(WMDT)
Spacecraft loaded with supplies successfully launches from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility Saturday afternoon
WALLOPS ISLAND, Va.- It was the perfect Saturday afternoon, with clear skies and sunshine, for Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft to make its first launch of this year.
View WMDT news story:
At week's end Superintendent of Schools Lou Taylor issued an encouraging report..
View statement/video:
February 19, 2021 - Superintendent Message - Worcester County Public Schools (worcesterk12.org)
This Sunday here at The Pocomoke Public Eye:
1995 .. An early morning fire marks the end of English's Restaurant in Westover.
1888 .. The Pocomoke Brass Band is an attraction throughout the lower Eastern Shore.
1936 .. (Ad) A new entertainment venue, Starlight Rendezvous, is now open at Public Landing.
1984 .. Recollections of earlier times when Princess Anne would trot out its finest horses.
1934 .. The traffic "mushroom" near the bridge in Pocomoke is the subject of an editorial in the Worcester Democrat newspaper. 
(WBOC)
SNOW HILL, Md.- As a result of prolonged periods of heavy rainfall, the Town of Snow Hill reported to the Maryland Department of the Environment and Worcester County Environmental Programs that there has been a combined sewer overflow from the Snow Hill wastewater treatment plant of more than 500,000 gallons.
View full news story:
Heavy Rainfall Causes 500K Gallon Sewer Overflow in Pocomoke Riv - WBOC TV
(PPE reader comment)
Anonymous said...According to Worcester Environmental Programs "Fishing, swimming, wading or other contact with the waterways should not be conducted until this rain event has concluded"
I don't know about you but I was not planning on swimming in the river this week, or even trying out my new fishing rod. And we actually pay Bob Mitchell good money to say things like this?
(Shore Daily News)
Due to ongoing coronavirus concerns and current state gathering guidelines, the 2021 Chincoteague Seafood Festival scheduled for May 1, 2021 at Tom’s Cove Park has been canceled.
View more info:
Chincoteague Seafood Festival canceled again - Shore Daily News
View full news release:
Phone Scam Warning In Somerset Co. (maryland.gov)
From what you’re about to read, you may think that I am saying that mid 1950s Pocomoke was a noisy place. Quite the contrary. It was a very quiet town. The overall atmosphere was mostly silence that made these sounds all the more apparent. I can still hear these in my head and will try to describe them as best as I can. These are the sounds that broke the overall calm ambiance of 1950s era Pocomoke.
The sound of animals, both near and far away could often be heard through the otherwise silence of the day. Distant roosters could be heard greeting the dawn; the sounds of barking dogs and the occasional shriek of a cat broke the stillness of calm but hot summer days. With windows open on boiling summer nights, there was the songs of crickets and the sporadic croaking of frogs; there were no motors or humming compressors of air conditioners to interrupt the hymn of nature.
The bridge. When the Rte 13 bridge into Market street was raised to allow transit of water traffic, the sound permeated the whole downtown area. It was a ding dong sort of clanky bell sound but it was not a constant repeating tone; there were four or five different notes – and the best I can describe it is as follows: yer-ding yer-dong ye-dare ye-ding - yer-ding yer-dong ye-dare ye-ding. Not a very good description I know, but I can still hear it in my head – and that’s what it sounds like.
Then there were the factory whistles – from local canneries I believe – and they were very loud – they could be heard for miles. I assume that these were used to announce shift changes, lunch times or whatever, but I don’t know why they needed to be heard outside of the immediate area of the plant itself. One of these canneries – I think – was out on Clarke Ave extended; the other was just across the river in Somerset County. The sound from one of these canneries was quite innocuous – just a loud constant horn-like blare that lasted 10 or 15 seconds, sometime repeated. The sound of the other was rather ghastly – like nothing I have heard – before or since. The best description I can give is to say that it sounded like a dying animal. It started out with a high pitched but loud oboe-like sound but its tone did not stay constant – it went even higher, then squealed a bit; it remained loud as the tone dropped into a bassoon-like register before finally fading to silence with a final shriek. All of this lasted about 15 seconds.
And the fire sirens that called the volunteers to fires, car crashes or any other local emergencies. These wailed at any time needed, day or night, the loud rising and falling cycles – repeated sometimes two, sometimes three or even four times – perhaps depending on the nature of the emergency. This was followed by the sound of cars speeding to the firehouse on 5th street as volunteers responded, and then by the sound of the sirens of the emergency vehicles themselves. Especially at night, a trained ear could figure out exactly where the fire trucks were headed.
And those trains – those wonderful trains. Day or night – or middle of the night. Southbound trains announced their arrival with a series of loud horn blasts when they reached the Route 13 grade crossing about a mile north of town. Before the dieselization of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the 4-4-2 steam locomotives came stomping through town, hissing and growling while belching out clouds of black cinders as they chugged through, or stopped briefly with their coaches at the passenger station off of 2nd St.
There were other miscellaneous sounds that punctuated the calm. Large semis rumbling along Route 13, snarling as they downshifted to stop at one of the traffic lights on Market Street. There was the occasional roar of distant drag racing cars – either legally or not; the shriek of 2x4s being cut at the Adkins Co. lumber yard off of Clarke Ave, and the not so infrequent sound of hooves clomping on the pavement, as various vendors, and farmers used horse drawn carts of various kinds to deliver goods and services to local merchants and residents. I’m sure others reading this may recall other sound that I have missed – I would love to hear about them.
(Reader comment)
Wonderful memories! There was one sound I will never forget...
In the days before the beltway Warner Harrison made petroleum deliveries every morning from the Bagwell Marine Terminal in Onancock to Mariner Oil Company on Railroad Avenue via Market then Fourth Streets. One April morning it was extremely foggy as Warner approached the railroad crossing near Fourth and Railroad Avenue. The standard signal for a locomotive was, and still is, two long blasts on the horn followed by one short and another long. That morning a train was approaching in the dense fog and sounded the obligatory signal. Warner decided to answer back with the truck's air horn with two long, a short and another long. The engineer apparently thought another locomotive was approaching him from the opposite direction and immediately locked up the brakes. I think the brakes locked on the locomotive and every attached rail car and the squealing and grinding of metal on metal could probably be heard as far away as the Virginia line.
Great story from Mel, hope to hear from him again.
August, 2003
(Editorial)
Daily Times (Salisbury)
November, 1915
Catoctin Clarion (Mechanicstown, Md)
August, 1945
(Big drainage project at Pocomoke)
The Midland Journal (Rising Sun, Md)
August, 1982
Daily Times (Salisbury)
April, 1940
