Judy Wallman, a professional genealogy researcher in southern California, was doing some personal work on her own family tree. She discovered that Harry (senator (D) from Nevada) Reid's great-great uncle, Remus Reid, was hanged for horse stealing and train robbery in Montana in 1889. Both Judy and Harry Reid share this common ancestor.
The only known photograph of Remus shows him standing on the gallows in Montana territory. On the back of the picture Judy obtained during her research is this inscription: 'Remus Reid, horse thief, sent to Montana Territorial Prison 1885, escaped 1887, robbed the Montana Flyer six times. Caught by Pinkerton detectives, convicted and hanged in 1889.'
So Judy recently e-mailed Senator Harry Reid for information about their mutual great-great uncle. Believe it or not, Harry Reid's staff sent back the following biographical sketch for her genealogy research:
'Remus Reid was a famous cowboy in the Montana Territory. His business empire grew to include acquisition of valuable equestrian assets and intimate dealings with the Montana railroad. Beginning in 1883, he devoted several years of his life to government service, finally taking leave to resume his dealings with the railroad. In 1887, he was a key player in a vital investigation run by the renowned Pinkerton Detective Agency. In 1889, Remus passed away during an important civic function held in his honor when the platform upon which he was standing collapsed.'
Political Spin? What say you Robert Wahl?
"When the legend becomes fact-print the legend!"
Know a yarn about a North Beach Ancestor-Know the Spin? Send it in.
This is your Town. This is your Neighborhood. This is North Beach.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
LIFE IN THE 1500'S
The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be . Here are some facts about the1500s:
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water.. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water..
Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying . It's raining cats and dogs.
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, Dirt poor.
The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance way. Hence the saying a thresh hold.
Getting quite an education, aren't you?)
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old..
Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the bacon.. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat..
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a ...dead ringer.. And that's the truth.
Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !
S. Bennett gets our special thanks for this contribution.
Enjoy this historical primer-have a contribution to make?
This is your town. This is your neighborhood. This is North Beach.
Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.
Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water.. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water..
Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying . It's raining cats and dogs.
There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house.. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.
The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, Dirt poor.
The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance way. Hence the saying a thresh hold.
Getting quite an education, aren't you?)
In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old..
Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the bacon.. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat..
Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.
Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.
Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.
England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a ...dead ringer.. And that's the truth.
Now, whoever said History was boring ! ! !
S. Bennett gets our special thanks for this contribution.
Enjoy this historical primer-have a contribution to make?
This is your town. This is your neighborhood. This is North Beach.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Inspirational Message
In a few short days, an African American man will move from his private residence into a much larger and infinitely more expensive one owned not by him but by the taxpayers. A vast lawn, a perimeter fence and many well trained security specialists will insulate him from the rest of us, but the mere fact that this man will be residing in this house should make us all stop and count our blessings - because it proves that we live in a nation where anything is possible. Many believed this day would never come. Most of us hoped and prayed that it would, but few of us actually believed we would live to see it. Racism is an ugly thing in all of its forms and there is little doubt that if this man had moved into this house fifteen years ago, there would have been a great outcry - possibly even rioting in the streets. Today, we can all be both grateful and proud that no such mayhem will take place when this man takes up residency in this house. This man, moving into this house at this time in our nation's history is much more than a simple change of addresses for him - it is proof of a change in our attitude as a nation. It is an amends of sorts - the righting of a great wrong. It is a symbol of our growth, and of our willingness to "judge a man, not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character". There can be little doubt now that the vast majority of us truly believe that this man has earned both his place in history and his new address. His time in this house will not be easy - it will be fraught with danger and he will face many challenges. I am sure there will be many times when h e asks himself how in the world he ended up here and like all who have gone before him, the experience will age him greatly. But I for one will not waste an ounce of worry for his sake - because in every way a man can, he asked for this. His whole life for the past fifteen years appears to have been inexorably leading this man toward this house. It is highly probable that that in the past, despite all of his actions, racism would have kept this man out of this house. Today, I thank the lord above that I am an American and that I live in a nation where wrongs are righted, where justice matters and where truly anything is possible.
