Category Archives: Virginia

July 28, 2010 · 3:05 pm

Notes on the “Southern Gothic” Series

I’ve had several people comment to me, both on and off the blog, about the emerging series of Southern Gothic memories/vignettes.

Most wonder why I’m doing it.  Some are a little horrified I’m doing it.  Most seem to enjoy them and understand our macabre Southern way of constantly stirring up the past and pulling scabs off old wounds.

For me, it’s simple.  I’m trying to see if I can write and if I may have a book in me.  I’ve always been told “write about what you know.”  This is the only place I know to start.  This format also seems to work for me where no other format has.

When I started this blog, I said I was a frustrated writer.  Not anymore.  This has really knocked down some creative walls and barriers that have blocked me in the past.  I now write, either on this blog or off it, almost every day.  I even travel with a little netbook, in addition to my work laptop, so I always have my separate personal access to the web and this blog.

You know I’m serious if I’m schlepping around two laptops on planes every time I travel.

I also had to wait until my Mother was too gaga to use the internet or be aware of these or to be hurt by these memories and my take on them.  It’s part of my Gentleman’s Code.

If these stories work on the blog and I can continue to come up with them, then I’ll figure out my next steps.  This is my way of exploring the format and trying to find my literary voice.

Sorry to mix it in with all the videos and left-wing political articles I post.

This blog is eclectic, like my mind and everything else in my life.

I’ve had a couple of folks as me if these stories are true.  All I can say is they are as true as I can make them.  They are how I saw and remember things.  I don’t promise all my facts are correct.  A lot of these stories are based on old family stories and my old memories.  Neither are dependable sources.  Everyone has their own way of remembering things based on how they saw it at the time.  However, my guess is that they are at lest 90% true.  Their hearts and souls are 100% true.

So thank you for bearing with me on this journey as I try to discover what I want to be when I grow up.

Your thoughts and comments are always welcome…

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Filed under Danville, Entertainment, My Journey, The South, Virginia

July 27, 2010 · 12:10 am

The Peach Chiffon Cocktail Dress: Or My Southern Gothic Background: Part 2

Before I begin, let me say two things:

1.  This blog is mainly an outlet for my thoughts, so deal with it

and

2.  to fully understand this, you must read my  previous post:  My Southern Gothic Background:  https://lostinthe21stcentury.com/2010/07/16/my-southern-gothic-background/

________________________________________________________________

Today Steve and I visited my Mother at her Assisted Living Facility in Danville.

I now know what it would be like to visit “Maggie the Cat” at age 78.  With dementia….

It’s hard, after spending years avoiding your  parents most of your life to be drug into their lives  again.

I thought I had left the family history behind, but I realized today, it sneaks up and bites you when you least expect it.

That scares me.  I thought you could deal with things and move on…apparently, that’s not the case….

I could deal with my Mother, a couple of weeks ago, when she was like Bernice on “Designing  Women”.  Dim, but amusing.

Today,  that was not the case.

I saw a glimpse of the woman  recognized from my youth, at her worst, and it scared the hell out of me.

This might be a shock to some of my Danville friends who knew my parents socially, but I grew up in a very unhappy house.  Once the doors and windows were shut, it was a different world.

I thought I had put that behind me.

A this point in my life, I have a basically quiet, sane, no-drama life.

Steve and I have been, honestly, very happy and stress free for almost 14 years. We don’t fight, we talk.  We are mutually supportive.  It’s so good, it’s almost scary…

Today, I was dragged back into my past.  And I don’t like it.

But she was determined to take us back there…

Let me start by saying, I don’t deal well with crazy.

My Mother had my Father’s Mother committed to the State Hospital for the Insane about a  minute after they were married.  I will never forget the annual obligatory visits to her when we were growing up…I’ll write more about this in the future.

Let’s just say it is traumatic, at six years old, to have crazy women crawling over the car and beating on the wind shield  begging for money to buy cigarettes while Daddy is getting a pass to see his Mother.

Let me also be clear on one point before we delve into this:  My Father’s Blue Blood Richmond FFV Relatives hated my Mother on sight.

