the Severn and Spa Creek dump

some thoughts on Annapolis

The spring sunlight is lovely today along with high scattered clouds, a gentle breeze, and a few people on the creek in their powerboats or kayaks It’s Annapolis at its finest. It’s 1 May so can the touristas be far away?

One is tempted to assume tourism the greatest source of income in this community of 40,000. Wrongo. Tourists may walk along City Dock or up and down Main Street between April (when it’s warmer than this year was three of four weeks) and December each year but the town itself isn’t really that big. The merchants and restauranteurs along Main and City Dock welcome everyone, of course, but it’s Annapolitans that surely make up the bulk of their business over the year.

Sure, the U.S. Naval Academy is adjacent to the seventeenth century town north of Spa Creek called Annapolis and the smaller portion, formerly an independent community of Eastport. Both the Air Force and Army schools are spread out to a greater degree. This means that those who do go on the campus, following the screening process required as a federal facility, can walk along the harbour, visit the bookstore, see the chapel soon to be occupied by late May and June weddings, or visit the cemetary where generations of Naval Academy graduates lie in rest. The USNA is easily the smallest of the three major service academies in size but it is a destination and substantial employer in town.

Annapolis itself is quite old by American standards, founded in 1649 before seizing the power from peninsular Maryland plantations as the state capital in the eighteenth century. People forget American history (understatement of the millennium): One of the historical markers on the south end of the Compromise Street bridge denotes the Marquis de Lafayette’s time here with troops en route to Yorktown in the summer of 1781. George Washington resigned his commission upon completing the War of Independence as this wee town twenty-five miles south of mighty Baltimore was the temporary national capital. The infant Congress ratified the Treaty of Paris which locked in our independence under our magnificent (and recently rehabbed) capital dome. Midleton’s Tavern on City Dock dates to the 1760s, predated only slightly by Reynolds Tavern on Church Circle.

Annapolis proudly tags itself the Sailing Capital. Water is the heart of this place, something I did not appreciate when we relocated. I wanted to live on the water as I had never had that chance but the manner by which water provides the lifeline to this community became clear when I really looked at a map. Annapolis, as well as those communities north or south along the Chesapeake, is a series of peninsulas rather than a town all nice and neat as a port. It makes transit a bit dicier at times as one has to know where the bridges cross those smaller creeks and streams but it’s not wonder we have a functioning water taxi system to get around between now and November. Yes, it’s a fee-based system but they will collect us when we call, then drop us off at one of about seventy possible locations in and around Annapolis. People always assume we own a boat: why would we when we can let someone else do the never-ending maintenance on the boat while we relax on brief trips across the creeks?

The future of Annapolis, however, does not seem water or government or tourism or the Academy. Annapolis increasingly is one of the major medical communities in America. No, I don’t claim it’s got a dentist, dermatologist, and internist on each street corner as Manhattan does. Nor is it Chapel Hill/Durham where Duke Medical and the UNC medicine facilities compete in each strip mall for an every growing population moving to the Research Triangle and the secondary but growing Chattam County research facility.

Anne Arundel, however, is located at the western terminus of the Bay Bridge linking the Eastern Shore to the mainland while it also draws medical specialists to support the population all of the way south along the eastern side of the bay and at least to the Potomac River which forms the boundary between Maryland and Virginia on the western side. The number of people drawn to this state-of-the-art facility is shocking.

Anne Arundel Medical Center form a nucleus of health care for miles. As the population retired to Annapolis continues to age, the number of specialists in elderly care grow along with other specialties. This probably doesn’t sound too surprising but for the smallest capital city by size in the nation, one ought to consider how impressive it is that AAMC has these medical facilities making it one of the top hospitals in the country. And the doctors coming here over the years raise the quality of our community but nothing is ever cost free.

Annapolis is far from perfect. In the five years we have been here full-time, we know that violence plagues several portions of this fair city as carjackings, shootings, knifings, and other person-on-person crime is in the local paper or on the web. Grocery stores post security guards to thwart shoplifting. The Post Office in our neighbourhood has this inexplicable habit of forgetting about us at least once a month, evidenced by uncollected outgoing mail at the end of the day when the carriers return to their homes in Baltimore. Local post offices only allow you to drop off rather than to deliver our mail from a distribution center here (I know, I know but that is what the post officials have told me. I agree it sounds pretty weird). We have no local television and decide daily whether to support Washington or Baltimore sports teams (usually the latter as the Washington sports curse is merciless). Did I mention one does not drive downtown in Annapolis for any reason at all when there is a boat show or a parade? I wonder constantly how ambulances on emergency runs deal with problems downtown at those same crowd-intensive periods.

Then there is transit during our ever-more-frequent tidal flooding. The USNA itself is sinking perilously and your and my tax dollars are investing in a multi-decade project to save it. No need for hurricanes as the tides are bringing us more damage all the time. Don’t tell Annapolitans about global warming; we live it.

And as we approach Graduation Day, the second most popular day in Annapolis, we could probably pay off our mortgage if we rented our balcony to the hordes (the balcony wouldn’t hold more than two dozen folks barely breathing, mind you) on the Wednesday before graduation when the Blue Angels practice which is THE MOST POPULAR day of the year. Last week I started seeing notices for those few silly folks who still don’t have plans for the event; I could almost see the writer chortling about the concept on 27 April. It’s also complete insanity and paralysis but it is so Annapolis.

In short, this is a lovely place you should visit but come forewarned. It’s beautiful. It’s refreshing. It’s historic. But it’s got its quirks and hassles as well. No, we aren’t renting the balcony this year, sorry.

Actions create consequences. I doubt the native population when the colonials began arriving in the seventeenth century expected quite what we have. They would appreciate some while be mortified by much of the modern Annapolis. I am not originally from here so I am guilty of contributing to the hassles but I do love this beautiful place where the Severn River and Spa Creek empty into the magnificent Chesapeake Bay which opens to the world. Such a deal.

Thank you for sharing Annapolis with me today. Have you been here? Did you enjoy it? I welcome any reflections, rebuttals, suggestions, and the like. This is Americana but not in the Midwest or southern or western manner. Or, are we all alike but only think we are somehow unique?

Be well and be safe. FIN