eds_06

Editorials Etc.

If you've got something to say, this is where it goes. We're lucky to have some disparate points of view in Aquia Harbour. Make sure that yours is included.

June 2003

Windjammer in Dry Dock - By Ben Blankenship

A significant part of Aquia Harbour's history is now, sadly, history. Sadly
because many long-time residents saw and helped guide the Windjammer
through both calm seas and storms.

It had the distinction, almost from the start of our development, of being a
reliable monthly vehicle for residents and advertisers to meet for
information exchange and opinions about the Harbour's direction and
desirability.

Also, one of its features used to be the listing of new residents in the
Harbour. It numbered them sequentially by date of arrival. Someone
undoubtedly was first, and old Bill Carpenter might be able to delve into
the top ten or so. The feature died after newcomers came in fast and
furious in the 1980s.

Still, some of us can still recall our own listings and the number assigned.
Funny you should ask: My family's arrival in early 1978 gave us the
Windjammer's number 325.

The Windjammer itself dates back at least to 1976, according to fellow
recallers, Frank and Ila McCoy. She was a leader of what was then a
volunteer group in the Harbour, the Civic Association, although her truly historic
claim to lasting fame was May Eve Madness, an annual? talent (?) show she organized. It reigned for several years in the 1980s to huge popular acclaim hereabouts.

The first editor of the Windjammer, they say, was Joan Gauker in the mid-
1970s. The paper, early on a stapled affair, used to report mainly the Civic
Association's doings, which included informally keeping tabs for the
AHPOA board on what the County supervisors were up to.

The informal group withered away after a few years. One reason, if memory
serves, was that the board of directors adopted a policy of letting residents
speak out during a designated time at every meeting. The policy still
applies.

Early editions of the Windjammer, it's said, were delivered by hand by
Harbour volunteers.?

Soon it would become a primary vehicle for residents' letters, some of
them real wowsers. To wit: I contributed a few myself. In 1990, I got one
published, "Let the Golf Pro Go."? The point was that we could surely not
afford to pay a golf pro some $40 grand a year when the Harbour's budget
was under such stress. Sure enough, he left less than? a? year later. Good
thing; a golf pro for a dinky nine-hole course was the height of something
or other.

Every now and then? those letters in the Windjammer? would really get
under the skin of AHPOA directors, so much so that they made several
efforts to put out "the facts of the matter" themselves. For a while, there
was even an Aquia Harbour Quarterly the board published, edited by one
Ila McCoy. Even now, you'll occasionally notice a separate flier, Harbour Lite, that
crustily takes to task the powers that be.

On the personal side, the Windjammer was also the vehicle for advertising my backyard venture in azalea growing in the 1980s and 90s. Some of my ads were quite original, thank you very much, attracting more visitors than I had
anticipated. Unfortunately, though,? my complaining back finally? forced
Azaleas of Aquia out of business long before the Windjammer itself had to
shut down.

So there you have it. The Windjammer was the reliable glue for many? years
that kept many of us aware of what our neighbors were doing and saying
about our growing and improving community--a great bargain.

Thanks for the memories.
November 2002
- The Second Gate: William M Carpenter
  
  The "second gate!" We have all heard about the plan, someday, to have a second gate. The story began a long time ago. when we bought our lot in 1970, the salesman for American Realty, the original developer, said there would be a second gate in the second section in about six months. When we started building our house on Aquia Drive in the first section in 1971, the word was still "a second gate in about six months." When the house was finished in June of 1972, and we moved in, the second gate was reported to be coming very soon. The place had been picked out, aross Harpoon from Admiral Drive, and thus out to U.S. 1 near the crucifix. Ther is, in fact, if you look down among the trees off Harpoon across from Admiral, the remnants of an old road, and it could be used as the base for the road leading out from the second gate.
  
  And so it went, until 1975 when American Realty went bankrupt and we took over the AHPOA to run the Harbour ourselves, as we have been doing ever since. In the crisis atmosphere of having to take over and to raise the dues to pay for all our amenities (roads, security force, marina, pools, golf course, tennis courts, stables, office staff, and other expenses)it was a shock for many when we raised the dues to $180 from $60 that the developer had been charging. There wasn't much intrest then to talk about spending more money for a second gate. We sent the executive committee of our newly-elected board down to Memphis to the bankruptcy court, and they came back with $580,000 which American Realty had been honest enough to save for us out of all the dues paid up to that time and put in escrow.
  
  Some of us on the board then wanted to take the money from the court and put it into a reserve fund, and begin to charge dues enough to meet the actual costs of running the Harbour. But that was too much for the majority of the board and so we ate up the escrow over the next two or three years by taking from it the difference from the $180 and the real cost of operations.
  
  But the second gate issue gradually revived, and we actually began to talk about how it might be done. By then we had created our own police force to take over from the weaker coverage by the security contract organization that we took over from the developer. A second gate would have to be manned by gate guards, as is the main gate. Some of us went out and walked the route of the second gate, and information was obtained about what property we would have to acquire to get out of U.S. 1. One problem we encountered was a piece of property owned by a man and his wife, who were separated, and wouldn't talk to each other. I had a plan in mind to overcome the impasse: just take our road equipment and cut a right of way, taking small slices of property that belonged to others--the owners could have sued us, and the court would have awarded them fair compensation for the land, and we could have paid it, and the result would have been that we had a road for exit out a second gate. But our lawyer said no, we can't do that, so we did nothing.
  
  The story of the years since then is one we all generally know, that we talk now and again about a second gate and as each year passes, the cost goes up, and we get scared by the numbers. Meanwhile, the traffic pouring in and out of our one gate gets heavier by the day. But the issue is not going away.
  
  For reasons of alleviating traffic, and for emergency exit if something should happen to the present gate, a second gate is something we ought to have. It's food for thought.