October 30, 2000
From New England we headed South for our winter "jobs", stopping in Virginia to visit friends Eric and Martha Anderson. They are about the "oldest" friends we have. Eric was hired to replace me when in 1974 I was being transferred from Sacramento to Seattle. During his training, we became friends and shortly after Barb and I left for the Pacific Northwest they followed us. Eric had decided to go to graduate school, and one of the schools he was accepted to was the University of Washington. We all enjoy the outdoors and had fun the next 3 years or so exploring the northwest and doing a lot of sailing.
The Andersons live in Norfolk, and it's a pretty old town. Impressive church steeples add a lot of beauty to the landscape. We were enjoying a street fair that included lots of local artists and of course, the variety of foods that these events attract. Martha was out of town visiting her new niece (and brother and his wife) so we had Eric to ourselves for a day and a half.
So, we did what we've always done together. We went exploring. First to the street fair, and then to the harbor at what's called "Waterside".
Well, it's posing time. On the left we have two couples. One couple includes a very tall buxom woman with a short portly gentleman. The other couple has a short not-very-buxom woman with a very tall gentleman. On the right, I think I'm in love. She never even flinched when I put my arm around her. There must be over 300 of these mermaids all over Norfolk. Each one is painted differently or doing something different. It's as though these mermaids are the city's logo or something. Really fun to find them in different places.
There had been a race from Baltimore to Norfolk for schooners. The boats, not the beer glasses. Both Eric and I love schooners. Both the boats and the beer glasses, but we're going to try to focus our attention on the boats here. There were 39 that participated, and there were several of historical note, several that were recently built on traditional lines, and several that are used for classrooms for various organizations. Most of them however, are in private hands and used for private enjoyment. There was quite a party going on called the "Awards Ceremony" where plenty of schooners were hoisted, and I'm not being very attentive here, am I. Anyhow, it was noisy with plenty of applause and laughter. We weren't invited to the party, but we were privileged to walk about and drool on most of the competing boats/yachts. And true to form, I took a whole bunch of pictures of different boats, different artwork on the bow sprits, highly varnished dorade boxes, etc., etc. The only pictures I'll foist on you will be of the Californian, since I'm one of those. And better yet, this boat's hailing port is Sacramento where I was born! Eric was getting an earful of the difference between a Brigantine rig and a Topsail rig from a fellow with a decidedly British accent. The fellow thought it was "jolly good" that I was from Sacramento.
Hummmm. I didn't realize there was so much red around when I snapped a shot of our friends. Martha had come back Sunday about noon, we picked her up and after a brief stay at their home we were off to an oyster roast, held at a local yacht club. Now, Eric is an economics professor at Old Dominion University there in Norfolk, and while we'd done a good deal of sailing together we'd never really done any yacht club stuff together. I wasn't at all sure what he'd gotten us into. Barb and I have had some experience in the yacht club arena, and have found there are essentially two kinds of clubs. The kind where you can't gain admittance to an affair if you're wearing the wrong color tie, or shoes, or whatever, and the kind where all they really care about is how well you handle your boat and how willing you are to better your handling skills. We've belonged to the latter and attended several events at the former. We had no idea what to expect at this event, but were very happy and comfortable with what we found. Turns out that the woman who had invited them (a friend of Martha's from church) was a recent retiree from HUD, just like Barb. She'd worked in DC, and Barb knew her name and was pretty sure they'd met, although they worked in different areas. We called her Pris, and she was very gracious about Barb and I "crashing" the party. It was a fund raiser of some sort, and while I didn't try the oysters, the stew, soup, baked beans and steamer clams were great.
There is some "stuff" hiding the name of the band that was playing. It reads, "ANCHANT LIZARDS" and the bass player is a fellow professor friend of Eric's. Very, very casual party, and we were made to feel quite comfortable very quickly.
And after this they took us back to our rig and we left the next morning for Avon Park where we are now.
This is scary! I have no more pictures waiting to be sorted and no more stories to try to remember about where we've been. Am I really caught up? Well, rest assured that I'll take the camera out with me this afternoon as we put the boat into the lake and go fishing and bird-watching, and tomorrow I'll have something to add. Seems the Air Force put the base on "lockdown" and nobody is going anywhere, so we won't be needed until Thursday or even Friday. Dang shame, eh?