I hate to say it, but what you see below is now the last nice looking stretch of Route 3 East toward Fredericksburg. It’s as though New York has come to Central Virginia, but not in a good way. Just past this monument after Salem Church Road, there is a long, garish clutter of retail space that is typical of the “strip development” you would find on Long Island.
I’m honestly happy if the growth of Fredericksburg’s retail and service sectors have driven job growth. (Hey, I used to live here.)
But it ain’t pretty. I can’t help but wonder if the planning and zoning folks for Spotsylvania and Fredericksburg could have done a better job.
I didn’t watch “WKRP in Cincinnati” (1978 – 1982) when I was a kid; it was a show for adults. I loved the theme song just as much as anyone else, though.
This was just meant as a catchy tune for the show’s opener — but it was such a cool and popular soft-rock number (performed by Steve Carlisle), that a full-length version was released as a singe in 1979. It reached number 65 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart in 1982.
I’m going to go ahead and commit horror-nerd heresy here … at this point, I think I enjoy AMC’s “Fear the Walking Dead” more than “The Walking Dead.” The characters feel more “real,” and the stories move far, far faster.
Last night’s first episode was a hell of a lot of creepy, disturbing, pathological fun — enough for me to give it a 9 out of 10. And to make it a little cooler, we’ve got a couple of terrific “that guy” actors in supporting roles. The first is “Band of Brothers” and “24” alumnus Ross McCall, the second is “The Following’s” Sam Underwood.
Hey, my neighborhood’s home-crashing hare is back! I call him Random Rabbit because he has no burrow — he just randomly selects backyards to occupy. He was my guest for a while, but then he ambled across the street and inhabited another backyard. (I think he was annoyed by my picture-taking.) I think he just crashes random residences like a big, weird, puffy white houseguest. (Think Kato Kaelin.)
Roanoke’s ecosystem puzzles me. This is a slow, truly torpid prey animal who seems to have little healthy apprehension about other animals. He’s doing just fine, though. A nearby pit bull usually just gives him a wary stare … maybe dogs and cats are afraid of him because he’s so huge? This picture doesn’t do him justice — he’s the biggest rabbit I’ve ever seen. He’s probably about the size of General Woundwort from “Watership Down.”
[Update, 6/5/17:] Okay now all my friends are telling me he is very likely an abandoned pet. So I might start feeding him. My pals are recommending “dandelions, lemon balm, and carrot tops.”
I myself am just relieved that other people can see him. I was harboring a pet hypothesis that he was my equivalent of “Frank” from “Donnie Darko.” (He’s almost as big.)
And I know it’s poor form to publish a blog post containing only memes. (That’s what social media is for.) But these two were just too good not to share with as wide an audience as possible.
This blog WAS supposed to be about writing, when I started it once upon an idealistic time. And typos are an occupational hazard for writers, so I figure it’s okay.
Anyway, I cannot take credit for creating these … I found them on Facebook.
I first got acquainted with music of The Allman Brothers Band as a first-semester freshman at Mary Washington College in 1990. My cultural illiteracy as an 18-year-old was embarrassing — especially where music was concerned. I’d arrived at the small, fairly conservative Virginia state school listening to … well, very little other than what I’d heard on the MTV countdown. (I started loving Richard Wagner as a high school senior — but that niche interest was rare for someone my age, so far as I was aware.) It was an ongoing issue when I was a college freshman that upperclassmen would roll their eyes or even occasionally hiss when I told them what music I was into.
Alumnus Steve Miller and his friends were the exception. They showed me far more patience at their parties in “The Tunnel” between Mason and Randolph Halls — they exposed me to tons of The Allman Brothers, Pink Floyd, The Steve Miller Band, and The Beatles. (No, the irony of a guy named Steve Miller coincidentally loving The Steve Miller Band was not lost on us.) Steve and his friends were each, in varying degrees, an amalgam of Obi-Wan and a far mellower version one of the guys from “Animal House” (1978).
The Allman Brothers were really my first extended exposure to Southern rock. (And, hey, you can’t get much more Southern than a band made up of guys named Berry Oakley or Butch Trucks.) I listened to them whenever there was a party at Steve’s, even after he started hosting his soirees out of his apartment on Sunken Road. Everyone there loved The Allman Brothers. I think “Ramblin’ Man” was probably the group’s favorite.
Today, “Midnight Rider” is by far and away my favorite Allman Brothers song. Curiously enough, though, for the life of me, I do not remember hearing that one in college. I actually started jamming to it after I heard Rob Zombie include it in the score for the opening montage of “The Devil’s Rejects” horror film in 2005.
Anyway … “The Tunnel” at “Mary Washington College” has apparently now been remodeled into the above-ground “The Link” at “The University of Mary Washington.”
Trumps’ presidency is such a disaster that, at this point, our only hope may be to launch a team of plucky oil drillers into space.
Every time I mention “Armageddon” (1998), someone makes a joke about its Morgantastic, Freemaniffic contemporary, “Deep Impact.” I tell people it is on my list of things to watch, but I still haven’t even seen “Predestination” (2014), “The Fifth Element” (1997) or a single episode of “Breaking Bad” (2008 – 2013).
“They hover as a cloud of witnesses above this Nation.” — Henry Ward Beecher
I wish everyone a safe and happy Memorial Day.
Photo: American flags sit at the gravesides of service members on Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Va., May 30, 2016 (Photo by Senior Master Sgt. Adrian Cadiz.)
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 