Tag Archives: Fredericksburg

Throwback Thursday: “The Sting” (1973)!

“The Sting” (1973) was probably the first movie I ever saw starring Robert Redford; it was a family favorite that made the rounds on television in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s.  (Though I will note here that “A Bridge Too Far” (1977), was also a family favorite, and also circulating on television in roughly the same time.  Redford was in that film too.)

I remember asking my father how the ruse worked for that guy in the beginning who fell for the handkerchief trick.  And I remember the movie’s theme music (Floyd Cramer’s “The Entertainer”) being an impossible earworm.

The next movie I saw starring Redford would probably be “All the President’s Men” (1976) when I was 14 or so; that was with my uncle John Muth, who had a wealth of such treasures on VHS.  After that, it was the wonderful “Sneakers” (1992) in the theater in my college town of Fredericksburg, Virginia.

What I remember about Redford is just how goddam likeable he was in every role.  It was uncanny — there was just something about him.  It’s kind of like Carey Grant was so inexplicably suave, or how Harrison Ford always seems so sincere.  I’ll bet something like that can’t be learned in an acting class.

Rest easy, Mr. Redford.

By the way, I am linking below to Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers and MovieClips on Youtube.



Throwback Thursday: the fabled rotating comic stand!

Yep.  When I was in kid on Long Island, it would be either war comics (especially Sgt. Rock), Conan the Barbarian (or his himbo spiritual cousin, Ka-Zar the Savage) any of the various Archie titles, or a horror comic.  (I thought superhero comics were stupid when I was a kid.  In order for a comic to entertain me, it had to include war, swords, Archie or monsters).

When I was in the fifth or sixth grade, my dad would occasionally  pick me up titles that only seemed available in Manhattan, where he worked as a bus driver — books like the 1980’s iteration of the Blackhawk Allied commandoes or (joy and rapture) The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones.  (Maybe Indy’s title adhered more loosely to the rule of thumb I cited above, but that was forgivable, because it was the greatest comic book ever created.)

The last time I saw a rotating rack like this was … 1993?  1994?   For a while, it was neat little fixture of the 7-11 along Route 1 just outside Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  You could make a run for coffee or nachos at any hour and snag a comic while you were at it.  By then, I was thoroughly entrenched in the DC and Marvel superhero pantheons.  (A really cool goth kid in my freshman dorm had shown me Frank Miller’s work, and I was hooked.)



I’m a Fred I have another bad pun for you.

So here’s the plan — I’m gonna move back to my college town of Fredericksburg, Virginia, and start a poetry group there.

Gonna call it “Fred Poets Society.”

(I already e-mailed my old writing prof and told him he had to be our Mr. Keating.)



Photo of Princess Anne Street in Fredericksburg, Virginia, 2009

Seen from the Fredericksburg train station.

Photo credit: Bsteckler, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Throwback Thursday: Wista-SHEER Sawce.

Flashback to the early 1990’s.   I worked the cafeteria at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia.  (It was a work-study program.)  Southern kids would line up at the counter for me to serve them Worcestershire sauce, because they laughed at the way I pronounced it.

It’s “wista-SHEER sawce.”  Years of seeing it passed around my New York Irish dinner table could not have misinformed me.  It was the Southerners and their adorable “WAR-is-to-Shire” pronunciation that deserved laughter.

I’m glad we had this talk.



Photo collage from the “Bulletin of the Normal School for Women, Fredericksburg, Virginia, April, 1920”

“The Normal School for Women” later became Mary Washington College.  There is a pernicious rumor going around that it was subsequently named “The University of Mary Washington,” but we all know that couldn’t be right.

Anyway, you can view and enlarge this image here at Wikimedia Commons.



Bulletin_of_the_Normal_School_for_Women,_Fredericksburg,_Virginia,_April,_1920_(1920)_(14762681511)

The (Renovated) Arena Stage.

So this is the Arena Stage in Washington D.C., these days. I saw a play there as a college student in 1994 or so.  (There was  a major renovation and expansion project since my days at Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia.)

I don’t even remember which production we saw, to be honest with you.  (I’m pretty sure it was Shakespeare.)  But I remember that the trip seemed exciting.  Fredericksburg really was just a mid-sized town back in the 1990’s.   Going into Washington D.C. at night with about 100 other theater students to see a live production felt like a pretty big deal.

And the trip and the show were a blast.



Arena_Stage_2011

Photo credit: Ron Cogswell, 2011



Arena_Stage_(6163714891)

Photo credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlTAobYSR5k&list=FLEjGv3WZw134CN_yJVg3_Hg&index=1143

I did NOT see Dad coming.

I told the nice young woman who cut my hair that I went to school in Fredericksburg.  She said she thought I might have gone to high school with her dad.

For some reason, that made me feel SO old.

Update — people on Facebook have now informed me that the phrase “nice young woman” is employed only by old people.



IMG_20230722_160735220 - Copy

Photo of President James Monroe’s law offices, Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1927

Fredericksburg, Virginia.

President_Monroe's_law_offices,_Charles_Street,_Fredericksburg,_Virginia._Street_entrance_LCCN2008675912

HOBO EGGS!

Multiple people in my life have informed me (with no small amount of gravity) that I need to learn how to cook.  So I am at least trying something new and super easy.

These are what I’ve heard referred to as “hobo eggs” — eggs fried right within a hole in the bread.  (You can add cheese as they cook.)  I only learned their name recently — a child character asks for them on incredibly underrated (and inscrutably named) horror show, “From” (2022).  (Seriously, this series will scare the hell out of you.)

Believe it or not, this simple dish goes back at least as far as colonial America.  I worked as a character interpreter/tour guide for The Rising Sun Tavern in Fredericksburg, Virginia, as a college student just about … 29 years ago.  (Sigh.)  And the recipe was in a “Colonial American Cookbook” that we sold in the gift shop.  (No, I have no idea why I remember the strange things that I do.)

But there it was named “toad-in-the-hole” — which was kind of an odd choice, if you wanted to make something sound appetizing.



IMG_20230401_131242012 - Copy