A little announcement:
I’m excited to let you know I have an essay appearing in the current issue of Chesapeake Bay Magazine!
It was a thrill to work with the kind folks at the magazine and having enjoyed time at the bay my whole life, it was especially fun to contribute.
Below is the link to my piece in the online version of Chesapeake Bay Magazine.
It’s What We Do
Thanks again to all who’ve asked what I’ve been up to lately. Blogging continues to be great fun and has proven to be an exciting pathway to opportunities such as this. Exciting!
Stuart M. Perkins
Storyshucker 
Very nice, Stuart. Congratulations!
Thanks Dan!
Congrats Stuart
Thanks!
A lovely remembrance and especially relevant in these days when our focuses shift to living and treasuring experiences and memories rather than being so busy with things that just don’t matter. Thank you for a beautiful share.
Thanks Lorelei! And I agree. The reason my entire extended family loves it so much is because we can go and escape and remember the old times. We all thank my grandfather and uncle every time we go.
Stuart I loved this SO much! Our family has a cottage on Lake Michigan in the upper peninsula and with just a few differences this essay could have been written by someone in our family. ❤ Congrats!
Thanks! I love that you could relate. We’re all so alike really. All of us.
Beautifully written and completely relatable. thanks.
Thanks! Yes most families are so alike. We all need to remember that. Thanks again.
So beautifully written – feel as though I was right there with you playing Rummy! Thank you for the delightful “tour”.
Thanks! Some of the best memories are from down there and especially from some heated rummy games!
Lovely! And thanks for the memories, yours!
Thanks Dora!
What beautiful memories so eloquently captured and shared. What a blessing for past, present and future generations to continue!
Thank you for that!
Stuart, I love this article and with a few changes it could be the Wilkinson cottage on the river! We’ve had similar conversations about our history and would our children appreciate it! They do! Cold showers and all!
Karen Grubb Gilbert
Sent from my iPhone
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Thanks! And I know that you know – our family and the Grubbs’ have a long history and a lot of shared memories. Thanks for that comment and am glad to hear your kids “get it” too!
That was a beautifully written! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Jessy!
I love your story as always. We bought a mountain cottage that we hope to pass down for generations.
That’s great, your family will always love that!
what a nice article. so true. well done
Tucker Perkins President & Chief Executive Officer direct 804.338.0202 | main 202.452.8975
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Thanks Tucker! Your Dad deserves a medal.
I lived in the “country” when I was growing up, so the Houston city relatives came to us for their summers. I particularly loved the week (or two weeks depending on who could afford to drive them back to Houston) when my grandmother’s German father and mother came to stay in our little house. Dominoes were our version of rummy games, and my, oh my my great-grandmother LOVED to play with my grandmother and me when I was just big enough to learn how to count the dots. She always wanted to win – she would have been in her late eighties then – and I loved to be her partner because she had a twinkle in her eye when she tried to cheat. Age had its privileges.
I love it! And rummy or dominoes, sitting around the table playing games with others made for such great conversations didn’t it!
Ah Stuart, how very delightful! Makes me want to hop a plane and head right down to Diggs Seafood in Mattaponi for deviled crabs, a bushel of oysters, or a dozen soft-shelled crabs right this this minute!! Beautiful memories beautifully written. So glad the Chesapeake Bay Magazine recognized what a good bit of writing this is and how much their readers would enjoy it! ❤
Thanks Jan! You’re always encouraging! I appreciate that.
I could almost feel sand between my toes while reading this delightful piece.
Thanks Anne! Sand between the toes is great, sand in the bed sheets… not very!
I wholeheartedly agree with you.
A beautiful place to belong with memories of love and laughter.
Thanks for that!
I always love your writing, but this article might just be my favorite. Thank you.
Thank you! I appreciate your encouragement.
Right around the world the pleasures and joys of a place to have family memories are the same. My husband’s family has a cottage on the South African coast of Natal – it’s also about 70 years old now – and it has been the constant in our family for that time. Our equivalent of rummy is a fast and furious game known in the family as rabbits. It probably has another name, but that’s how we know it. And those of us who have married into the family know it is hopeless. We cannot win. Unless you started playing on a grandparent’s knee you have no chance. Hot African summers, mild winters, sand in the bedsheets, and enormous meals concocted by various members of the family are all part of the fun. How I too would love to go there now and meet up with my far-flung family. Hope burns eternal. One day we’ll be back. And new generations will become part of the pattern of life there. One day …
I love that! It all sounds perfect to me. And of course now I will have to try to find out more about this rabbit game! Thanks for the fun comment!