Who is this man? you ask.
Attribution: Compliments fromT. M. Throckmorton via e-mail.
Who is this man? you ask.
Attribution: Compliments fromT. M. Throckmorton via e-mail.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Older Than Dirt
'Someone asked the other day, 'What was your favorite fast food when you were growing up?' 'We didn't have fast food when I was growing up,' I informed him. 'All the food was slow.''C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat 'It was a place called 'at home,'' I explained. ! 'Mom cooked every day and when Dad got home from work, we sat down together at the dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plate I was allowed to sit there until I did like it.' By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how I had to have permission to leave the table. But here are some other things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system could have handled it : Some parents NEVER! owned their own house, wore Levis , set foot on a golf course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears & Roebuck. Either way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died. My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably 50 pounds, and only had one speed, (slow). We didn't have a television in our house until I was 5. It was, of course, black and white, I was 13 before I tasted my first pizza, it was called 'pizza pie.' When I bit into it, I burned the roof of my mouth and the cheese slid off, swung down, plastered itself against my chin and burned that, too. It's still the best pizza I ever had. We didn't have a car until I was 4. It was an old black Dodge. I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already using the line. Pizzas were not delivered to our home. But milk was. All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers my brother delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of which he got to keep 2 cents. He had to get up at 6AM every morning. On Saturday, he had to collect the 42 cents from his customers. His favorite customers were the ones who gave him 50 cents and told him to keep the change. His least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be home on collection day. Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the movies. Touching someone else's tongue with yours was called French kissing and they didn't do that in movies. I don't know what they did in French movies. French movies were dirty and we weren't allowed to see them If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing. Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it? MEMORIES from a friend : My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the ironing board to 'sprinkle' clothes with because we didn't have steam irons. Man, I am old. How many do you remember?Head lights dimmer switches on the floor.Ignition switches on the dashboard.Heaters mounted on the inside of the fire wall.Real ice boxes.Pant leg clips for bicycles without chain guards.Soldering irons you heat on a gas burner.Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.Older Than Dirt Quiz : Count all the ones that you remember not the ones you were told about Ratings at the bottom. 1 Blackjack chewing gum2. Wax Coke-shaped bottles with colored sugar water3. Candy cigarettes4. Soda pop machines that dispensed glass bottles5. Coffee shops or diners with tableside juke boxes6 . Home milk delivery in glass bottles with cardboard stoppers7. Party lines8. Newsreels before the movie9. P.F. Flyers10. Butch wax11. TV test patterns that came on at night after the last show and were there until TV shows started again in the morning. (there were only 3 channels) 12. Peashooters13. Howdy Doody14. 45 RPM records15. S& H greenstamps16 Hi-fi's17. Metal ice trays with lever18. Mimeograph paper19 Blue flashbulb20. Packards21. Roller skate keys22. Cork popguns23. Drive-ins24. Studebakers25. Wash tub wringers
If you remembered 0-5 = You're still youngIf you remembered 6-10 = You are getting olderIf you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!I might be older than dirt but those memories are the best part of my life.
Compliments via e-mail from S. Bennett
Have another example to contribute, please do!
This is your neighborhood. This is your town. This is North Beach.
If you remembered 0-5 = You're still youngIf you remembered 6-10 = You are getting olderIf you remembered 11-15 = Don't tell your age,If you remembered 16-25 = You're older than dirt!I might be older than dirt but those memories are the best part of my life.
Compliments via e-mail from S. Bennett
Have another example to contribute, please do!
