I worked at a restaurant – The Fenwick Crab House - in Fenwick Island, Delaware, during my high school and college years (1977-1982). The restaurant was owned by Cashar and Mabel Evans of Selbyville, Delaware, from 1962 to 1983. In February of 2006, I sent this letter to Mrs. Evans. It appears here in a slightly edited version. It is long, but there's an awesome life lesson summed up at the end (if I must say so myself).
Dear Mrs. Evans,
This correspondence is long overdue. There were a few things I have been meaning to tell you.
This is no exaggeration… I have a dream about the Crab House two or three times a year. It is always a similar dream. I come in to work, years after having been there, and I am expected to cook. But it has been so long that I can’t remember what to do. It isn’t traumatic or anything… I just realize that time has passed, and I need to re-learn the job. Those years in the kitchen must have made quite an impression for me to still be dreaming about it.
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The Crab House |
A nervous phone call to Mr. Evans ended with an invitation to come to Selbyville to “interview” for a job. He told me where you lived…a white house in view of a Rick’s Laundromat - the only house with a white picket fence. I drove to Selbyville to a house with a picket fence in view of Rick’s. No one came to the door. A neighbor alerted me that I was at the wrong house. You lived in the other only house with the picket fence. I “passed” the interview, and had landed my first job. I think it was my relation to my mother and Grandfather Elias that made you feel obligated to give me a chance.
Despite my inability to find your house, I did find the Crab House on the first day of work. I drove down with Mike, thinking the company would help with first day jitters. I had known a few people who had worked there, my older brother Buddy included. He lasted about a week. I recall riding with mom one rainy day taking him down. It must have been before he got his license. Perhaps the dreariness of the rain impacted his desire to work there. I also knew of Donald, who had talked about eating strawberries when he was supposed to be making the famous strawberry pies while standing in the walk-in cooler. I don’t know if he quit, or was fired for eating strawberries.
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Potato Peeler |
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The Salad Slicer |
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The Cole Slaw Mixer. |
I met my first love working at the Crab House. She was a wonderful girl, and Mr. Evans loved her. But he felt it was important to constantly tell me the hazards of first loves. He warned me over and over about these hazards. I ignored him, and finally figured out on my own that first loves should not occur during your senior year of high school. A better time for a first love would be around the age of 23, after you have finished with college and have maybe worked a year or two.
I met my second love after ending the relationship with my first, also a waitress at the Crab House. She was a wonderful girl as well, and Mr. Evans loved her as well too. He did not warn me about second loves. His mistake was that he should have warned the girls about me, not the other way around. I was just too darned serious at the wrong time. Like I said… 23 would have been a better age. Or perhaps 31 would have been even better.
My first day on the job, I had come under the instruction of Will. Will was only a couple of years older than I, but seemed much more mature and wise. He became one of my mentors at the Crab House. He seemed flawless in his job and in the way he related to the rest of the gang at the Crab House. He was universally accepted as our peer leader.
While Will was our peer leader, we also had our teacher leader, Dave (Dave was a school teacher, and spent his summers at the Crab House as manager). How did you find these guys? Dave had been there 13 years, and Will about 5, by the time I came. They were whole-heartedly devoted to the restaurant, but most of all devoted to the Crab House family. I had great respect for both of them. You know as well as I that the Crab House would have been a very different place without them. I learned from them what defined the proper relationship between us employees and you and Mr. Evans, the owners. I never saw them be impertinent towards either of you the way I could be. And they both became my guide in that regard.

It wasn’t until recently that I realized I wasn’t really cut out to be a line cook. My favorite thing to do at the Crab House was to cook out of Siberia II. That’s because I would have just a couple of waitresses, and would be able to work on one or two orders at a time. What I realized just a few years ago is that I am not a great multi-task person. I don’t do well trying to do a bunch of stuff all at once - thus my attraction to Sib II. The next favorite job was Siberia I. It was not as busy as the main kitchen, and much less chaotic. So even when it did get busy down there, there were fewer things to distract me from cooking. Plus, it normally meant you would be the first to get off work. I don’t know if everyone else knew all this about my abilities or not. If they did, they were sensitive enough not to make an issue if it. But my guess is that you all understood our strengths and weaknesses, and put us where we would work the best. It was wise on your part, and as I look back, much appreciated on mine.