She was a very pretty cheerleader from the wrong side of the tracks.  Hillbilly West Virginia background on the make is what they saw.  My Father was already the product of the “family scandal”, being his parent’s divorce in 1932, when “good families”, in Virginia simply did not do that.

That is another story for another time.  Let’s just say my Father’s Rush relatives did not take to her.  They read her immediately.  And she knew it and she always looked for a way to get even….

I will eventually  get to the events of today, but they were a product of the past…

Flash forward to about 1949.

My Mother was a pretty girl in a poor family.  Frankly, the entire family was betting on her being pretty enough to marry out of the Mill Village and into “money”.  She was the youngest.  The Prettiest.  The most Spoiled.

My Grandmother always told me stories about my Mother, who she considered a pretty,  social-climbing fool.

Let me set the stage:

It’s 1949 in a 4 room house in the Mill Village.  My mother is 17 years old and trying to find a rich husband.  She is having a fit for a “peach chiffon cocktail dress” to wear to a party.  The dress is from Rippes, the most expensive women’s shop in town.

My father is back in town from the army and 4 years in Japan.  With a convertible.  Brand new…

I might add, she is a “winter” and “peach” is not even a good color for her….

My Grandmother talked, to her dying day, about the fit my Mother threw over that dress.  My Mother threw herself in the floor, kicking and screaming, when told she could not have that dress.  My Grandmother calmly went to the kitchen, filled a pot of water, and threw it on her.

Unfortunately, my Aunt Goldie still bought her the dress.  And she ended up on the front page of the social section  of the local paper wearing it, with my Father.  At a dance.  What can I say?

It did photograph well in black and white.

And it went into her “cedar chest” with the other prom dresses and event dresses that got her noticed.

Flash forward again to about 1964. “Mad Men” era.

My parents had been married 14 years and had a new ranch house in a new post war neighborhood.  I was about 6 and my sister was two.  (BTW:  My Mother refused to have children until my father met certain conditions:  More to follow)

My Mother thought she was the social leader of Temple Terrace, which ain’t saying much, and she knew it.  She is putting on amateur theatricals in our backyard.  She had had my Father  build a cinder block stage back there with some  lights via extension cords, chairs, curtains and the works.

She was determined to lead the neighborhood children in theatrical productions of  Disney Classics.  I do have family films to prove this…

It didn’t last long.  “Snow White” did her in….

Let me, so to speak, re-set the stage:

It’s 1964.  In Temple Terrace in Danville Virginia.  It’s June.  The Stage is set for our amateur theatricals…

It’s like a “Mad Men” scene in not as nice a neighborhood.

Mother grows tired of dealing with the children and decides it’s time to go inside and lie down in her newly air-conditioned bedroom.  And take a couple of more of the newly invented Valiums.  It was so stressful being a Housewife in 1964…

My Mother also never had the longest attention span…

As a last move, she pulls a peach chiffon cocktail dress out of her cedar chest, because she can’t remember why it’s there to begin with.  But she thinks it will be perfect for our 11-year-old neighbor to wear as she sings “Some Day My Prince Will Come” at the climax of her production.

She goes in to lie down with Valium and air conditioning,  leaving us on our own.

This was my chance…I did not like my part as one of the dwarfs.  I also had decided our leading lady was woefully inadequate.  Therefore, I took it upon myself to demonstrate how the “big number” should be done…

That’s when my Father, who WAS Don Draper, comes home, unexpectedly at 3:30, and all hell broke loose…

His only son is wearing a peach chiffon cocktail dress singing “Some Day, My Prince Will Come” at the top of his lungs in his backyard with all the neighborhood children watching.  His wife is nowhere to be seen….

What followed was not pretty.

Let’s just say my stage career ended immediately.

Daddy pulled me off stage and gave me a “talking to” I still recall.  I’ve never since seen a man so scared…

But I learned three things:

  1. Never wear chiffon before 4:oo.
  2. Never let people see who your really are
  3. Never tell the truth to your Father

Number  2 took 30 years or so to work through.  Sadly, or not, the others stuck.

