live there, met my future wife, and had a glorious 25 years before they epoxied the past and Dick Cheney moved in. During that time the powers that be concocted one of the greatest real estate scams in American history, all under the cloak of conservation. The Critical Areas legislation’s ostensible purpose was to limit the density of waterfront development, and for all I know it’s probably done so. it also helped cause the value of existing waterfront to skyrocket, while at the same time allowing for all kinds of variances, exemptions, and the like. Fewer deals, more bucks. A LOT more bucks. Don’t take my word on the details, it’s emotional history for me. But the law never seemed to actually stop anything that I was freaked out over, and the big-money boys had grabbed the marsh. You can see where I’m going with this, maybe.
All the while, nobody gave a shit about shit. Still don’t, as far as I know. Global warming isn’t the only science under denial. Back on the Shore, it was excess nitrogen from septic tanks and chicken farms. All this beat-the-drums for “Save the Bay,” and every time you flush, you shoot yourself in the foot. Beats me silly.
I figure this nonsense works with humans because we just don’t live that long. When I was barely able to walk, people rowed just offshore at places like Tochester Beach [header image], grabbed crabs off the bottom with a dip net on a pole, and boiled them up for a feast right there on the sand. They don’t do that now because there are hardly any crabs and the bay is muddy green (those go together). Kids grow up today, that’s the color water is.
Tell me again how long we got.
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