Small Town News

Blizzard news, cemetery talk and inconsiderate cypress trees

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BAREFOOTIN

After the blizzard that shut us all down for several hours Wednesday afternoon and night, following last weekend's 20 inches, this winter has officially become the snowiest I've ever seen. It's broken records for snowfall in all the surrounding cities so that pretty well seals it for us. Take a look at my Blizzards and Global Warming blog at capegazette.com for a list of the biggest recorded storms in Baltimore, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. history. The stats go back to the late 1800s.

Many people were without electricity for several days. I spoke with one family who told me they burned all their firewood and then started on the patio furniture. By the time they got down to one chair, the power returned. Sounds to me like a good excuse to get new patio furniture.

"We used to be wilderness campers," they told me, "but sitting around a fortyish-degree living room eating hot dogs hasn't brought back the feelings we used to get from being in the great outdoors."

The perils of having great trees

The Bethel Methodist Cemetery Corporation board of directors met Thursday night a week ago, just before the string of storms started piling on. It's a group of good people, led ably by Chairman Don Mitchell, who are honored to serve the most uncomplaining group of clients you will ever encounter. We talk about the current state of affairs in the cemetery: how many niches are still available in the mausoleum (a couple dozen); how many grave plots remain available in the cemetery (a couple thousand); who's running out in the area (Rehoboth's Epworth Methodist Cemetery is almost full); and the occasional problem of centuries-old graves caving in and headstones falling over.

We also talk about the old Ebenezer Cemetery located on Savannah Road out toward Quakertown. One of the oldest cemeteries in Sussex County, Ebenezer is also owned by the cemetery corporation. The group is looking into ways of preserving the history of the plot including the flat memorial stones, oriented toward the rising sun in the east, of the Shank-land family. Rhodes Shankland, one of the county's first sheriffs and a surveyor who laid out the circle in Georgetown and its original streets, is believed to be buried in Ebenezer.

After the meeting, on the sidewalk outside, we were kidding Eddie Creadick about how neat he keeps his property on Kings Highway in Lewes. "I think I saw a few needles from those big cypress trees on your sidewalk; Eddie," said Don. Eddie chuckled, but he probably went home and got out his broom.

"I am starting to get tired of those trees," he said. "I'm thinking about cutting them down."

We knew Eddie was joking. The big cypress trees are known as the Bride and Groom Trees.

"How old are those trees, Eddie?"

"My understanding is they date back to 1812." That makes the impressive trees just about 200 years old and still healthy as they can be.

In last weekend's storm, one of the trees dropped a branch large enough to be a good-sized tree in its own right. It fell on the sidewalk in front of Eddie's house, smashing a good bit of his picket fence and taking out most of an arbor that provides a welcoming entrance to the Creadick home. More than just a few needles on his sidewalk.

If you hear the high whine of a chain saw cutting through the snow-muffled night air, it might be that Eddie's not kidding anymore.





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