Having visited with my Uncle Bill from my mom’s side of the family, I jumped on the road early today and drove to the Eastern Shore to visit with my dad’s older brother. He’s got a house on the edge of what used to be the southeast corner of my grandfather’s farm. Nice place: old mile markers from the Baltimore/Washington railroad adorn the drive, there’s a pool, and an extended shed for extra parking. In addition to all that, my old grouchy Uncle Bill has eleven cats.
I haven’t been down to the farm — or to Bill’s place — in several years. I stopped by the farm just before my grandmother’s funeral in March of ‘06, but I didn’t have the opportunity to go to his: actually, I think the last time I went was the summer of ‘05. He didn’t have 11 cats — maybe like five or six. “Two are more than enough,” his wife keeps repeating what he said when they took in their first two strays, but before I left, we were all sitting out on the back porch, and the very imaginatively named (and still relative new arrival) “White Cat” (yes, there is also a “Black Cat”) curled up on his lap and purred.
Bill and I took the old John Deere Gator out and motored down to the old homestead. That’s it at the top of the post, looking very rundown. It’s been essentially abandoned for about five years. Bill brought the key and we were able to go inside. It’s very depressing: so many really great memories from this old house, and here it was: rotting floorboards, crumbling walls, dead birds, critters.
There’s new life not too far away: Bill’s stepdaughter and her husband built a house just past the south field. Today was the first time I saw it, and I sort of suspect it will always look out of place to me.
I was worried I’d hit a lot of post-beach traffic coming back from the shore, but I guess I left early enough, and wound up making great time.
