Oops, not the Cupboard; and CJ vs. the wineberries

Jimmy Marshall and I crossed paths at the Weis Market in Lewes on New Year's Day.

"That house you had in your column last week wasn't part of the Corner Cupboard complex," he said. "That house belonged to Jack and Isabel Fancourt. It was to the west of the Corner Cupboard Inn." Both fronted on Park Avenue.

Jimmy knows old Rehoboth. He grew up in the thick of things.

"I really appreciate you telling me that, Jimmy. I thought I was right but clearly I wasn't. I hate to be wrong, but if I'm wrong I'll correct it."

Walter Brittingham and Andrew Thomas also confirmed Jimmy's doubts. I stand corrected.

Further research into the Cape Gazette archives determined that a permit for the main building of the Corner Cupboard complex was issued in 2014. It and an accompanying building to the east are gone now. Demolition of what I now know as the Fancourt house was scheduled, according to a notice posted on the property, to begin on or about Jan. 3.

The rest of the information - about the history of the Corner Cupboard that once provided the heartbeat of Park Avenue, and about the 26 demolition permits issued by Rehoboth in 2017 - included in that column and published in the Dec. 29 edition of the Cape Gazette is correct to the best of my knowledge.

Thanks to Jimmy, who also wrote me an email before I saw him, and all the other readers who help straighten me out when I stray.

CJ and the Wineberries

Few people know the uncharted woods of Cape Henlopen State Park across from the ferry terminal better than CJ Rickards. He hunts deer there when they're in season and searches high and low, in dunes and phragmites, for shed antlers when the seasons close.

CJ called before Christmas and invited me to take a walk in the woods. "I want you to see a plant growing back in there that I've just been seeing in the past few years. It's taking over and it's bad. Definitely invasive."

We finally got together on New Year's Day, the same day I encountered Jimmy. There was gnarliness to both encounters. With Jimmy because he showed me the error of my ways, and with CJ because of the thorny briars.

CJ showed me a small patch of the invasive wineberries close to the tall concrete fire tower that overlooks the ferry tollbooth. "But that's nothing," he said. "If you have time, I'll show you the bad stuff."

CJ followed paths that only a deer hunter would know. We walked up berms created decades ago when drainage ditches were dug. And on this day when the temperature worked hard to get to 20, we crossed those same ditches on thick ice. In warmer weather, we would have sunk in muck up to our knees if we had tried the same trick.

Clad in camouflage from his boots to his hat, CJ tramped this way and that, never wavering from his course though it was far from straight. The many little rips and pulls in his clothing, which looked way too thin to me for the weather, showed plenty of forays through the briars of the woods.

We talked as we walked.

I've spent a good bit of time in that same woods listening to the quiet, smelling the pines, looking for birds and deer, finding artifacts from the old Lewes dumping grounds. We both know the old rusted cars, the mannequin torso, an unusual magnolia tree back amongst pines, sassafras and scrub oaks. They're all landmarks.

He told me about three holes he found recently in the side of a dune. "I looked in one, nothing. Then I looked in the next, still nothing. Then I stooped down to look in the third and out comes a fox straight for me. I jumped back. Scared? You better believe. But he took a hard right immediately, and ran off and disappeared."

We found turkey feathers, and CJ talked about gobblers and hens roosting in trees above him while deer hunting. "Lots of turkeys in here." Then we climbed another berm and from its flattened top, about six or seven feet high, he pointed ahead. We were in a place where dredge spoils had been placed long ago when the ferry basin was dredged. It was scrubby, and a thick edge of briars and pines eventually gave way to the marsh along Lewes-Rehoboth Canal.

"There it is. Look how thick it is. As far as you can see."

There were rolls of wineberry canes, five and six feet tall, as impenetrable as razor wire. Most remarkable to me: the canes grew up out of the ground and then arched over gracefully, intertwined with one another, until the tips hit the ground. But there was no lifting the tips out of the way and walking through. Where gravity arched the wineberry stems, and their growing tips made contact with the soil, they rooted again, making random series of fixed, thorny arches.

"It's taking over and it's not good," said CJ. "It's a mess trying to get through for people or animals."

Here's an excerpt from a Cornell University invasive species article:

"Wineberry is an invasive shrub in the same genus (Rubus) as raspberries and blackberries. Wineberry creates spiny, impenetrable thickets that reduce an area's value for wildlife habitat and recreational value. It was introduced to North America in the 1890s as breeding stock for raspberries. It was found invading natural areas by the 1970s, and it is currently recorded in most states east of the Mississippi River ... [including Delaware]. Wineberry replaces native vegetation, including native edible berry shrubs."

One more thing for park naturalists to deal with. Nature never stops, and nature doesn't care.