This is your neighborhood. This is your town. This is North Beach.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Buy Locally
Bank of America has issued the following alert:
"Store Closings & Gift Cards"
I wanted to give a heads up that if you tend to give gift cards around the holidays, you need to be careful that the cards will be honored after the holidays. Stores that are planning to close after Christmas are still selling the cards through the holidays even though the cards will be worthless January 1. There is no law preventing them from doing this. On the contrary, it is referred to as 'Bankruptcy Planning). Below is a partial list of stores that you need to be cautious about.
Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)
Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide closing
Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine's to close 150 stores nationwide
Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January
Cache will close all stores
Talbots closing down specialty stores
J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots)
Pacific Sunwear (also owned by Talbots)
GAP closing 85 storesFootlocker closing 140 stores more to close after January
Wickes Furniture closing down
Levitz closing down remaining stores
Bombay closing remaining stores
Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January
Whitehall closing all stores
Piercing Pagoda closing all stores
Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.
Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( New Brunswick )
Macys to close 9 stores after January
Linens and Things closing all stores
Movie Galley Closing all stores
Pep Boys Closing 33 stores
Sprint/Nextel closing 133 stores
JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.
Wilson Leather closing down all stores
Sharper Image closing down all stores
K B Toys closing 356 stores
Loews to close down some stores
Dillard's to close some stores.
So what better reason is there to buy locally ?
It is good for the Town. It is good for the Neighborhood stores. It is good for North Beach
"Store Closings & Gift Cards"
I wanted to give a heads up that if you tend to give gift cards around the holidays, you need to be careful that the cards will be honored after the holidays. Stores that are planning to close after Christmas are still selling the cards through the holidays even though the cards will be worthless January 1. There is no law preventing them from doing this. On the contrary, it is referred to as 'Bankruptcy Planning). Below is a partial list of stores that you need to be cautious about.
Circuit City (filed Chapter 11)
Ann Taylor- 117 stores nationwide closing
Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug ,and Catherine's to close 150 stores nationwide
Eddie Bauer to close stores 27 stores and more after January
Cache will close all stores
Talbots closing down specialty stores
J. Jill closing all stores (owned by Talbots)
Pacific Sunwear (also owned by Talbots)
GAP closing 85 storesFootlocker closing 140 stores more to close after January
Wickes Furniture closing down
Levitz closing down remaining stores
Bombay closing remaining stores
Zales closing down 82 stores and 105 after January
Whitehall closing all stores
Piercing Pagoda closing all stores
Disney closing 98 stores and will close more after January.
Home Depot closing 15 stores 1 in NJ ( New Brunswick )
Macys to close 9 stores after January
Linens and Things closing all stores
Movie Galley Closing all stores
Pep Boys Closing 33 stores
Sprint/Nextel closing 133 stores
JC Penney closing a number of stores after January
Ethan Allen closing down 12 stores.
Wilson Leather closing down all stores
Sharper Image closing down all stores
K B Toys closing 356 stores
Loews to close down some stores
Dillard's to close some stores.
So what better reason is there to buy locally ?
It is good for the Town. It is good for the Neighborhood stores. It is good for North Beach
Monday, November 17, 2008
Great Recipe
1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant.
2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Talk to God about what is going on in your life. Buy a lock if you have to.
3. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, 'My purpose is to__________ today. I am thankful for______________'
4. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
5. Drink green tea and plenty of water. Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli , almonds & walnuts.
6. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
7. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
8. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.
9. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
10. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
11. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
12. You are not so important that you have to win every argument. agree to disagree.
13. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
14. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
15. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
16. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: 'In five years, will this matter?'
17. Forgive everyone for everything.
18. What other people think of you is none of your business.
19. GOD heals everything - but you have to ask Him.
20. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
21. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch!!!
22. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
23. Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements: I am thankful for__________. Today I accomplished_________.
24. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.
25. When you are feeling down, start listing your many blessings. you'll be smiling before you know it.
Send this to everyone you care about.
Direct attribution goes to our very good neighbor Michael Parrish. (Thanks Michael!)
