A Foggy Rant
Fog. Rain. More fog. More rain. And the possibility of snow later in the week.
This is Spring?
Gotta wonder just what we did to piss off Mother Nature. Don’t have to wonder. Pump toxins into the air, contaminate the groundwater, deface mountains with multi-million dollar condos.
Dealing With an Age-Old Question
Last week, I wrote about a visit from an old friend, someone who holds a special place in my book of teenage memories.
It triggered a wave of email from past relationships who chose to express their feelings not in the public comments sections but in personal emails.
Fred First, who writes the older and much more comprehensive blog about life in Floyd County, shared a link to Susan Sharpiro’s book, Five Men Who Broke My Heart, her revisiting of past relationships.
Shapiro says she was in love five times during her single years from 13-35, once every 4.4 years.
Which raises the eternal question: What is love? The dictionaries have various definitions. One says: "a strong positive emotion of regard and affection." Another one is: "a deep feeling of sexual desire and attraction." Another is more basic: "sexual activities (often including sexual intercourse) between two people." Some believe there is only one love for each of us.
Others say love is simply a chemical reaction and can — and does — strike us down many times.
And when love dies, does it mean the love we thought we felt was not genuine or is it simply a change of body chemistry?
I thought I was in love when I married at 21 but when divorce came five years later, I wasn’t sure. In the seven years of single life that followed, I dated many women but loved only one — until that day when I proposed to who I hope is the final love of my life. Yet after 24-and-a-half years of marriage, can either of us say love is forever?
We hope it is and if emotional commitment is the guiding force it should be. If, however, love is nothing more than body chemistry then anything can — and most likely will — happen. Too much to think about on a Monday morning.
(Photo taken in Paris in 1987)
Down by the Old Mill Stream
With all due respect to the Friday Night Jamboree and its popularity, Mabry Mill stands as Floyd County’s most popular tourist attraction (although the county shares Mill property with Patrick County).
The Mill also ranks #1 on the Blue Ridge Parkway’s list of attractions and was even used as a backdrop for Salem cigarette commercials back in the days when tobacco companies could push their products on TV.
Like most Parkway attractions, the Mill draws most attention during the Spring, Summer and Fall months, but I’ve always liked to visit it during the Winter and early Spring, when the water in the Mill trace is diverted and the grounds are quiet.
Even now, as the grass returns to green and the weather warms, the Mill is a more a place of solitude, not tainted by the mass of tourists who will start arriving just before Memorial Day and pack the place until just after Labor Day.
In 1910, local resident Ed Mabry built the grist mill near Meadows of Dan, but the flat land lacked a stream strong enough to generate power for milling. He and his wife Lizzie began buying land to gain the water rights. It took them another four years to put together five small parcels of land and build an extensive flume system, complete with a small dam to store the runoff from rains and Spring thaws.
Mabry’s Mill used two sets of stones, one for grinding cornmeal and the other for a grain mixture fed to livestock. Mabry had many loyal customers and he complimented the mill with a blacksmith shop, sawmill and carpentry shop.
Mabry died in 1936 and his wife operated the mill until designers of the Blue Ridge Parkway chose Mabry Mill as a special scenic places to be preserved. Although the mill remains operational, it grinds meal only occasionally.
Mabry’s blacksmith shop and other parts of the Mill property form the Mountain Industry Trail, a collection that includes a blacksmith shop, soapmaking facilities and — of course — a moonshine still.
Get a Horse
Drive on any Floyd County road and God knows what you’re likely to come up behind.
Some mornings, I end up behind a road grader that makes the ever-so-slow trek from the Virginia DOT garages south of Willis to someplace near Floyd. Get behind that creeping hunk of iron and you’re liable to spend a good part of the day traveling 10 or 11 miles.
Or you might come up on some horses and buggies on a winding country lane, like these two on Buffalo Mountain Road. Just some enthusiasts out for a Saturday morning ride.
He Came Back From Dead Man’s Curve
Sad news today that Jan Berry of the 60s rock due Jan & Dean died from a seizure. He was 62.
Barry suffered serious brain damage in 1966 when he rammed is Corvette into the rear of a truck at high speed. The accident occured on a stretch of California highway called “Dead Man’s Curve,” the name of one of Jan & Dean’s hits.
Although the accident left him paralyzed on one side and unable to speak. He eventually regained some mobility and was able to sing again but spent the latter part of his career producing records.
Street Music
A fantastic day in the nation’s capital today. Sunshine, temperatures in the 70s. A great day to be out. When the weather is nice, the street musicians come out in force and Dupont Circle in Northwest DC is always a great place to hear some good musicians for free. Washington is more than politics, power [...]
Remembering
When it rode the rails of the Norfolk & Western Railway, locomotive 611 was something to see, a streamlined, steam-powered monster that brought stares and a sense of awe whenever it passed. When my mother returned to Floyd County after my father’s death, we rode into Roanoke on an N&W passenger train pulled by 611. [...]
Gone Fishing
Warm weather, cold weather, rain or even snow doesn’t stop the trout fisherman who find their favorite spot on Floyd County’s many streams. They’re out when I leave in the early morning hours and I expect to see them when the days get long enough for it to still be daylight when I return. When [...]
Awesome!
Heading back to Arlington Sunday for our alternate week in the city when I looked in the rear view mirror and saw an awesome sight of clouds outlined by the sun. Pulling over on I-66 Eastbound on a busy Sunday afternoon ain’t the brightest idea in the world but I headed for the shoulder and pulled my camera out of the bag in the back of the Wrangler. The halo outline that had caught my attention in the rear view was gone by the time I got stopped but the sky was still awesome. Mother nature always has a few tricks up her sleeve.
Something New, Something Old
When I worked for The Roanoke Times in the late 1960s, the City Market was one of those place you didn’t venture into after dark. Drug dealers and prostitutes dominated the market square. 
No more. Today, Roanoke’s Market in the Sqaure is a thriving district of art galleries, speciality shops and restaurants.
On a warm Saturday afternoon, the first day of Spring, we found the market packed with shoppers and tourists, living proof that an area can take a seedy, run-down area and turn it around.
At the Market, old mixes with new. You can sit in Roanoke’s Weiner Stand and nosh on a chili dog while using your laptop to tap into the city’s free Wi-Fi network. Farmers still sell their wares in the open-air market but tap their sales into PDAs. Roanoke’s Market in the Square also seems to attract runaway kids.
We noticed several with their backpacks asking people if they knew where they could crash for the night or find some food.
"Yeah, we get a lot of runaways here," one merchant said. "This place seems to attract them. On another corner, a homeless woman with all of her belongings in a shopping cart panhandled for spare change from passers-by. She said her name was Margaret and the market has been her home "since the old days." Some things don’t change.