Smith Island

Having been raised in Baltimore, and lived in larger cities, it was with trepidation that I moved to the Eastern Shore many years ago. I have learned to appreciate the values, the culture and the hard work of the farmers and watermen who live here. Logically speaking, your opinion makes sense ("Smith Island denial," May 17). Erosion on Smith Island is a problem and is here to stay. However, if these people who care so much for their island and their way of life prefer to live on the island, then let them.

Having been raised in Baltimore, and lived in larger cities, it was with trepidation that I moved to the Eastern Shore many years ago. I have learned to appreciate the values, the culture and the hard work of the farmers and watermen who live here. Logically speaking, your opinion makes sense ("Smith Island denial," May 17). Erosion on Smith Island is a problem and is here to stay. However, if these people who care so much for their island and their way of life prefer to live on the island, then let them.

Superstorm Sandy barely laid a glove on Smith Island last fall, to hear residents tell it. Though storm-driven flooding damaged hundreds of homes in Crisfield and the rest of Somerset County, only a couple islanders got any water in their homes from the surging Chesapeake Bay. Yet with the island slowly shrinking and sinking into the bay, the state is considering using $2 million of the federal storm recovery aid it's received so far to buy out...

Even the most jaded observer must acknowledge there's something admirable about the desire of so many living on Smith Island to see their community survive and prosper. Residents of this marshy (and shrinking in both population and real estate) archipelago on the lower Eastern Shore have had to overcome much in recent years, particularly as their chief means of livelihood, harvesting the seafood bounty of the Chesapeake Bay, has declined. But it's one thing to admire the hard work, independence and faith of Smith Island's residents - who number a mere 276, according to the 2010 Census - and it's another to deny the reality of their circumstances.

Tim Wheeler 's report on the future of Smith Island and the state's idea to buy residents out so they may relocate tells a heartbreaking story of people whose attachment to the island goes back many years, 400 years in some cases ("Smith Islanders debating a state buyout proposal," May 13). If the buyout is taken by just some residents, it may make life untenable on the island for those who want to stay. They have organized a letter-writing campaign to fight the buyout idea. It is very important to fight climate change on the local level.

In one corner of the bare-bones bakery, Louise Clayton, 62, hushed a visitor as she carefully counted out scoops of cocoa for the fudge icing she was making. Missy Tyler, 49, measured out batter and poured it into a cake tin. She did it nine more times before popping the 10 tins into the oven. Donna Smith, 45, placed one cooled thin layer before her and covered it with Clayton's icing. She added layers and icing nine more times until an authentic Smith Island cake sat in front of her. The barely five-month-old Smith Island Baking Co. has 10 employees making Maryland's official state dessert and shipping it across the country.

Smith Island is suffering a disease affecting many other island communities: erosion. When the power of the wind and waves hits, residents of Rhodes Point look out their windows to see whitecaps where there used to be sand. And they worry about their way of life.This community, dating from 1657, is looking for help from the Maryland Port Administration, which must dispose of 100 cubic yards of "spoil" dredged from Baltimore shipping channels over the next 20 years. That material, much of it clean, has to go somewhere, and present sites are fast filling.

Joan Corbin's day is governed by the humming box in the alcove off her living room. For nearly an hour in the afternoon and nine hours at night, the Smith Island resident must tether herself to a suitcase-sized dialysis machine to get rid of the waste building up in her body. A healthy person's kidneys would perform that vital chore. But Corbin's gave out long ago, after being damaged by infections in her youth. She got a new kidney from her older brother 13 years ago at the University of Maryland Medical Center, which restored her health for a time.

Search crews on Monday recovered the body of a woman, believed to be the victim of a small plane crash over the weekend, from the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, police said. Mary L. Lagerquist, 78, of Sequim, Wash., had been a passenger Sunday in a plane piloted by her son, Lanson C. Ross III, 48, of Fort Washington. Ross told investigators the two-seater, single-engine aircraft lost power and that he was trying to reach Smith Island. Soon after his 3:30 p.m. distress call to Patuxent River Naval Air Station, he crashed into the Chesapeake Bay. The plane sank rapidly, but both Ross and his mother, who was injured in the crash, were able to exit, police said.

