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St. Mary's County - REAL PEOPLE - Jack Russell
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RUSSELL >> I'm 69 years old, I was born in Piney Point which is about 4 miles up the,
due north of here.
We crabbed, we swam ever bit of St. George's Creek, ya' know, caught a lot of soft crabs
there. I ended up going to the University of Maryland, but I, I came back to St. George's
Island because there's no place in the world like it. My father was a farmer, an oysterman,
he hauled some gravel, kind of a Jack of all trades. But we had a little farm, a farmette
type operation in Piney Point. We had a cow to milk before we went to school, we had chickens
to feed, we killed our own hogs. I looked at getting this skip-jack built as
getting a masters in the water business. I've watched them work for a number of years. As
a matter of fact, we built it in 1979, so from about 70 on we watched these folks work,
we went with a number of fellows that was dreging these rigs, they could catch a better
oyster than the average person, get more money for them. and It just looked like a really
neat thing to do. So, finally culmenating with the Chesapeake
Bay Field Lab, with a mission to use this vessile to educate a future generation of
young and old people alike. It's a temendous thing to let somebody steer the boat. You
can see their eyes light up, and then they don't believe they're steering it. And even
if they go out and a hard crab happens to bite them, that's a unique experience in itself.
They know then never stick your hand down there at one of those clacking crabs.
If somebody likes the water, they like nature, we've got 400 miles of shoreline here in St.
Mary's County. We've got some great restaurants, a lot of home grown restaurants, you know,
you can take, over on the Patuxent River, down in Ridge and Point Lookout and get a
lot of fresh seafood, there's a lot of stuff to do down here. And you get away from the
beltway.
You can find a, a local charter boat captain that was raised on the river, you'll find
a lot of people here that have been fishing and crabbing their entire life.
The absolute best summertime feast that anybody could enjoy down here. You set them down to
a nice platter of steamed crabs, steamed corn on the cob, in the husk along side of them,
and then a little brew that we have that we call Skully's secrete sauce, which is just
some squirty butter and vinegar, and you slop that across that corn after you got it out
the husk. So you've got steamed crabs, quartered up tomatoes- not sliced tomatoes! - you take
a nice big tomatoes and you whack it four ways, set them down there with some JO Spice
or Old Bay on them, and some corn with Skully's secrete sauce. Finish them up with some good
lore about the Chesapeake or about our farming communities, Crack open a watermelon. And
then when they say, "Look I can't hold no more," get the ice cream out and give them
a scoop of ice cream. That's top draw in my book.
It's quite, it's peaceful, I've never found a better place myself, it's just a great place,
that's all.
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