Rebeginning
WHERE IN THE WORLD to begin, and how? Maybe with something like In the beginning, Something-or-Other created Creation — including what became our local galaxy and solar system…
On whose third-from-the-sun planet, a primordial land mass divided over the eons into a clutch of continents…
Along the eastern coast of one of which (named "North America" by a certain subset of an animal genus that evolved together with the geography), the of-and-on glaciations and other geological morphings developed that particular planet's largest estuarine system — called "Chesapeake Bay" by the "English" colonizers who displaced it's aboriginal human settlers after appropriating many of their place names along with their place…
Which those newcomers then named "Maryland"…
In what their descendants would call "the USA"…
And lo, on the "Eastern Shore" of this same river-intricated Bay, near the small college town of "Stratford" in ever-less-rural "Avon County," an enterprising outfit trade-named "Tidewater Communities, Inc." developed in the "1980s" a soon-thriving gated community called by it's developers "Heron Bay Estates"…
Which project prospered just long enough for it's thousand- and-some inhabitants to begin to feel that their variously laid out and well-shrubberied neighborhoods constituted not only a successful residential development but a genuine community…
Until, a mere two dozen years after it's inception, that development was all but totally flattened in fewer than two dozen minutes by an F3-plus tornado, rare for these parts, spun off from an ever-less-rare tropical storm — the one called "Giorgio," in the "October" of "2006," during that year's annual hurricane season — and here we refugee-survivors of that freak twister freaking are, and that's more than enough already of this strung-out, quote-mark and hyphen-laden blather, the signature stylistic affliction of Failed-Old-Fart Fictionist George I. Newett, emeritus professor of more-or-less-creative writing @ the above-alluded-to Stratford College, who here hands the figurative microphone to his former colleague and fellow displaced Heron Bay Estatesman Peter Simpson, just now clearing his throat to address the first postapocalyptic meeting of the Heron Bay Estates Community Association (HBECA, commonly pronounced "H-Becka"), convened faute de mieux in a StratColl chemistry lecture hall thanks to Chairperson Simpson's good offoices as associate dean of said college and open to all former residents of that former development. Your podium, Pete, and welcome to it: Rebegin, sir, s.v.p.!
"Yes, well," Dean Simpson said to the assembled — then paused to reclear his throat and adjust with experienced hand the microphone clamped to the lectern perched between lab sinks and Bunsen burners on the small auditorium's chemistry-demonstration rostrum: "Here we-all are indeed — or almost all of us, anyhow, and thanks be for that!" He shook his balding but still handsome late-fiftyish head and sighed, then with one forefinger pushed up his rimless bifocals at the nose piece, smiled a tight-lipped smile, and continued: "And the question before us, obviously, is Do we start over? And if so, how?"
"Excuse me there, Pete," interrupted one of the six official neighborhood representatives seated together in the lecture hall's front row — plump Mark Matthews from Spartina Pointe, Heron Bay's once-most-upscale detached-house venue—"I say we oughta start over by starting this here meeting over, with a prayer of thanksgiving that even though Heron Bay Estates was wrecked, all but a couple of us survived to rebuild it."
"Amen to that," some fellow gruffed from an upper rear row — beefy-bossy old Chuck Becker, Pete saw it was, from Cattail Court, in his and Debbie's own much-missed Rockfish Reach neighborhood — and there were other murmurs of affirmation here and there in the well-filled hall. But "Objection," a woman's voice protested from elsewhere in the room — the Simpsons' friend and (former) neighbor Lisa Bergman: Dr. Dave the Dentist's wife and hygienist-partner, and HBECA's trim and self-possessed rep from their late lamented subdivision. "If we're going to bring Gee-dash-Dee into this meeting," she went on, " — which I'm personally opposed to doing? — then before we thank Him-slash-Her, at least let's ask Her-slash-Him to explain why He/ She killed George and Carol Walsh and wrecked all our houses, okay?"
