The Harwell Grice Band performs at Hotel Floyd

New this year on Floyd’s ever-expanding music scene is the Thurday night series of concerts at Hotel Floyd.

At a time when the cost of enjoying music is going up at some venues, the Hotel Floyd series if free to the public and features popular area bands with a mix of music. Franklin County bluegrass act The Harwell Grice Band performed this Thursday night to a small but appreciative crowd.

The series continues through October with music from 5 to 8 p.m.

Virginia’s Department of Transportation (VDOT) is an all-but-missing entity in Floyd County since the department reorganized and shut down the Hillsville residency office earlier this year and transferred us to the Christiansburg residency.

Since the reorganization and forced retirement of longtime resident administrator Bob Beasley, VDOT can’t be bothered with sending a representative to meet with the county’s board of supervisors. Beasley used to come to every meeting to bring the board up to date on projects and gather information on road problems reported by each supervisor. Beasley retired five months ago and no one from VDOT has shown up for a board meeting for four months.

VDOT closed one of the county’s two maintenance shops as part of the “reorganization.”

Even worse, citizen complaints about potholes, road surface problems and other road needs go unanswered. VDOT apparently doesn’t have time to deal with Floyd County and the neglect is obvious to anyone who travels the county’s roads.

On Harvestwood Road, a half-dozen large potholes continue to grow. Despite constant complaints by residents along the road VDOT has not responded.  On Sandy Flats Road near Poor Farm Road, a rusting culvert has caused a section of the road to sink into a suspension-destroying rut.  We first reported the problem to VDOT five months ago. No response. No repairs. No action. Someone threw some tar on it recently and made the situation worse.

On a recent motorcycle ride around the county, I counted more than 200 potholes that need attention.  A recent patching job on Connor Grove Road was bungled and left the road covered with gravel and poorly-applied tar. A similar problem occurred earlier this year on Christiansburg Pike.

The agency has resurfaced Kings Store Road and some streets in and near the town of Floyd and is currently seeking public comment on a project to replace the Pine Creek bridge on U.S. 221 but badly-needed road repairs are ignored and visibility-impairing overgrowth at intersections remain unattended.

I called the VDOT district office in Salem on Monday and asked to speak to Richard Caywood, district administrator, about the situation. He wasn’t available so I asked for a call back.

Four days later, I’m still waiting for that phone call.

UPDATE: A VDOT crew appeared Thursday and fixed the sinkhole on Sandy Flats Road, along with some other repairs.

The short biography of a University of Virginia egghead who wrote a diatribe against rehab in general and Alcoholics Anonymous in particular — in an op-ed that appeared in The Roanoke Times and other newspapers recently — tells us all we need to know about his background, his prejudices and his agenda:

Bankole A. Johnson is chairman of the department of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia and has served as a paid consultant to pharmaceutical companies developing medications to treat alcoholism. His book “The Rehab Myth: New Medications That Conquer Alcoholism” will be published in January.

In other words, Johnson is a paid shill for the big drug companies and will — no doubt with their financial assistance — publish a book that promotes their medications that he claims will “conquer alcoholism.”

Writes Johnson:

For decades, Americans have clung to a near-religious conviction that rehab — and the 12-step model pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous that almost all facilities rely upon — offers effective treatment for alcoholism and other addictions.

Here’s the problem: We have little indication that this treatment is effective.

Bull. We have indications all around us. I’m a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for 16 years, two months and 25 days and I wouldn’t be so without AA. I know hundreds of people who owe their sobriety to the 12-step program.

I work with recovering alcoholics who — like myself — fight the beast one day at a time. Few can do it alone. It takes help, support of family and friends, and a good rehab program.

When The Roanoke Times chose to publish Johnson’s diatribe last month, I put it aside and decided to think about what he wrote for a couple of weeks. I hoped the anger over the misinformation and outright lies that this psuedo-intellectual passed on would subside.

It didn’t.

Johnson is a quick-buck artist who lives off the largess of big pharma. The fact that he uses his position at one of Virginia’s major universities to pass off corporate propaganda as scientific research is psychiatric malpractice and should be considered as such.

Instead of promoting his corporate benefactors, Johnson should spend time at a few AA meetings and talk with recovering alcoholics.

He might learn a thing or to.

