The Smthsonian Institution is in town this weekend working on a web video about the Friday Night Jamboree and Floyd’s music culture. On Friday, they interviewed Fred First at Rocky Knob.

A dancer at Friday Night’s Jamboree in Floyd.

Paul Belcher of Meadows of Dan tried to help his neighbor put down a wayward cow Thursday evening and it cost him his life..

Now Floyd County animal control officer Garland "Bucky" Nester is on leave pending an investigation into how a bullet intended for his cow went astray and killed the 75-year-old Belcher.

Belcher’s wife calls the death of her husband a tragic accident.  Connie Geller of the Virginia State Police says Nester was attempting to shoot one of his own cows but shot Belcher instead. Jean Belcher told Shawna Morrison of The Roanoke Times her husband went to help Nester because the cow was loose. Nester, she said, apparently didn’t know Belcher was nearby when he shot at the cow with a handgun, apparently missed, and the bullet struck Belcher.

Belcher was dead when rescue squad officails arrived.

Floyd County Sheriff Shannon Zeman told us Friday that he asked the Virginia State Police to handle the investigation, a normal procedure when a county employee is involved in a shooting.

(Updated June 2, 2008, to correct Paul Belcher’s name.)

Almost late for an orthopedist’s appointment Thursday because of a train of cars jammed up behind an extremely slow maroon Chevy SUV in the lead.

The driver of the SUV would slow suddenly to as low as 10 mph on some of the turns on Bent Mountain and the accordion effect of cars trying to avoid hitting the rolling road block came dangerously slow to more than one rear-end collision.

By the time we got to where U.S. 221 turned into four-lanes, the line of cars swished by the SUV in quick succession. When we got close, I saw the reason: Maryland plates. The driver gripped the steering wheel in abject fear and stared straight ahead.

During our 23 years in Washington, we learned to fear Maryland drivers. They would drive 20 miles per hour below the speed limit in the passing lanes of the Beltway or whip in and our traffic without signaling their intent. They seldom signaled for turns. There were the butt of jokes in The Washington Post and generally considered the worst drivers in the National Capital Region.

In our four years back here, I’ve lost track of the times we have inched down Bent Mountain on the way to Roanoke or along Rte. 8 between Floyd and Christiansburg because the winding roads appeared to terrify drivers with Maryland plates on their cars.

To be fair, not all bad drivers we encounter are from Maryland. A young girl in a Honda with Virginia plates blew through a stop sign between Floyd and Check Thursday, She was so busy on yapping on her cellphone that she didn’t even look to see if traffic was coming. I had to hit the brakes hard to avoid turning her Honda into a hood ornament on our Jeep Liberty.

She was so preoccupied with her cell phone conversation that her car swerved over the center line several times in the face of oncoming traffic and her speed varied from 35 to 50 mph.

"OK," the orthopedist said. "You may experience some pain."

Of course there would be some pain. Pain, I was once told, is only the beginning. So pumping cortisone directly into a bone spur in my right shoulder is expected to hurt.

It didn’t hurt all that much. I’ve had worse.

"You must be used to pain," he said.

The bone spur rips its way through the rotator cuff muscles in my shoulder and the cortisone might break it up and allow me to avoid shoulder surgery for the time being, although the orthopedist says the day will come when avoiding surgery is not an option.

Until then, I will try to let the steroid reduce the spur and will also avoid raising my arm above the shoulder.

We’ll keep working on it.