Month: October 2019

Building a Home (2)

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Looking North, RT 262 Staunton, VA

This evening we received the word from our builder: Work on our house will begin this coming Monday! That’s when the basement will begin to be excavated. Also, all permits for construction to begin are now reported to be o.k.’d. Finally!!!

It was earlier this afternoon that I took my nearly daily ride up to our building lot to see if anything was going on. As I pulled off the “Beltway”, RT 262, that rings Staunton, the view was especially stunning. After the past few rainy days, the sky today was a nearly cloudless, deep sapphire blue – providing the perfect background for the Allegheny mountains to the West. That this gift from God is in our “backyard” is incredible.

So, here are a few photos that I took today. Also, I’ve included an approximate rendering of what our house will look like. Amy & Eric Argenbright, our builders, will be making some modifications to this Craftsman style house to make this truly “our home”.

Side view of lot with granite boulder that will become a focal point in our yard.
View of cleared lot, ready to begin becoming “home”!
The view from Parkersburg Pike, Augusta County, VA heading to our new house from RT 262.
Drawing of house before modifications.

Looking forward to sharing with you our home building adventures! As always, Comments and “Likes” welcomed and appreciated. Bill

Shenandoah Festivals

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Dayton, VA Autumn Celebration 2019

These past several weeks have been filled with lots of activity, some with just adventuring throughout our area of the Shenandoah and quite a bit spent with house-building matters. For the sake of writing somewhat coherent posts, I’ve decided to write future posts separated into one of three categories: Exploring our corner of the Shenandoah Valley between the Allegheny and Blue Ridge mountains and its surrounding areas; our house building adventures and finally random thoughts that pop into focus. Last night’s post was an example of that.

Gottfried playing German scheitholt , an early dulcimer

There were two festivals in the area which we recently attended. The first was the Dayton Days Autumn Festival held the first Saturday of October. Dayton is a small town situated a few miles Southwest of Harrisonburg, VA. About 2,000 people live in Dayton. It is mostly agricultural but also has a lovely downtown and a scattering of family owned shops and business throughout the town. Many of the residents are Mennonites. On that beautiful, sunny Saturday the town was filled with almost 40,000 visitors. The downtown streets were closed to vehicles and were filled with craftspeople, artists and food vendors. Most of the vendors were fairly local but a number of them had traveled from West Virginia and other parts of Virginia. The Redhead and I spotted two interesting pieces by quilters Cathie and Bettie Pharr of West Virginia that we will be adding to our new home. As we walked along the narrow streets of Dayton we came upon Gottfried, an Immigrant Pioneer Re-enactor, playing a scheitholt, an early German version of what would become the mountain dulcimer.  We also noted the many historical buildings throughout town. It’s an interesting anecdote of the Civil War that Dayton was spared being burned to the ground after Union soldiers pleaded with General Sheridan to spare the town because its inhabitants were mostly Mennonites and known to be pacifists. The beautiful peacefulness of Dayton continues to this day.

Quilt by Bettie Pharr, West Virginia

Our next festival adventure was held right here in Waynesboro on October 12. Downtown was filled with booths and tents of artisans, craftspeople and fine artists. In addition, Blue Grass music was performed during the day by several groups. It was in one of the booths that we met icon artists Maria Cezintseva and her mother. Using traditional Russian bead work, Maria and her mom created beautiful religious icons. Two of Maria’s works (her first for sale), an icon of Christ and another of the Blessed Mother and the Infant Jesus, will be proudly displayed in our new home. They are two special ladies that we look forward to meeting again.

Icon Artists, Maria Cezintseva and mom

There are more festivals coming to the area and The Redhead and I look forward to sharing them with you all. We are truly blessed to live in such a beautiful part of this country.

As always, comments are welcome!

Bill

My Mother Loved Him

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My mother loved him. My aunts loved him, too. It seemed just about every “older woman” I knew (and that was every female over the age of about 14) thought he was great.

Nearly 20 years to the day after my mother’s death, the news was filled with reports of his death. The world had certainly changed in those years. He wasn’t remembered so much for his musical ability (which actually was very good) or his philanthropy.  Nor, was he credited for inspiring other entertainers such as Elton John, David Bowie and even Elvis. And, certainly he was not remembered during that news cycle because he was good to his mother. No, the news of Liberace’s death that cold winter day in 1987 was filled with sordid tidbits meant to scandalize his memory.

As a 12 year old boy, I figured him to be just weird and really corny. He certainly was different. He was no Davy Crockett or Jim Bowie, two of my favorite t.v. heroes.

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Fess Parker as Davy Crockett

I enjoyed watching the Ed Sullivan Show with the family, I mean, who didn’t like Topo Gigio or a troupe of harmonica players featuring a dwarf? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pnv42IRmNY But, when he came on the t.v., I would just look at my mother and say, “How can you like this guy, he’s awful”? I’m not sure if it was his smile or his wild outfits or his music. But, I couldn’t think of anything good to say about this guy. Nothing.  So, mom gave me the best answer she could give a 12 year old lunk-head: “Well, he’s very talented and he’s good to his mother”. End of story.

So, it remains. Our “news” continues almost incessantly to be filled with “gotcha” moments of celebrities, politicians and even private folks caught, or pushed, into moments in which their better natures are not on display. Some folks, it seems, have these moments more frequently than others. But, might it just be possible, that before cheering for “our side” when someone of an opposing viewpoint or group is maligned that we maybe consider that they were “good to their mother”?

Thank you, Mr. Liberace, for being the impetus of a lesson well taught.