The next steps involved my Mother.

It was not pretty….

He stormed into her bedroom, with me in tow, and let into her.  In short, he said:

“goddamnit Lou, I count on you to do two things:  Run my house and raise my children appropriately.  You obviously can’t do either.”

To make a long story shore, she agreed to save face by working the “Tobacco Market” for 3 or 4 months a year as a Secretary for “pin-money” and my maternal Grandmother took over the House.  With a salary.  She wasn’t about to deal with her daughter for free.

And the household was run smoothly for a few years….

Today:  almost 40 years later….

My Mother is at her very expensive Assisted Living facility that my late Father’s money is paying for.  She is not having a good week.  This is basically what she was saying:

“Your Father’s relatives were trying to kill me at my house.  They snuck in at night to poison me because they hate me.  You don’t know that they are like! They hated me because I inherited some of their money!  I also have a house I inherited  from your Father’s family, I need to go there, but they want to do me in before I can get it!  But, I guess I’ll stay here for a while where it’s safe…”

The drama, real or imagined, really never ends…

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Filed under Gay, My Journey, Social Commentary, Virginia

July 24, 2010 · 2:16 am

On Being A Gentleman

I will start this post by admitting I know I am sometimes viewed as an anachronism.

I was born, raised and educated to be a Gentleman.  That was a primary part of my life education from Birth to about age 22.

I am from an old Virginia family, on one side, allegedly from FFV  (First Family of Virginia) stock.  And I went to Washington and Lee University–a school that focused on turning out educated Gentlemen during my time there- and I spent my time there mainly with Ladies at Sweet Briar College but also with Ladies at Randolph-Macon Women’s College, Mary Baldwin College and Hollins College.  And the occasional weekends at the University of Virginia, which was then also an intellectual finishing school, like the others mentioned.

It was an era when Ladies and Gentlemen were not dirty words.

We were raised to be Gentlemen and Ladies.  It was that simple.  We had manners and knew how to behave in public.

We were not SJI’s (Slack Jawed Idiots), as I fondly call them, as children are today.

Today, it seems, kids are raised to think anything and everything is “okay” as long as they are safe and comfortable.  They are taught they are the exact center of the universe.  That is not good for society as a whole.

I’m sorry, but it’s not a safe and comfortable world.  You have to have standards and recognize threats.  Otherwise, you live in and propagate the chaos that is modern America.

This slackness is rapidly turning America into a third world country.  Other countries, on the rise, realize standards matter.

I will not go quietly into the light…

And I offer no apologies.

Being a Gentleman is not really an anachronism, if viewed correctly.

Let me tell you what I was raised and educated to think a Gentleman was:

