Following Mr. Jefferson's lead

When the old shingled cottage behind our Rehoboth Beach house was torn down and the lot cleared, we realized we needed to do something quick to create privacy. I mean, who knows what kind of plastic McMansion might be built or if the new neighbors will be an obnoxious Republican family from northern Virginia.

So, we head upstate to Ronny’s Nursery to buy some California privet, which is great for creating hedges – the more you cut it the denser it gets. It seems to thrive on the Delaware coast. Especially when you toss on some of that powerful Milford fertilizer which I know is responsible for some of the "unfortunate looking" downstate Delawareans I see at the outlet malls.

Privet is not native to the United States. English settlers brought it to the New World in the 1700s. Thomas Jefferson used it at Monticello. Toparians favor it for their art. California privet actually came from Japan in the 1940’s and quickly became the privet of choice for Golden State gardeners and landscapers who appreciated its fast-growing attributes and utility as a shield against prying eyes. It can grow 25 inches in a year. I need about 36 inches to screen the neighbors.

Fried egg and scrapple sandwich

I used to feel self-conscious pulling the Volvo wagon into the parking lot full of pickup trucks and SUVs at Bob's Market on Route 301 in Queenstown, Maryland. Nobody ever said a word, but I could sense their eyes on me as I stood in line for my coffee and breakfast sandwich, dressed in a pair of pressed khakis and tassel loafers. Bob's, you see, is a Dickies and Carhartt crowd. The kind of place where the scruffy young guys buy Mountain Dew and boxes of doughnuts and the older guys flirt with the "Wingback Wandas" in blue eye-shadow and white Reeboks, cooking behind the counter. There are lots of fishing magazines, snack foods, and jars of purple pickled eggs. You know the place.

Now that I'm driving a truck, I don't feel so out of place at Bob's. Why just this morning, I swaggered in and ordered myself a fried egg and scrapple sandwich. Yep, scrapple. Toasted. No cheese. And ambling over to get my coffee, I even felt cocky enough to cast a bold, appraising glance up and down the backside of the well-built fellow shoveling sugar into his coffee. He looked hung over, but cute, in that redneck kind of way. And I could tell by his package that he had a fried egg and scrapple sandwich too.

A silver tongued devil

My neighbor quietly slipped a newspaper ad under my screen door this morning. It was for one of Butch Emmert’s auctions, a “highly important Delaware estate sale,” the lifelong collection of the late Robert Stewart of Pilottown Road, Lewes, Delaware, and Capitol Hill, Washington, DC. Mr. Stewart was formerly the Curator of the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution, an avid art collector and a socialite. Hmm…sounds like an old queen to me. And a sale I just might be interested in.

But my neighbor didn’t leave it to let me know about the 1850 carved China trade tea chest or the small “flip flop” table. Oh no. My neighbor left the ad because Butch Emmert always auctions off a couple of the old black and white Delaware license plates that are so coveted in this state. Nine plates, in fact, were being featured on Sunday, including two 4-digit truck plates that ought to go for about $3,000 each.

He's a silver tongued devil, my neighbor is. He's already convinced me to 1) drink Manhattans before noon, claiming its unrivaled tonic qualities are a restorative and will firm the moral fiber; and 2) to break, I mean, sneak, into old houses set for demolition, just for a look around. He knows I'm easily swayed by an "interesting" argument. That's the reason I joined a fraternity, took LSD, and slept with preppy girls in college. But the silver tongued devil is gonna have to step up his game if he thinks he can pressure me into spending $3,000 for an old black and white plate...

Trucking with the Duchess

I venture across the River and over into Virginia, that bastion of bigotry and citadel of conservatism. As I drive, I’m amazed not only by the number of cars still sporting “W” and “Bush/Cheney” stickers, but by how arrogant and rude those particular drivers are in traffic. Why am I surprised?

Driving a truck might jack up the testosterone levels, but, interestingly, it also mellows you out on the road. I’m serious. It’s sort of like how the biggest guy in the bar never picks the fight. He doesn’t need to because he’s secure in himself. It’s like that when you drive a truck.

But I digress. I’m driving to Virginia to visit my dear friend the Duchess of Chilmark. She’s in exile in Alexandria, you know, until the summertime when she’ll once again reign over her windswept, hilltop, duchy on the Atlantic, criss-crossed as it is with magnificent old stone walls, beach plums, and Queen Ann’s lace. Ticks are a problem, but who cares? When you’re with the Duchess in Chilmark, you travel back to a more gentile era where the roads aren’t paved and everyone drinks their gin and tonics from old mayonnaise jars.

The Duchess hasn’t seen the pickup truck yet, so we’re going for a short drive. Like good old-school WASPs, we fix a cocktail for the road. Actually, we just pour some red wine into a very small go-cup. Not enough to really raise our alcohol blood level, but just enough to suggest a sense of romance and wickedness. The Duchess has dressed for the ride and with her scarf, I think she looks very much like CIA spy Valerie Plame.

She tells me my anti-Bush sticker is too small and too subtle. “What good is it if the jerks can’t see it?” she says. She does approve of the hand-crank windows and the big bench seat. We don’t drive very far. Just to the new Whole Foods Market to pick up a few items I've been needing. Out here I can easily maneuver the big truck into a parking spot.