And it is so complicated I couldn’t even begin to explain it! I’ll try to find another name for you😊
Sounds like a fun one!
Super exciting! My sis recently moved in the bay area, I’ll be sure to pass your story along. Bravo!
She will love it! Thanks again!
It reminded me of our family get-togethers over the years. Thanks for the wonderful nostalgic memories.
Sometimes we forget that stuff. I think it’s always good to be reminded of what molded us!
Congratulations! I enjoyed your story and your writing. Clean and clear, it brought back so many childhood memories of my own…and for that–I thank you!
Thanks for that! Reliving memories feels so good.
Wonderful sense of continuity. Your family has a precious legacy.
We do! A shame we have to get old to realize it sometimes, but we do!
Stu, Always a great read. Thanks for keeping tradition and the ways of the common man relevant and alive to today’s family which seeks for stability in an most unstable world.
-Alan
Thanks Alan! The crazier the world gets the more we (I think most of us anyway) look for something real and normal and comfortable to hold onto.
Congratulations!
Thanks!
From across the Bay, Hello. Great article Stuart, I could almost write the same, word by word, about my wife’s experience at her family’s cottage where the C&D Canal meets the bay off the Elk River. I had a number of years as a suiter and husband to enjoy the site with the wife. Our children experienced so many of the same things as you and your family while growing up. Now we are on the Wicomico, the east side one in a place called Trinity, 8 miles south of Salisbury for the past 32 years. Love the Bay, enjoy your blog. Peace and safety my virtual friend.
I know where you are! That’s great. I bet you could write a lot about it, all of those years. What a fun comment. Thank you!
Congratulations, Stuart! Beautifully shared memories. Upon the occasion of your Grand Son’s first visit, sit him on your knee, and share a couple of your best memories about this family heirloom. What would you give, for such a clip, of you on your Grand Father’s knee? Then, post the video to your site! Thank you for sharing!!
Thanks, and excellent idea! You’re right, I’d love to have that.
Such holidays are much better than planes and hotels!
I totally agree. Thanks for that!
Beautiful and nostalgic…I feel as though I was there with you. Although I don’t have a family gathering place any more, it put me in mind of family traditions and the twice weekly visit to my grandparents. The routine never changed, even down to what we were going to eat and drink (and boy, was there trouble if it changed)! Grandad always won the games because we ‘let’ him – tiddleywinks, dominoes, and of course Rummy. But we loved it. Thanks for awakening forgotten memories. 🙂
Thanks fellow Rummy player! Family traditions can go on with or without a constant “place”, thank goodness. Loved yours. Thanks again for all of the encouragement!
I very much enjoyed the essay in CBM — glad to have found it (and ‘Storyshucker’). We’ve never had a family cottage, but we did/do have a small sailboat (small enough that our family of four could all hold hands before we fell asleep!), and our time on the water is experienced and pored over (pun intended!) again and again. KB
That’s great! Any of those family memories will stick around forever, as you know. Thanks for the comment!
I can’t find a ‘contact’ button for you, so am posting this new reply to say Thank you for the inspiration to dig out and publish on my own blog an essay originally printed in CBM.
You should! And I look forward to seeing it! I definitely post anything published on my blog. And I’m glad but others do it because sometimes we miss these things.
Congrats, Stuart!
What a wonderful article! Funny, we just started to teach our boys Rummy this year. I too love traditions. We try to play a game every night by the Christmas tree for all of December since the boys were very young. They have hot chocolates and we have wine. This year to my delight they are old enough to learn Rummy. Congrats on the new grandbaby!
Thanks! Love that playing by the tree! So fun to pass on traditions like that. Thanks again for the fun comment!
I like the photo very much. I enjoyed the details in the piece especially, and the quotes.
Thanks Frank!
Beautiful family memories! I bet you can’t wait for your grandchild to enjoy the beloved cottage too. Congratulations!!
Thank you!
Congratulations! All best wishes.
Thanks!
Love it!!! Made me cry…wishing we had such a place and family like that to carry on such beautifully simple traditions.
Thanks. Maybe you can start a place!
Congrats!!!! I like your writing style—engaging and transparent
Thanks Dee!
Beautiful memories! I felt as though I was there. Thank you for sharing! PS. My family plays euchre.
Thanks! And I’ll need to try euchre, never have!