On Second Street

This is the main street of Lewes, Delaware. It's about three blocks of shops, restaurants, small bars and my friend Amy's bakery and coffee roastery.

That's the Rose and Crown across the way, there in the Walsh Building. It's modeled after a traditional English pub. It reflects our ties with Lewes, in England (our sister city, I think).

Second Street represents that small-town, mixed-use ideal that planners are trying to regain. Those are apartments and offices upstairs from the restaurants and retail. It is possible to live on this street and work here, eat here, and get a cafe mocha too.

I had the pleasure of living in a small apartment above a store down at the other end of the street in the year before Karen and I got married. When we maried, we moved into an apartment above a store the next street over.

I do sometimes regret that my State job, in Dover, keeps me from spending my days here. When Cafe Azafran installs their WiFi system, I may try to establish a Lewes branch of the State Planning Office.

Just a thought.....

Remembering A Neighbor

This is Mary Vessels Memorial Park, a pocket park nestled between Second Street and Front Street in Downtown Lewes.


This is where you wander to sit and eat your King's Ice Cream when the porch in front of King's is too full on soft summer evenings.

Mary Vessels lived in the old Hall House across from our first house, on East Third Street in Downtown Lewes. We knew her for several years in the early 90's. She was a pleasant woman and a good neighbor. She passed away unexpectedly, and too young, at about the time that we had our first child and started looking for a larger home and ended up settling further towards the edge of town.

The Park was named in her honor a short time later.

A great pleasure of life in a town like Lewes is that every spot has history, people, and memories tied to it. As the people of the town, we're the links between those places and their stories. It's our responsibility to keep those memories alive; to keep the town connected to its past.

Feeling Blue? Why Not Go Purple?

They are repainting the Harvard House, in Downtown Lewes.

This is an historic (more or less) Victorian, next to the Buttery Restaurant on Savannah Road. Several years back it stopped being a residence and became an office. It was painted that nice blue you see up there where "Harvard House" is written.

It looks like it is changing hands and is being repainted purple; the purple you see up at the top.

My own jury is out on that color.

Reaching Out to Those Who Need It?

Originally uploaded by mmahaffie.

Karen was the first one to spot this. The sign in front of the Baptist Church at the entrance to our part of town now seems to announce that the church has started offering services at 2 in the morning.

My first thought was, "what a great outreach to those who stay out late drinking in the bars of Lewes on Saturday nights. Just think how many conversions and life-changes this new set of services may bring, as lost souls stumble in in the wee small hours?"

But Karen, ever thorough, read on and claims that the next line of text suggests that rather than offering 2:00 a.m. services, the church is telling us that it now offers two AM services -- 8:30 and 11:00.

I don't know; 2:00 a.m. services may be just the thing we need.

Can I Get a Wake-Up Call?

Today we got a letter from the Lewes Board of Public Works, the elected body responsible for lights, water and sewer services here in the first town in the first state.

Connectiv Power Delivery, with the permission of The City of Lewes, has scheduled a power outage of the Lewes tap for April 18, 2005, from Midnight to approximately 5:00 a.m. (rain date April 19th) to relocate Connectiv's electric transmission pole on Savannah Road near Quaker Road.

There's more, of course (Police are ready, Fire Department and 911 Centers notified, etc.) but that sentence is the meat of the thing: Midnight to just before dawn, on a Monday morning, no power.

Okay. I understand that every once in a while we have to do without for a bit to make it possible to maintain the infrastructure we depend on. But midnight to dawn on a Monday morning? Why not Friday night to Saturday morning? Why not Saturday afternoon?

A great many of the folks in this town are retired, but Karen and I have to get up on Monday mornings. In fact, she usually gets up first, at around 5:00 a.m. Then I get up. Then she gets the girls up. Then we eat breakfast and head out for work and school.

It all starts with an alarm clock.

A modern, electric alarm clock.

I guess what we'll do is leave all the lights, and radios, turned on when we go to bed. Or, more likely, we'll get up at about 11:45 Sunday night and turn them on. Then we'll lie awake hoping they get the power back on by 5:00, which is when we need to get started.

Of course Murphy's Law suggests two possible outcomes.

1. The Connectiv crew is quick and, just as we hit deep-REM sleep at about 3:00 a.m., the lights and radios come blasting on, terrifying the cats who spring from the bed using our arms or faces as a handy, soft launching pads into which to sink their claws, and leaving us groping for the lights that blind us; or
2. The Connectiv crew hits unforeseen snags and the power is still out at 8:00 a.m. when we slowly emerge from our deep, refreshing slumbers only to realize that we're hopelessly late, we'll never make to work on time, we'll lose our jobs, and our girls will never, ever get to Harvard.

Or maybe it'll be fine. But, still... Midnight to dawn on a Monday morning?

Post-Vacation Thoughts #3

When we landed in the Bahamas, we were at a very tourist-y port, Nassau; a place that derives most of its economic activity from tourism. When we left the ship we were almost immediately accosted from all sides by friendly people who simply wanted to sell us something; some service (hair braiding), some craft, some transportation, or some essential commodity (like bottled water).

We come from a tourist area. We live in the eastern part of Sussex County, which also derives much of its economic vitality from its tourist season. So why don’t we, here in coastal Sussex, take such direct entrepreneurial action? Why not wait at the end of Rehoboth Avenue for the buses from the Park-n-Ride with handicrafts, bottled water, beach chairs and Pedi cabs?

