Hundreds of Maryland politicos gather on a parking lot every July to eat crabs, talk politics, sweat, sweat some more, and honor a long-gone governor.
OK, nobody spends a whole lot of time paying tribute to Gov. J. Millard Tawes at his namesake crabfest in Crisfield.
But when the event rolled around the other day, the guy who ran Maryland from 1959 to 1967 got more attention than usual. Marylanders United to Stop Slots used the occasion to remind everyone that the two-termer ran slots out of the state.
"[I]t was J. Millard Tawes who stood up to the gambling special interest and organized crime and drove slots out of Maryland in 1963," a news release from the group states.
Perhaps that's why Comptroller Peter Franchot, arriving as the final 60 minutes of Tawes were ticking down, was determined to seek out the late governor's grandson, rumored to be working the french-fry tent.
Jay Tawes - direct descendant of Maryland's 54th governor, the first south of the Mason-Dixon to ban discrimination in state jobs, the only person to serve as Maryland's state treasurer, comptroller and governor - was, indeed, tending boiling vats of oil, wielding metal fry baskets as deftly as Grandpa did the levers of government.
If others spent the day invoking the Tawes name to stop slots, Jay Tawes seemed unaware. Too busy turning frozen potatoes, onion rings and clam strips into trans-fat-filled glories.
A car-wash owner, insurance agent and real estate salesman when he's not frying at the event named for his forebear, Jay Tawes said he has no interest in politics. (And he sounds like a guy who might enjoy a night at a casino, in Maryland or elsewhere.)
"I've had a very fast life," he said. "I can't be a politician."
A fight over which one shows his true colors
Anyone who schlepped all the way to Crisfield on Wednesday gleaned this fascinating political tidbit: Andy Harris and Frank Kratovil agree on something.
The rivals for Maryland's 1st District congressional seat have nearly identical campaign colors - Harris has gold and navy blue, Kratovil gold and black - and you couldn't miss them on the billboard-size signs along the roads into Crisfield.
The candidates disagree, however, over who's copying whom.
Kratovil, the Democratic state's attorney in Queen Anne's County: "I've had these colors since I first ran for office. I always thought the bright yellow and black were distinctive."
