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| Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church, Solomons Island, 2009 |
Before we left for home the next day (Sunday), we drove down to Solomons
once more, so I could attend Mass at my boyhood church, Our Lady Star of the Sea. We had arrived about an hour early, so I
bought a newspaper, and my wife and I sat on the front steps of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory. After several minutes,
I put the newspaper down and just stared longingly out at the Patuxent River, which flows into the Chesapeake Bay several
miles out. I wondered how many thousands of times I pondered that scene as a child, as the boats buzzed by and the sea gulls
squawked. Then we went to Mass. The gorgeous church still stands,
though they are building a new one now, vowing to preserve the original one for special events. The parish has grown so large
that they held the Mass at the school building next door. Barely anyone looked familiar. I thought about the many Midnight
Masses I attended with my late parents, the manger scene glowing in the front yard. When we headed north after the service,
I looked back once more across the causeway, into the childhood world that I left long ago, and said a prayer that fate would
bring me back yet another time.
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| Looking south into Solomons Island, 2009. |
As we drove up St. Leonard Hill one final time, I remembered
a magical winter adventure more than 51 years ago, an event that has become a legend. On Sunday, February 16, 1958,
it snowed all day and all night, swirling into piles and drifts against the house. We got over a foot of the stuff - in Solomons!
On Monday morning, not even the great Charlie Gray was going to be able to drag a school bus up the tiniest of hills. So we
bundled up and turned into Eskimos for a week, taking time out for plenty of hot chocolate while we dried our duds on the
floor register. We forgot all about Mrs. June King's weekend
homework assignment to read an epic poem by a guy named Greenleaf or something. Every day it was the same, a frozen paradise.
It took the county a week to dig out, and as far as we were concerned, it could have gone on forever. But come next Monday,
the snow was melting and off the roads, and we hopped on the bus, said hello to Charlie and headed off to school. When we
went to English class, Mrs. King welcomed us back, peered over her glasses, and said, "Today, we are going to discuss
the poem I assigned. How many of you read it? Not a hand was raised. The poem was "Snowbound," by John Greenleaf
Whittier. For seven days, we had lived it. Life and poetry had become indistinguishable.
The sun that brief December day
Rose cheerless over hills of gray,
And, darkly circled, gave at noon
A sadder light than waning moon.
Slow tracing down the thickening sky
Its mute and ominous prophecy,
A portent seeming less than threat,
It sank from sight before it set.
A chill no coat, however stout,
Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,
A hard, dull bitterness of cold,
That checked, mid-vein, the circling race
Of life-blood in the sharpened face,
The coming of the snow-storm
told.
-opening lines of "Snowbound"
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| My boyhood home in Dowell, Maryland, circa 1960. |
************************** This story is dedicated to the memory of Charlie
Gray (1912-2003), and June King (1924-2005)
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| Charlie Gray, date unknown. Provided by son Carter T. Gray. |
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| June King, scanned from 1959 school yearbook. |
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