Welcome to The Not Old Better Show.  I’m Paul Vogelzang, and this is episode #525.  

As part of our Smithsonian Associates, Art of Living Series, today’s show is about the amazing, beautiful, functional, and largest estuary in America, the Chesapeake Bay.  Our guest today is Smithsonian Associate Pete Lesher, chief curator of Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.  Pete Lesher will be presenting at the Smithsonian Associates program on April 7, 2021.  The title of Pete Lesher’s Smithsonian Associates presentation is An Evening on the Bay with Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.  

Join us today with Pete Lesher, chief curator of Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Maryland, for a virtual exploration of collections that tell stories about the relationship between people and place in the Bay region—revealing how culture has been shaped by the delicate intertwining of land and water around America’s largest estuary.

Pete Lesher answers our questions about an overview of the Chesapeake Bay Museum facility’s 12 exhibition buildings and historic structures on the 18-acre waterfront campus and offers detailed looks at the museum’s permanent exhibitions. We’ll explore Oystering on the Chesapeake and Maryland Crabmeat, exhibits in which working lives on the Bay are revealed in the words of mixed-race skipjack crews and African American women who traditionally picked crabs. 

Pete and I will discuss the role of the Bay as a maritime highway that connects people and moves commodities are explored in part at the Hooper Strait Lighthouse, a cottage-style historic structure moved to St. Michaels for preservation. And the transformation of the Bay into a place of recreation is told in At Play on the Bay through stories like the racing of sailing log canoes, a living tradition with roots among oyster tongers.

The Chesapeake Bay continues to provide meaning and inspiration to residents and visitors, as evidenced in rich art collections from 19th-century painters to contemporary photographer David Harp, who we’ll discuss, and whose environmental photojournalism is shaping the conversation around the impacts of climate change on the Chesapeake and its waterfront communities.

Please join me in welcoming to The Not Old Better Show via internet phone,  Smithsonian Associate Pete Lesher, chief curator of Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.  

My special thanks to Pete Lesher for his generous time today.  Pete Lesher will be presenting at the Smithsonian Associates program on April 7, 2021.  The title of Pete Lesher’s Smithsonian Associates presentation is An Evening on the Bay with Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.  

Details and links can be found in our show notes today. My thanks to Smithsonian Associate for all they do to support the show,  and my thanks to you my dear Not Old Better Show audience for your company today, and I hope you’ll join me next time.  Be safe, be healthy, and please practice smart social distancing, and remember, Let’s talk about better. The Not Old Better Show. Thanks, everybody.