Delmar DustPan

Again this year I had a hoard of children beggin for candy. The night was warm so there were more of them then last year. The most popular costume was pirates and fairy princesses. Instead of trick or treat I got a lot of pirate lingo of Arrr! and Arrgh! which seems to mean Trick or Treat or I will burn your house down. Halloween started with the Celtic Druids around 700BC. It was believed that on the last day of the Celtic year (October 31) evil spirits and the dead roamed the earth and worked mischief among the living. If the living dressed up as a someone else than they could live safely thru the night. Now I can't imagine the Irish in 700 BC having enough clothes to dress up as someone else. Irish Catholics fleeing from the potato famine in the 1840s introduced the Halloween observance to the United States, including the Jack O Lantern which was used to frighten the spirits and protect the household. So tonight we had candy for bribes and our Jack O Lanterns were carved and I awaited for the evil dwarfs that appeared at our door.

My oldest daughter who graduated last Spring from the University of Delaware is going thru withdrawal tonight. Halloween at a college campus is one big party with preparations for it going on for a month before it arrives. So for four years it was big time. It's hell entering adulthood.

I understand the High School was open tonight for Trick or Treat. I have never walked thru the High School on Trick or Treat night as the distribution of duties on Halloween has always been I stay home and pass out candy and my wife takes the kids Trick or Treating.

Back in the 1950's and 1960's Delmar would have a large Halloween party uptown. It would attract between a thousand to three thousand people. I suppose the High School event has taken the place of this party.

I had 106 trick or treaters tonight from 6PM to 8PM. The number I have each year varies depending on the weather and if the High School is having a Trick or Treat night. I actually get more on the nights the High School has their candy night. I suppose the closer you are to the HIgh School the more visitors you get. Some Trick or Treat numbers from past years are;
2005 75
2004 62
2003 67
2002 43
2001 89
2000 118
1999 127
1998 61
1997 77
1996 44
1995 34
1994 112
1993 103
1993 89

Let me say, before I begin on my comments regarding the Joint Council Meeting, I have the beginnings of a cold so for the most part the Joint Council meeting was just a large droning headache. I am afraid I did not capture much of the subdue nuances going on.

The meeting started out with Bonnie Luna and Rick Pollitt, Maryland political candidates, giving a brief speech on their positions in their race for office. Nothing outstanding came from either one. Maryland Mayor Niblett did ask Rick Pollitt his position on double taxation. He said he was in favor of giving the town a rebate on over lapping services and if elected would try to put it on the agenda of Wicomico County. The question of double taxation is like a race bias question, it depends on where you are sitting as to your view of it. The idea is; citizens of incorporated towns pay for many of the services already provided by the County, yet they receive a lower benefit from County services than citizens of other areas paying the same level of taxes because city services have displaced the need for county services. The Town should receive a rebate on County Taxes paid as they are paying for the same services twice. Actually the taxpayer should receive the rebate but I am sure it will if it ever comes to past, it will be returned to the Towns and not individual taxpayers. I think the whole idea is foolish as once you leave the town limits you are in the County and as such you are using County services. It is also the same argument people who home school make in regards to paying school taxes.

Delaware Mayor Outten said he had been working thru informal meetings with the Blackwater Creek Developer and when the next Sussex County Council meeting addresses Blackwater Creek again he plans to attend. As you know Blackwater Creek is a proposed development that will consist of 1,179 homes and be built west of town around the intersection of Route 54 and Road 504. It will not be in the town limits, but will have an impact on facilities in town from the Post Office to the school.

Comment: A number of years back Sussex County went thru a big ass deal of renaming roads in Sussex County. Prior to the renaming the roads, the roads were given county road numbers. Now they all have names instead of numbers. It was an expense to Sussex County for road signs and to individual homeowners for an address sign. Yet, when ever a location is given for a development at the Sussex County Council it will be referred to by the "old" road number and not the "new" Road name. So what the hell gives with this?