A proposed buyout of Smith Island homeowners to help them escape future damage from tropical storms and rising waters has been dropped amid vocal resistance from residents of the low-lying community in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. The Somerset County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday not to offer buyouts with any of the $8.6 million in federal aid the lower Eastern Shore county is in line to receive to help it recover from the ravages of...

Tim Wheeler 's report on the future of Smith Island and the state's idea to buy residents out so they may relocate tells a heartbreaking story of people whose attachment to the island goes back many years, 400 years in some cases ("Smith Islanders debating a state buyout proposal," May 13). If the buyout is taken by just some residents, it may make life untenable on the island for those who want to stay. They have organized a letter-writing campaign to fight the buyout idea. It is very important to fight climate change on the local level.

Superstorm Sandy barely laid a glove on Smith Island last fall, to hear residents tell it. Though storm-driven flooding damaged hundreds of homes in Crisfield and the rest of Somerset County, only a couple islanders got any water in their homes from the surging Chesapeake Bay. Yet with the island slowly shrinking and sinking into the bay, the state is considering using $2 million of the federal storm recovery aid it's received so far to buy out...

For last year's 20th anniversary season at Camden Yards, the Orioles and its concessionaire, Delaware North Companies Sportservice, brought in local favorites Gino's Burgers and Chicken and Stuggy's to the yard along with Dempsey's Brew Pub and Restaurant , a year-round restaurant located in the stadium's warehouse, and the Roof Top Deck in centerfield, an instant fan favorite. And then the Orioles did what they did. This year is more about tweaking, upgrading and responding to requests from fans — including, the Orioles acknowledge, vegetarians who were still making do with french fries and pizza.

Joan Corbin's day is governed by the humming box in the alcove off her living room. For nearly an hour in the afternoon and nine hours at night, the Smith Island resident must tether herself to a suitcase-sized dialysis machine to get rid of the waste building up in her body. A healthy person's kidneys would perform that vital chore. But Corbin's gave out long ago, after being damaged by infections in her youth. She got a new kidney from her older brother 13 years ago at the University of Maryland Medical Center, which restored her health for a time.

It's hard work catching soft crabs, a fickle livelihood in an increasingly precarious part of the world. Starting before sunup, Smith Island waterman Mark Kitching spends hours repeatedly "scraping" the submerged grass beds that grow abundantly around his home in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. On a recent morning, he's commuted 45 minutes through the pre-dawn darkness to work north of Holland Straits some 13 miles away. The Cummins diesel engine in his work boat, Miss Anita, provides the power to drag a pair of nets through thick grass beds where Kitching hopes to find soft crabs and "peelers," those young crabs about to shed their shells and form larger new ones.

The Maryland Traditions Folklife Festival is this Saturday at the Creative Alliance. The free familiy festival features fourteen performances on indoor and outdoor stages, hands-on workshops, and displays by local craftsmen. The second annual festival is produced by Maryland Traditions, a collaborative statewide folklife partnership program administered by the Maryland State Arts Council. There will be food. Vendors at the festival include Prigel Family Creamery, Ron's Famous Pit Beef, Fiesta Mexicana, Baltimore's Best Snowballs, Bear Creek Open Pit Bar-B-Q and Himalayan House.

These are not "Maryland-style" crab cakes! That's what the online seafood store The Crab Place says about its crab cakes. "Maryland-style uses foreign crab meat to replicate an authentic Maryland crab cake. Maryland-style is found in franchise restaurants across the country. CrabPlace.com crab cakes are 100% real Maryland crab cakes. We are one of the few companies still producing them this way. " It took us a long time to find an online seafood company that handles Maryland-caught blue crabs.