Staying put
The plan today called for a ride down the mountain to take part of the Toys for Tots ride in Salem but Saturday’s snow took care of that idea. With ice on the driveway and patches of black ice all over the place I won’t be on a motorcycle today.
Gut check time for NASCAR
Another boring NASCAR season came to an end last Sunday. Jimmie Johnson (yawn) won the championship for a record-setting fourth straight time.
NASCAR finished its latest season with declining TV ratings, declining attendance and declining interest in a sport that once claimed it would challenge the NFL for prime-time dominance.
Some blame the bland Johnson for the sport’s problems. Others blame the economy. While both may be contributing factors, NASCAR’s real problem lies within itself: the sport forgot its roots in an unrelenting quest for money.
The sport born in the moonshining hills of of the South got uppity and thought it was better than its past. It saw its future in corporate sponsors, private jets, polished, TV-ready cookie cutter drivers with no personalities and a cleaned-up image.
That’s not the NASCAR we grew up with and not the NASCAR that built the most loyal fan base in sports — a fan base that is deserting stock car racing in droves because NASCAR decided it didn’t need them any more.
When NASCAR made the decision to yank the traditional Labor Day race from Darlington and move it California, it was a slap in the face to the fans who built the sport. Attendance at the California track has declined to a point where some high school football games outdraw the races there.
NASCAR pinned its hopes on the bankability of Dale Earnhardt’s namesake son, but Dale Jr. appears to be buckling under the pressure. After complaining he couldn’t win at his father’s old racing organization, he moved to the powerhouse Hendrick Motorsports where he hasn’t won in 57 races. Junior didn’t make the chase. Hendrick’s other three cars finished the season first, second and third in the standings.
If NASCAR wants to survive it needs to abandon its pretentiousness and return to its roots but it may be too late. Southerners have a long memory.
Shop on Black Friday? No way
Thousands upon thousands of area shoppers descend on malls and the big box store today for “Black Friday,” the start of the Christmas shopping glut and the traditional “busiest shopping day of the year.”
Amy and I will not be among the throngs. We don’t do Black Friday. The last time I was in the middle of the mess on the day after Thanksgiving was while on assignment shooting pictures for a newspaper. One of the photos appears above.
Even our area motorcycle dealer is in on the act: New River Valley Harley-Davidson opened at 6 a.m. with Black Friday discounts. I won’t be there. I’m under a wife-imposed moratorium on motorcycle accessories.
Amy and I will not be playing the consumer consumption game. The only gifts we will give each other and loved ones will be things we make: My photography and her arts & crafts. Any shopping we do will be local, not at malls or big boxes. Call it our contribution to the Sustain Floyd movement.
Or call it coming to our senses. Either way works for us.
Thankful
As I explore the area where we live, often by motorcycle, I stop and just look out over the wonders that surround us.
Despite hard economic times, failures of our elected leaders at the local, state and national level and a national mood that seems too often coarse and decisive, we still have so much to be thankful for in this nation.
As Amy and I head off to spend Thanksgiving with my mother, we want to take a moment to say thanks to the friends we’ve made since coming to Floyd five years ago and the many others we made over the years and through this web site.
Happy Thanksgiving from us to you and our thanks for making all this worthwhile.
The tax man cometh…and goeth
The letter arrived three-and-a-half months ago, a missive from the Internal Revenue Service that strikes fear into the hearts of the bravest of people.
“Your tax return has been selected for examination,” the notice declared. Uncle Sam wanted a closer look at our business return from our first year in Floyd. That was the year we opened Blue Ridge Creative at The Jacksonville Center and spent far more money than we made, normal for starting a new business. Blue Ridge Creative never made any money and we closed it three years later.
I called and made an appointment. A second letter arrived the next day with details of what the auditor wanted for the initial meetings: Tax returns from 2003 through last year; receipts, bank statements and all other supporting material. I had three weeks to search through boxes and gather what I could find. In some cases, I had to contact vendors and customers and obtain information from them.
A couple of years ago, the IRS stepped up audits of small businesses because a study showed such businesses are often cash operations where large sums of incomes go unreported. Most of our customers at Blue Ridge Creative paid with credit cards or check. A number of local artists in Floyd tell me they have undergone audits. Some told horror stories of contentious meetings with examiners and bills for new taxes along with fees and penalties.
So I drove down to Roanoke in September a little nervous about the meeting at 10 a.m. I felt our taxes were in order but you can search the Web and find hundreds of frightening stories about others who felt the same and found the IRS didn’t agree.