Mike Kapper appeared to ask for some concession on his taxes. Mike Kapper and Doris Williams own the buildings(s) the Drugstore and laundrymat is in. He is behind on paying his taxes (over $6,500), plus he has a Water bill outstanding of over $3,000. He had a payment arrangement with the town to pay $600 a month on the old taxes. He also has a payment arrangement with Sussex County for old taxes. He has had in the past payment arrangements with the Utility Commission for old water/sewer bills, which he paid. He said he was unable to make the $600 a month payment on his town taxes because he spent the money to improve the building the drugstore is in. He wanted to change his payment arrangement to $300 a month. This problem has been going on for about 5 years. Over an hour was spent discussing it. In the end the town gave in and made a payment arrangement with him of $400 a month. On the Delaware side of town Delinquent taxes do not have a speedy resolution. On the Maryland side of town there is an automatic system of collection of taxes or be sold out for delinquent taxes. It works much better than the Delaware system. Elected officials rarely want to be "bad" guys, but that is what they occasionally have to do. On the Maryland side of town elected officials just throw up their hands and say there is nothing they can do as Wicomico County has taken it over - they don't have to be "bad" guys, they pass the buck. By not enforcing ordinances and financial policies it encourage other people to not pay taxes or to let the building they own fall to pieces. If the taxes are not paid budgeted items are not done do to the lack of cash. In turn taxes are raised to compensate for this and we all pay the delinquent taxpayer's bill. We need elected officials with balls and so for the only one with a pair seems to be Diane Buckley.

The Delmar Diner Annexation was semi-approved, pending approval of Wicomico County Planning and Zoning.

The first reading of the Delmar Zoning Code was discussed tonight. You can obtain a draft copy of it from Delmar Town Hall. It is about 107 pages long. The main discussion was from a developer who wanted smaller yard sizes.

There is a small park on East East Street on the Maryland side of town that needs to be improved. Mrs Hearn, the art teacher at Delmar High School, has been asked to have her art student submit plans on how they would like to see the park. It is to be a viewing park not a sitting in, or playing in park. On November 17th a design will be picked.

The old 7-11 building on the Maryland side of town will be turned into a used car lot.

The fine for parking in a no parking zone has been increased. A grant has been received in the amount of $25,000 for the Police department. A new police car will be purchased with the money.

There are three houses on the Maryland side of town that have had sections of the houses burnt. Arrangements were made to correct those problems.

A street sweeper will not be purchased for the town, instead a pickup truck will be purchased.

In the new developments residents were allowed to hire their own private garbage collectors. Unlike in the old part of town where collection was handled by the town, by way of a contract to a private collector. Due to confusion the town has decided to not allow the new developments to continue to select their garbage collectors. They will have to go with the Town.

About this time my headache got the best of me and I had to leave. I missed the Public comments which is usually the best part of the meeting. Possibly they will mentioned in the approved minutes, which at times is a rewrite of history.

Tonight the Utility Commission had their monthly meeting. All members were present. We have had a vacant spot on the Utility Commission for six months or more. The vacant spot is for a Maryland Town resident. We are still waiting on Maryland Mayor Niblett to make up his mind and appoint someone to it. There is a disadvantage with an even number of Utility Commission members as there is a risk of not having a majority vote on a question. In the summer and during holiday seasons there is a risk of two members being out and than there would not be a quorum to decide any business questions.

The agreement with Tidewater Utilities to service the East side of Route 13 is still in the works.

We had Mildred Bosies from 200 Spruce Street, with her neighbors, come in to tell us about brown water problems she has had since January. The section of Spruce where the problem occurs is on a dead end water line that is not looped back into the distribution system. The line is also the older cast Iron Pipe. We requested Jay Latchum, Public Works Director, to obtain prices on what would fix the problem. She has reported this problem a number of times to Town Hall and attempts by Public Works to fix the problem were not successful.

Another resident complained of brown water on Grove street out by the State Street Park. It is my understanding this problem had not been reported to Town Hall prior to being addressed at tonight's meeting. Public Works is to look into it.

We would like for all residents of the town to report any brown water problems to Town Hall. This way we can map out areas where we need to direct our budget to correcting the problems. To Email Town Hall about problems click Here

I did not attend last month's Utility Commission meeting, nor did I attend September's Joint Council meeting. While reading thru the unapproved minutes of the Utility commission I was surprised by the request of Karin and Chris Walter who represents Terra Development, the owners of the old movie theater building. They requested from the Utility Meetings concessions because they are working on that piece of shit they own called the Avenue Building. They requested first, that WATER IMPACT FEES be determined using LAST YEAR RATES. Second, to WAIVE the requirement to pay IMPACT FEES at time of the issuance of the building permits. Third, REDUCE ALL WATER AND SEWER RATES by 50% to all developers in the downtown area. Fourth, REDUCE ALL WATER AND SEWER RATES BY AN ADDITIONAL 20% TO TERRA DEVELOPMENT.

