Put In Creek, Mathews, Virginia
 
My feet are itchy.  The temperature outside the boat is 50 degrees.  The leaves on the deciduous trees are starting to change color.  Our butter tore the bread yesterday.  It is time to move on down the hill.  But not before I have my say about the Oyster Roast.
 
I went to an oyster roast, a party really and came away with a living history experience of the first magnitude.
 
Dee & Reed Lawson’s two to three acre spread on the creek was ideal for this event, with plenty of parking in a field across the lane, a large tent to cover food and guest in the eventuality of rain, with catering staff scurrying to and fro, old oystermen tending to the oysters.
 
The food was magnificent, the oysters fresh and the beer cold.  I immediately settled into a place of worship, if you will, between the wood tables that acted as a raw oyster bar and one for the roasted.  One man shucked raw as needed and the other stoked the open fire with a large metal plate over the fire where fresh oysters were laid on the plate, covered with damp burlap and sprayed with a hose.  The cooking instrument of choice, a first in my experience, was a snow shovel that was used to cover the cooking surface with oysters and used again to remove and serve them on the wooden table.  It was fascinating.
 
The gentile men and women of Mathews would either wait their turn at the table to slurp down raw oysters or partake of the warm roasted ones on the half shell.  Some would peel out a rubber left handed glove from pocket or purse and arm themselves with a oyster knife from the same pocket or purse, sidle up to the table while talking, hold the oyster away from their body slightly, pry it open, allow the pungent fluid to spill out, cut the muscle and slurp the creature in its raw or cooked state with studied motion.
 
 I noticed one particularly very gentile woman with the syrupy slow speech and sensual measured motion of the proper southern women talk her way to the table.  Suddenly, after a critical survey of the pile of roasted shellfish, the expression on her face turned to an almost lustful, appetite-driven determination. She stopped talking, then quickly donned a glove on one hand as an oyster knife magically appeared in the other.  Silently, with a mesmerizing quickness and economy of motion of a striking white egret, she shucked and ate a half dozen oysters faster then you or I could shuck one.  She finished.  Then slowly transformed back into the southern woman, gently took off her glove, stowed the knife and turned to a friend with a satisfied sleepy expression and continued her socializing, for the moment sated from her efforts.  It was a private moment caught by me only and one I will cherish for a very long time.  That and other similar moments were those of the oyster purist. However, let us not slight the premier skills of Shelly the Caterer.
 
There were mountains of fresh fruit, tureens of soup, hot pans of this and that, small homemade ham biscuits, carrot cakes with rich cream frosting, pecan bars and so many other wonders passed, served, taken, enjoyed.  Oh, yes, but do not despair, it gets better, and it doesn’t get any better than the locally fresh caught fish lightly battered and deep fried in small mouth size chunks and if you think that was good, it was worth the fight to a hot plate of delicately coated slightly deep fried oysters.  You could tell where the fried oyster plate was by the circle of people crowding around the server.  Not a one of those fried oyster plates made it the 20 yards from the house to the tent.  Now we all know there should not be such a thing as a delicacy that is deep fried.  Well, I am here to tell you that sentiment is wrong.  Those deep fried oysters may be the world’s most delightfully light and delicious seafood.  Good grief, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.   Instead I ambled over to a perch that rather overlooked the festivities, sat, looked, listened and realized exactly what it was that I was experiencing.  It was a celebration of life, of heritage, of Virginia culture and tradition.
 
This was indeed a living history enactment of Virginia values.  It is a wonderfully unique continuation or evolution of what was once the Manorism system where large plantations spawned villages that interacted with other manors.  The owner of these large sprawling plantations would help, support and entertain other gentlemen to maintain a closeness that would keep each obligated to provide support to the other in a time of need.  So, too, do Dee and Reed, our hosts, offer up this event every two years in repayment for the love of and close support of the community.  That it is not simply a party is evident by the wide range of guests outside of the ages of the hosts, especially those in their 80’s and 90’s. 
 
This event is also the affirmation of community and its structure that has worked persistently and effectively in the south.  There was a natural feeling of difference and respect for the young, the old, the natives, “come heres” and people of color. There were no black guests, there were no white servers, but yet there was no feelings, no underlying currents, the blending and melding was natural.  Each individual had a role to play and each took pride in doing so with a mutual quality equality generated through respect and admiration.  It is nothing I have ever experienced nor believed existed. 
 
 There is a seamless systematic approach to life that acknowledges and honors differences created by color, age, intelligence, class and personality.  I found it comforting. 
 
This is the last oyster roast event that takes place in Mathews on a community scale.  It is a dinosaur refusing to die.  The bay is not as bountiful.  Dee and Reed cannot simply have oysters plucked from their backyard creek as one could fifty years ago.  They are lucky if the oysters come from the area and often are imported from the Florida Panhandle.  One man said when he was a teenager he worked and cultivated an oyster shoal much as his mother worked the garden in her backyard.  Now the feast is not only the expenditure of the hunter gatherer, but the expense of paying cash for the materials and services provided, yet, still it is old Virginia.  One could squint a little and easily see men in stockings and tunics with tri-corner hats standing or sitting smoking a clay pipe filled with a sweet, flavorful, mild Virginia leaf while reed and string instruments gleefully celebrate the bountiful food provided, prepared and enjoyed by men and women of character.
 
I have not shared this well with you for it is hard to capture the subtleness, the delicate richness of life, the many finely textured tastes of humanity which come together at this event to celebration the freshness of modern community and honor the full fleshy ripeness of our country’s living history.
 
Thank you, Dee and Reed for graciously sharing this traditional experience, your town, your friends, this taste of Americana with us. 
 
Capt'n Lynnie and Skinwalker