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Who was
Patrick Henry? And more.
By Susan Olling
It was a treat to hear the National Anthem played normally on Veteran’s
Day. We watched one of the NFL pre-game shows (aired from a
military base) and the start of one of the games (anthem sung by a
military group). The anthem wasn’t tarted up either time.
May I suggest that others sing/play it the same way? No
embellishment’s needed. And certainly no annoying, swooping
voices, please.
It seems that ecommerce still has a distance to go, if the contents of
our mailbox are any indication. We’ve been getting a couple
catalogs per day for a week or so. Yesterday, there were nine
catalogs in the mailbox. We haven’t and don’t plan to order from
these things. Some we haven’t ordered from in years.
Evidently, the rain that fell on 15 November was from Winter
Storm Avery When and why did the weather guessers decide to
name winter storms? The Weather Channel had one of their
weather guessers reporting from Frederick, Maryland. I had to
chuckle at his description of Frederick as being in western
Maryland. Uh, no, the good folks in Garrett and Allegany Counties
would respectfully disagree. Schools in this part of
Virginia were on two-hour delays, but there was chaos in the old
neighborhood. Some schools up there started with two-hour delays
(forecast at the time said rain). When the rain changed to snow
(not forecast), schools were closed. Lots of angry parents with
school administrators falling over each other apologizing, reportedly.
Speaking of rain, there’s been so much of it down here since the spring
(unusual, according to the natives) some crops are still in the
fields. High school football games have been moved to different
nights or different fields (drainage).
The high school football team is having a good season, given that so
many players graduated in the spring. They’re trying to win their
fourth consecutive football championship. Hasn’t been done by a
Virginia high school in some years. The marching band has
been doing very well in competitions. The school logo was changed
five years ago. Evidently, the previous logo looked too much like
that already claimed by a western university.
Jerry Falwell, Sr. would probably not recognize the little Baptist
college he founded decades ago. Liberty University’s quite
impressive. Their football stadium seats 25,000, and the
program’s an independent in the Division I, Football Bowl
Subdivision. This year’s schedule had some challenges:
Army, Virginia and Auburn. All three were “away”
games, and all three were losses.
Patrick Henry would, I think, have been pleased on Saturday, 03
November, during the annual Bluegrass, Barbecue and Brew Festival at
his old home, Red Hill. Mr. Henry liked music. When
he was a child, he taught himself to play the flute. He also
played the fiddle (this instrument’s in the museum). Mr.
History tried to educate me on the difference between country music and
bluegrass. They sound the same to me. He worked the cider
tent (hard cider—five to six percent alcohol). He tried some
“regular” hard cider and passed on the “frou-frou” stuff. Between
the cider, wine and beer, some people were really enjoying themselves.
I spent part of the festival in the visitor center museum. The
most interesting artifact in the museum, to me, is a book
published in 1699 that had belonged to John Murray, Earl of Dunmore,
the last Royal Governor of Virginia. Lord Dunmore and his family
left the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg under cover of darkness in
1775, leaving all their worldly goods behind them. What happened
then was essentially the first yard sale in Virginia. Mr. Henry
acquired the book. I spent the afternoon talking to people in Mr.
Henry’s law office, an original building on the property. There’s
a copy of a map drawn by Mr. Henry’s father, who was surveyor.
The original map was drawn after 1761. Amherst County, shown on
the map, was formed in 1761 from part of Albemarle County. Four
visitors, who had just moved to Virginia, asked who Patrick Henry was
(well let me tell you). I wasn’t surprised that they didn’t know
about Patrick Henry.
There are some important anniversaries next year. The second
oldest legislative assembly in the English speaking world met in
Jamestown, Virginia in 1619, This is a quiz, what’s the oldest
legislative assembly in the English speaking world? (Think
the body that the Founding Fathers blamed for all of the problems by
1776: Parliament.) The other important event that occurred in
1619 Jamestown was the arrival of the first African slaves on a Dutch
vessel.
The National D-Day Memorial will be celebrating the seventy-fifth
anniversary of the Normandy invasion in a big way next year.
There are five days of events planned including a fly-over of vintage
planes and modern aircraft. It’s a beautiful memorial. Why
was it built in Bedford, Virginia, you might ask? In 1944,
Bedford, Virginia’s population was about 3,200. Thirty-four National
Guardsmen from Bedford were among the thousands of soldiers who landed
on Omaha Beach on 06 June 1944. Nineteen of the “Bedford Boys”
were killed on D-Day, and another four were killed as the Normandy
campaign progressed. Proportionally, Bedford’s D-Day losses were
the most severe of any community in the country.
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