Believe it or not, based on the unapproved minutes, Council Member Buckley made a motion to approve the first two concessions and Council Member Pase and Commissioner Tisinger voted to approve them. As opposed to telling Karin and Chris Walter to clean up that mess or tear it down they have continued to give concessions to the owners of this building. Happily they did not reduce water and sewer rates to the building.

I have not seen the Joint Council Minutes from September so I don't know if they requested TAX Concessions also.

What gets me is the "normal" taxpayer in Delmar continues to pay his/her taxes and only receive part of the services they should receive, but our councilmembers turns around and give some one with a run down property incentives. I guess this is to be expected when no one runs against the incumbent office holders. It is incentive for the hogs to start feeding again.

As a reminder the Delmar joint council meeting is tonight at 7PM. In addition the Public Works Meeting is at 6PM and the Utility Commission Meeting is at 6:30PM.

Down in lower Delaware (Can't get any lower) we have been hit with TV Spots from actors, John Walsh and Michael Fox, supporting Delaware politicians and wannabe politicians. Why would a Delaware voter consider the comments made by someone from out of state? In the case of Michael J Fox he isn't even American. Why even more so would someone gave credibility to an actor? These people live in a pampered ass kissing world of make believe not much different from the politicians they support. I just don't know why a voter would give any consideration to an out of state actor and a foreign actor supporting a Delaware candidate.

Halloween is approaching, so I guess once again we will hear the cries of outrage when white college students dress in blackface and hold ghetto parties. Blackface has been around for a long time and it will continue to be around. It doesn’t matter if it is insensitive or politically incorrect. There is always a faction who will use it for the outrage value. I tend to think someone born about 1987 (should be college age now) does blackface for the attention it gets them. They were no doubt the same ones in high school who had the loud flashy cars with the expensive music systems. Lets face it none of them have ever attended the blackface minstrel show, which were popular prior to 1960. Other than seeing blackface on older movies (Bing Crosby in "Holiday Inn" comes to mind) none really know anything about it. Some people like to say the people involved in blackface are really rejecting the colleges politically correct codes of conduct. After they have spent so much time with harassment policies, sensitivity workshops, and diversity requirements they are ready to rebel against all of it. Myself, I think it is the same as a 19 year old black youth singing hip hop rap or whatever about killing cops, bitches, whores and feeling his balls as he sing, they simply want attention.

As most people know there is a double standard in the United States today in regards to race bias, discrimination, and hate crimes. The view of the double standard is really quite different depending on if you are black or white. Blackface is considered politically incorrect and a possible race crime but than you have Eddie Murphy who can make himself up as a Caucasian and perform a series of exaggerated "white" stereotypes, and it's not racist, it's comedy. What if the movie “White Chicks” was reversed from paleface to blackface? No doubt there would be very few movie theaters showing it. Blackface Minstrel shows were considered comedy and if today are considered offensive than paleface comedy renditions should be looked at in the same light.

In Delmar, up until the beginning of the 1960’s, the High School band put on a blackface Minstrel show. The VFW also use to hold Minstrel shows at the Delmar High School. They were well attended and individuals in town were known for the characters they played . The Delmar Library at one time had in their “History” room photo albums of the different high school bands in blackface. At Linda's Railroad Cafe is a photograph of the "Cotton Pickers", the High School Band that was part Blackface.

Much to the outrage of tourist and the British government, blackface does continue in Wales and England. Among the groups that do blackface are various Welsh Border Morris Dancers Silurian Morris and a town called Padstow in Cornwall has their Darkie Days on New Year Days and Boxing day. Outsiders and the government may dislike it but the local people seem happy with it.

The Bottle Tree is up. There is still work to be done on it. I had wanted to put it in the front yard, but the wife threaten to put knots on my head if I did, so it had to go in the backyard. I may have to upgrade my selection of wine as those Arbor Mist and Richardson Wild Irish Rose winebottles, when empty, are not a very interesting color.

