What's Up Magazines

The Root Cellar | Eastern Shore | June 2009

By Anna Ratdke

Maryland, My Maryland! by James Ryder Randall

Official state song

I hear the distant thunder-hum,

    Maryland!

The Old Line's bugle, fife, and drum,

    Maryland!

She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb - 

    Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum!

She breathes! she burns! she'll come! she'll come!

    Maryland! My Maryland!

Maryland, My Maryland by John T. White

Proposed replacement song

In twain the Chesapeake divides
Maryland, my Maryland,
While oceanward its water glides,
Maryland, my Maryland.

Yet we in thought and purpose one,
Pursue the work so well begun,
And may our state be ne'er outdone,
Maryland, my Maryland.

Maryland's State Song

For nearly 150 years, Maryland has “spurn[ed] the Northern scum” – at least to those who know the lyrics of our state song. Since 1974, legislators have attempted to change the lyrics of the state ditty from James Ryder Randall’s Maryland, My Maryland to the words of a poem of the same name by John T. White. In February, Delegate Pam Beidle initiated the most recent effort, House Bill 1241. The current lyrics support the Confederacy and suggest that Maryland retaliate against the Union. They call Lincoln a despot and tyrant and have especially been criticized in conjunction with Lincoln’s 200th birthday celebration. In a press release, Beidle stated that her interest in the state song peaked in response to letters she received from Glen Burnie Elementary School fourth graders. After learning about the state song, they called it “disgusting,” “inappropriate,” and “violent.” The new lyrics, if accepted, focus less on Civil War-era history and Maryland’s allegiance to the Confederacy. Instead, they call attention to its beautiful landscape and proud citizens. If enacted, Maryland would follow in Virginia and Pennsylvania’s footsteps as states that have changed their songs.

America's Coolest Small Towns

Budget Travel, a national magazine with a self-evident focus, hosts a yearly contest to name "America's Coolest Small Town." The magazine's criteria stipulates that nominees be towns with populations under 10,000 that are "on the upswing." Careful! The magazine is quick to clarify "cool doesn't mean quaint. We want towns with an edge. Think avant-garde galleries, not country stores." And while that qualification would seem to lean more to the West Coast beach towns, the biking communities of the Pacific North West, and the hipster outposts of the North East than to the modest sensibilities of Chesapeake Country small towns, the Eastern Shore represented well on the magazine's initial nominees of America's 22 coolest towns. Berlin, Md. made the cut, described by Budget Travel as a place where "outdoor opportunities abound" a mere "seven miles inland of the Atlantic Ocean." Onancock, Va., passed the cool test too, described as a "charming waterfront village at the edge of Onancock Creek." Spanning the country, other nominees included seafood-hub Port Royal, S.C., historical New England hideaway Rockland, Maine, Yellowstone outskirt Dubois, Wyo., coastal Nor Cal hamlet Guerneville, Cal., and Ozark Mountain-village Eureka Springs, Ark. Official voting ended on April 13, with Owego, NY, a small town on the Susquehanna River, taking first place. Onancock finished in sixth place, good for number one among southern towns. Pretty cool, huh?

It's a UFO, it's a Russian Rocket, it's a Meteor

At nearly 10 p.m. on Sunday, March 29, people from North Carolina to New Jersey reported a bright flash of light streaking through the sky, followed shortly thereafter by a thunderous sound. The next day, a spokesman for the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. said the fireball and its subsequent "sonic boom" were caused by a booster from a Russian rocket falling back to Earth. Pretty cut and dry explanation, right? Conspiracy theorists and U.F.O. enthusiasts received the convoluted scenario they desire one day later, on March 31, when the Joint Space Operations Center at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, which tracks nearly 20,000 manmade objects in space, said the light in the sky was not caused by any trackable manmade object on reentry. The most likely scenario now identifies the object as a meteor, though that remains unconfirmed. And as uncertainty fuels speculation, you can imagine that U.F.O. blogs are abuzz over what is now, literally, an unidentified flying object.

A Community 100 Years in the Making

It was 1889 when Robert and Amanda Dixon envisioned a home where senior women from the Shore could live in privacy and comfort. Community members came together, and, in 1902, successfully incorporated The Home of the Aged of Talbot County. The Dixon's purchased a lot in downtown Easton and began construction on the object of their desires the following year, completing the Victorian home that still stands on the site somewhere between 1903 and 1910 (the date of completion is unknown, though a photo marked 1910 shows the completed home with residents grouped around the front porch). During the year the photograph was taken, the home changed its name to Home of the Aged Women of Talbot and Caroline Counties. It was 74 years later (1984) when the home's board of directors voted to commemorate its founders by changing the name to The Dixon House. The board voted to allow male residents the same year. So, for over 100 years—five residents were housed by a community volunteer while the home was under construction—The Dixon House has provided safety and comfort from senior citizens from the Mid-Shore and beyond. Local history lives in the most conspicuous of places.

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