At the IRS office just off Campbell Avenue in Roanoke, I was led into a windowless room with plain white walls and a small table. The IRS agent was young, courteous and extremely professional. Most of the 45-minute interview tuned out to be questions about how we operated our business, our bookkeeping methods and our operations.
He made copies of my documentation, asked a few followup questions, and sent me on my way, saying he would call if he had any more questions.
A week went by, then a month, then three months with no word from the auditor. Finally, last Friday morning, the phone rang: The caller ID said “U.S. Government” with a Roanoke number. It was the long-awaited followup call.
“I’m ready to close out this examination,” he said, adding that he would meet with his supervisor that day to get signoff on the final report. His report should arrive in the next few days.
On Monday, the official notice arrived: No change in tax liability, no taxes due, no penalities, no interest, no fees. He made a couple of adjustments but the changes did not affect the bottom line. The notice asked us to sign and and return the report if we agreed with the auditor’s conclusions. If we did not agree, we could exercise our rights to appeal.
Appeal? My mother drowned the dumb ones. We will sign and return the report. The boxes of receipts and records that have sat in our living room and den over the past three months will be packed up this week and returned to storage.
Why does it keep raining on our parade?
Like the dark mood that hangs over the area and the nation in these troubled times, the rain that moved back into the area overnight adds a gray, somber mood to the day.
It’s Thanksgiving Week but a growing number of people tell me they don’t have a lot to be thankful for right now. Over breakfast at Blue Ridge Restaurant, some tell me of missed bill payments, impending mortgage defaults and failure to find a job to replace the one they lost months ago.
Some say they will be late paying real estate and personal property taxes next week because they must make a choice between putting food on the table or making tax payments. In those cases, taxes can wait. This will hurt cash-strapped Floyd County government that depends on the taxes to pay its bills.
Retailers gear up this week for “Black Friday,” that madhouse shopping day after Thanksgiving that some hope will provide enough business to make it for the year but too many businesses are already hanging on by a thread and economists expect a record number to close after the holiday shopping season.
It’s already been a bloody year for some businesses. Circuit City is gone. So is Reed Lumber Company in Christiansburg. Nationally, KB Toys and Goodys Family Clothing went into the dumpster.
Over in Blacksburg, tenants at year-old First & Main Shopping Complex say things haven’t gone as planned. Reports The Roanoke Times:
Blacksburg’s first chic shopping center — a more than $40 million business venture financed by Wells Fargo and Boston investment company New Boston Fund — is coming up to speed. However, as First & Main completes its first year in business, there is uncertainty within the ranks of merchants about what the second year will hold.
Vacant storefronts, one for every four spaces occupied, dot the center, which celebrated its grand opening on Black Friday of 2008. Landlord-tenant money disputes have given way to a handful of lawsuits, one of which charges developer Fairmount Properties with overpromising and underdelivering at the complex on South Main Street.
An empty storefront, once occupied by attorney Bob Boswell, sits on Floyd’s Main Street. The Village Green has two vacant spaces, including the one I vacated at the end of October. On the upside, local musician Mike Mitchell opened his new music store in The Station at South Locust this month and the new community market opened next to the complex. Developers of the Station are still looking for a restaurant tenant and have both retail and residential spaces for rent.
Sears and JCPenney closed stores around the country in 2009 and Penney announced last week that its current “big book” catalog would be its last. Penneys joins Sears in the catalog trash heap. I remember when arrival of the new Sears catalog was big news around our house but Sears dumped its catalog in 1993.
The mood of America is glum. Two-thirds of the public is dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country. Fully nine-in-ten say that national economic conditions are only fair or poor, and nearly two-thirds describe their own finances that way – the most since the summer of 1992. An increasing proportion of Americans say that the war in Afghanistan is not going well, and a plurality continues to oppose the health care reform proposals in Congress.
But this is America and we believe in our ability to bounce back. The economy will rebound although some economists say jobs that were lost in the downturn may not come back. Those who need to work may have to find jobs outside their normal area of expertise and settle for less income and a reduced lifestyle.
America is changing. It may not be the change that many of us want but it will be change we must accept.
Palin’s petty, pathetic propaganda parade
P.T. Barnum is right: A sucker is born every minute. All you need do is witness the brain dead lemmings who show up at one of Sarah Palin’s book signing events.
As the video above shows, a bunch of them got upset with the diva of failed politics aborted her signing extravanganza in Noblesville, Indiana, and left her flawed faithful fans standing in the rain, clutching their unsigned editions of “Going Rogue” to their heaving, heartbroken bosums, chanting “sign our books” and “Sarah quits again” at petty Palin headed for another photo op.
