CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE: TOURING NAHFOOK

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE – TOURING NAHFOOK

Here we are docked at the Rebel Marine Service in Nahfook, Virginia, waiting out another storm front. It’s Friday, August 17, the day we planned to cruise to Deltaville, VA, but the weather forecast – and foreboding skies – kept us here. I don’t know how Romney and Ryan got in and out of Nahfook so easily. They must have some pull somewhere. Oh, they were flying? Driving? Not deterred by some bad weather? They certainly have been a lot of places since they announced their engagement. And the Admiral and I are still in Nahfook. There are worse places to be. How about Mumbai, India for one? Or anywhere in Afghanistan? Or that second level of Dante’s Hell, the marina in Melbourne, Florida, where the Dock master sends you off with some bitter invective? Yes, Nahfook is head and shoulders above those places for being stuck.

Check out the botanical gardens in Nahfook the next time you visit. The bicentennial rose garden is spectacular. I couldn’t stop playing botanical photographer for an afternoon, and I have lots of close-ups of deep red, yellow, peach, lavender, pink, and multicolored roses. What an aroma envelops you, when you’re in their midst snapping away. The botanical gardens also offer a lovely Japanese garden, a garden of perennials, a free train ride around the grounds and a boat ride through the canals of the garden. The boat ride will have to wait for our return. As I boarded, there was a thunder roar, and the boat ride was cancelled. No fried tourists on the menu at the botanical gardens café. These gardens provide a place to stroll and to meditate. Except for the leaf blowers and lawn mowers (couldn’t they do this before the gardens are open for visitors?), this place is peaceful and serene.

Here’s how the botanical gardens were started. The city manager of Nahfook during the Great Depression thought it would be a cool thing to have botanical gardens in the city. So he applied for federal government money from the WPA and he received enough to hire 200 Black women to cultivate 25 acres of soil and plant the first flowers and trees for what is now their crowning achievement. The first 25 acres of plantings spread to 175 acres, and Lord knows how big it is today. 200 Black women off the unemployment rolls, and voila! A thing of beauty that enthralls visitors to this day. Very cool, indeed. Most cities would benefit immensely from botanical gardens. I know that my gang –infested City of Salinas would be a better place to live if we had acres of trees, plants, flowers and waterways to stroll through on a daily basis. Check your guns at the entrance.

Speaking of guns, as you probably know, Virginia is one of the most “liberal” states with gun laws. I think you can buy a gun a month. So in a decade you would have an arsenal of 120 guns. At any rate, I was driving back to Slow Motion from the Chrysler Art Museum yesterday (more about that below), and the traffic was slowed down, as police stood in the road at the intersection of Tidewater and another street, directing traffic. There were police cars everywhere, and there was no sign of an auto accident. An ambulance had come and gone, and another one was on its way. I rolled down a window to hear what the pedestrians were saying – something about a shooting. Most of the police cars were in front of a hardware store, and I suspected there had been an attempted robbery of an armed hardware store owner.

But NO! This morning the news reported a double shooting at the Rite Aid pharmacy on Tidewater. Two customers were shooting at each other. Each had brought their own guns with them into the store. One was talking on his cell phone, and the other one, who died of his gunshot wounds, stepped in line to buy something. Apparently the cell phone talker thought the other guy had cut in front of him. Harsh words were exchanged. Okay, we’ve all had harsh words about cutting in line, haven’t we? It is an aggravating event, perhaps a 1 on a scale of 10, but still aggravating. In this instance, the alleged cutter pulled out a pepper spray container and sprayed the cell phone user. That’s definitely escalation beyond words. But then, the cell phone user pulled out his gun and shot the cutter several times in vital areas of his body. Not to be outdone, the cutter pulled out HIS gun and shot at the cell phone user, missing vital organs, and then the cutter fell to the floor. He didn’t make it alive to the hospital. The cell phone user faces weapons charges and a murder charge. Ah Nahfook – something is happening here, and it’s not all good all the time. Can you imagine witnessing a shootout at your local drug store? They must have been passing out tranquilizers for free to the other stunned customers. Now let’s all say it: It’s not guns that kill people. It’s people who kill people – with guns! And the guns are everywhere in Nahfook, apparently.

