I didn’t know that ziplining was on my bucket list until I tried it the other day at the Richmond Metro Zoo. My sister Laura was the instigator, inviting me to join her in researching the experience prior to bringing her grandchildren. We were about half an hour in before I was able to conclude […]
Category: Mostly Powhatan: Adventures in my home town
Stories on life in Powhatan, Virginia, past and present
The great watermelon caper
My sister Mary retired recently. Cue the language-nerd digression: “retire” has no common ancestor with “tired”; rather, it means to “pull back from.” So retired people are not necessarily exhausted. The Spanish word for retirement is “jubilar,” which shares a cognate with the English word “jubilation.” Thus, we can say that Mary has pulled back […]
Dream big
When I was somewhere in the 8-12 years age bracket (12-year-old me didn’t look much different from 8-year-old me) I saw a dress in a catalog that cost $12, and I wanted it. I showed the picture to my mother, and she shook her head sadly. She had only recently, reluctantly, given up making pastel […]
In which I am terrified by a possum
Some years ago, my father went in for open heart surgery. It was bitter cold that winter, and my sisters were up to their eyeballs, so I went down there to stay at the house and keep the fire going while he was away and recovering. For that week or so I was the only […]
A day at the beach (c. 1976)
Author’s note: as noted above, I wrote this sometime in the mid to late seventies. It made my family laugh. Shout out to my amazing sister Laura, who has had it memorized for all these years. Without her, this little gem might have been lost forever in the mists of time. A Day at the […]
A brief (personal) history of smoking
My father often spoke of his growing-up adventures with his younger cousin Jim, and one such adventure that comes to mind today is his experience hiding out behind a shed and smoking uncured rabbit tobacco out of a corn cob pipe. Although many people apparently smoke, chew, and make tea from rabbit tobacco, and swear […]
Road ridicule
I am in seventh grade, and I am riding the school bus down Route 60 in Powhatan County, Virginia. This road, aka the James A. Anderson Highway, is a long, straight, four-lane highway. We are trundling along, and I am huddled inside my enormous coat, with my skinny legs tucked as far under me as […]
What happened to you, tree?
Every tree that survives its adolescence is a silent storyteller. Some of the stories are overt. I understand, for example, that scientists can take core samples from ancient trees and use them to understand climate fluctuations over the centuries. They can do this in part by analyzing the presence or absence of certain types of […]
The great wildlife corridor that is my house
I have pontificated at some length on the adventures of Bob the spider and his lovely wife, Mrs. Bob. However, they are not by any means alone in their occupation of my dear, dog-eared little cottage. They have, so far, confined their presence to the bathtub (which makes the relocation process much easier, since their […]
Dammit, Bob!
This morning, I walked into the bathroom of my little cottage, and saw that Bob the spider had returned after three days of wandering in the wilderness. I spoke to him sharply, explaining that this is my tub, and he should consider setting up shop somewhere else; but he seemed unimpressed, and merely paced back […]