Watermelon Man

Today did not seem like Sunday. It's been very quiet. Bill and I just got back from visiting our friend Bob and Jim. Their friend Kenny is visiting them from Ohio. Kenny is out of work and will probably be moving in with Bob and Jim to look for work down here in lower slower....er Sussex County, Delaware. He says he won't accept anything less than $18.00 an hour. Lots of luck Kenny, I don't even think they pay chicken pluckers $18.00 an hour.

I worked at the hotel yesterday. We had almost a full house even though showers were forecast for the weekend. Our business has picked up since the economy picked up giving consumers confidence that they could spend a few extra discretionary dollars to visit our Nantucket style east coast resort in Lewes, Delaware. We have also offered a 20% discount on the rooms rates if the guests stay two or more nights. That helped also. It was good to see Mom and Dad and the kids stop by the front desk for towels and beach chairs on their way out to the beach. It reminded me of when times were good last year and the year before when we were booked almost every weekend during the summer. It seemed like it would last forever but the recent economy downturn really took a toll on the hospitality industry as well as other businesses like the restaurants. One restaurant, La Rosa Negra, even when out of business. I know of several other restaurants that are up for sale but no takers so far. I'm back on a two night a week schedule at least until the end of the season in the middle of September, then it's back to one night a week of the Overlook Hotel.

Bill and I were going to try a new restaurant for our weekly breakfast experience away from the home front. We haven't been too pleased with the quality of food of Zorba's, the restaurant that we have been going to every weekend for some time. I suggested the new Ocean Point Grill in Lewes. As we were parking our car at about 8 am this morning we saw another car with three huge adults (they looked like hippos) with three little kids under five years old (baby hippos) and one of the adults was carrying a basket with baby. Oh no. We wouldn't be going into this restaurant. There is little that I hate more than having a meal in a restaurant next to table full of squirmy kids and especially one with a basket. That baby does not want to be in the restaurant and you can be sure that baby will let you know by its piercing cries shortly after its Moses like basket is placed on the restaurant table. If we're really lucky, the little darling will need its diaper changed. That's what happened the last time I sat at a table next to an extended family (Mom, Pop, the grandparents and an in-law or two) and they plopped a basket full of baby on their table. The all to familiar sweet sickening smell of baby poop wafted over the room and then one of the adults said "Oh, look. Megan did a do do." How cute. So, Bill and I headed for Zorba's again. At least we were comfortable but the food was still mediocre. As we were leaving we spied another family bringing a baby basket into the restaurant. We got out just in time. Go home people! Leave us alone! Didn't you see that rainbow emblem on the door as you waddled in?

On the way back from Bob and Jim's, Bill saw a produce stand in Harbeson full of watermelon. It's right across from the Allen chicken processing plant (bad mems for me of all those chickens met their Final Destination at that plant.) We stopped and got a couple of watermelons. Bill will go through those watermelons this week. I get the rinds to put in my growing compost pile out in back of my shed. We're into recycling kitchen waste in this house.

It's now time for my daily walk back in Oyster Rocks. I enjoy the quality time that my evening walk provides for me. The only problem is that if I wait too the bugs come out and bombard me. At least the mosquitoes have taken a hiatus. Haven't seen or felt them around here for a few weeks now. Thank God for small blessings. I like taking my walks solo.

The week ahead looks good. I'm working tomorrow night at the hotel. There is an Event (hotel talk for a large group of people descending on the hotel.) A cocktail party for 50 plus is scheduled for the fortunate invited few. I'm not invited but I can clean up. Then I don't go to work again until Saturday during the day. Labor Day weekend. Should be fun. I'll take the extra time this week to get caught up on my 50th class reunion invitations and booklet that I'm preparing for the reunion. I baked my favorite lemon bundt cake early this morning while the temperatures were still cool. It's not as humid as it has been for the past two weeks. Maybe I can get some yard trimming in also. The week ahead is looking good as we enter into the end of the season down here in God's Country, Sussex County, Delaware. It's all good.

Chickens in Delaware

Shortly after I retired to Delaware, I noticed one thing that was to become ubiquitous on my travels around the roads of Sussex County, the chicken trucks. What are the chicken trucks? These are open bed trucks loaded with cage upon cage of 8 week old boiler chickens headed for slaughter. Sussex County Delaware is the most southern county of Delaware’s three counties. Sussex County land is open and flat, perfect for the long rows of chicken houses. Delaware is ranked 7th in the country for poultry production. I live east of Route 1, which is the ocean side of the peninsula. The demographics of “East of 1” are almost all new Delaware residents. Like me, most of these new Delaware citizens are retirees who moved to Delaware to escape the high taxes of their home states. Others have second homes to take advantage of the resorts of Lewes, Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach and other shore attractions. On the “other” side of Rt. 1, are the natives of Sussex County. These natives consist of the descendants of the original Dutch settlers, Nanticoke Indians (true natives) and the recent immigration of Hispanics, mostly Guatemalans. On occasion I have to travel on the other side of “One” to visit a friend or to shop at the local Walmarts (Georgetown and Milford). Almost invariably I will find my Subaru Forester behind one of these chicken trucks. My first reaction is profound sadness. These chickens do not know where there are going. I think of Nazi Germany sending trainloads of Jews to the death camps of Auschwitz and Treblinka. I want to holler “Run for your lives!” Some chickens do escape from their cages, only to be run down on the highway. Shortly after this picture included in this blog was taken, I saw the mangled form of one such chicken along the side of the highway. For all of these chickens, this first and last trip is the first time they have seen daylight in their short lives. They are raised in long, low slung chicken houses under artificial light. Their feet never touch the earth that have been warmed by sunlight. On this last day of their life they are roughly gathered by forearm scarred “chicken catchers” and shoved into wooden cages. These cages are stacked one atop another on the back of a tractor trailer flatbed truck. Thus they begin their Final Journey. They do not know that they will soon meet their end at one of the local chicken processing plants. They will be pulled out of their wooden cages. They will be hung upside down by their legs in a conveyor belt type contraption. The lucky ones will have the electric shock stun them to death before they are eviscerated. When I pass one of these chicken trucks I think of this. Quite frequently I’m on my way to lunch at the Ocean Point Grille II on Long Neck Road. They have a great Chicken Caesar Wrap. I wonder if I’m eating one of those chickens that only a week or so earlier were giving me a quizzical look from their Truck of Death.