  1. A Gentleman always dresses appropriately to the affair he is attending.  That means a Tux for an evening wedding.  Now you may wear that Tux to bail people out of jail or sleep in it, as I have admittedly done, but still, one starts off the evening correctly attired.
  2. A Gentleman only hears what he is supposed to hear.  He never hears indiscretions.  No matter how scandalous the topic, if a Gentleman is not supposed to hear it, he doesn’t.  And then he only tells his closest friends in the strictest of confidences.
  3. A Gentleman understands nothing is more important than making his guests and friends feel comfortable.  If they don’t know or abide by all the arcane rules he lives by, so be it.  We know they really meant to and give them the benefit of the doubt.
  4. A Gentleman understands Quality.  For us, Polyester does not exist.  Nor pleated pants.  Nor flip-flops.  Nor tank tops.  I could go on….
  5. A Gentleman would never give a party with paper plates and plastic utensils.  We understand what it means to hold a sterling silver knife and fork in our hands.  We compromise with Stainless Steel flatware and plain white plates for large parties.  That is an evolutionary adjustment.  But we never judge those who chose to do otherwise…
  6. A Gentleman is at home anywhere.  As I have frequently said, I have been everywhere from the gutters of Pittsylvania County Virginia to the White House and behaved the same in both places.  And it worked beautifully.
  7. That said, we love to polish Silver. Preferably  Sterling.  We appreciate the fineness and history.  Even if we never actually use it…
  8. A Gentleman always opens doors for a Lady and let’s a Lady exit an Elevator first.  Even if she is transgendered or his boss.  We just do that.  It’s not a sexist thing.  Based on experience, this can really cause problems in New York office buildings….
  9. We keep Brooks Brothers in business.  Since there are so few local, quality Men’s Stores we live for Brooks Brothers and, to a lesser degree,  Joseph A Banks.
  10. A Gentleman knows no party is a success until someone leaves in tears, passes out, breaks something or the cops come.  It’s just expected…
  11. A Gentleman always has an open mind and an open heart.  He does not judge…
  12. A Gentleman knows class is not about money, family background, national origin or race.  It’s about the individual and where they are coming from intellectually, how good their heart is and how they see the world.
  13. A Gentleman recognizes quality is based on substance.  You can be dirt poor, but still be a Gentleman.
  14. A Gentleman always tries to make other people comfortable.
  15. A Gentleman is never forgives someone for being intentionally rude or unkind.  Those are the unforgivable sins.
  16. A Gentleman has his standards, but doesn’t really expect everyone else to live up to them 100% of the time.  Percentages are adjustable based on the amount of good will behind the offender’s actions.
  17. A Gentleman knows he should always try to give back to Society.
  18. A Gentleman enjoys an honest, fact based debate.
  19. A Gentleman has no patience with dogma or willful ignorance.
  20. A Gentleman believes religion- or the lack there of- is an intensely personal subject only to be discussed with his closest friends or on his blog.
  21. A Gentleman believes any public display is tacky, unless driven to it by political circumstances beyond his control.  He understands there is a “time and a place”…
  22. A Gentleman believes it is okay to  agree to disagree, but still love each other as the closest of friends.
  23. A Gentleman believes class, as previously described, will tell, but the lack of it even sooner.
  24. Gentleman believes there is not greater sin than intentional meanness or pettiness.
  25. A Gentleman understands that crazy is okay.  And crazy people should be treated with the appropriate respect.
  26. A Gentleman realizes intentional cruelty is not forgivable.
  27. A Gentleman never judges without facts.
  28. A Gentleman always takes the appropriate stand if the facts in a situation point toward injustice.  He never stands silently by…
  29. A Gentleman is fearless even if he is afraid.
  30. A Gentleman may curse like  sailor, but only in appropriate company, at the appropriate time.
  31. A Gentleman treats all women as Ladies.  Wether naturally born or otherwise.
  32. A Gentleman tolerates children, if he must.
  33. A Gentleman is flexible and adjusts to the times in which he is living with as much grace as possible.  No matter how hard the struggle.
  34. A Gentleman is always open to change as long as it is positive.
  35. A Gentleman is never judgmental.
  36. A Gentleman believes “honor” is not an outdated concept.

This is off the top of my head.  I’m sure I’ll need to edit or add to this at some point in the future.

But my point is:  A Gentleman is still someone we should all aspire to be.  I continue to try to live up to these rules.

It’s not a bad thing.  It’s not an outdated, Olde South concept.  I think the world would actually be better if there were more of us…

Just my thoughts….

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Filed under Gay, General, My Journey, Social Commentary, The South, Virginia

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July 16, 2010 · 11:36 pm

My Southern Gothic Background

There is a big difference between “Southern Gothic” and “The Jerry Springer Show.”  I should know.  I’m Southern.  And I’m a Virginian.

I’m just back from another day in my hometown, so I’m thinking about all this again…

Since I’m writing this blog, I feel this need to disclose the factors that color my perceptions.  Things a lot of people who know me know,  but that may surprise others.  In recent terminology, I’m “putting all my business in the Street.”

