KENNEDYVILLE — KENNEDYVILLE - Coaxed to reflect on his 18 years in Washington, Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest acknowledges a single regret.
"If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't have run," he said. "I probably would have rested my days as an outfitter taking people on horseback rides in the northern Bitterroot towns of Idaho. Lived out a peaceful existence, in a log cabin that was still filled up with snow in May."
It is a typically idiosyncratic answer from the Eastern Shore Republican, who spent time counting moose in Idaho between jobs as a high school history teacher and a house painter before he won his seat in 1990. He never had much use for politics - he says he registered as a Republican for his initial run against Democratic Rep. Roy P. Dyson in 1988 only because it was cheaper than filing as an independent candidate - and, once on Capitol Hill, earned a reputation for independent-mindedness that might eventually have cost him his seat.
With his ninth and final term representing Maryland's 1st Congressional District coming to an end, Gilchrest finally has more time to enjoy the outdoors. On a recent morning, the 62-year-old former Marine hauled his Old Town canoe up the bank of Turner's Creek and helped his dogs onto the shore. He grabbed a backpack holding a steaming thermos of hot chocolate and trudged up a path to a clearing where he could stretch out.
On the way here, Gilchrest pointed out a 1790 house that he's hoping to preserve, saluted a pair of watermen working this arm of the Sassafras River and spotted a bald eagle circling overhead. Bespectacled and balding under an Eastern Shore Land Conservancy baseball cap, he is leaving public life pretty much as he entered it: focused on the environment and thinking about ways that it might be safeguarded for the future.
These are peaceful days for Gilchrest, who spoke of feeling liberated after losing a bitterly fought primary last year to conservative state Sen. Andy Harris. It pleases Gilchrest that tomorrow, Frank M. Kratovil Jr., the Queen Anne's County Democrat whom he crossed party lines to endorse in the general election, will be sworn in as his successor.
Kim Coble, for one, is glad that Gilchrest stayed in Washington for as long as he did.