One of the things I really enjoyed was the pre-season work. I enjoyed going with Will and Mr. Evans down to the Crab House before we opened. The place had a peculiar smell. Once in a while, I will be someplace that will have that same smell. What I liked was being in that select few who could be on the “inside”. Perhaps I was really seeking to be a right hand. I wanted to be a go-to guy for Mr. Evans.
On a Saturday morning after the restaurant season had ended, Mr. Evans called me at home. He invited me to go to a University of Delaware football game with you. It was the same day that my grandfather chose to dig out his potatoes, a yearly task for one Saturday in the fall. He would plant rows and rows, enough to feed everyone in the family who wanted them for the entire winter. We would all go and dig them out after he turned over the dirt with the tractor. It was an all-day affair of digging, loading them into baskets, and transporting them to the pump house for storage. I enjoyed it to a degree. But I also viewed it as sort of an obligation, partly so we could share in the free potatoes all winter, and partly because Poppop couldn’t do it alone. The day Mr. Evans called, I can’t really say I was totally thrilled about going to the game. I had never even been to a college game. And there were the potatoes. Looking back, I am sure my family would have given me the go-ahead to go to the game. But I dug potatoes instead. I should have gone to the game with you and Mr. Evans. I should have accepted your generosity. It was a great privilege to have been invited to spend the day with you, and in my foolishness, I missed it.
One summer, Dorothy had a hernia repaired. You made a place for her out front, seating customers. Perhaps it was a wise move on your part, as she was so cheerful, chatty, and cute. But I was very aware that you were taking care of her until she was well enough to go back to waiting tables.
While I was dating Sherry, you invited us to a New Year’s Eve party in Rehoboth, the Old Landing Country Club, I think, or perhaps it was Rehoboth Beach Yacht and Country Club. It was a very classy affair, as one would expect. The old folks did the Jitterbug and what not. We felt privileged to spend the evening with you. I knew that we were much more than a couple of kids who just worked for you.
And that is my whole point. You and Mr. Evans made all of us a part of your lives. We were not just employees. You loved us, and we loved you back, because you earned it by investing yourselves in our lives. I learned in those 5 years that life isn’t just about work. It is more about people. And when you experience it in the ideal way, you end up dreaming about it for the next 24 years.

But if I had, in fact, done something else with my summers, I would not have learned about young love, a first hand experience I shall be sure to try to relate to my own children. I would have forfeited the opportunity to work with a wide variety of young kids of all kinds of backgrounds. The Crab House was a training ground for relationships. I would have missed all that.
And I would not have had the opportunity to work with a couple 50 years my senior, and to develop a friendship with that couple that went far beyond an employee/employer relationship.
I do not think the fruit of that experience is over yet. I fully expect some day to have an opportunity to befriend a young man or woman 50 years my junior and be able to influence their lives as you and Mr. Evans did mine. And at that time, I expect to hear an almost-audible bell go off in my head, and I’ll say to myself… Now this is why I spent five of the most impressionable years of my life with the Evans'.
6 comments:
I was about 13 and lasted about 3 weeks!
I read this and laughed until I cried. That Crab House was truly a gift to all of us. I have often said that if i had a chance to relive a month in my past it would be a month during the Crab House era. Brent you truly have a gift in your writing! Keep it up!
- The 2nd Love (not your mother):)
Interesting thought... to relive a month of the past. If I had the option, I think I would pick and choose 30 days from various periods in life, and I would want the option to make adjustments as well (if necessary). Let's see... 1)The day I decided to quit playing the sax...2)The day I bought a yellow car...
Good job Knock-Knock, now go water the parsnips! ;)
M McComrick
M., The story of parsnip preservation is worthy of an entry all its own. But I'm afraid I'm not qualified to go there, as Rex never trained me in the intricacies of parsnips.
I really enjoyed this Brent. I still have dreams about it, and I am always "In the weeds!" Probably because it was always true. I didn't possess the server flair that many of the other girls did. However, I was grateful to be moved up from busgirl to server after just a few months due to sheer desperation when I was just 14.....and with my earnings I was able to by 3 cars (at various different times) and pay for my own college and continued education toward my Master's in Psychology. I will always consider it fate and such a blessing that Mr. & Mrs. Evan took us all under their wing as they so generously did....but I will note that most of us were related to them in some way and to each other. Small town inbreds...Ha-Ha! I have gone on to watch my niece work there and several other's......and Scott Fornwalt and John Carey have done a job that I am sure would make Mr. & Mrs. Evans very happy and proud to see it carry onward! Hope you may expound upon this in the future. So much to remember and share!!
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