It’s impossible to look at substance abuse statistics without recognizing it as a health crisis of the first magnitude.

According to Maryland Health Department, overdose rates nationally tripled between 2011-2017 and during the first year of the pandemic with more than 99,000 overdose related deaths reported, an increase of nearly 30%. Alcohol abuse also spiked.

Although Maryland ranks well with its number of treatment centers available, every county still has significant opioid problems, and the rural Eastern Shore is no exception. Talbot County reports that between 2017 and 2021 overdose deaths have increased by 50%.

Grace Street is the newest introduction to addiction recovery efforts in Talbot and surrounding counties and offers support based on the national success of the Recovery Community Organization (RCO) model.

The Recovery Community Organization fundamental mission is to bridge the gap between professional treatment and learning how to maintain long-term recovery with the help of a community-centered peer recovery support services.

Fundamentally, Recovery Communities are about establishing an environment to promote long-term recovery. As RCOs are independent non-profits, they are led and governed by representatives of the local communities of recovery who organize recovery-focused policy advocacy activities, carry out recovery-focused community education and outreach programs, and/or provide peer-based recovery support services.

Grace Street is a significant addition to the recovery movement on the Eastern Shore. Indeed, it’s strength is offering a sense of community to those fighting to maintain their recovery as they reenter society.

The Spy recently spoke to Grace Street Program Director Kate Dulin about the new facility in Easton, their vision for the future and a call for community volunteers.

Grace Street serves people in Easton and Talbot County, and in neighboring counties across the Mid-Shore. Referrals are not necessary, and services are free. The center is open weekdays, 4 – 9 pm. and weekends 2 p.m –7 p.m. Daytime hours vary. Anyone interested in volunteering, partnering, or supporting this project can contact Kate Dulin, program director, at 410-690-7353 or visit GraceStreetRecovery.org and their Facebook page.

This video is approximately five minutes in length.

Editor”s Note. Next week, the Spy will launch an experiment with our partner the Avalon Foundation to use their brilliant Stoltz Listening Room for poetry readings called Spy Nights. On Wednesday, the 27th at 6 pm sharp, the Eastern Shore’s most distinguished poet, Sue Ellen Thompson, will take the stage for a reading from her new book, Sea Nettles.

There are a few notable things to be said about this event. The first time, to my knowledge, the Avalon has ever made a poet a “headliner” in the most complimentary sense of the word. It will also be the Spy’s first effort to move beyond its internet comfort zone to co-sponsor public readings by some of our most remarkable contributors. And finally, this kind of celebration is way overdue to pay tribute to the extraordinary work of Sue Ellen Thompson.

While it’s understandable that the Mid-Shore community, like the United States itself, doesn’t track the poetry world as closely as it does music, Thompson is considered a rock star of sorts. It is almost the equivalent of having someone like jazz pianist Brad Mehldau living in the hood. In this case, that hood happens to be Oxford, Maryland.

Given the breadth of Sue Ellen’s work over a lifetime and her observations of the dramatic change in poetry since she began her journey at Middlebury College in the 1960s, the Spy thought it best to ask Chestertown’s Meredith Davies Hadaway, her friend, and fellow poet, to spend a few minutes talking to Sue Ellen, poet-to-poet, for the community to get a better sense of her work and times.

This video is approximately nine minutes in length. For Tickets please go here. 

Meredith Davies Hadaway will also be taking to the Avalon stage with fellow poets Erin Murphy and Amanda Newell as Word Girls on November 15. For tickets and more information please go here. 

SPY NIGHTS: A WRITERS SERIES
SUE ELLEN THOMPSON
Stoltz Listening Room
Doors: 5:30pm / Talk: 6:00pm
WED 9/27 6:00PM

Located just 30 minutes from Washington, D.C., Glenstone Museum offers a contemplative and intimate setting for experiencing iconic works of art and architecture in a natural environment. Join Adkins Arboretum on Thurs., Sept. 28 for a tour of this unique cultural experience and an opportunity to explore the grounds.

Glenstone fully integrates nearly 300 acres of trails, paths, streams, meadows and forest with architecture, art and a mission of environmental stewardship. Guided by the vision of its founders, the museum assembles post-World War II artworks that trace pivotal shifts in the way we experience and understand art of the 20^th and 21^st centuries and presents them in stunning indoor and outdoor spaces.