Still, “always look on the bright side of life.” Virginia has a budget surplus for the third year in a row – nearly a half a billion dollars. See what you can do to the “balance” the budget, when you cut off most money to schools, mental health treatment facilities and other social programs? Virginia may be facing economic disaster, if the Dems and Reps in Congress go through with their 500 billion dollar defense cuts. Virginia appears to get the lion’s share of defense contracts. At least this State depends on the defense industry much more than most. So most of the budget “surplus” is being held in reserve to somewhat cushion the blow of losing jobs related to waging war and protecting our interests in the world. And seriously, do we really need educated workers? Maybe other states can pick up the slack. Not to say that UVA and George Mason aren’t wonderful. But it’s what Virginia’s doing, or not doing, in K-12 that does not bode well for keeping jobs of the 21^st century in the Old Dominion, as opposed to outsourcing them to countries which continue to invest heartily in their public education systems. But Hey! California! Where’s your budget surplus? You have a deficit AND lousy schools! What’s your excuse?

Back to truth and beauty – The Chrysler Art Museum in downtown Nahfook. Free! Sure, there are pots to put donations in everywhere you turn. But no pressure. And the exhibits are worth a donation. First, there is the Glass Workshop building, where you can watch people fashion glass works of art. That is very neat. Then the main building has two floors packed with antiquities from the Chrysler family – no, not their Jeeps or their K-cars – real antiquities from Egypt and other parts of Africa. In addition to the art from ages ago there are visiting exhibits. Yesterday, the black and white photography of Baldwin Lee in the 1980’s in the Deep South was on display. You looked at some of these photos of wooden shacks with wringer washers on the front porch and you’d swear it had to be the 1950’s, not three decades later. But each photo had a year, and they were all from the mid-1980’s. There are really penetrating portraits of people of all ages. If you like photography, this exhibit will wow you.

There is always at least one major surprise in a museum collection for me. At Chrysler, it was in the gallery of sculptures by American sculptors. I learned about Harriet Hosmer, the sculptor of “Puck”, which made her enough money to pay off her father’s debts and to avoid bankruptcy. Here’s what I read about Ms. Hosmer:

“Harriet Hosmer flatly defied Victorian expectations for women-marriage and motherhood-and by 1860 had become one of America's premier sculptors. Working in Rome from 1852, she stood at the forefront of a famous group of expatriate American women marble sculptors whom the novelist Henry James glibly dismissed as the "white, marmorean flock." Despite such denigration, Hosmer viewed herself as an equal, if not superior, competitor in a discipline long dominated by men. Her friend, the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, called her the "perfectly emancipated female." Though Hosmer built her reputation with a number of ambitious, even monumental, sculptures (see illustration), she also made more modest "conceits," imaginative works designed solely to amuse and delight. Both Puck and Will-o-the-Wisp (on view nearby) are classic examples.”

Will everyone who has ever heard of Harriet Hosmer please step forward? Not so fast, Cathy, you’ve heard of everybody in the arts. Ms. Hosmer’s “Puck” is delightful. Word has it that one was purchased for the Prince of Wales, whoever that was in the mid-nineteenth century.

So yesterday was certainly a study in contrasts, going directly from the contemplative art museum past the scene of grotesque violence to return to the peace and quiet of Slow Motion. Except for a rattly fan in the air conditioning system, and the regular overhead noise of the helicopters, we have this place to ourselves. We’re at the farthest end of the dock, about 1/8 of a mile away from the dock master’s office and the lounge, where people congregate to drink beer and socialize. Last night there was a huge loud party at the marina next door, which I heard as I headed to and from the showers in the lounge. But at our tie-up, the night was silent. We enjoyed our hoagies from WaWa in solitude. The Admiral is in seventh heaven since he discovered WaWa earlier in the week and ordered 3 Italian classics. I brought home three more Italian classics yesterday. He’s already had two, but he’s talking about needing to make one more trip to WaWa before we leave Nahfook.

Simple pleasures – a WaWa hoagie, a hot shower, a day with less than 90% humidity, reading Royal’s editorials in the Herald, exchanging emails – and off course, cruising in Slow Motion. Only when the weather is safe and the navigation charts are true is travel in Slow Motion “simple”, but it is always a pleasure. I can’t wait to get back to it.

And if I could give you all just one piece of friendly advice: Don’t cut in line – ever. Especially in Nahfook.