A Blue Ridge mountain sunset, shot from the Blue Ridge Parkway south of Roanoke.

Fog greeted me early Sunday as I headed out on the Blue Ridge Parkway for an extended ride down into North Carolina for breakfast.  By lunch, I was off the Parkway and into West Virginia for an afrernoon meal at Pipestem State Park.

By day’s end, I was back on the Parkway and the sunset, again in North Carolina, provided another view.  Both photos were enhanced with Photoshop.

Our yard in better days

Saturday  dawned foggy and cool. If I had any illusions about using the day for a long, comforting, therapeutic motorcycle ride, those fantasies disappeared under the reality of the need to mow out long-neglected lawn — aka “the south 40.”

If our lawn were a kid, I’d be in jail for child abuse. It’s overgrown, clogged by weeds and sadly in need of tender loving care.

So instead of firing up the Harley, I cranked up the John Deere and tackled the wildnerness.

It wasn’t easy. The fog — on top of the rains that soaked our area during the week — left a mat of thick, wet grass that constantly clogged the mower. I found myself stopping every few minutes to clear our the blade-stopping mats of grass so the laboring mower could attempt to slade away the undergrowth masquerading as a yard.

On a good day, it takes about three hours to mow our three-acre plus yard that slopes not so gently from the top of the hill down to the road.

This wasn’t a good day. I finished up in the dark, trying to finishing the remaining strips with the mower’s headlights showing the way.

Even that didn’t complete the job. Even with sharpened blades, the cutting was uneven. The yard is not yet the smooth, lush that it once was in the photo above.

So the battle to restore our yard to the glory it once was must continue.

Nature won the first round…but I shall return.

Floyd Town Manager Lance Terpenny and his custom Harley-Davidson Softail

Floyd Mayor Will Griffin calls new town manager Lance Terpenny a “perfect fit” for Floyd. After spending more than three hours with Terpenny Thursday, talking about motorcycles, small town politics and several other things, I’m inclined to think Griffin is right.

It’s clear that the 55-year-old Terpenny, who brings more than 20 years of municipal management experience to the job, can do a lot to help Floyd. It’s also clear that I misjudged the former Christiansburg Town Manager and attacked him unfairly before giving him a chance.

For that, I’m sorry…truly sorry. I also owe Griffin and the Floyd Town Council an apology as well for questioning their motives and ethics in hiring Terpenny. They may have pulled off a coup by bringing someone with Terpenny’s experience and wealth of knowledge to Floyd.

“I expect to learn a lot from Lance,” Griffin told me recently. “I told him that I want to watch him work and learn.”

Terpenny left Christiansburg after 21 years on the job — 16 as Town Manager. In recent years he had become a lightning rod for those who questioned town government and — like many appointed officials — took the heat for the actions of those elected to the town council. In July, the Christiansburg Town Council requested his resignation but awarded him a generous severance package that generated a lot of controversy.

Christiansburg Police Chief Mark Sisson calls Terpenny “clearly the best municipal administrator in the state” and says Floyd is lucky to have him. Jay Angle, sales manager of New River Valley Harley-Davidson, calls Terpenny a “great guy you can trust.” Several Floyd Countians who have worked with Terpenny over the years praise him as well.

It retrospect, it was hypocritical for me to express self-righteous anger over Terpenny’s generous severance package from Christiansburg. In 1981, after 11 years on the staff of the Alton Telegraph in Illinois, I left the paper with 53 weeks of unused vacation time and 33 weeks of unused sick leave. The paper paid me for both — nearly two years salary. I took the money and ran, but the paper changed its policy right afterwards to cap both unused vacation and sick leave.

One of my biggest questions about Terpenny was why an overqualified municipal administrator would take an $80,000 pay cut, leaving the third-largest town in Virginia to manage one of the smallest. He answered that question straightforwardly, explaining how his $50,000 a year salary from the Town of Floyd, combined with retirement from the Virginia Retirement System for more than 20 years of service, supplemented that salary to make the move a wash.

Terpenny says he wants to work a few more years in a less-stressful environment before fully retiring. He pledges to spend those years with Floyd’s Town government. He says he plans to work to implement the visions of the Town Council and Floyd citizens served by the council.

I believe him.