Have any other good recipes, you know what to do.
This is your Town. This is your Neighborhood. This is North Beach
2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Talk to God about what is going on in your life. Buy a lock if you have to.
3. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, 'My purpose is to__________ today. I am thankful for______________'
4. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
5. Drink green tea and plenty of water. Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli , almonds & walnuts.
6. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
7. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
8. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.
9. Life isn't fair, but it's still good.
10. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.
11. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
12. You are not so important that you have to win every argument. agree to disagree.
13. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
14. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
15. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
16. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: 'In five years, will this matter?'
17. Forgive everyone for everything.
18. What other people think of you is none of your business.
19. GOD heals everything - but you have to ask Him.
20. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
21. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch!!!
22. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
23. Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements: I am thankful for__________. Today I accomplished_________.
24. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed.
25. When you are feeling down, start listing your many blessings. you'll be smiling before you know it.
Send this to everyone you care about.
Direct attribution goes to our very good neighbor Michael Parrish. (Thanks Michael!)
Have any other good recipes, you know what to do.
This is your Town. This is your Neighborhood. This is North Beach
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Pie n the Sky
Pete’s Pies (Key Lime Pies to be exact) is on vacation while getting its act together with the Calvert County Health Department as one person, who obviously didn't get a sample, felt the need as a responsible (sic) citizen, to accomplish. The citizen was right on the mark because in Maryland, unlike the Commonwealth of Virginia, you cannot bake food products in your home kitchen for commercial distribution. I am thankful that this person informed on me, during the proposed Town Hall debate, to the Health Department, since, after receiving a certified letter from the agency, I got to speak with one of its very attentive staff members. Since then, I also got to meet an ancillary victim of this incident-Kim of Kim’s Key Lime Pies in Solomons Island, Maryland.
As previously stated, I am doing what I should have done in the beginning, learning the applicable rules, mustering the funding, so when approval to begin anew “Pete’s Pies” is given, I can hit the ground running.
With all that has happened in the past two months, it never dawned on me , contrary to Health Department information, that Kim was not the one who reported my transgression. I visited Kim last Sunday and she was stunned that someone had used her name to complain about Pete’s Pies . A very engaging entrepreneur, Kim regaled me with the histrionics of her career and her store’s operation, which was both impressive and informative.
For obvious reasons, I think my Key Lime Pie is the absolute best, but all should know that Kim’s is a definite contender. After all, that is how it all got started.
On a balmy early summer evening on the porch of the Westlawn Inn, there was a discussion about Key Lime Pies and who could make the best one. Great topic for a small town. I had an old "family” recipe and held an informal tasting of my pie on the porch of the Westlawn Inn to celebrate former Mayor Mark Frazer’s appointment by Governor O’Malley to the state's higher education board. Indeed the pie was a contender and “poof” it was gone. Similar ‘free’ distributions of the pies went to friends, neighbors, relatives, commercial establishments, restaurants, and judicial officials as far away as Annapolis, and, not to my surprise, the responses were all very positive. Samples were also given to Town Hall staff in an effort to get permission to sell the pies at this summer’s Farmer’s Market. The response to the two pies that were left was very positive, but I abandoned the marketing effort in light of the fact that I could not honestly attest to a requirement that the ingredients were locally grown, a criteria for any submission to the Farmer's Market. I probably could have satisfied the process by buying eggs from a local farmer, but it seemed like such a costly effort when I can walk six blocks to Roland’s to get the same. Catch 22, support a local establishment or……you get the picture.
Kim and I are in complete agreement that Key Lime pies are not cheap to make both in terms of product costs and also preparation time, so to market the same would have to be at a price of at least $3.50 a slice, with a minimum of eight slices to a pie, you may net a decent hourly rate with multiple pies in the oven. So my investment in this new venture, with market testing and consumer sampling of this ‘contender’, was very substantial.