Discretion is so passe, so  what the hell?  So here we go…

“The Jerry Springer Show” is/was based on sensationalism and trashy revelations.  With our “Southern Gothic” tradition, we all know each other’s secrets and no one cares…It’s the inverse to the New England reticence.  We may choose not to acknowledge or mention certain details, but in the South, we all know each other’s business.  We put our crazy relatives out with the “sane” ones.  It never really occurs to us they are different.  For us, it’s just normal to have crazy relatives and to accept differences within the Family.   No locking them in the attic for us!  Well, most of the time…

I grew up dealing with this situation.

The first thing my Mother did after marrying my Father was to have his Mother committed.

Like all good Southern stories, there are multiple versions of the tale.  The one I prefer is that my Grandmother, Susan Catherine Rush Michaels, called up my parents one evening and told them she had just ground up a Coca Cola bottle in her Waring blender and drank it in a drink to try to kill herself because she was tired and depressed.

My Mother had no sympathy for quitters.  And she wanted her furniture.  So, off Susie went to the State Hospital at Staunton.

Unfortunately, for my Mother, my Grandmother’s maiden sisters, who lived with her, sold all the furniture during the Commitment Trip for cash because they were afraid my Mother would put them on the street penniless.  My Mother never got over this betrayal.

It’s also important to note the differences between my Mother’s family and my Father’s family.

My Father liked to think he came from a background beyond reproach.  He was descended from  a Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Dr Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, and his relatives were allegedly inter-married with the Virginia Randolph family.  This means two things:  My Father could claim undisputed FFV status (First Family of Virginia, for the uninitiated-and no one ever disputes anyone’s claim) and that I was genetically predetermined to go to Washington and Lee University.

My Mother’s family was from the mountains and coal fields of West Virginia.  They literally walked down to Virginia to work in the cotton mills.  This may be why I had such a violent reaction to “Providence Gap” at Triad Stage.  I know these people and they there not the ones I saw on stage at that show, but I digress….

In any event, my Mother ultimately became a Cheerleader, which we all know means a woman determined to better her station in life by jumping and screaming in front of hundreds of strangers in 30 degree weather.  I hear she was beautiful and a classic Southern Belle.  My Father never had a chance…They married in 1950.

What my Mother apparently didn’t know was that my Father was from the most respected category of Southern lineages:  Old Family, No Money.   This is another thing she never got over…She always thought a woman had one card to play- her virginity- and that it went to the man best positioned to enable her to retire early.  She never recovered from, in her mind, misplaying her card.

Growing up, I always thought my Mother’s first name was “Goddammit”.  As in, “Goddammit Lou, what were you thinking?” or “Goddammit Lou, how much is this going to cost me?”  I’ll never forget her coming downstairs to the den one night when I was about 12, all dressed up in a new negligee’ and trying to look fetching, and my father just looking at her and saying:  “You still aren’t getting new furniture” and pouring another glass of bourbon.  Cheerleaders don’t have a long shelf life.

But it was her family that grounded me.  My Grandmother Sigmon could barely read and write, but I was much closer to her than the fancier Rush relatives.  I’m not quite sure how she produced my Mother.  She was non-judgemental, accepting of all people and infinitely curious about life.  She also thought my Mother was a pretentious fool.  My Father adored her.  She proved a Great Lady was made by an open heart and not by an open checkbook or family lineage.  She practically raised me, as a small child,  as my Mother was too busy with other things…

I found my Mother’s family infinitely interesting.  When she dumped me off at my Grandmother’s house in the Mill Village, I was in a different world.  Her instruction were not to play with anyone there or leave my Grandmother’s house.  She did not want me “mixing”.  But I did…

One of her brothers, my uncle, Wiseman Lafayette Sigmon, lived with my Grandmother and had not left the house since about 1945.  Today, we would call him crazy or agoraphobic.  Then, he was just different.  He would stay up late watching whatever would be on late night TV.  Back then, it wasn’t much.  But a lot of it was about history.  He loved history and learned it from TV.  I’m convinced he gave me my love of History that led me to major in it at Washington and Lee University so many years later.  He was crazy as a could be, but to me, he was just a normal part of my life.  I loved him.