"Hear hear!" agreed her swarthy-handsome husband and several others, including Pete's afore-mentioned Debbie, the Stratford poet-professor Amanda Todd, and her spouse, Yours Truly, the of-and-on Narrator of this rebegun Rebeginning. Enough present objected to the objection, however — both among the official representatives from what used to be HBE's Shad Run, Egret's Crest, Oyster Cove, Blue Crab Bight, et al., and among the general attendees of this ad hoc open meeting from those several neighborhoods — that Peter was obliged to restore order by tapping on the microphone before proposing that in the interests of all parties, a few moments' silence be observed forthwith, during which those inclined to thank or supplicate the deity of their choice would be free to do so, and the others to reflect as they saw fit upon the loss of their homes and possessions and the survival of their persons. "All in favor please raise your hands. Opposed? Motion carried: Half a minute's silence here declared, in memory of our late good neighbors the Walshes and our much-missed Heron Bay Estates."
While all hands prayed, reflected, or merely fidgeted, their chairperson could pretty well tell who was doing what by raising his eyes while lowering his head, stroking his short-trimmed beard, and noting the lowered heads with closed eyes (Spartina Pointers Mark Matthews and his self-designated trophy wife, Mindy; Mark's investment-counseling protégé Joe Barnes from Rockfish Reach; and his afore-mentioned cheerleaders Chuck and Sandy Becker, among others), the defiantly raised heads and wide-open eyes (notably Pete's own wife, Debbie, of whom more anon; the afore-noted Bergmans; the weekly Avon County News columnist Gerald Frank from Shad Run; and us Newett/Todds, late of Blue Crab Bight), and other somewhere-betweeners like Pete himself (e.g., Joe Barnes's wife, Judy; Gerry Frank's Joan; the tirelessly upbeat party hosts Tom and Patsy Hardison from Annapolis and Rockfish Reach; and, somewhat surprisingly, the Oyster Cove expastor Matt Grauer, whose conversion from Methodist minister to educational consultant perhaps reflected some weakening of faith?). As Dean Pete makes his unofficial tally, your pro tem Narrator will take the opportunity to stretch this thirty-second Moment of Silence into a more extended patch of what in the trade we call Exposition before getting on with the business at hand and this story's Action, if any — rather like that other windbag, our Giorgio tornado, expanding it's few-minute life span into what seemed an eternity to us hapless and terrified HBEers huddled in our basements and walk-in closets while windows and skylights blew out and trees and walls came a-tumbling down.
Okay, okay: weak analogy; scratch it. But whether or not this Moment of Silence helps any present to decide where we go from here, both as individuals and as a community, there's no doubting that those other moments of horrifying wind-roar changed the lives of most of us who survived it (not to mention the Walsh couple who didn't) and of many others lucky enough to have been in Stratford or elsewhere at the time but unlucky enough to have lost their primary or secondary dwelling place.
E.g., in that latter category, those Matthewses, Mark and Mindy, whose weekend-and-vacation establishment — an imposing faux-Georgian McMansion in Spartina Pointe — had scarcely been finished and landscaped when F3 all but wrecked it. The pair were over in Baltimore at the time, Mark in his downtown office at Lucas & Jones, LLC, whereof he is CEO, and his ex-secretary Mindy in their nearby harborfront penthouse condominium. Thanks to it's no-expense-spared construction, enough of their Heron Bay house remains standing to make it's restoration feasible, but for Mark the question is whether to rebuild at all in a community that may or may not follow suit, or to take what insurance money he can get, claim the rest as a casualty-loss tax deduction, clear the ruins, list the lot for sale, kiss HBE bye-bye, and build their second second home on higher ground somewhere less flood- and hurricane-vulnerable, like maybe the Hunt Valley horse country north of the city or the Allegheny hills of western Maryland. With their well-diversified equities portfolio, their Baltimore condo plus a couple of other "investment units" here and there, and a certain offshore account in the Cayman Islands, they're in no great pain. Indeed, for pert and upbeat Mindy the wreck of 211 Spartina Court is as much opportunity as setback: Long and hard as she'd worked with architect, designers, and decorators on that house's planning and construction — including radically changing it's original "design concept," at no small cost, from mission-style hacienda grande to Williamsburg colonial — they had enjoyed the finished product just long enough for her to wish that she'd done a few things differently: better feng shui in the floor plan, especially in the mansion's wings, and maybe one of those "infinite edge" swimming pools instead of the conventional raised coping right around. Something to be said for going back to Square One, maybe, whether with TCI in a redesigned and even better-amenitied Heron Bay or with some other architect/builder elsewhere…