From The Encyclopedia Virginia, The Virginia Foundation for the Humanities:
“The Zúñiga chart, a manuscript map of the Chesapeake Bay and Tidewater Virginia, features the bay’s major rivers, the location of Jamestown and James Fort, and the locations of sixty-eight Indian villages. The chart, probably a copy of a map made by Captain John Smith, was sent to King Philip II of Spain by Don Pedro de Zúñiga, a Spanish ambassador to England.”
No, AMC is not planning on filming in Wytheville, Virginia. The item that’s been popping up recently on Facebook is a hoax.
If you type the homepage feednewz.com in your browser, it actually redirects you to a site called prank.link, where ready-made hoaxes can be shared via Facebook. I’d say that the whole thing is in questionable taste, but then, I’ve been known to pull a prank or two myself via this blog.
Bus rides, train rides, sodas, coffee etc.
Do I look po’? (My doctor told me today that my shirt was too small, and that I needed a new one! She’s a lady doc, so I let the comment slide …)
Are people just charmed by my Baby Face?
Does my ponderous expression alert people to the fact that I am sometimes slow to understand things? And do they then figure that I need all the help I can get?
Or is it that the people of this Commonwealth are just so preposterously, inexplicably NICE?
So … once again, the cool and rugged Mary Wash kids kindly invited this New York nerd along for their annual 5-day camping excursion at Iron Gate, Virginia. And, once again, I bailed like a weenie.
I’m speaking specifically about Russ, Janet, Paula and Paul. (No, the latter two are neither spouses nor siblings, even though that would be totally awesome.) I WANTED to go!! Seriously!! And I know that you guys went to great lengths to assiduously counsel me about the availability of wifi, coffee, cell phone reception and convenience stores. I appreciate your encouragement.
I WILL be there in spirit. If you DO have any access to the Internet (you guys totally equivocated when I asked that), then here is evidence that I am thinking of you.
It’s a story I wrote about a disappearance in the thick forests surrounding a small, rural town. Just switch out Willibee, Massachusetts for Iron Gate, Virginia, and it could be your little getaway. It’s called “The Disappearance of Little Tommy Drummond,” and it was first published in Dead Beats Literary Blog in November 2013.
Party like the old days, but beware of strange messages carved into trees. And don’t walk too far alone at dusk.
http://www.deadbeats.eu/post/66085895442/the-disappearance-of-little-tommy-drummond-by-eric
Photo credit: “View southeast, general view, barn at left – Woods Homestead, County Route 12 on north side of North Fork of Hughes River, 2.2 miles north and east of Goose Run Road intersection, Harrisville, Ritchie County, WV,” 1933, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, via Wikimedia Commons.
“I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”
— volunteer Nathan Hale, hanged by the British at the age of 21 in Manhattan as an “illegal combatant.”
On September 22, 1776, Hale became the first American executed for spying for his country. His statue stands at the Central Intelligence Agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia. (It is a copy of one commissioned in 1914 for Hale’s alma mater, Yale University.)
Photo credit: “Nathan Hale Statue – Flickr – The Central Intelligence Agency” by The Central Intelligence Agency – Nathan Hale Statue. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
And, this time, let it be for something other than a Civil War documentary.
Russell Morgan’s “Next Steps” is a groundbreaking planned television drama that will be set in Fredericksburg, Virginia … so if it’s your hometown or your college town, then please consider supporting the project. Russ will be filming on location in Fredericksburg, and plans to continue to do so after the show finds a home with a major network. He’s currently working with the Virginia Film Office.
Russ just shared some casting news today: “We have cast John Stagnari, Kosta Trifunovic, Camille Moten, and Curt Foy in our main ensemble. These guys bring so much to this project that it takes what I’ve written and makes it exponentially bigger, better and stronger.
“But we still can’t do it without your help … we have a LOT more to do to do this the right way the first time. Please check out our Indiegogo page and contribute if you can … every little bit helps, believe me … and then pass it along! Thank you!!!!”
