Some Cats Swim and Other Tales of the Chesapeake Bay by Susan G Holland
originally posted in July 13, 2007 in South Jersey Kitchen Garden blog ©SGHolland
This is a very early boat ride my father gave his mother on the Chesapeake.
Listening to tales of my father’s family camping trips on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake never got tiresome.
The old tent — sand colored canvas with a heavy metal skeleton, a proper ridge pole and the odors of many summers embedded into its huge expanses — sometimes came out of the attic and we would spend a good two or more hours setting it up on the back yard.
My brother and I would sleep for a week or so outside with the night air slightly scented with old mosquito netting and attic must, hearing peepers and imagining ourselves deep in the Maryland woods.
”NEVER, NEVER, NEVER touch the inside of the canvas when it’s raining!” my father instructed my brother and me.
This rule was crucial! If you disturbed the surface tension of the water outside the canvas, a leak would find its way through the fabric and you would have ruined the integrity of your shelter. The leak would grow and you would not be able to stop it. (My brother and I surreptitiously tested this one night, and it was true. Happily the rain stopped and the tent dried out and our experiment stayed a secret from our father.)
There were still a few of the wood and canvas cots that my grandparents and their children used. They would take a month off in summer when my granddad got his vacation from his assistant postmaster’s job in Easton MD, and haul tent, duffel, food, straw, sawdust, ice, tools,shovel, boat, and their cat down to the side of the bay. Sometimes my grandmother’s sister and her family would come along, and often my father’s sister and her family would come. All told there were anywhere from seven to twelve people who enjoyed these outings together. The tent was large.
My Dad told about the big job of immediately digging two large deep pits at the site. One pit was lined with straw and sawdust and packed with ice. The food was then stored there, butter, dairy products and meat nearest the ice, and the pit sealed up with a snug-fitting door that could be removed as necessary by my grandmother, one of the celebrated cooks in our family history.
The other pit was set well away from the prevailing wind in the woods: the latrine.The tent was pitched and staked very securely (the Chesapeake Bay can kick up terrible storms at times) and I am sure the set up of camp and kitchen was quite enough for the first day of camping. Food prepared with fresh supplies always tastes wonderful alfresco. The cots placed into the tent military style around the side with an aisle in the center for walking in and out must have felt very good on the first night of camping.
Dad’s boy cousin and he would take the outrigger canoe out on the water and hoist the sail. I have not seen any photos of this boat, but they said that there was some sort of outrigger assembly on it that allowed some very sporty sailing if you got a good breeze into the large sails.
This link shows the kind of boat they sailed. I think the family boat was a smaller version, but I’m not sure, and it’s too late to ask!! Alas.
The story was that the family cat would come with them on the boat, and then swim in when it got tired of being at sea. It would just jump overboard and paddle itself back to shore. I always suspected that the cat did not OFTEN come with them but I may be wrong. (wouldn’t a cat worry about being left alone on shore with his family setting off in a boat?)
The boom was low to the deck on this boat and another story was that my father, at the helm, yelled to his cousin “Duck!” as they were coming about. The cousin looked all around, saying “where?” and got bopped off into the water. Big goose egg. Serious lesson.
This and other stories were corroborated later when the grown-ups would reminisce at family gatherings about the camping days — storms, jelly fish infestations, fresh crabs, baby bluefish, all of it.
I always wondered what it was like at the end of that month of camping.
Surely there were smells that were not all that inviting — from the clothes washed in brackish bay water and never quite dried out in summer humidity; from musty blankets on the cots, and bits of mold brought into the tent on rainy days. From odd bits in the fire pit and food locker — now holding few rations not spoiled — the butter rancid, meat gone, the fruit a bit soft and bruised, potatoes gamy. And…the pit in the woods not keeping its atmosphere to itself.
The parents must have looked forward to the springiness and the pressed linens of proper beds in the big house in Easton Maryland. My grandfather may have enjoyed the prospect of getting back to his routine at the post office.
I think the boys may not have been so glad to pull the boat out of the water. They might have stayed neck deep in bay water until the last minute before the move back home began. The cat may have been hard to find. But I am certain it did not get left behind.
Then I visualize them piling out of the funny old car, rumpled and sticky and tan, glad to see the maid they loved waiting with something cool to drink on the table. My grandfather reminding the kids that they must unload and hang out the tent to air, to put the laundry by the cellar door, and hurry up and take a bath.
And I am sure the cat found a heavenly spot somewhere quiet and had a nap.
(I still have a small square of that tent canvas — ragged and really soft and stained — a piece my dad cut out when they moved from our house and had to get rid of stuff. He kept it with his emergency toolbox in case he had to lie down under the car. I keep it with my garden tools for much the same purpose. Or just for looking at.)
Green Thumb (pen name for blog at SouthJerseyKitchenGarden dot com.)
Susan Holland
Originally published at southjerseykitchengarden.blogspot.com on February 27, 2017.
