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You may remember that I was in England in August for my daughter’s wedding. (It’s quite okay if you don’t.) Well, I was back in England last weekend, in Oxford this time, for the reunion of a journalism fellowship I did there in 2007.
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I stressed over whether to stay in England for the 11 days between the wedding and the reunion. Staying would have meant having to cadge lodging from friends. Plus, I have a job, which is called “John Kelly’s Washington,” not “John Kelly’s London/Oxford.” So I made two trips, the second one paid for with frequent-flier miles.
I’ve never traveled much for my job, unless you count driving to places like Woodbridge and Waldorf, with the occasional foray to Frederick. I don’t know how people do constant international travel. Washington is full of such people.
My wife became good at it. At peak business trip, Ruth was flying somewhere every few weeks. She knew how to pack, what time to fly, what to do once she was on the plane. After boarding, she’d decline the meal, don the eye mask and noise-canceling headphones, and try to sleep.
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I always found this boring, since eating a meal, drinking some wine and watching a movie seemed to be part of the experience.
When I found out there was a Maryland in England I knew I had to visit
Ruth doesn’t travel as much anymore and, frankly, I think she’s lost a step. When we were leaving in August for our daughter’s wedding, Ruth managed to arrive at our gate at Dulles without her passport. It had disappeared somewhere between security and the plane.
Of course, they wouldn’t let her board without her passport, and it looked like she might miss the flight. And if she couldn’t find her passport, she might miss the wedding.
I boarded the plane — Beatrice would need at least one parent at her wedding — and Ruth raced back toward security. That meant taking one of the mobile lounges back to the main terminal. One just happened to be waiting. When she explained what had happened, the driver immediately said “Get aboard!”
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Ruth hopped on and off they went.
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Fortunately, the passport had been turned in. Ruth grabbed it and sprinted back to the mobile lounges. The same driver was there and they roared back to Terminal C.
Not only did Ruth make the flight, she lived every Dulles passenger’s dream: a personal ride on a mobile lounge. To that driver, we say thank you.
The entire lead-up to that flight was nerve-racking. We’d stepped off the bus from long-term parking only to find the main terminal was being evacuated. Crowds were milling around outside the swoopy Eero Saarinen-designed building.
It turned out that a police Segway had caught fire inside.
All this made my quick trip over the weekend boring by comparison. I did put a compression sock on inside out, which made me worry I’d turned them into tension socks (that’s an engineering joke), but nothing caught fire and I managed to hold on to my passport.
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And I always love visiting Oxford, a truly magical city. Though it dates to Saxon times and has a library — the Bodleian — that was established in 1602, it’s constantly changing. Every time I go, there’s a new building going up amid the old ones.
Not that all the change is welcome. Local businesses have been struggling for the last few years, hit by covid, rising energy prices and changing shopping habits. I stopped by the Covered Market to visit M. Feller & Daughter butchers. Alas, I found the shop locked up tight and a sign on the window announcing the business had closed in March.
But what, I wondered, had become of the World’s Oldest Ham?! This was a pork shoulder imported from Chicago in 1892. In 1993, butcher Micheál Feller bought it at auction for 1,000 pounds. He displayed it in his shop window as a curiosity piece.
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The World’s Oldest Ham may have resembled a diseased lung, but to me it was a quirky emblem of Oxford. And yet in all the sad coverage of a beloved local business closing, there was no mention of what had become of the World’s Oldest Ham.
I did some sleuthing and am relieved to report that when the shop closed, Hiscock & Shepherd Antiques of Stow-on-the Wold in Gloucester purchased the World’s Oldest Ham. They are entertaining enquiries in the neighborhood of 1,500 pounds ($1,880).
It is not typical of the items they carry, Erna Hiscock wrote in an email. The firm is known for handling needlework collections — Micheál Feller and his wife, Elizabeth, are noted sampler and needlework connoisseurs — but the World’s Oldest Ham was too good to pass up.
Besides, Erna pointed out, Hiscock & Shepherd had previously sold the World’s Oldest Hot Cross Bun.
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