Lilypad
Well-Known Member
Did any of y'all get a chance to read yesterday's edition of the Washington Post? There was a wonderful column about Bernie Fowler entitled:
Caught in Time's Currents-In the Twilight of Life, Md. Man Fears His River Is, Too
Log onto the Washington Post to read or pick up yesterdays paper!
Here's just a teaser:
For 4 decades, C. Bernard Fowler has been the Patuxent River's preacher and protector. From beginning to end, the river has run through his life, shaping it with its current. It fed his family when he was a child. It gave him steady work as an adult, renting out boats and selling crab cakes. It brought him the woman who would become his wife.
Raised on Broomes Island in Calvert County, the 4th-generation son in a family of watermen, he learned to shuck oysters, set trotlines and make a living on the river.
He has left the Patuxent only once, in the early 1940s to enlist in the Navy shortly after his eldest brother was drafted for World War II. He feared feeling guilty should his brother die while he was living comfortably on the water. After his brother was killed in action, Fowler returned to the river to mourn and work.
It was a few years later when he and others on Broomes Island began noticing the changes. The sea grass, once a thick lush carpet along the riverbed, was thinning out. Their haul of crabs and oysters seemed to shrink every year. And deep in the river, a murky cloud was beginning to form.
They pointed it out to state officials, who told them that they had no science to back their claims and that the river was fine. Later, as a Calvert County commissioner, Fowler met with others from nearby counties and decided that the only way the state would listen was if they sued.
Caught in Time's Currents-In the Twilight of Life, Md. Man Fears His River Is, Too
Log onto the Washington Post to read or pick up yesterdays paper!
Here's just a teaser:
For 4 decades, C. Bernard Fowler has been the Patuxent River's preacher and protector. From beginning to end, the river has run through his life, shaping it with its current. It fed his family when he was a child. It gave him steady work as an adult, renting out boats and selling crab cakes. It brought him the woman who would become his wife.
Raised on Broomes Island in Calvert County, the 4th-generation son in a family of watermen, he learned to shuck oysters, set trotlines and make a living on the river.
He has left the Patuxent only once, in the early 1940s to enlist in the Navy shortly after his eldest brother was drafted for World War II. He feared feeling guilty should his brother die while he was living comfortably on the water. After his brother was killed in action, Fowler returned to the river to mourn and work.
It was a few years later when he and others on Broomes Island began noticing the changes. The sea grass, once a thick lush carpet along the riverbed, was thinning out. Their haul of crabs and oysters seemed to shrink every year. And deep in the river, a murky cloud was beginning to form.
They pointed it out to state officials, who told them that they had no science to back their claims and that the river was fine. Later, as a Calvert County commissioner, Fowler met with others from nearby counties and decided that the only way the state would listen was if they sued.
