About 6 years ago, a bunch of the locals sitting on the beach in front of the pavilion, decided to have a covered dish party on Memorial Day. That year we borrowed a tent and had a couple of fold up card tables. We had about 25 people to come and bring a covered dish. We had so much fun we decided to have another covered dish party for July 4th. Some of the men wanted to get together and cook BBQ around 6’oclock on the morning of the party in front of Tilghman’s and that is where Thurman’s world famous BBQ originated from. They would cook BBQ and as the years went by they added hamburgers and hot dogs or any kind of meat that they wanted to and cooked all morning. We hear the sausage they cook is awesome with a little mustard. When they finished with the cooking, they brought the food to the beach, where everyone was waiting to eat, usually around 1 o’clock. We said our blessing and then we would dig in to some of the best food on the beach. At first we would ask everyone to bring a certain dish so we would have everything that we needed, but the food was so good, we just said bring whatever you want to. We make sure we have the necessities for each dinner, because everyone brings a little extra like napkins, salt and pepper. About anything you would like to eat is on the table, if not someone will go and get it. Some locals don’t get to stay all day on the beach, they come and help set the tables with the food, grab a quick bite and off to work they go.
We have grown so much that different locals are doing different things now and everyone is having a great time. We have more men helping cook the BBQ and really enjoy doing it. We bought a tent and started taking pictures of the locals and put the pictures on the tent, that gives us memories of the last covered dish party we had. We also do a framed collogue from the pictures we take and have a drawing for a winner. If you are in the picture then you put your name in a cup and then someone draws a name and that is the winner. Everyone seems to enjoy this. With each covered dish party, we meet more of the locals and everyone is invited to come. We started out with 1 tent and 3 tables now we have 2 tents (with pictures) and 7 tables. The tables are always full of the best food on the beach. You go around the table trying to find out who made what, so you can get their recipe and you ask that person to please make it again next time.
We not only do the dinners on the beach, we also help anyone that we can. If any of the locals are having difficulties of any kind, we try to help. We are a close group of caring people who welcomes more locals to come and join us and to make friends that will last a lifetime. We donate to many charities, such as Camp Kemo at Fat Harold’s during S.O.S and to some of the beach bands favorite charities and the Locals put on a Toys for Tots Christmas party each year with Jim Quick and The Coastline Band and we have so much fun doing this.
We love just getting together, caring about each other and our community. We support our local clubs and restaurants in the summer and winter because we always try to find a place to meet with each other. We love the locals, our community and try to make life as happy as we can. We love to party and we always say “
COME AS YOU ARE”
This is how the local people became known as the “
O.D. Pavilion Locals” but we later changed the name to the "
O.D.Horseshoe Locals" so there would be no confusion or misunderstanding on who we are and what we do for the community and when one or two are together, “We Party” and life is good.