Day for Mary-Land

Can’t let today go by without noting that this day in 1634 colonists from England (finally) arrived at St. Clements Island and began what turned out to be the Colony of Maryland (correctly pronounced (at least in England) as Mary (like the name) Land), for the Kings wife, Henrietta Marie.  Anyway, Historic St. Mary’s City and Colton’s Point always have ceremonies commemorating the day.   HSMC usually does it on the Saturday of the day, but Colton’s Point always does it on THE day.  MFO will attend those ceremonies despite (IMHO) an incomplete recovery from the annual “Post Book Sale” cold/flu/crud.  A dedicated lady, to be sure.

She was not able (cold, etc.) the HSMC version on Saturday, so I went in her stead.  The event is always a fun event, a couple of hours of speechifyn’ , the awarding of the Cross Bottany honor and the parade of the flags, wherein fourth graders present the flag of their county.

They’re always so sincere with that honor, but the special one is always the carrier of the flag from the Mother County of Mary-Land, St. Mary’s

Various politicians and representatives always have “remarks”, and there is a keynote address, usually something to do with “tolerance” in honor of Lord Baltimore’s edict of Freedom of Conscience in his fledgling colony in the New World.   This year’s keynoter was the Hon. Peter J. Messitte, who’s been a friend of the college and City for years. 

The Cross Bottany award was given by Larry Leak (vice chair of the HSMC commission) to Becky McDonald, who has been a tour guide at the City for many years, and does a TON of volunteering

MFO received the prestigious award in 2012, incidentally.

Anyway, attending solo and respectfully ignoring the speeches, I had some time with the trusty Rebel T1 (dated, I know) to shoot some shots of things that just caught my eye

Like the Militia

Dad, kid and dog

members of the Color Guard taking a break

Tops of tents (not Mt. Everest)

and even lowly propane bottles

And of course the flags

And rising above it all the symbol of the Great State of Maryland and Historic St. Mary’s City!

Technology again

Which always gets you.  I am in the process of “upgrading” my already smart phone to a smarter (and BIGGER) one – can actually read text messages now.  After much deliberation and flopping around I settled on the Samsung Galaxy Note 4.  The idea of the stylus intrigued me, hopefully ending those embarrassing auto fill postings and such.  I am afraid I am one of those people who is inextricably attached to the device and when it’s on the kitchen counter and I’m not, I panic (I’ve LOST it!!).   So, one of the decision points was to be “not black” because most of our counters are black and the old one had the habit of hiding in plain sight, so to speak.  So the new one is white, with a garish case that hopefully will show up anywhere.  So, I’ve been going through the laborious process of remembering passwords from long ago, user names, etc., to sign in to various apps like Facebook, Twitter, Starbucks, ESPN, and so forth.  Am gradually overcoming those obsticles, and gradually getting back to “normal”

It will NOT, however eliminate the need to

DFD

GO MSU (easily done on the day BEFORE the games).. oh, and of course my head overcame my heart and I went with Virginia on the bracket.  Got what I deserved!!