Jerry “Crabmeat” Thompson performs on Focus Delaware – 5/20/1982

Jerry “Crabmeat” Thompson (a/k/a “Mr. George” to his international students), an ageless Musician/Teacher/Writer who penned Delaware’s unofficial state song “Small Wonder” and a bilingual children’s coloring book “Stretch Saves the Inland Bays”, left behind his “mortal coil” and departed this world on June 22, 2021 at Select Specialty/St. Francis Hospital, Wilmington, Delaware after making a Herculean effort to recover from lung issues. Crab did “not go gently into that dark night, [but continued to] rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Although a long-time resident of Delaware, two-time Artist Fellowship recipient (DDOA/DSAC), and beloved retired Middletown High School teacher, at heart Crabmeat was a wandering troubadour having called various venues home, most memorably San Francisco/Big Sur/Tahoe, California; Missoula, Montana; and Venice/Chokoloskee/Avon Park, Florida where he played, respectively, at Big Sur River Inn, Top Hat Lounge, Crow’s Nest Restaurant & Marina, Joanie’s Blue Crab Cafe, and Wild Turkey Tavern.

Born in Philadelphia while his father was leading Trinidadian troops during World War II, and his mother and aunt were living with their mother awaiting their husbands’ heroic return, Jerry did not meet his father in person until he was two years old. Their trip out West to cowboy country when he was 12 began his life-long love of cowboy songs and remained one of Jerry’s fondest memories of his dad. His early boyhood was blissfully spent in Seattle, Washington swimming in the cold Pacific until a familial move to Wilmington, Delaware. Jerry graduated from Brandywine High School, attending the University of Delaware long enough for his football team to win the 1963 National Championship. However, he did not meet with true scholastic success until he headed to the Midwest attending Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa earning a BA in English with a minor in Spanish in which he became fluent while working a summer construction job and drinking beer with his Mexican amigos. Thence, Jerry continued his studies at Western Illinois University where he earned his MA in English by writing his thesis on Jack Kerouac and commenced teaching.

Although he began his professional life as an English professor, Crabmeat’s wanderlust and obsession with music soon drew him away from the classroom; first to the “House of Wong”/‘70s San Francisco, and, then on the road with The Live Wire Choir, a traveling band home-based in Montana and featured in “Esquire” magazine, a time which has been chronicled in a recently published memoir. When the band broke up, Jerry returned to the East Coast, teaching, and eventually playing music fulltime in Wilmington and at the Delaware-Jersey beaches sandwiching in a brief sojourn in Venice, Florida. Crabmeat moved to Middletown, Delaware in 1994 where he continued playing music as well as teaching English in high school and later at the community college level; and, over the years, he added column-writing, playing children’s gigs, and lecturing at local libraries to his repartee. In 2011, Jerry and his wife Janice began working together tutoring and teaching English as a Second Language to international students often incorporating Crab’s music.

https://spicermullikin.com/jerry-crabmeat-thompson/

From Focus Delaware 5/20/1982

“Focus Delaware” aired on Rollins Cablevision & WNS-TV Channel 2 and WTGI Channel 61 from 1980 to 1987 and was hosted by Bob Weiner.

More info here: https://www.focusdelaware.com/