In 1940, the Delmar Lions Club purchased six squirrels from Virginia and set them free in what was then called the "Delmar Park" (today's State Street Park or as some people refer to it - Dr Bastian's front lawn). The Mayor of Delmar Delaware, Leroy Lockerman, had signs made notifying motorists on Grove and State Street to be careful in driving to avoid killing the squirrels. The squirrels were productive and today we have them everywhere.

The Lions Club purchased "Delmar Park" plus additional land in 1941 to be used as a park for the citizens of Delmar. In 1947 they deeded the park over to both towns. The park was part of the Elihu Hastings land and had never been built upon. It had been used as a park since the town inception in 1859. When the Lions Club purchased the land it was owned by Mrs Minnie Melson, who was a descendent of Elihu Hastings.

There are a few roses in my yard that are still blooming this time of year.

We went to this year's "Olde Princess Days" today. I enjoyed it as I have enjoyed the previous trips to it. This year they had about 15 houses and churches open for the tour. Since Sunday is only a half day for the tour it is a struggle to see all of the building and have time to watch some of the entertainment. I thought the best house on the tour was the Harrington Plantation, built about 1750. It is a modest house, compared to others, but since it is small it seems to more livable as a home.

The enjoyment of walking and riding to the old homes was heighten by the fall foliage that is just beginning. It didn't rain doing the time we were in Princess Anne and the gusts of wind and the bit of coolness simply enforced the fact Fall is here.

Downtown Princess Anne is spruced up for 'Olde Princess Anne days" but it is a nice looking downtown any time. Thirty years ago it was in as bad a shape as Delmar. Now the buildings are painted and kept up. I am sure being a county seat helped them to do that. There was no doubt much County, State and Federal money put in the town by way of government offices. The downtown however does have a wide range of business that occupy it, a much wider range than I remembered. Richard Lundy from Delmar had a "Letter to the Editor" in today's "Daily Times" expressing his opinion on the "old" mall, the centre and downtown Salisbury. I agree with him that too much money has been diddled away on committees and studies to revitalize the downtown Salisbury area. The same seem to be occurring in Delmar. Nothing will improve Delmar's downtown area until the slum lords that own the property are forced to improve it or sell it to someone who can improve it.

Princess Anne has never accepted the fact that there is, for the Eastern shore, a major college in their town. On the other hand UMES has never tried to be part of the town. "Olde Princess Anne" days is an event that the University with their facilities and money could have tied in with and created better community ties. It is my opinion that Black Americans have very little interest in history. In Dorchester County you can look at the poor turnout for Harriet Tubman history. When you visit a museum look around at the number of black visitors, they are rare indeed. I have heard the usual crap about being slaves they had no history etc, but that was a long time ago and if you believe "Black History" month they are suppose to have a history. Anyway "Olde Princess Anne days" was the time for UMES to jump on board and show whatever black aspect of history they would want to. They didn't.

We stopped by McDonalds in Princess Anne for a snack before returning to Delmar. The Princess Anne McDonalds is as screwed up as the McDonalds in Salisbury. The employees spent more time talking to one another then waiting on us. The order was wrong when we got it and we waited forever before it was filled. Ever since Ray Kroc died, the McDonalds chain has gone downhill in service and quality of food.

Annette Funicello turns 64 today. One of the original "Mouseketeers" on the Walt Disney show. In the fifties she was the heartthrob of teenage boys.

Waiting for the parade


Delmar finest leads the parade


The Delmar High School Band


The Mayors of both Towns


Kids grabbing Candy


This child is amazed by the number of Firetrucks. Waited until he is older and realize a Delmarva parade is 60% firetrucks.


Public works cleaning up the mess after the parade.

It seems like it was a short parade but a lot of candy was thrown out for the children. I watched the parade at St Stephen's and at the end of the parade the kids in front of me hopped on their bikes to go meet the parade farther along the route for more candy. You have to admire greed.

You can not ignore the fact Maryland Lieutenant Governor, Michael Steele, is running against Maryland US House Representative, Ben Cardin. The commercials are on the air day and night. They are running for the seat left open by Senator Paul Sarbane who is retiring after doing nothing for 30 years except drawing a salary. Now I doubt Steele or Cardin is going to be any better, lets face it we are talking Maryland politics and frankly since I live in Delaware I don't care which one is elected. The commercials however say nothing about either candidate. They each tear down the other and say nothing about what they are going to, if elected. I do think Steele's commercial are more polished and better organized than Cardin's. Well we will see what happens.

