Visiting Jamestown (Virginia) –
Interactive Site by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
Mess
crank was the new family vocabulary word.
This word meant up at 4 to arrive at work by 4:30 a.m. I carried Florence out of bed and buckled her
into the back seat still sleeping, so she would not have to stay home alone
while I Laurent drove to work.
Many
times I would stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way back from the Naval Station after
dropping Laurent off and buy a donut and orange juice for her and a donut with
coffee for me.
Laurent
was able to work in the officers’ dining room, because there were master pastry
chefs, managers of corporate dining rooms, small country storeowners, château
caterers, and wine merchants among his ancestors and immediate relatives. (I read him the fairy tale of the golden
goose and told him, “You are a merchant goose, and I am the true finance
goose,” to tease him about his MBA in finance and accounting.)
The
first day of mess crank was also Florence’s first day of school. Mom and her friend came over to give Florence
a hug before she went to school. I drove
Florence to school and hoped that she would have a good day.
I
came home and waited most of the day for the dining room table to be delivered.
I
had been serving my lovely meals on a fold-up card table with a paisley
tablecloth on it. The new dining room
table became my desk and made me feel like I had my feet on terra firma.
I
could tell waking up at 4 a.m. was going to wear us all down the next day when
I picked up Florence from school. Her
teacher told me that she was naughty at school.
That
ruined my day. I looked forward to
talking with Florence’s teacher at the end of the day. I felt guilty, if Florence did not behave.
I
have always thought children misbehave, because they have an unstable home
life. I thought about what I could do to
set up a routine for Florence, but knew I could not plan much while I was in
job limbo. I tried to plan field trips, so Florence would think we were on
vacation until we could a routine set up.
For
our next field trip, we went to the Jamestown Recreation site. We made the pilgrimage to the Morale,
Welfare, and Recreation Office. We left
exuberant about the reduced fees given to military personnel on everything from
amusement parks to bowling alleys.
Knowing
we had access to these things made me feel we could still have an all-American
childhood for Florence despite low Navy wages for airmen on aircraft carriers. (I was looking for a job to supplement
Laurent’s wages obviously and wanted to plan my own retirement.)
The
museum at the Jamestown site had many hands-on exhibits that seem to be the
specialty of American museums. The
navigational tools area has the most fun exhibit that lets you move bars around
to determine latitude and longitude.
Florence
watched a television segment about the Susan Constant, one of the boats that
brought over Jamestown settlers three times.
Outside,
we visited the re-created Native American village, the Jamestown Fort and
houses, and replicas of the Godspeed and the Susan Constant. The Susan Constant is a tiny vessel. I could not believe how small those boats
were. I would have been terrified to
cross the ocean in either of those ships.
After
our visit, we drove to colonial Williamsburg.
Even with a military admission reduction, a visit to this place was
beyond our means, so we contented ourselves with walking around the town and
admiring the red brick buildings from the street.
I
was thrilled to find a Rizzoli bookstore.
I leafed through a cookbook called The Flavor of the Riviera by Colman
Andrews. Andrews was the editor of
Saveur magazine, a former LA Times restaurant critic, author of Catalan
Cuisine, a biographer of Ferran Adria who owned El Bulli outside Barcelona, and
a cookbook author. I just loved reading
his work like I used to read the restaurant criticism of Jay Jacobs in Gourmet
magazine as a child.
“There
is civilization in Hampton Roads after all,” I thought to myself.
By
Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
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