Category Archives: Virginia

How I Came To Big River And Other Lies

The story has many versions. One of them has me showing up at Big River ten years ago with hair down to my ass, driving a red convertible with a six-pack and two strippers. That’s not true, no matter how … Continue reading

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Son Of A Beach

Beaches do to me what chocolate does to some people. Months can pass before I need chocolate. I went a year once. I cannot, however, do without a beach for that long. The smell of coconut oil and spawning fish in … Continue reading

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BBQ, Rain, Mud, Wrecks and Rednecks (Part 2)

The dirt track hugs wooden bleachers angling up about 25 feet into the damp Shenandoah wind. A man in a camo gimme cap with a belly big enough to have swallowed a small child chugs by wearing a painted-on-tight t-shirt, … Continue reading

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BBQ, Rain, Mud, Wrecks and Rednecks (Part 1)

I’ll get this out of the way right up front: I grew up in LA (meaning Lower Alabama). So when I speak of rednecks, it is not with disdain, but affection. I have changed a lot over the years since … Continue reading

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Squirrels Are Eating My House

Squirrels ate our tomatoes, yanking them from the vine, taking one bite and tossing them across the yard like a redneck throwing beer bottles and candy wrappers out of a truck window. Squirrels ate everything in our neighbor’s garden this … Continue reading

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Welcome To I-95. Park Anywhere You Like.

If you live on the East Coast, you know the notorious parking lot formerly called I-95. If you have ever driven up or down the East Coast from Richmond to Baltimore, you have sat on I-95 for hours, no doubt, … Continue reading

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Shooting Our Inner Reptiles

Almost 4,000 feet above sea level: you can smell the horsepower from up here on its way from Michigan. A runway stretches across the top of this mountain in Bath County, Virginia. The road that ends at the door of a … Continue reading

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Want Pie With Your Goose?

We were driving through West Virginia last weekend. The countryside was beautiful, the sun was shining, it was porcelain cold on the other side of the windshield glass, snow stretched to the mountains on our right. Farms with humped barns … Continue reading

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The Holes Of Winter

The snow in Virginia continues. People who live in places like Chicago, Boston and Minneapolis see this yearly, and scoff at our confusion and school closings. But, to bastardize the phrasing of Scotty on Star Trek, Virginia is not built … Continue reading

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Lights and Kremes

When I was growing up, we weren’t exactly wealthy, to say the least. For entertainment during the holidays, my family (and sometimes friends) would brew up a Thermos of strong coffee, pile into the old Bel Air, fog up the … Continue reading

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