WAYNE CREED: New Cape Charles Ignores Gritty Past
By WAYNE CREED
October 20, 2014
Some have described the Stay Tuned Music Fest on Oct 4 at the Shanty as a flop, or even an epic fail. Even if it was, that’s not really a bad thing. Getting in the ring and taking a swing is the most important part — these festival things are hard to predict, and given the limited population and demographic, they sometimes don’t turn out as well as we hope.
I know the promoters, and I’m sure they will collect some Lessons Learned, and make some adjustments for next time (maybe move to coincide with Harbor for the Arts, or go old school with Shore Made Music by Shore Made Musicians — then cook up a pig, some crabs or oysters, with plenty of cold beer).
All this aside, there was still something about Stay Tuned Fest that bothered me; as if something was just a bit off. One evening, after a few martinis, staring at the old brick at Kelly’s, I realized just what was bugging me: it was that holding the event at that location (new harbor) lacked so much authenticity, and was so typical of the New Cape Charles — that is, to completely ignore the old Eastern Shore ways and arrogantly try to impose some foreign aesthetic in its place.
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It also exposes something more indicative, something that weaves itself into the fabric of life in Cape Charles. When you go to Kelly’s or the Palace Theatre or the Cape Charles Coffee House, there is a feeling of authenticity, something old and careful, something graceful, yet more importantly, there is a feeling of respect, not meant to replace, but gently restore.
Across at the new harbor, it’s as if it’s missing a fundamental element. It seems a bit crass, contrived, incongruent, and almost random, a perfect metaphor for the arrogance of the New Cape Charles. Whereas Kelly’s is unwilling to ignore its own moral and aesthetic objections in order to have a more comfortable existence, much of the New Cape Charles seems more than willing to sell out and embrace a poisoned bad faith, all for the sake of few soiled rupees.
Walking through the old, real Cape Charles, the history drips off you like sweat in August. You can feel and sense it — it’s real, it’s authentic, still opening its arms to its children — the misfits, outcasts, slum dogs, and the otherwise marginalized — because as of yet, there is no iron gate to keep them out.
Put someone on a golf cart and drive them to Bay Creek, and the feeling is just the opposite. Tinny, somewhat intellectually lazy and socially awkward — and you wonder, they defaced the sacred wetlands with a homogenized mass-culture nightmare of plaid and silk for what? To play golf? The iron gates they adore will never offer salvation; instead, they create a false sense of self and security while sacrificing all individual significance.
The appearance of tacit approval from the gated community has given momentum to a movement by members of Town Council to establish the geographic center of town in the New Cape Charles: at the new harbor. That is, all big events, like Stay Tuned, will have to occur at the harbor. On the surface, this may sound good, except for one thing: the cheap, plastic façade of the “New” is an awful place for an event. Who wants to spend all day in a filthy, hard parking lot? Anyone with any sense would recognize that big events need to occur in the geographic center of old Cape Charles, which is School Park.
And yet, there is still a problem with that idea. Even as the town has spent millions on the park, for a mere $10 it gave away what would have served as the event’s structural anchor. Just as the vulgarity and ignorance of the town’s $21 million waste water plant has become obvious, eventually the illegality, fraud, lies, and unwashed stupidity of divesting themselves of the old school will become just as obvious.
In New Cape Charles fashion, the opposition to the Community Center idea was laced with ignorance, close mindedness, racism, and fear. What many did not realize was that one of the biggest functions planned for the building was to make it the Cape Charles Festival Center. That is, the physical anchor for any large event that was going to take place in the park. The Artisans Trail, which now seems all the rage, now has no anchor in Cape Charles. Reaching the pinnacle of non-planning (non-thinking), the town spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on a walking trail to nowhere. Instead of having a proper anchor, as either a beginning or end (your choice, walker), they are instead left to walk around in circles.
Note: while researching athletics when my kids were in the Christian School, I contacted several sports organizations about getting equipment for underserved communities like ours. USA Field Hockey provides free equipment (nets, sticks, pads and cones), USA Gymnastics and Right To Play offer grants for free gymnastic equipment (beams, mats and rings). Former ODU great and Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame member Nancy Lieberman has Dream Courts, part of the Nancy Lieberman Foundation, that helps communities like ours by providing funds to restore indoor courts (like the one in the old school gymnasium) as a way to give kids a safe place to play. This was nothing more than rudimentary research which barely scratched the surface of what is out there. Had the Town not been so greedy, short sighted, incompetent, and malfeasant, and had just stepped up and assumed its responsibilities as it should, we would have a fully restored, fully functional gymnasium, all done for pennies on the dollar. The historically underserved kids of the lower Eastern Shore, many of them minorities, can thank the town, and all those that opposed the community center, for robbing them of this opportunity.
When members of Old School Cape Charles met with a representative of Lt. Governor Ralph Northam to go over the details of the old school deal, his representative remarked, “This is really nothing more than a gentrification project.” I realized that yes, it was, and yet giving the old school to a developer was something more — it was a metaphor for the entire gentrification movement in Cape Charles, the movement that was steam rolling over the ordinary people. That is the rub.