Well I actually saw a street sweeper on the Delaware side of town today. I don't know if it was a test run or not but it went down the south side of Jewell Street. It didn't come back to do the north side nor was the side streets sweep but there was one that came by.

The schools are having Fog Delay this morning. Working parents on the shore are trying to figure out how to arrange to get their kid to school. Speaking of school and fog the two always brings up that damn poem "FOG" by Carl Sandburg we were all required to memorize.

"The Fog comes
on little cat feet
it sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on."

Thank God it was a short poem.

Moshe Dayan, the bald headed, black eye patch wearing, controversial military person from Israel died today in 1981. He was Minister of Defense in the "Six Day War" in 1967 and the "Yom Kippur War" in 1973. He was the image of the Israeli Military.

Ariel Sharon noted about Dayan: "He would wake up with a hundred ideas. Of them ninety-five were dangerous; three more were bad; the remaining two, however, were brilliant."

A quote from him concerning his fast driving was;
"I have only one eye. Do you want me to look at the road or the at the speedometer."

His eye patch was put up for auction on Ebay in 2006 for $75,000. I never heard what it sold for.

Happy Birthday Kara

Once again Delmar residents, town government officials and elected officials showed their apathy toward getting involved in anything more mentally challenging than a football game. A public hearing was held in Georgetown last Tuesday to discuss the proposed Blackcreek Golf Course development west of town. The proposed 1,200 homes would not be in the Delmar town limits but the residents would be using the Post Office, School, and retail shopping stores. They would also be adding to the traffic going thru town. Sussex County Councilman Vance Phillips was disappointed (according to the Laurel Star) that no one from Delmar showed up to the meeting. Now I was not there so I don't know if it means no one commented or no one identified themselves as being from Delmar. I think they should build as many houses as they can cramp on to those 708 acres. Sussex County has no intention of encouraging any development in this corner of Delaware so if it takes 1,200 homes to encourage some type of economic boom than let them build. I am glad they are not in the town limits as my wallet couldn't support paying for anyone else to move into the town limits.

Delmar being a combination of a railroad town and a border town has had and continues to have a large number of transient people. Up thru the 1970’s and to a lesser degree today, people have rode the rail illegally and jumped off in Delmar. In addition there are a number of people that want to slip across the state line in order to avoid “the law” from the opposite state. I will save for a future post the problem of people living in Delaware when wanted by Maryland and vice versus.

At one time Delmar was a major switching station that assembled freight cars to form different trains. That function was moved to Harrington, Delaware sometime in the 1980’s. Because the trains stopped in Delmar and the cars were put off on sidings there was time for people riding the railcars illegally to jump off and hide out in the surrounding woods or jump on the railcars to go elsewhere. Delmar had two main encampments or Hobo Jungles. One was about two miles north of town on the Delaware side. The other was on the south side of town (Maryland) and was the larger of the two jungles. Both of these encampments continued thru the 1960’s and there is some indication there are still people (today referred to as “homeless”) that live in the woods on the North and South side of Town.

The Hobo Jungle on the North side of town was in the woods north of Old Racetrack road. It seem to have been made up of a combination of Gypsies and Hobos. My father, who lived on Old Racetrack Road when he was 8 or 9, use to refer to them as Bohunks. No doubt today this is a politically incorrect term but my father was never much for being politically correct. It is my understanding, both from him and other people, that Delmar had a few gypsies living outside of town. The Hobos, bohunks and gypsies were constantly stealing things.

The encampment on the south side of town had a population of twenty to forty hobos. My neighbor, Butch, has told me stories of him and CT Moore icing down produce on freight cars in the 1960’s and having Hobos threaten them with guns. For the most part he said they would speak to you and act friendly, unless you tried to enter their camp on the south side of town. It was in this South camp in 1939 that twenty tramps rioted and only after a fight were police able to drive them from the yard. The Railroad Police would police the Railroad property and run off or arrest anyone on the railroad property. The tramps would than travel into town where the Delmar Police would arrest them. In the 1940’s people caught riding the railroad illegally were give ten days in jail or a $5 fine. Today, in Maryland they are given 30 to 90 days and/or a $100 to $500 fine. In Delaware they could receive up to 30 days in Jail and/or a $575 fine. The charges are for trespassing on railroad property. The Delmar Police have said they have not had a problem with this in at least 10 years.

