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Saturday, July 5, 2008

Comments on Cape Charles - 11 September 2004

Did you know that you can go the length of Cape Charles taking pictures on a Saturday afternoon and see almost no people. Well, I can. That is, there were no people ‘til I used up all the space on my camera card and found I’d left my spare at home. I headed back through the town and it was full of people. Ah yes, it had to be something, it wasn’t raining!

I apologize! I’ve really dragged my feet on Cape Charles. Just could not make myself finish it. And it isn’t finished yet. There are four more pictures I want to take. (Would’a had ‘em, too, except for that camera card.)

I’ve given this ‘feet dragin’ thing a bit of thought and I’ve realized that I’m just not wild about Cape Charles. It’s the cash flow mentality. There will always be people who believe that if enough cash flows out of their pockets, then they can own anything. And that’s what’s important to them. Lot of folks in Cape Charles just like that. Not everyone there is like that, but enough to give it an uneasy feel. This is surely part of the reason this page has been so difficult to wrap myself around.

I’ve listened to a number of Shore people talking about Cape Charles in the last few years. It always seems to be like, “That town’s lost”, jokes like, “Well, Cape Charles’ been sold”.

I realize that Cape Charles has never been an Eastern Shore town in the true, best sense of the word. It has always been a ‘city’ type town and not a country town and as such, disassociated from the ‘Shore’ and ‘Shore’ people. And while there have been a number of heinous things done by the current crop of ‘cash flow dandies’ that sadden me, I have to say that it could be worse. They have not torn down very much yet (covered some things up, though) and a number of their ‘improvements’ have not been, well, improvements.

I think Cape Charles has a ‘greed rash’ (that’s what you get when you, accidentally or on purpose, spill money on politics). And I have decided that much of the feeling of Eastern Shore people about Cape Charles is rooted in the feeling one has for any rash. It’s uncomfortable and they don’t want it to spread!

Before everybody in Cape Charles gets together and strings me up from their fancy water tower, please know that I believe this also: There are a whole lot of good people in Cape Charles. And some of them are working really hard to make sure the changes there are good ones. One of the things that I surely applaud is all the work and expense and caring that has gone into preserving the old homes and the old architecture. It isn’t cheap and it isn’t easy or convenient. Those people have gone ‘over and above’. Thank you all for that.

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