Come walk with me

We've had such a cold winter I have not spent much time out doors - especially the past few weeks when I've had -itises laying me low. But yesterday the temperatures rose up to the high 40's and the hint of sunshine tempted me outside for a walk around town during my lunch break. Camera in hand, jacket zipped up tight, I strolled around my pretty little colonial port town. This is a view of the river and bridge - at the end of Marsh Street. Legend has it that here is where Old Man Hobbes drowned in a deep spot, or 'hole', in the river - whence the name Hobbes Hole (or as Cousin' Charlie used to say 'Hobbes His Hole') ... which is better than New Plymouth but not nearly as wonderful as Tappahannock - an old Powhatan word meaning "where the waters rise and fall" or, to translate loosely: "Tidewater". Pretty, no?

In wintertime I can always be inspired by the bare branches of crossing tree limbs. Inspired to invent a cable pattern that looks like tree branches. It would be long and tedious to map it out - and you'd  probably have to do it on something big, to show off the abstract shape ... but ... wouldn't it be wonderful?'

You just never know what help is out there, till you go looking. I never did know what the building this sign hangs on was built for but it's used now as a church.

Any town that's 300+ years old is going to be dotted with cemeteries. 

This one is the Brockenbrough cemetery and it's fitting that the building it nestles up to is now used as our county museum and historical society headquarters. It once was the post office which is why there are bars on the windows. 

Austina here didn't live very long - about 42 years. 

At the far end of Water Lane (Eddie Hutchinson used to call it Widder Lane) is Hoskins Creek. BD is a Hoskins. BH is too. She and I maintain the database and address book for the Hoskins Reunion held every August. But there's nobody named Hoskins still living in Essex. The beach along the horizon is where BD and I camped on someone's cottage porch one summer a gazillion years ago. Don't suppose you could do that any more. An advantage of being old - we get to have such cool memories. 

More than a cemetery - this is St. John's Episcopal Church - where family lies. Along with Croxtons and Beales are these two crosses - marking beloved family members. 

Aunt T and Mimi. Grandma's aunt and first cousin. Both gone before I came into the family but who had such a powerful impact on BD I feel as if I know them both. 

Aunt T was Martha Waring Wright and somewhat late in life she married Judge Blakey - who's brother told Teddy Rosevelt, when they bumped into each other in the Capitol, one day, that he was going home, to carry Jamaica against the President, as any good southerner would, being Blue Dog Democrats, in the upcoming election. I understand, though, they were good friends. 

The walk back comes up Cross Street with a view of both the old library (with it's own cemetery where once, while at work, I watched a full military funeral, complete with bugle and rifle volleys) and the new one.

So. Next time you're driving down (or up) Highway 17 - stop in and say hello.