Opened in 2006 as a single gallery building, Glenstone completed a major expansion of its museum facilities and landscape in 2018 to provide access to a larger portion of its collection. The centerpiece of this project is the Pavilions, a ring of gallery rooms constructed around a large landscaped water court. Illuminated almost exclusively by natural light, the Pavilions includes 50,000 square feet of exhibition space that features changing exhibitions and rooms dedicated to single-artist installations. Housing works by such artists as Katharina Fritsch, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Barbara Kruger, Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly, the building is itself an artistic and architectural marvel.

Outdoors, visitors will find sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy, Jeff Koons, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller and other notable artists installed in a variety of terrain.

The bus departs from Aurora Park Drive in Easton at 9 a.m. and will stop at the Route 50 westbound/Route 404 Park and Ride at 9:20 a.m. Following a tour of the new Environmental Center, trip participants will purchase lunch in the café and have ample time to explore the grounds and galleries. The bus will leave Glenstone at 2:30 p.m. The fee is $95 for members/$115 for non-members. Advance registration is required at adkinsarboretum.org or by calling 410-634-2847, ext. 100.

Across the nation, many rural communities like ours face a crisis with access to health care.  As a result, residents unfairly experience poorer health outcomes and a higher prevalence of premature death from common diseases like heart disease, cancer, lung disease and stroke. 

Compounding this problem, rural hospitals are closing at an alarming rate. Almost a third—600—are in danger and more than 100 have closed their doors in the past decade, according to the Center for Healthcare Quality & Patient Reform.

Over the past decade, the University of Maryland Shore Regional Health has taken the fight for rural health care for our communities head-on.

Partnering with the University of Maryland Medical System (UMMS), known for advancing high quality, best-in-class health care, and the University of Maryland School of Medicine, UM Shore Regional Health is committed to transforming care for residents of the Mid-Shore communities we serve. We know that as rural Marylanders, you need access to health care and deserve the best our state has to offer. 

That’s why we’ve been building an integrated health system tailored to meet the needs of Caroline, Dorchester, Kent, Queen Anne’s, and Talbot counties. Medical centers in Cambridge, Chestertown, Denton, Easton, and Queenstown provide a robust regional network of localized care for our 170,000 residents spread over 2,000 square miles. But we must do more. 

UMMS provides high-quality acute care across Maryland. But we believe that Eastern Shore residents should not have to travel across the Bay Bridge to get most of the care they need.  It’s time to advance their care and combine and align it with all other health care services, right here on the Eastern Shore. 

To answer patient demands, our vision includes a state-of-the-art $550 million Regional Medical Center in Easton to serve residents and visitors across the region.  This centralized medical facility will provide top-flight treatment and technology and support our expertly trained providers who treat acute health crises such as severe injury or sudden illness, emergent medical conditions from disease or trauma and provide surgical care.

This modern acute care hospital is the last piece of the puzzle to connect our region and patients to a full “continuum of care” throughout their lives. The new Regional Medical Center will be the hub of acute care for the region with spokes around the Mid-Shore counties that have independent services and features that are unique to those communities.

A full lifespan of care will start with prenatal and OB/GYN care and include pediatrics, family, general and internal medicine, preventive care, hospital and ambulatory care, acute and outpatient care, rehab, elder, and end-of-life care. It includes fighting top killers such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes. 

The Regional Medical Center also:

• Completes our vision to connect and combine localized regional care into one comprehensive system for patients. 
• Transforms the patient’s experience through progressive medical technology and care, from private rooms to advanced patient monitoring technology in every room and access to multiple specialists and treatments. 
• Helps attract and retain top medical talent in the competitive national market.

The Regional Medical Center project is the top capital priority for UMMS, and passion for this project is widespread and growing.  Notable initial investments so far by the state of Maryland and philanthropic partners demonstrate how it’s truly a public-private partnership, backing taxpayer dollars with donors committed to the cause. 

Governor Wes Moore—who has made healthcare a top priority—is backing it. So has the Maryland Assembly’s Eastern Shore delegation, which deserves great credit for the legislature’s approval of the governor’s initial $10 million fiscal year 2024 commitment. In FY 2025, $20 million in funding is also planned in the state budget. 

Both public and private support depends on the Eastern Shore community voicing support for better health care. This is also the proverbial “paying it forward.”  As we join to build a model rural health care system that other regions around the country can emulate, we can help bring better care to everyone. 

Ken Kozel is the president and CEO of University of Maryland Shore Regional Health. 

Summer solstice is an exciting astronomical event that heralds the start of summer, it is the longest day of the year. This is the closest to the sun that we’ll be all year. The sun is at its strongest at the summer solstice, it is energizing and intense. That means that we are being bathed in the energy of the sun. The sun is, literally, all fire.

