Tag Archives: Brunswick

Oysters and you!

Jessy Diaz preparing some oysters at the King Street Oyster Bar

Jessy Diaz preparing some oysters at the King Street Oyster Bar

What do folk like to do on a Friday evening, perhaps downing a “happy hour” beverage and that iconic bivalve, an eastern oyster, from the Chesapeake Bay?

Don Peterson, from Brunswick, Maryland, said, “I didn’t like oysters when I was a kid.  But I went down to Jacksonville Beach, in Florida, and found I like them, and like them best, raw, and I eat them as white as you can get ‘em.”  Some favor the Blue Water Daquiri and Oyster Bar in Jacksonville.

Closer to home, Magnolia’s at the Mill in Purcellville, get its oysters from the War Shore Oyster Company, according to Magnolia’s floor manager, Julie Dalrymple, and they almost always “get them once a week and serve them as ‘specials’.”

Lovettsville’s Market Table Bistro gets their oysters from Chincoteague and further up the east coast from Nantucket, according to Eddie Johnston, the “front of the house” manager at the Bistro.  Continue reading

The War Continues

Paul Muth, Vietnam Vet

Paul Muth, Vietnam Vet

Brunswick’s Paul Muth was a medic assigned to Anloc in ‘Nam.

An Lộc is in Bình Phước Province in South Vietnam, about 72 miles north of Saigon.

Paul left the service in ’74 and thus not before the North Vietnamese offensive in ’72, when 100s of the North Vietnamese, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, outnumbering Paul’s Division, overran their position along Highway 13.

There was hand-to-hand fighting and Paul only lived by pulling a dead body on top of himself in a trench, hidden from the enemy’s advance by this fleshy cloak of death.

When the Viet Cong attack was successfully halted and pushed back, Paul was saved by the airborne; they pulled Paul from beneath his brother-in-arm’s lifeless body.

Paul’s war nevertheless continues. Continue reading

Hate Literature in Lovettsville

A sample of the hate literature

A sample of the hate literature

The Southern Poverty Law Center has made it clear that “The Ku Klux Klan, with its long history of violence, is the most infamous — and oldest — of American hate groups. Although black Americans have typically been the Klan’s primary target, it also has attacked Jews, immigrants, gays and lesbians and, until recently, Catholics.”

The KKK has found its voice in Charlottesville, Virginia and has been emboldened to circulate its hateful literature under dark of night in communities to the North, in Lovettsville and also Brunswick, this past weekend.

If Freedom of Speech is the KKK’s defense for its hate literature, the citizen’s response, in social media and public statements, is to speak up freely and warn friends and neighbors of the menace they know the KKK to be.

One comment was as direct as you could imagine: “So this racist crap storm has now hit my little town that begins with LOVE as well as our neighbors in Brunswick, MD. … If you are not outraged and remain silent, you are part of the problem. Gloves off racist cowards!!! Your hate is not welcomed here.”

Another remark spoke to the context of these hateful literature drops – “It’s as if these groups feel empowered by a national figure or something.”

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office has confirmed that KKK Propaganda flyers were reportedly located on various streets of the New Town Meadows community in the Town of Lovettsville, alongside driveways, near mail-boxes and on sidewalks in the community.

All of the flyers were placed in plastic bags containing birdseed.

The baggies circulated

The baggies circulated

There was another drop in the area of the 39000 Block of Catoctin Ridge Street in Paeonian Springs.

Lovettsville Realtor Kris Consaul argued the community should not treat this literature drop lightly just because the KKK has been “leaving their recruitment flyers in sandwich baggies weighted by birdseed.”

“Each one of those KKK Flyers,” Kris said, “contains the weight of the thousands of black bodies hung by a noose from trees and telephone poles. Each one of those flyers carry the weight of enraged whites screaming, no, snarling at black children going to school. Each one of those flyers carries the weight of burning crosses and terror in the night.”

Kris said, “I’m going to join our neighboring towns and communities in the ‘Love Your Neighbor’ Orange Ribbon Campaign. The first amendment covers my right to respond to cowardice and hate with courage and love. I invite you to join me.”

Councilman Nate Fontaine said, “The material does not reflect the values or thoughts of the people of Lovettsville. We are a close knit, caring community who will always support the people of our town and surrounding areas.”

(Anyone with any information regarding these cases or with possible surveillance video, are asked to contact Detective Joseph Hacay at 703-777-0475.)

ABOUT THIS POLITICAL BIZ – Charles “Charlie” Smith

Charles E. Smith and Laurie Hailey at Lovettsville’s Bonnie’s Country Kitchen

Charles E. Smith and Laurie Hailey at Lovettsville’s Bonnie’s Country Kitchen

Bonnie’s Country Kitchen is a bustling gathering of friends and neighbors on a Saturday morning, catching up on the week’s gossip, family news, and chowing down on some fresh eggs and bacon, or pancakes, and as much coffee as it takes to get going.

This past Saturday, Bonnie’s was hopping, on this unseasonably warm and comfortable January Day, the tables full, persons leaning into the food on their plates and so they could hear their table mates, sitting back every once in awhile to say hello to a friend or neighbor coming through the front door, heads craning to catch a glimpse who that was.

There was a lot of animal hunting camouflage, an array of woods’ designer clothes,  some winter beards to ward off the frigid air, ordinarily the rule this time of the year, and some hungry and tired families from warming themselves against the colder air hours earlier when they were out in the fields hunting.  There was not a lot of talk about what they snared.

“I cleaned off the camouflage I put on my face earlier,” Charles “Charlie” Smith said, matter of factly, “as he took another gulp of Bonnie’s finest java.

“See ya Billy,” half rising to great a friend, Charlie explained, “I was supposed to go turkey hunting with my grandson, Jackson Rippeon, he’s 17, but he was behind in his school assignments, so we’re going quail hunting together on Sunday instead.”

“Get any turkey?,” Charlie was asked.  “Not today,” said Charlie.

Charlie himself was born in Brunswick, went to Brunswick public schools, Frederick Community College, and the University of Baltimore, graduating with a BS in 1973.

“My Dad, his name was Joseph, was told by his stepfather that the men in ‘this family’ don’t graduate from High School,” Charlie said, “but my Dad wanted both his children to graduate college.  My older Sister, Jo Anne, she was an A student.  I was more athletic.  I was good at baseball and soccer.  But we both did graduate.  That was one of the things he wanted for his children.”

“See ya buddy,” Charlie said to another passerby, like a seasoned politician, which he is, or Charlie might say, he was.

“In politics, you have two masters,” Charlie said, “there’s the elected position, and perhaps you shouldn’t be paid much to serve, and there’s your job or business, and the balance is not an easy one to hold.” Continue reading