Avalon Memories by Helen Chappell cation. Which probably wouldn’t be hard when you were operating from a Hereford breeding farm up a Neck outside of Cambridge. Those John Moll murals, now sadly painted over, were an inspiration when I was a kid. The Tidewater was also where I first met the late Douglas Hanks Sr., who owned the Avalon building and ran his real estate business out of what is now Banning’s Tavern. Doug and my father were great friends, and sometimes he would join us at the Tidewater for a drink and a tale from his long and interesting life in Oxford. I was fond, and slightly in awe, of Doug from middle school age. He was a legendary log canoe racer and a sailor so intent on the challenge
All sorts of local landmarks have anniversaries this year. As Tidewater Times turns 70 and the Avalon celebrates a century, I, too, passed a milestone birthday. I have witnessed at least some of this history, even if it was from a very young age. I’m not saying I was around when dinosaurs roamed the Shore (and I’m too lazy to look up whether they were over here or just around Calvert Cliffs), but I have seen both my favorite magazine and my favorite performance venue evolve into the institutions they are today. Both stories start at the Tidewater Inn, which back in the ’50s, when I was a single digit, was a place I considered the very apotheosis of Shore glamour and adult sophisti-
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