My Mother’s Sister Goldie, was a working single woman.  Rare in that era.  She moved to Charlotte, NC, alone, in about 1965 and was the first one in her family to go out on her own.  She was a brilliant woman.  Valedictorian of her class in High School.  She took some college course, but never finished.  She knew her options were limited, but still made the best of it.  She was like my Auntie Mame.  She would sweep into Danville and give me a taste of the outside world.  She actually saw Carol Channing in “Hello Dolly” on Broadway, the first time she played it.  I never got over this revelation.  She let me know there was a life outside of Danville and  you could get out to a much more interesting place.  She also taught me not to forget your roots…She never did.  I’ve tried not to….I loved her very much.

My Uncle Sammy was a mystery to me.  He was younger than the others and just kind of a laid back, occasional presence.  He’s still an enigma to me.  I really don’t know him…

My other uncle, Daniel, was a cautionary tale.  I won’t speak of him too much as that was how I was raised-to not speak of or to him.  Let’s just say, I know White Trash when I see it.

This is where I come from…So, what can I say?

I learned to keep my eyes and ears open at an early age.  I come from a complicated background and from complicated people.  This all  taught me to watch people and question everyone and everything.  Not to accept anything at face value.  I have no regrets and many thanks for these lessons….

You know me a little better now, but none of this-and all of this- defines me.  That’s what it’s like to be Southern.  We like the Gothic side as much as the classy white bread side.  We invent ourselves and are a product of our past.

We all have secrets and we all usually know each other’s.  We just try to pretend otherwise.  We are raised to accept the perceptions one choses to offer at the expense of reality.  It’s much more pleasant.

We are all a mix of different energies.  That’s what makes us all unique and never boring…

I just choose to talk about the secrets and to explore them.  I’m getting older, but no less curious.

I want to keep all of this information forefront in my mind as I continue my journey.  It all colors who I am and will be…

It all means/meant different things at different stages in life.

And if Jerry Springer can put it all in the street to entertain people, I can put it out there to try to learn from it….

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July 16, 2010 · 9:04 pm

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s Transgendered Former In-Law Speaks Out for Gay Rights

I just saw this article from today’s Washington Post and it is too rich…I bet there are some pissed off people in the Virginia’s Governor’s Mansion tonight.

Good!!!  The current Governor and his crowd are the nastiest, meanest, pettiest and dumbest group of people to occupy that house and office since I can remember.

Now, if only the Virginia Attorney General has some fun relatives, it will be a true trip in the Old Dominion.

Here is an excerpt from the article with a link to the full article at the bottom:

Robyn Deane, dressed in a red raincoat, jeans and heels, glanced at her handwritten notes before peering at the crowd gathered outside Virginia’s Capitol to promote the rights of gay and transgender state workers.

Robyn Deane, transgendered former brother-in-law of Gov. McDonnell, fights for gay rights

For years, Deane, a man who is in the process of becoming of woman, had considered revealing her lengthy but largely unknown connection to Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R). She had told no one that this would finally be the moment she went public.

“I am father to three of the present governor’s nephews and nieces,” she announced to the more than 100 people trying to shield themselves from the rain.

“Whoa,” someone muttered.

“I’m also uncle to five of his children, so that puts me kind of close,” Deane continued. “He is my former brother-in-law. . . . He witnessed the impact that all of this coming out can have on one’s life. He had a front-row-center seat.”

Deane’s declaration was the first step in her second coming out, this time as an activist attempting to leverage her past association to McDonnell to promote a cause that has become dear to her: the advancement of gay and transgender rights. In particular, Deane wants Virginia and national lawmakers to pass legislation that prevents discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. She also wants to persuade McDonnell to speak publicly about how people should accept those who are gay or transgender.

Deane said she decided to announce her relationship to McDonnell on April 21 because she feels that her situation hardened some of his views on sexual orientation. The governor opposes same-sex marriage and has not backed measures that protect gay state workers from discrimination.

“Maybe I sealed an anger in him toward people like us,” she said at the rally.