The Railroad Police are still active. The Norfolk Southern Railroad Police has a good discussion of their history at History and an update of recent railroad robberies. News (To my knowledge the Anthony Dickerson mentioned in the articles is no relation).

There is a romantic notion that Hobos are free loving spirits that roam the rail system and cause no one any harm. Can anyone say Robert Joseph Silveria Jr? He was a hobo who may have responsible for over 100 deaths in the 1990’s. In my opinion they are mean spirited drunks, addicts, mental ill, and freeloaders that should be jailed. Today, in Delmar you can still see a few scraggly looking people walking down the track. Some people have even mistaken me as a hobo when I walk my dog down by the tracks, but hell even when I was Mayor no one know who I was.

Yesterday I took this photo. The butterfly is unique in the fact there is a sticker on it's wing. I couldn't get close enough to read the sticker and have no idea how the sticker got on the butterfly's wing. It doesn't seem to bother the butterfly.

In today's "Daily Times' there was an article on Delmar's Noise ordinance. It is interesting that the person they interviewed and whose photo is in the paper is Joanne Bushman from Holly lake estate. The paper says "Joanne Bushman... took her fight against noise to the Town Council - and won". Back in August (look at August 30th post in archives) I wrote about the Town Council meeting in which I said

"The question was asked several times why the noise ordinance was proposed. The answer from the Councils was they felt one was needed. As I have posted before the noise ordinance is an outcome of the people in Holly Lake Estates requesting it, so the Town of Delmar would deal with Saturn Dealership. This ordinance was tabled for further discussion"

I think the newspaper article clears up who wanted the noise ordinance (Joanne Bushman and Holly Lake Estates) and for shame on our lying ass council people for not owning up to it.

I am a little late on this one. On October 6th 1946 the Delmar VFW was instituted in the auditorium of the Delmar Delaware school. It had 75 members at that time. It has grown and is not only a great social institution in Delmar it also has been very very generous in supporting Delmar organizations. I know from my daughters being in the High School Band and playing softball, the Delmar VFW could always be counted on for a donation. Since by it very name it is made up of Veteran of Foreign Wars it is an organization that I would like to see stop having new members but I guess the United States will always be involved in a Foreign war somewhere, right or wrong, so the VFW should live forever.

As anyone in Delmar can tell you Linda's Railroad Cafe is the place to go to catch up on the town gossip. It is also a good place to eat. The food is pretty much dinner fare, but the prices at times are unbelievable. Nothing on the Lunch menu is over $5.00. Their cheese steak sub at $3.50 is particularly good. A sampling of the evening menu;
Fried Chicken $6.25
Ham, Crab Cake, 2 pcs of Fried Chicken $7.50
Roast Beef $5.95
Butterfly shrimp $6.25
Seafood Platter $9.95
They usually have about 14 items on the dinner menu, including Muskrat in season, however Linda's is only open for Dinner on Thursday and Fridays.

The spearmint is blooming. The photo isn't the best but the flowers are blue.

A portion of the Black Walnuts that have fallen this year. For the past month the walnut tree has been a dangerous spot to walk under. At any minute one of these nuts could drop from 20 foot in the air on to your head. I have noticed the dog takes the long way around the tree. Some of these nuts will be taken by the squirrels. Squirrels are the village idiots of the animal kingdom, they bury the nuts and then forget to come back and get them. Come spring I will have about twenty trees growing in my yard from the buried nuts. I do give squirrels credit however as any animals with jaws strong enough to crack a Black Walnut is not an animal to be messed with.

I will crack a small number of these for the meat, as Black walnut has a distinct taste and a little goes a long way.

Trucks loaded with corn lined up at the grain mill north of Delmar.

The Johnson Victrola Museum, Dover Delaware

In the 1950's I use to come to Delmar to go to Benny Well's Auction. At that time Victrolas and those old cabinet size radio sets went for 25 to 50 cents a piece. I purchased a Victor Talking Machine Company Victrola for twenty five cents that I still have today. They threw in about 50 records with the machine. As I recall out of those 50 records there were about 4 that were Ku Klux Klan records, so they reflected the popularity of the Klan on the Eastern Shore and The United States in the 1920's. At that time I was impressed by the wood craft that went into those old units. But the Radio sets was what I was interested in as they had short wave frequencies and you really could tune in the world. I spent many hours listening to far away places that I still have nevered visited. As a true Eastern shoreman I have been as far north as Phila and as far south as Norfolk.