Terpenny reached out to me through County Administrator Dan Campbell after the two had lunch. I’ve grown to know and respect Dan since he came Floyd County after serving as Galax City Manager and my friends in Galax continue to tell me they still want him back.

I’m not going to get into details over just what Terpenny and I talked about over more than three hours of conversation, which included lunch at Mickey G’s. We met as two professionals — a journalist and a public official — to get to know each other. We found we have a passion for motorcycles — and more — in common.

I like the man. I trust him. I think he will be good for Floyd.

Related articles

• An apology to Lance Terpenny (blueridgemuse.com)
• Terpenny starts Floyd job Aug. 2 (blueridgemuse.com)
• Terpenny saga is democracy at work (blueridgemuse.com)

Rakes Mill Pond on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Floyd County

At some point next month, I will head my Harley north on U.S. 11 to Front Royal and then take Skyline Drive through Shenandoah National Park to the beginning of The Blue Ridge Parkway for a multi-day trip down the 469-mile length to the Great Smokey Mountains.

It’s a trip I’ve been meaning to take since returning to the area in 2004 and with the Parkway officially celebrating its 75th birthday next month the time is right.

The Parkway has always been an important part of Floyd County, which contains more miles of the road than any other county inVirginia.  Mabry Mill is among the most photographed spots in America and was once the backdrop for Salem television commercials and print ads.

The Parkway’s 75th Anniversary Festival is scheduled for Sept. 10-12 at the Blue Ridge Music Center near Galax and Cumberland Knob Recreation Area in North Carolina and features several events over the three-day weekend.

At 75, the Parkway is showing its age. The road is rough and pothole ridden at the northern end while patchy road repairs mark the route from Meadows of Dan to the North Carolina line. New pavement improves conditions from Roanoke to the top of Bent Mountain but funding cuts have reduced maintenance.

But the Parkway remains a national treasure and one that feeds the growing tourism economy of Floyd County and other areas.

It you haven’t taken a ride on the Parkway lately, do so. It’s worth the trip.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Blue Ridge Parkway a breathtaking drive (cleveland.com)
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Action from the JV victory over Christiansburg

Floyd County High School kicked off its home volleyball season Tuesday night with the JV team beating Christiansburg while the varsity girls lost the first game. More photos in next week’s Floyd Press.

Fries bills itself as the town at the start of the New River Trail but the Commonwealth of Virginia’s web site for Virginia State Parks considers 5.5 mile stretch that runs from Fries a “branch” of the main trail that it says runs 51.5 miles from Galax to Pulaski.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons why Galax’s downtown is health and booming — even in these tough economic times — and Fries — like so many downtowns throughout the area — is a shell of its former self.

I rode through Fries the other day and found the town a far cry from the bustling community I remembered from my youth. The short stretch of buildings that comprises the communities “downtown” is marked by empty storefronts and one space with a sign that declares the building “uninhabitable.”  The Post Office and a BB&T bank branch were open but the barber shop and a salon were closed. The scene bears little resemblance to the out-dated photo of downtown that appears on the Fries web site.

The town’s web site lists just two places for shopping: A Dollar General on the edge of town and the Back Porch Gallery on Main Street but that shop’s space sits empty and a faded architect’s drawing is taped to the dirty windows.

The Chestnut Creek School of the Arts in Galax

Travel 5.5 miles down the road and you find Galax, the town that straddles the Carroll and Grayson County lines and a community with a bustling downtown and an international reputation from the annual Old Fiddler’s Convention.

There’s a sense of life and excitement in downtown Galax, something you don’t find in many central business districts these days.

I stopped in at the Chestnut Creek School of the Arts in Galax, a thriving arts school run by Chris Shackleford, the former educational director at the Jacksonville Center in Floyd.

Chris gave me a tour and discussed the current program musical program where the school provided students from nearby school with instruments and instruction.

A glance at the calendar shows a schedule crammed with events and programs.

Chris is the founding director of the Chestnut Creek School, which serves as a focal point in downtown and her success there is a testament to what can happen with community and government support and a board that allows a creative talent the freedom to do her job.

Meanwhile, the Jacksonville Center in Floyd continues to struggle, narrowly avoiding financial ruin as it meanders from grant to grant without a clear vision for the future or consistent support from the community or local government.