The ITS Geography Dictionary & Glossary defines gentrification as “the renovation of the housing fabric when more affluent groups displace lower income groups en masse over a relatively short period of time. May be triggered by a clear event such as the improvement or provision of a better transport link, or by something less tangible such as a fashion trend taking off in the housing market.”
In Cape Charles, folks are finding it harder and harder to adjust to rising costs and are moving out to cheaper areas — this dissolves the core of old Cape Charles neighborhoods and the old community, leaving in its place the vapidity of the Vacation Rental Motif. As Washington Post writer Blaine Harden noted, “As residents leave the central areas . . . either because they have sold their homes or been forced out by higher rents — their community is being splintered by geographic dispersal.”
To the winner go the spoils. New Cape Charles gets its floating docks, iron gates, and cheeseball glass hotels (fashion trends), while old Cape Charles gets geographic dispersal. Yet the more we learn, the worse it gets. The original annexation agreement with Brown and Root has turned out to be a Faustian bargain, where the Town abandoned its “spiritual values and moral principles” in order to obtain wealth and other benefits, but in the end is forever resigned to a cold cell of ‘The Eternal Empty.” Like Doctor Faustus, at its core it’s a fake.
Plato’s dialogue Crito argued for a social contract whereby people ought to accept “society’s” burdens, because they also accept its benefits. For the pragmatist, it is John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, his view that “Society should treat all equally well . . . this is the highest abstract standard of social and distributive justice; towards which all institutions, and the efforts of all virtuous citizens, should be made in the utmost degree to converge.” The good people of the New Cape Charles, for the sake of wealth and security, have been steadfast in the fight against these basic principles.
For my part the battle continues, with many defeats, but with a few small victories sprinkled in. I still get to watch my beloved Labrador Chloe futilely chase deer through the field, I’m getting to ride along as some very smart, dedicated, talented kids grow into the Shore’s next prima ballerinas and stars as they sweat it out under the white hot spotlights on the Palace stage, and I get to watch my son Joey and his buddies blaze up the sideline playing football and soccer on the soft, sandy Eastern Shore turf.
Still, I worry about those boys still scratching it out on the other side of the tracks, the ones that you notice from the glow of cigarettes as they loiter under street lamps, mean and tough and hating the world. I worry if it’s just too late for them, or whether there’s still time to show them that the beautiful sunsets over the bay are made for them too.
Wayne you’re a genius quoting from Plato. Cape Charles needs more tinkers like you — and leadership. A certain group has a strangle hold in CC and they must be dealt with before it can be moved forward. The same can be said for the rest of the county.
Cicero wrote: If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third place.
I would enjoy Wayne Creed writing about watching paint dry or describing grass growing. He is an excellent writer and does his homework before putting pen to paper, does that show my age?
Wayne, I may not always agree with you…..but that was eloquently put…!
My dad grew up in Cape Charles in its fading days as a railroad town. His mother had come to live in CC before 1910, living the rest of her 86 years along Randolph Ave. My summer vacations were spent exploring her wonderful Victorian home, finding the most periwinkles at the beach, and falling asleep listening to the rhythm of the ice plant — but vacation didn’t officially start until our family drove over the old hump to check out the harbor and say hello to Mrs. Crockett. Loving Cape Charles taught us about railroad history, flat-bottomed fishing boats with pretty names, Chesapeake Bay habitat and ecology, beautiful architecture from bygone days, and peaceful front porch living. I wholeheartedly agree with Mr. Creed’s assessment of what is important in “restoring” this Northampton County gem: build on the history and unique character of Cape Charles. I can’t get there much anymore, but I’ve got bulls eye corner blocks on my windows and a crepe myrtle in my yard.
Quote: “… the cheap, plastic façade of the “New” [i.e., the town harbor] is an awful place for an event. Who wants to spend all day in a filthy, hard parking lot? Anyone with any sense would recognize that big events need to occur in the geographic center of old Cape Charles, which is School Park.”
Great place for Tall Ships, Clam Fest, Blessing of the Fleet … would you prefer that the town not have a working harbor? What’s wrong with floating docks? I don’t have a boat, but I certainly don’t begrudge the harbor their floating docks — or the Shanty, or the new bathroom. I guess I don’t see what you see, but I never considered one of the great attractions of Cape Charles, its working harbor, to be “cheap, plastic.” To make you happy, maybe Smitty should not allow any watercraft not built out of wood?
Quote: “Put someone on a golf cart and drive them to Bay Creek, and the feeling is just the opposite. Tinny, somewhat intellectually lazy and socially awkward — and you wonder, they defaced the sacred wetlands with a homogenized mass-culture nightmare of plaid and silk for what? To play golf?”