I’m tempted to say “licensing,” but many of the entrepreneurs we saw in Nassauappeared to be working within an organized, perhaps government licensed, structure. Some were outside that structure and had a more fly-by-night attitude, but most were working within either a traditional or a government-mandated structure that seemed to function fairly well.

Maybe it is the case that such direct, clear appeals to basic needs are outside of what are the accepted norms of politeness in this country. We perceive ourselves to be more restrained and so we invent more restraints on trade, on public displays of affection, and on our approach to selling stuff.

We’re no less interested in selling stuff; we just have some cultural need to always look like we’re not selling stuff.

A Spray of Some Sort of Flower

A Spray of Some Sort of Flower,
originally uploaded by mmahaffie.

This is another image from our trip. I have created an account on Flickr to post some photos when I feel I have good ones. I'll let that be where I publish the "arty" shots.

Of course I will continue to post shots here for story-telling purposes and will cross-post from time to time.

In this case, who can tell me what this flower is? I haven't a clue.

Some Images from a Quick Spring Vacation

Karen, the girls and I have just returned from a 4-day cruise to the Bahamas and Key West, out of Miami. A fine time was had by all. We were broiled by the sun and are still somewhat fried by travel. Here are a few scenes from our week in the tropics.

We sailed on the Majesty of the Seas, part of the Royal Caribbean fleet. We planned our trip late and ended up on about the lowest level of the ship, but were comfortable and glad to be there.


Our favorite part of the ship was the pool deck (Deck 11 out of 13).


Our first stop was at Nassau, in the Bahamas. That's not our ship in the background; it's one of four that were in the harbor that day.

We took a tour of a nearby reef in a semi-submersible version of a glass-bottomed boat. It wasn't great for taking photos, but we got a neat look at some sea life and enjoyed a cruise through Nassau Harbor.

We had a short time to explore the town. This included being mass-accosted by folks offering everything from taxi rides to hand-crafts to hair-braiding. We opted for the latter for the girls and spent an hour in a pleasant pavilion by the port entrance, watching the other tourists pass by while the girls were braided.


Colleen and Karen shared a quiet moment while Christina was being braided.

We also took a bus tour of Nassau, and stopped at the remains of a colonial fort at the top of the Island.


It gave a great view of the flotilla of cruise ships in the harbor.

Our next stop, after an overnight cruise, was at "Coco Cay" one of the smaller islands of the Bahamas that has been taken over as a private retreat by Royal Caribbean for its guests. It was originally Little Stirrup Cay and features pleasant beaches and broad, shallow reef areas.


That's our ship in the background. The foreground is entirely taken up by our fellow sun-worshipers.

We took a kayak tour of the waters around the Cay and saw stingrays, conches, sea cucumbers, starfish, and a great many finned fish. We also were visited by a single nurse shark which cruised directly beneath Karen and Colleen's kayak while Christina urged me -- as captain of the kayak we shared -- to keep a certain distance from the beast.


Colleen and Christina were determined to get in some Caribbean swimming, and they did.


We had a nice view of our ship on the shuttle-boat trip back from the Cay to where the Majesty of the Seas was anchored.

On board, we were delighted to settle-in late each evening for a form of dining we don't usually enjoy. We were in the second seating of dinner, and so ate at 8:30 each evening; past Christina's usual bedtime and very nearly past our fall-asleep-on-the-couch time as well. Still, we had great companions and wonderful service and we ate like kings, queens and princesses each night.


Our dinner-time crowd (from left): Davide and Veronica (newlyweds from Mexico), Christina, Colleen, Mr. Wayan (of Bali), Adrian Golinschi (of Romania), Karen, yours truly, and Tam and Angel (newlyweds from Florida).

Our next port of call was Key West, where our ship loomed over another tourist-filled port area.



Our planned outing here was canceled when the sailing catamaran that was to take us out for an afternoon of snorkeling broke down at the dock, but we took a walk through town to a nearby State Park for a swim.


There are some lovely places in this little town.





And that was the end of our Cruise.

Post-Vacation Thoughts #2

The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) has earned some respect -- at least from me -- in the past week.

As much as I hate the fact that we've come to the state where we need a TSA, I have to say they did a good job in the airports in which I encountered them on our vacation.

We flew out of BWI on Easter Sunday. It was crowded and there was a long line to get to the security check. But the staff there was courteous and helpful and made it fairly painless to get my two kids through the checkpoint without apparently sacrificing the actual security check.

At Miami Airport at the end of the week I was pleased to see a TSA staffer go out of his way to help us out. We were stuck in front of an airport map, trying to figure out how best to kill several hours before our flight, when a TSA guy came over with advice on what eateries were in the airport and where we could comfortably settle for a while.

We were nowhere near a TSA checkpoint and he was on his way somewhere else. His stopping by was entirely out of friendliness and a desire to help out some regular folks.

You can't buy the good will that is generated by that sort of simple courtesy.

Post-Vacation Thoughts #1

I made a conscious effort over the last week to disconnect entirely; from work, from thinking about work, and from the web. I believe we have to cut ourselves off from time to time to renew and refresh.

I think it was a successful effort. We did occasionally tune in to Headline News on board our cruise to follow major developments in the Terri Schiavo story and in the Pope's health. But I gave no mental energy to work or to the web and I feel better for it.

Of course, as soon as I arose this morning, I was back on-line... but I can claim that I took a week off.