The Great Blast Furnace Adventure

BY WILLIAM JOHNSSON

Whenever I think of the great blast furnace adventure, I want to laugh. Now as I am recalling, as I write, my chest heaves with suppressed chuckles.

The great adventure took place during one of our annual family vacations. We Johnssons are beach people, so every summer we would head east from the Washington, D.C., area to the Atlantic Coast. For several years we rented, but after a while we pooled our funds and bought a condo on Fenwick Island in Delaware, just north of the Maryland state line.

The condo was so-so, but the location was unbeatable—50 yards and we were at the dunes leading to the water. For five years or so we stayed two weeks and rented out the property for the rest of the summer. Then we made a push and paid off the mortgage. No more renters messing up our beach home every year—Fenwick Mist now truly belonged to us.

Donating all the furnishings to the Goodwill store, we totally rehabbed the place. It gleamed bright and new; it was wonderful. Every summer for more than 20 years, we gathered for family fun. Our brood increased: first came Madi, our long- awaited first grandchild, then Jacqui a couple years later. We built a heap of memories at Fenwick Mist, each year adding to it. Photographs of the girls lined the walls of the hallway by their bedroom.

Our family was scattered over the world, but every year we gathered at Fenwick Mist. The condo meant sand and surf, morning walks on the margin of the waves, with breakers crashing and seagulls crying. It meant long evenings on the deck, eating supper by lantern light. It meant our son Terry donning a chef’s apron and firing up the barbeque and his wife Renee lifting trays of freshly baked peach cobbler from the oven late in the evening.

Memories, memories, memories.

Old memories. New memories, as fresh as the latest year.

Every year we watched “Pride and Prejudice,” sitting together on the long, blue sofa in the family

From the book Simple Gifts, the new release by Oak & Acorn, now available on Amazon.com. The book is being serialized in the Recorder. See page 45 for information about how to get a pdf copy of the entire book. room. “The Pink Panther.” We put together the big shoe puzzle, so large that it covered almost the whole oak dining table.

Madi, not yet one year old, rode in a pack on my back as I walked on the road that ran alongside the beach. Every now and then I would feel her tugging at my back as she reached out to touch a pinecone or flower. I would wait while she felt the contours of the object without uttering a sound. Then we would set off again, right to the end of the street where it met the State Park. We would clamber up the dunes and down to the sand. Wheeling gulls brought squeals of delight as she stretched out little hands, as did the sandpipers, legs a blur of motion, rushing out behind retreating waves.

Jacqui had a great sense of humor. She’d be the first to see something funny in a scene from “March of the Penguins” and begin to laugh well before the rest of us would get it and join in. She loved jokes and pranks, especially involving The Snake. At Fenwick Mist we kept a coiled serpent, rubber but life-like, for family fun. The snake migrated from room to room, thanks to Jacqui. You’d lift the covers of your bed and there it would be. Or you would feel a lump under your pillow and realized that Jacqui had visited earlier.

Every year we frequented the same familiar places. Oceanside Pizza, the best pizza on the beach and just around the corner. Three blocks south on the Maryland line, Down Under Golf, where they gave free ice cream when you finished the course. The Hobbit, a restaurant facing west, with spectacular views of the bay as the sun went down. And of course, Dairy Queen, four blocks north of our condo.

One summer Renee, who is endowed with irrepressible energy, discovered a bit of history that seemed almost impossible to accept. In the early 19th century, a blast furnace had operated in the area. Amazing! The furnace was still standing and available to visitors. In addition, the site offered a nature trail. And all free of charge! We had to track down the blast furnace. (Spoiler alert: You get what you pay for.)

The day for the big adventure began on a sour note, however. Madi fell afoul of the law and was grounded. Which meant that Renee would have to stay back with her. It was up to Terry, displaying less enthusiasm with the whole endeavor, to lead the gallant band.

We drove to Ocean City and across open country to the south. We turned off into the woods at Snowtown, the only town for many miles. A car coming out passed us—a good sign. Not so good: we arrived in a parking lot all to ourselves.

I was the person most interested in visiting the historic blast furnace. It conjured up memories of my former life in chemical technology. Iron is extracted from iron ore in a tall furnace made very hot by means of air blasted from the base. Iron ore is dumped in the top, along with coke (from coal, not the drink) and limestone. The mixture produces a chemical reaction that results in molten iron running out at the base. I was curious to learn how the oldtimers made it happen.

We found the blast furnace, still standing although a bit tumbled down and much smaller than the brochure had led us to expect. The remains of the ramp, where horses pulled carts filled with iron ore, and other goodies were there also. Notices provided information on the process: the iron ore was dredged from the creek that ran alongside the furnace (“bog iron”—the mud in the creek is still colored bright orange); instead of limestone, shells hauled from the nearby coast in narrow barges up the creek; and charcoal made from local trees instead of coke.

Pretty clever, wouldn’t you agree? But the operation lasted only a couple of years; the bog iron was low-grade, so when higher quality ore was discovered elsewhere, the blast furnace shut down.

Fascinated by this window into the past, I was loath to leave the site. The other family members, however, exhibited a lamentable lack of desire to further their knowledge of ancient blast furnaces and pressed toward the nature trail. We signed the book, noticing that we were the first visitors in several days. The nature trail was crisscrossed with spider webs, but we boldly smashed them aside. At last we gave up and, cobwebs trailing from our heads, got in the car.

During the return trip the conversation lacked its customary sparkle.

As we grew closer to Fenwick Mist, we began to think of poor Madi, grounded, deprived of the great blast furnace adventure! She greeted us, brighteyed and happy. Neither she nor Renee seemed interested in hearing about our visit to the blast furnace. Gradually the awful truth emerged: they had enjoyed a fun mother-daughter day together.

Who said life is fair?

We visited the Hobbit, Oceanside Pizza, Down Under Golf, and other haunts many times, but we never returned to the blast furnace.

Memories, precious memories! Simple gift of a loving God.

We experience something delightful, but that isn’t its end. We live it again, and again, and again in memory.

And somehow the cobwebs still cling to our heads.