Deane also believes their past relationship makes her the most qualified person to persuade the governor to change his views, even though the last time they saw each other was at a family Christmas gathering more than a decade ago, just before Deane divorced a younger sister of McDonnell’s wife, Maureen, in 1999 after 17 years.

via Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s former in-law speaks out for gay rights.

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Filed under Gay, Politics, The South, Virginia

June 22, 2010 · 10:04 pm

You Can’t Go Home Again

I’ve spent more time in my hometown of Danville, Virginia over the last few weeks than I have spent there in the last 20 years.

Normally, I would go up there for Christmas Eve and maybe once more during the year.  I had a  four hour limit on how much time I spent there.  That was to preserve my mental health.  After about three and a half hours, I had to head for the border to be sure I could get across to North Carolina before they closed it.  I lived in fear of being trapped there.  I always did…

But times have changed.  We have been in the process of moving my Mother to an Assisted Living facility, so I have had to spend a fair amount of time up there and I’ve learned a few things:

  1. You can’t go home again because home changes.  Home is now our house in Greensboro where I live with my partner of almost 14 years and our furry children.
  2. Houses shrink.  The house I grew up in seems so much smaller than it used to.  It’s smaller than the house just the two of us live in now.  It’s certainly not the McMansions most people expect now.  But we survived growing up there.  More or less…
  3. I don’t know anyone anymore.  I went to banks and other places I used to go to and foolishly expected to find people there I knew.  It never occurred to me they would have moved on.  I guess I thought Danville was frozen in time as it was when I left it.
  4. Danville has changed for the worse.  I know I keep harping on this, but I am shocked by how run down the town now seems.  The shopping center where Value City and Harris Teeter was is empty.  Piney Forest Road is the ugliest strip of real estate I have ever seen.  And it takes forever to go across town on it because of all the bloody stop lights!
  5. There are so many old people there.  Not just at my Mother’s Assisted Living place.  There is no sense of youth and vibrancy.  I like to think there once was…
  6. Neighborhoods change.  Our neighborhood was one of the new post World War Two developments full of ranch houses and hope.  The shopping center nearby had two grocery stores, a Woolworth’s, a Drugstore and a Belk Leggetts.  Now the neighborhood is going rental and the shopping center is a joke.
  7. All the good restaurants seem to be gone.  Except Short Sugars, the Dan View and Mama Possum’s.  Only kidding.  There used to be some good local restaurants and now they are all gone.  All I see is chain restaurants.  I don’t do chains.  I would starve to death if I had to live there now.
  8. Dan River Mills is being torn down.  I think this is what is killing the town.  At one point, over 20% of the population worked there. Now it’s closed dead and gone.  Taking the town with it.  You can almost feel a tangible atmosphere that is a mixture of anger, resignation and defeat.
  9. Bitterness and isolation thrive when hope leaves.  When I read the comments in the Danville paper on–line, I see so much bitterness and closed-mindedness.  They seem to want to wall off the town and keep what little is left for themselves.  How tight they hold the ties that bind.
  10. They don’t like outsiders- and now I am one.  Unless you have pledged to stay there and suffer, you seem to abdicate your place as a Danvillian.  They almost seem to view some of us who leave as traitors.  So be it.  I can’t count the times I’ve heard “you don’t live here now” as if it is a dismissal.

This makes me know I made the right- the only- choice to leave.  But it also makes me sad.  I never planned to stay there, but I always thought there would be something I recognized there to go back to.  There isn’t.  I don’t recognize the town or it’s people anymore…

Thomas Wolfe was right…you can’t go home again.

But when you look back, you have to remember the good friends, good times and family you once had there.  Some of us are lucky enough to have to have taken some of that with us-if only on FaceBook.

And we have to be very grateful for the good times we did have there and how they made us the people we are.

We can not allow those memories to be colored by how time has ravaged what was once a pretty nice little town.  We can’t be petty and bitter.  We have to fight those Danville genes.

We have to create our own homes and our own families  We have to look forward while still trying to honor the past.

And we have to wish Danville the best for the future.

It’s going to be a long journey out of the darkness for that little town….

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