I am moving forward with “Pete’s Pies” and hope to be fully licensed over the winter so Kim and I can have a ‘bake off” in the spring of 09. She would actually like to have a ‘throw down” with Bobby Flay, but I am initially from New York, so ……………, what do they say about.....seconds?
There is a multi faceted moral of this recital: I was able to dust off an old “family” recipe, which has been uniformly well received and experience ideally what small towns are all about. ‘Two steps forward, one step back” is a process that I am becoming used to as well. I am learning what entrepreneurism is all about. Even with this “one step back” experience, I got to meet Kim, who is making a difference! Last but not least, small minded people, who operate in the shadows of cowardice, deception, using someone else's identity and who engage in mean-spiritedness really do not know what they are doing, and like the donkey in the "Wells Are All Covered Up", it may ultimately come back to bite you!
I make a very good Key Lime pie!
This is your Town. This is your Neighborhood. This is North Beach.
As previously stated, I am doing what I should have done in the beginning, learning the applicable rules, mustering the funding, so when approval to begin anew “Pete’s Pies” is given, I can hit the ground running.
With all that has happened in the past two months, it never dawned on me , contrary to Health Department information, that Kim was not the one who reported my transgression. I visited Kim last Sunday and she was stunned that someone had used her name to complain about Pete’s Pies . A very engaging entrepreneur, Kim regaled me with the histrionics of her career and her store’s operation, which was both impressive and informative.
For obvious reasons, I think my Key Lime Pie is the absolute best, but all should know that Kim’s is a definite contender. After all, that is how it all got started.
On a balmy early summer evening on the porch of the Westlawn Inn, there was a discussion about Key Lime Pies and who could make the best one. Great topic for a small town. I had an old "family” recipe and held an informal tasting of my pie on the porch of the Westlawn Inn to celebrate former Mayor Mark Frazer’s appointment by Governor O’Malley to the state's higher education board. Indeed the pie was a contender and “poof” it was gone. Similar ‘free’ distributions of the pies went to friends, neighbors, relatives, commercial establishments, restaurants, and judicial officials as far away as Annapolis, and, not to my surprise, the responses were all very positive. Samples were also given to Town Hall staff in an effort to get permission to sell the pies at this summer’s Farmer’s Market. The response to the two pies that were left was very positive, but I abandoned the marketing effort in light of the fact that I could not honestly attest to a requirement that the ingredients were locally grown, a criteria for any submission to the Farmer's Market. I probably could have satisfied the process by buying eggs from a local farmer, but it seemed like such a costly effort when I can walk six blocks to Roland’s to get the same. Catch 22, support a local establishment or……you get the picture.
Kim and I are in complete agreement that Key Lime pies are not cheap to make both in terms of product costs and also preparation time, so to market the same would have to be at a price of at least $3.50 a slice, with a minimum of eight slices to a pie, you may net a decent hourly rate with multiple pies in the oven. So my investment in this new venture, with market testing and consumer sampling of this ‘contender’, was very substantial.
I am moving forward with “Pete’s Pies” and hope to be fully licensed over the winter so Kim and I can have a ‘bake off” in the spring of 09. She would actually like to have a ‘throw down” with Bobby Flay, but I am initially from New York, so ……………, what do they say about.....seconds?
There is a multi faceted moral of this recital: I was able to dust off an old “family” recipe, which has been uniformly well received and experience ideally what small towns are all about. ‘Two steps forward, one step back” is a process that I am becoming used to as well. I am learning what entrepreneurism is all about. Even with this “one step back” experience, I got to meet Kim, who is making a difference! Last but not least, small minded people, who operate in the shadows of cowardice, deception, using someone else's identity and who engage in mean-spiritedness really do not know what they are doing, and like the donkey in the "Wells Are All Covered Up", it may ultimately come back to bite you!
I make a very good Key Lime pie!
This is your Town. This is your Neighborhood. This is North Beach.
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