Souless Sarah later posted on her Facebook propaganda page that she “understood” some people didn’t get their books signed and promised to make it up to them. Understood? Instead of “Going Rogue,” maybe she should changed her book title to “Going Deaf.”
Palin is scheduled to bring her side show to Roanoke Sunday for an signing at Barnes & Noble at Valley View Mall. Interestingly, those who want to try and get an book signed by the Bible-thumping sex symbol of the GOP will have to miss church to do so. Roanoke Times columnist Dan Casey has a good take on the incredible rules B&N has imposed on those who waste their time attending the book signing.
What if…
“Life,” someone much smarter than me once wrote, “is a series of random events determined by fate and irony.”
Our lives take many twists and turns over the years and a different twist or turn could easily change the outcome of what happened later on.
What if…my father had not died in an industrial accident when I was very young? I probably would have grown up in Florida. Floyd County would have been a place to visit my grandparents instead of a new home at age 5.
What if…my widowed mother had not remarried when I was 8? We would not have relocated from Floyd to Farmville for five years. I would ot have met the photographer who taught me the basics of shooting images and stirred my interest in photography. I would not have sold my first picture to The Farmville Herald.
What if…upon returning to Floyd County, I had not taken my collection of stores and photos to Pete Hallman, then owner of The Floyd Press. What if he had not offered me a job? His recommentation led to my first fulltime newspaper job at The Roanoke Times.
What if…atter graduation from high school I had opted to attend the University of Virginia full time in Charlottesville rather than study at what was then Virginia’s Roanoke campus while working fulltime at The Roanoke Times? I would not have built a resume of clips that led to job offers from other papers.
Farmville: Hopefully, the past is prologue
I walked the empty Main Street of Farmville, Virginia, Sunday afternoon. Farmville is one of three homes of my youth: Gibsonton, Florida, where I was born and spent the first five years of my life; Floyd County, home from age 5-8 and again from 13-17; and Farmville, the place in between.
Sunday’s visit to Farmville came by accident. After breakfast with some biker friends at The Roanoker, I struck out alone on Virginia Highway 24, heading East to Appomatttox where — Appomattox County’s main sign proclaims — “where a nation reunited.” The jury is still out on whether or not our nation is united. In some ways, it is more divided than on that day in 1865 when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Uylsses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, but that is a topic for another day.
After a walk of the the grounds at Appomattox Courthouse Historical Park, I headed back to U.S. 460. Faced with the option of turning right for the 75 mile ride back to Roanoke or left for an 18-mile return to Farmville, I turned left and headed East to Prince Edward County to revisit five years of my youth.
I turned off at U.S. 15 South and looked for our old home. Took a while to find it. What was rolling farmland in the county in the late 50s and early 60s is now part of Farmville, smothered by a Wal-Mart, franchise restaurants, gas stations and convenience marts. The house sits empty in a lot overgrown with weeds and surrounded by the plastic of fast food and franchises. The open fields where we rode horses is a subdivision with tract homes. A short drive up U.S. 15, the large, sprawling Poplar Hill Plantation once owned by my step-father’s brother is now The Manor, a resort development that seems out of place just outside a town where empty storefronts line main street and the county’s history includes a shameful period when the local government, dominated by the Ku Klux Klan, closed the public schools and opened the all-white Prince Edward Academy.
Bristol’s split personality
Bristol, Tennessee-Virginia isn’t the only American city to straddle two states but it probably makes more of its duality than others. As you ride along State Street(right) — the state line — the street signs on one side read Virginia and the other Tennessee.
But Bristol is a city split not only by a state line but also by competing cultures: the red-neck good-old-boy Southern tradition and the artsy crowd On State Street, the city’s main drag, you find pickup trucks with Richard Petty bumper stickers parked next to Volvos with “save the earth” logos.
I had’t visited Bristol since coming back to Southwestern Virginia in 2004 and wasn’t planning to go there when I turned my Harley South on U.S. 221 early Saturday morning. After breakfast at Jim’s in Willis, I headed South again on 221, not sure if I would stay on that road or head towards Mt. Airy on U.S. 52 out of Hillsville. At Hillsville, I stayed on 221, riding on to Galax and then Independence. Decision time again: 52 through Mt. Rogers or stay on 221. Opted again for 221 and enjoyed the twisties on to Boone where I planned to stop but the town was packed and I couldn’t find a parking spot, even for a motorcycle, so I turned north on U.S. 421 and headed towards Mountain City, TN. Topped the Harley off with gas and headed on to Bristol.