“One had to go back several steps, and start again; and know the place for the first time.” ~ John Fowles, The Magus
These next few entries in Good Stuff are my travel diaries of a trip I took with the kids in early October 2017. We visited many of the places I lived growing up and some other places that are part of Fenton history. I guess a kind of bucket list trip.
October 7, 2017: Day 1, Annapolis Maryland. My father Richard and his brother Charles attended the Naval Academy and subsequently went off to WWII with the Navy, Richard on a PT Boat and Charles on an aircraft carrier. My grandfather, Horace Jewel Fenton, taught constitutional law at the Academy at a time long ago when civilians were permitted to teach there. Richard and Charles were born in Annapolis as was my brother John. Our roots run deep and wide, there on the shores of the Chesapeake.
My intention on this stop was to stroll the streets of Annapolis and have an early dinner at one of the wonderful seafood restaurants. Alas, ‘the best laid plans’ as someone once theorized. There was a boat show that day plus a football game and hence nary a parking spot nor hotel room to be found.
Instead we found lodging over near Fort Meade Maryland, a place of Fentonian fame in the 50’s because the three Fenton boys would Schwinn madly around the base, watchful of military vehicles. Back in the present, the lady at the hotel front desk told us that she was from Annapolis, but that she hated the traffic on event days which seem to occur with greater frequency each year. The purity of the mental image of Annapolis thus crashed headlong into reality of modern life, with its frustrations and tensions and lack of parking.
The hotel manager suggested instead that we try heading east over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and sample the seafood at Harris’ Crab House in Grasonville, Maryland. We did just that very thing and it was wonderful, sitting outside and watching gulls soar hopefully past with a floating armada of ducks below. We listened to the lap of waves against the hulls of moored vessels, a symphony poised between nature and design. The Chesapeake Bay engages the senses and reminds us of our connection with the sea and the mutinous bounty she offers.
On the way back to Fort Meade we still had light so decided to press our luck and head over to Laurel Maryland, the place the three brothers – John, Bill and Mike – grew up and where we lived for nearly ten years. This living arrangement was strange as I think back on it. We occupied a big old house on a US Department of Agriculture government compound out on Maryland 197 between Laurel and Bowie. My father worked there in the 50’s doing forest product research for the US Forest Service. We left Laurel in 1961. In late afternoon on this day in 2017 I find myself standing before the entrance to the research center, fronting a road now called Loblolly Pine Drive. The research center signage has grown old and faded and overgrown with bushes and vines. On one side it is missing altogether.
At some unknown point in the past a gate had been added with a warning that this was Property of the US Government and that trespassing was not allowed. I toyed with the idea of going in anyway and risking the threat of black helicopters suddenly descending to take us into custody, never to be heard from again. We decided not to chance it on this day, but as it turned out we would be given another opportunity thanks to the analytical mind of Matthew. Stay tuned.
Day One was a long one, but we know that tomorrow will be longer still as we head north to the tiny hamlet of New Lisbon, New Jersey, through New York and on to New Haven and Yale University.
whoisfenton 