FBO: 'The Delaware Trilogy (Part II)'

THE FBO VISITS, ADOPTS EASTERN DELAWARE


There are at least half a dozen reasons why one should spend a good hour looking at the following state shape, and stop, and consider, and reflect. Please do so:



For the moment the FBO is interested in just one aspect: EAST DELAWARE (shown in orange), which was the destination of a short field-trip as part of the recent NORTH & EAST DELAWARE/FAILED BANDS OF OKLAHOMA INAUGURAL TWO-DAY SYMPOSIUM.

In the years before Delaware became a state -- the first state -- the Duke of York and Will Penn grew a hatred for each other that transcends the irrational, normally reserved for SEC football fans. Much of their hatred was over the patch of land that is now Delaware. Designed as a 17th-century yielding of land as defined by a 12-mile arc around New Castle, including up to the opposite bank of the Delaware River in today's New Jersey. By 'accident' it includes this peninsular bit of land that lies both west of the east opposite bank of the Delaware River, yet on New Jersey 'mainland soil.' New Jersey has never been happy about it -- the most recent legislation to claim East Delaware dates from 2006.

FBO Representative visited. A New Jersey man with a ponytail and a fist-broken nose pumped gas and fielded a few questions, including the following:

FBO: I hear there's a piece of land near here that's actually part of Delaware?
NJ MAN: Yeah, whatever.

The area is guarded, so to speak, by New Jersey's Fort Mott State Park, a non-uninteresting, largely neglected state park with fortifications facing the water, and a pier that -- if the 12-Mile Arc is to be adhered to stricly -- should technically be in Delaware. Just north of the state park is Finn's Point National Cemetery, a walled compound with a memorial for 2400 Confederate soldiers who perished at nearby Fort Delaware during the Civil War.

A caretaker, carefully planting Confederate flags at the memorial ('today is Garrison Day,' he explained), noted that the wall that rimmed the cemetery -- which also includes a handful of German POWs from WWII -- is actually the border with Delaware.

NJ MAN2: We have an agreement with Delaware that New Jersey polices it -- easier that way.
FBO: What do they police?
NJ MAN2: Not much. Some locals like to go out and drink beer. Other than that, there's nothing there.
FBO: Think New Jersey will ever claim it?
NJ MAN2: No. Doesn't matter. That's just politicians talk.

FBO Fan Rich Trott has proposed East Delaware be the site of an upcoming FBO Performance -- perhaps the sequel to the Panhandle Show. Meanwhile the FBO adopts East Delaware.

Photographic evidence of the East Delaware/FBO Symposium:






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