“Litha”, also known as midsummer (summer solstice ), is the name given to the Wiccan Sabbat. Wicca is a subset of Paganism, a community based on the worship of nature or the earth. The themes of Litha are: abundance, growth, masculine energy, love, and magic.

To celebrate Litha, you can decorate your house with flowers, herbs, and fruits and keep one candle lit through the day to honor the sun. A traditional picnic is a great way to bask in the warmth of the day, eating fresh fruits and vegetables. Ancient Pagans celebrated solstice with bonfires and torchlight processions. Bells have been used for millennia to warn, guard, announce, and protect. Bells take in all the solstice energy and then offer back protection for the home when placed on door knobs.

Meditation is a great tool to use on this energetic day. Find a moment for yourself, preferably early in the morning, sit outside in the sun to focus, be present, and connect with the sun’s powerful energy. Research shows that an hour of natural light in the morning will help you sleep better. Being outside will also help your body regulate melatonin, which can reduce your stress level.

Getting outside for 30 minutes between 8am and noon increases blood levels of natural opiates called endorphins which increases immunity. Sunlight is the best source of Vitamin D which increases bone health and regulates mood. Many believe that sunlight might increase the levels of antidepressants in the brain.

One of the most famous ancient sites associated with solstice is Stonehenge. During the solstice, the rising sun shines directly into the center of the stone circle. This alignment suggests that Stonehenge was built with the solstices in mind and that it served as a celestial observatory and a calendar. It is thought that the people who built Stonehenge were farmers and herders. The changing of the seasons would have been of immense significance to them, both practically (the seasons dictate what they could grow and when) and spiritually.

The summer solstice is an important time for our garden, many fruits and vegetables are ready for harvest. Historically, the summer solstice has been a celebration of the bounty in the garden, when people who spent all spring planting can take a step back and enjoy watching their hard work pay off.

I plan to celebrate the solstice with my grandchildren by making “sun s’mores,” we’ll place chocolate and marshmallows on graham crackers on foil outside in the sun. We will also make “sun prints” using special photo sensitive paper and pressed flowers. We’ll finger knit a chain and add a bell for our door knobs. We’ll spend the day outside soaking up the sun with a picnic and a swim.

Kate Emery General is a retired chef/restaurant owner that was born and raised in Casper, Wyoming. Kate loves her grandchildren, knitting and watercolor painting. Kate and her husband , Matt are longtime residents of Cambridge’s West End where they enjoy swimming and bicycling.

An Eastern red cedar shades Alexander Chaney’s headstone in Janes Cemetery, Chestertown, MD, but the tree has not kept wind, weather, and time from corroding the inscription or keeping the stone from leaning. A visitor must touch and trace the raised letters to know what they say: “Alex. Chaney. CO. A. 6 U.S.C. INF.”  During the Civil War, Alexander Chaney served in Company A of the 6th United States Colored Infantry, also known as the United States Colored Troops. 

 He could not read or write. In his Civil War pension file, at the bottom of many documents, is the printed statement, “Claimant can ____ read or write” with the word, “not,” inserted. On the signature line of sworn affidavits, someone wrote his name for him, adding the note, “His mark,” with Chaney’s “X.” (In Alexander Chaney’s pension file at the National Archives, Certificate 683990) Federal censuses also record  that he could not read or write.

That he could not read and write is not surprising. The inaccessibility to education for free Blacks in Maryland at that time is well known. His illiteracy haunts me because it meant that upon his return from war, he could not write letters, as did other Black veterans, about his wartime experiences to national newspapers like the National Tribune or the Christian Recorder (the official newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal church).  (See examples of letters in A Grand Army of Black Men: Letters from African-American Soldiers in the Union Army, 1861-1865, edited by Edwin S. Redkey, Cambridge University Press, 1992) He could not, even if he had wanted to, write about the circumstances of his conscription in Easton in 1864. (It has been suggested that he was conscripted in order to fill a quota. See the 2013 paper, “Alexander Chaney: Soldier, Laborer, Enigma,” by Washington College student Kelly Haswell.