As with any hobby, shortwave radio listening has a form of scorecard or bragging rights. It takes the form of QSL cards which are postcard size cards that you receive when you write a radio station that you heard their broadcast. The more you have of them or if you heard those rare hard to hear stations put you higher up on the scale of shortwave radio listening. Well the one station you could pick up anywhere was Radio Moscow. The drawback to their QSL card was they put you on a mailing list and sent you Russian magazines, etc. At that time we were involved in a "Cold War" and whenever the material would arrive from Russia the Post Office would not deliver it to our Rural Route mailbox but would put a card in our mailbox to come to the post office and sign a form that stated you did want to receive the magazine. My parents had shit fits when this occurred. They were sure the FBI would knock in our door and arrest us all as spies. I am sure some where in the FBI archives there is a file on me that is right along side the bombers of the twin towers. It came as no great surprise to me when it was revealed the government was listening in on private phone conversations.

Today I stopped by the Johnson Victrola Museum in Dover. Now this museum must have a limited appeal to the populace at large. It is however a very good museum. They have many Victrolas, a large number of records and different versions of Nipper the RCA dog. I think I was the only person touring it. Like I said it must have a limited appeal. Tom was a volunteer tour guide and he took me thru and explained everything and cranked up whatever Victrola I wanted to hear. He was a great guide. They have at the museum a craftsman who maintain the Victrolas. He must be one of the few people who have a full time job doing this type of work. I would recommend this museum to anyone. Oh! The "Put a sock in it" phrase came as a way to regulate the volume control on the oldest model Victrolas - they simply put a rolled up sock in the Voice Horn and it reduced the volume.

Today would have been Election Day in Delmar had anyone decided to run against the current elected officials. No one did, so there is no election. It is indeed a sad day and a reflection on Delmar and the United States as no one seem to feel it is their duty to run for public office. There is that attitude of let the other person do it. The Mayor and two councilpeople positions were up for election and no one filed, except the people who already held the office, for any of the positions. I have always felt it was a matter of civic duty to run for an election office. I have also felt that once you ran for the same office a second time than you became a politician and not a citizen doing their duty. It is the reason I ran for councilperson and Mayor back in the 1980's but did not run for reelection.

Opus Dei (Work of God) was founded October 2, 1928 by a Catholic Priest, Josemaria Escriva. They have about 87,000 members of which 3,000 are in the United States. Their mission is to help people turn their work and daily activies to grow closer to God, for serving others, and for improving society. Their website is; Opus Dei

Now frankly, I had never heard of them or if I had heard of them paid no attention to them until Dan Brown's book "The DaVinci Code" came out.

Nurnberg Court House

On October 1, 1946, after nearly 10 months of trials 12 high-ranking Nazis were sentenced to death by the International War Crimes Tribunal in Nuremberg.
Ten of them were sentenced to death by hanging — Hans Frank, Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Alfred Rosenberg, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Keitel, and Arthur Seyss-Inquart. Martin Bormann and Hermann Göring escaped hanging by committing suicide.

In addition to those 12, three were sentenced to life imprisonment: Rudolf Hess, Walther Funk, and Erich Raeder. Four were sentenced to lesser terms of imprisonment: Karl Dönitz, Baldur von Schirach, Albert Speer, and Konstantin von Neurath. Three of the defendants were acquitted: Hjalmar Schacht, Franz von Papen, and Hans Fritzsche.



Hjalmar Horace Greenley Schacht on the left and his lawyer Albert Schwamberger. Photo from Stars and Stripes

Of interest to me was Doctor Hjalmar Horace Greenley Schacht, who was a brillant banker in the 1920's and worked with Hitler for a while. He was acquited at Nurnberg in 1946 but was retried in 1947 and served a year or so in a work camp. As we know after World War I Germany had hyperinflation. It's currency was worthless. Hjalmer Schacht stepped in and managed to stop the inflation. He was so well known for this act that there was poem circulated that went something like this;

"Who could make the mark stable
Only Doctor Schacht was able."

In 1953 he started up his own bank in Dusseldorf called Schacht and Company. He died on June 4, 1970. He was described as an arrogant man.

An article on him in Businessweek can be seen here; Schacht