Why do you hate Bay Creek so much; why the vendetta? A few pictures of “tinny” Bay Creek can be found here: http://easternshoreimaging.com/SlideShows/BayCreekLandscapes/Scenics/index.html
Such an mass-culture nightmare
Quote: “In New Cape Charles fashion, the opposition to the Community Center idea was laced with ignorance, close mindedness, racism, and fear. What many did not realize was that one of the biggest functions planned for the building was to make it the Cape Charles Festival Center.”
Maybe the Community Center folks needed a better spokesperson with a little credibility? How long are you going to chant your mantra? The people of Cape Charles (not just Bay Creek) spoke loud and clear in the last election. Get over it!
For me, the School Park could never be the ideal place to hold big events in the town, because it lacks one essential feature – a view of the Chesapeake Bay.
So why is he being criticized? The answer is: people criticize those they admire.
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Wayne is Cape Charles’ Proust, nursing Kelly’s martini as his madeleine. Let him remember things past and romanticize them. It’s a simple fact of life that poor communities get screwed; Wayne’s lament turns that into poetry, and you have to please at least grant him that much.
For as long as this town has existed the park was always the center of town. It’s because of people coming here and trying to change everything that this town is in such turmoil. They don’t even know which direction the school faces!
Some folks here are like “fish out of water”; their criticism is unfair because it’s simply incorrect. The “come-heres” came here and found Cape Charles and Northampton County the poorest areas in Virginia. For one, we took the Palace Theatre that was a mess and turned it into a center of culture for artisans of all talents. It is the locals that stripped the dignity out of Cape Charles. They were only interested in the amount of money they could take out of the pockets of poor folks and refused to return some of it back into the community.
It was a much friendlier town before the “come-heres” came here. At least then we all knew who our neighbors were and looked out for them. I have lived here my entire life and my father and grandfather before me. I haven’t taken one cent from any of the people that have “come here.” Lots of people come to my house and ask me boat information and I have even worked on many of their boats and I have never accepted any payment from them. It’s the people that aren’t from here that are taking this town down, running it into debt with no end in sight. They couldn’t care less about the locals at all. It’s all about tourism and the greasy dollar bills.
Don’t get me wrong, there are many people that have moved here that I call “honorary locals,” but they are few and far between. They are the people that aren’t trying to change everything nor are they trying to tell me how to live.
In a moment of reflection, the anti “come heres” should ask the local merchants and tradesmen what their businesses would be like if they depended solely on local spending. I think they would not bite the hands that feed them.
Don Bender says : Don’t get me wrong, there are many people that have moved here that I call “honorary locals,” but they are few and far between.
And just who do you think is filling the Eastville Prison?
Gee Joe, I don’t personally know anyone in Eastville jail — do you? For that matter what has that got to do with Cape Charles becoming a tourist trap? What has that got to do with Cape Charles giving away a historic school to a shady developer? Are you and I on the same page or what?
I love tourism and the Harbor, playing soccer in Central Park with my kid. I like the new Hotel Cape Charles and Brown Dog Ice Cream, Kelly’s, Chuckletown, etc. Soaking in the sun and playing volleyball on the beach. I am one of those unfriendly evil “come-heres”!
Oh yeah, and I love Wayne Creed too.
Chris, I love you more brother! Black Ice Forever!
Reading all the wonderful “Come Here” comments aloud to my family, as we drive down to have a nice weekend in the CC area, where we have owned a home since 06. We always have gone out of our way to contribute as much as possible to the local communities, participating in as many events, fundraisers, and festivals as possible, while also spending our hard- earned money in the local shops and eateries. We also pay our taxes, like many other home owners. We have shared CC with SO many people over the years, who would NEVER have come or known about the delights offered in CC otherwise. Over the years, we have come to understand the complex history and dueling interests unique to this vibrant community, and we have tolerated the “Come Here” pops and ribbings, as a form of friendly hazing, if you will. However, when our children have to hear the descriptions here, and wonder just who they are speaking of, it makes us question the ignorance behind publicly making such blanket generalizations. Like it or not, CC is a part of my children, and always will be. They will grow up and always fight to preserve what is the most beautiful part of their childhoods, the precious moments spent in this area. It is my hope that they will always be welcome, along with their children, and not be made to feel as if they are a part of the problem, when everybody knows that “come heres” help to keep CC alive, economically and in other ways. We aren’t all ignorant, we aren’t all uneducated fools with zero understanding of what makes and keeps CC beautiful…and yes, perhaps it would be best to not bite the hand that feeds you…. At least publicly. Sigh. Sincerely- The Haddon Family
Wow Ya’ll that was refreshing! NOT! Seriously, Cape Charles is a unique and wonderful town, even with all its issues. Going forward with a plan that encompasses the old with the new is the best solution. It is wonderful that the main street in Cape Charles was refurbished and re-used. I have many friends that visit the town and love the old time charm but they love the harbor and Shanty as well. So there you have it — the best of both worlds! Let’s just keep getting up and getting along! Remember life on the Shore is Good!