For a free Black man to be conscripted was yet another experience of “travestied freedom,” to borrow a term from cultural critic, Saidiya Hartman. (Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth Century America, rev. ed. 2022, originally published 1997, p. 11) We are robbed of ever knowing what he thought about his white officers (only white officers led USCT regiments) or the duties he was given. Did he hope that by serving in the U. S. military, whites would recognize him as a man, as an equal, as a citizen at the war’s conclusion? Frederick Douglass, an enthusiastic recruiter of Black men for the Union army, had that hope. (David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, Simon & Schuster, 2018, p. 391)

Chaney could not write, but he could join, and, in 1882, he and twenty-seven other Black Civil War veterans established Post 25 of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a post that they named the Charles Sumner Post, to honor the abolitionist U. S. Senator Charles Sumner.

In 1882, the GAR, a fraternal organization for Civil War veterans, was part of the national conversation about how the Civil War should be remembered. Many Americans, wanting to move on, emphasized reconciliation and reunion, but not the GAR, especially all-Black posts. Historian Robert Cook writes, “Blacks were always the staunchest proponents of an emancipation-focused Unionist narrative . . . . While African American veterans were generally poorer than their white counterparts and likely to die at an earlier age than the latter, many of them resolutely demonstrated their patriotism and manhood by joining all-Black GAR posts . . . Maryland Blacks in the late nineteenth century had no intention of relinquishing Civil War memories to their oppressors.”  (Robert J. Cook, “ ‘F—k the Confederacy’: The Strange Career of Civil War Memory in Maryland after 1865,” in The Civil War in Maryland Reconsidered, edited by Charles W. Mitchell and Jean H. Baker,  Louisiana State University Press, 2021, pp. 318-319) GAR posts were also places where members received employment help and other kinds of aid. 

In 1890, Chaney applied for a Civil War pension. Historian Holly Pinheiro writes, “[E]ach application reveals African Americans’ desire to become part of the Civil War’s national remembrance in a lasting and meaningful way . . . . Civil War pensions created yet another battleground in the fight for African Americans’ cultural citizenship.” (Holly A. Pinhiero Jr., The Families’ Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice, The University of Georgia Press, 2022. p. 11) From his file, one learns that Private Chaney contracted “yellow fever” and “camp fever” on the march from Kinston to Goldsboro, North Carolina in 1865 and was treated in a regiment hospital. Two months later, in 1865, Chaney and his fellow soldiers were mustered out in Wilmington, North Carolina. (In his pension file at the National Archives)

His pension application accepted, he received $12 per month. Each time Congress increased the amount Civil War veterans could receive, Chaney was required to submit yet another application which involved another wearying round of affidavits and doctor examinations. At the time of his death, in 1917, his pension was $22.50. (In his pension file at the National Archives) Federal censuses recorded his occupation as “laborer” over the decades; in rural Kent County, his pension must have been an economic lifeline. 

His barely legible headstone provides neither date of birth nor date of death: no government-issued headstone for Civil War veterans did. His death certificate lists his date of birth as “unknown” and his age as “more than 70 years.” Other documents suggest he was born around 1839. He died June 8, 1917,  at 305 Calvert Street, leaving behind his wife, Elizabeth. (In his pension file at the National Archives)

That very same month and year, June 1917, the monument  honoring Kent County residents who served in the federal Second Eastern Shore Regiment, an all-white regiment, and in the Confederate Army was erected in Chestertown’s Memorial Park. Reflecting the reconciliation narrative, the inscription reads, in part, “a once divided but now reunited country.” Not until 1999, eighty-two years later, was the monument to U. S. Colored Troops erected. 

In 1921, William Burk of Chestertown applied for government-issued headstones for the unmarked graves of seven Civil War veterans. (Record Group 92: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General, Entry 592: Applications for Headstones in Private Cemeteries, 1909-1924 under Kent County, Maryland.) Six veterans were Black; one was white. Six headstones were to be erected in Janes Cemetery; one in Chester Cemetery. Besides Chaney’s headstone, I could only locate in Janes Cemetery the headstones of John H. Gould, Co. H 30th USCT, and Oscar M. Crozier, 54th Massachusetts Regiment, made famous in the film, “Glory.” Like Chaney, Crozier was a founder of GAR Post 25. The headstones of Gould and Crozier are still legible and upright.

We continue to debate whom to remember in our history and how to honor them. In 1879, the GAR threw its support behind federal legislation to provide headstones for the unmarked graves of Civil War veterans in private cemeteries. These veterans would be honored with “the best American marble.” One so remembered was Alexander Chaney, Co. A, 6th USCT and member of the Charles Sumner Post of the Grand Army of the Republic.

Kathryn Lee (Ph.D., J.D.), is the former chair of the Political Science Department and Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at Whitworth University in Spokane, WA. Kathryn was recently profiles in the New Yorker which can be read here. She retired to Chestertown last July.