Check out the project’s Indiegogo page here:
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/1258921/fblk…
[EDIT: The broken link has been fixed!]
And, please, consider supporting “Next Steps” financially or just help spread the word!!
Photo credit: “Fredericksburg Dusk” by Bsteckler – Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
“Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.”
— Francis Bacon
Certain forward-thinking friends of mine are chopping and stacking wood this summer so that they can burn it in autumn. They’re even posting pictures of their woodpiles on Facebook. (You see what rural Virginia does to transplanted New Yorkers?)
Keep at it, I say. I don’t have a fireplace myself, but one of my favorite things about fall in Virginia is walking down the street and detecting the scent of burning oak.
I was hiking around Locust Grove, Orange County, in the perilous land of VIRGINIA. The Internet, and even DVDs, weren’t a thing yet. In my day, people had to AIMLESSLY WALK LONG DISTANCES just for fun.
It wasn’t pleasant; holy crap. I was even wearing red shorts at the time.
There are two morals to the story:
1) Never trespass, but especially at farms.
2) Hiking is bad for you. Stay home and watch TV.
Friends kept calling me “The Bull Runner” in college. I made it a point to eat burgers at the school cafeteria every day, because Karma’s a bitch, Baby.
1) Potomac Mills Mall. Who says Southerners can’t form crowds?
2) Rush hour traffic on I-95. DEAR LORD!!! It’s like Virginia’s answer to the Long Island Expressway!!
3) Guapo’s!! They don’t have them in New York!!! The last time I went to Guapo’s was when I was in my 20’s and was hanging out with Sanjeev Malhotra!!
4) Nice people. I will never get over how polite and accommodating the average citizen is here. I am not this nice — do they see me as an ape by comparison?
5) A “Smoke Court.” What is that — a court where smokers are tried? Or … is it a fancy outdoor area where people can smoke? Is there also a “Drink Pavilion” or “Toke Arcade?”
The following are pictures of Culpeper, Virginia, which I was lucky to see again, even if it was only briefly, on the way to the Blue Ridge Mountains this past Labor Day weekend. (There was a time I would name Fredericksburg as America’s best small town, of course, but I’m not sure that Fredericksburg meets the definition of a small town any longer — more on that in the future.)
I remember Culpeper fondly indeed. I found my first job after college here — working as a reporter for the Culpeper Star – Exponent newspaper. (Third photo.) I lived right on Main Street, which is pictured in the first two photos. It wasn’t New York, but it was a warm community of good neighbors that I was lucky to join.
Yes, I did say newsPAPER. There was time, kids, when news was actually printed in ink on a refined paper product that required hand delivery to your home. Either that, or you could purchase it from a mechanical metal box on the street corner.
Check out the fourth photo of Mount Pony at the edge of town– this is something my friend pointed out to me. (I know you can hardly see it — the picture is blurry because taken from a moving car.)
Until nearly the end of the Cold War, this was a 140,00-square-foot, federally operated “continuity of government” facility, housing people underground and designed to keep our government going in the event of a nuclear war. There were dormitories, food supplies and wells, protected from blasts and radiation by steel-reinforced concrete and lead shutters — it even had an indoor pistol-range and a helipad. There were also just billions of dollars housed there by the Federal Reserve, to jump-start a post-apocalyptic economy.
It was decommissioned in 1992, and was bought in 2007 by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. It’s now a national film archive operated by the Library of Congress, with more than 6 million pieces of original film and television artifacts. (Apparently old film stock can be dangerous to store, because it’s extremely flammable?) It’s open to the public, and has its own theater that screens classic films for free — it even has an organ that ascends to the screen when the theater shows silent films. The Library of Congress has a running schedule right here:
http://www.loc.gov/loc/events/#eventlist9
That sounds pretty damn cool. I’ve been dying to see a bunch of silent films I’ve never seen (particularly “Nosferatu” and “The Phantom of the Opera.”) I might try to take a trip out there if they screen any such vintage movies around Halloween. Because seeing classic horror films in an underground facility designed for the end of the world has got to be a unique experience.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 