Saturday, April 22, 2006
OR? I know, for a fact that many of my personal views concerning our national defense preparations have been drastically modified and, in some cases, changed. When we look at the picture of ourselves as that which we find to be true that we can gain from knowing about our shortcomings. Basic principles - either were forgotten or forgotten in recent years and we are frequently reminded of their essential nature and, for a time, they are accorded a new measure of respect and properly maintained. Right now, while we are being buffeted by Mother Nature's harsh laws as realities is an especially good time to put the old rules back where they belong and under better protection than they have had in recent decades. The city is having an election today for the mayor's office. There are twenty-one candidates. They are seeking control of the one office which, probably, suffered the most slings and arrows during the critical weeks of the flood crisis than any other. It was a profoundly Democratic party stronghold. It will, in all likelihood remain so, tonight because less than one-half of New Orleans 257,000 voters have returned to the city - even with buses hauling in politically-correct persons in all day long. Due to the great number of candidates, special rules will apply - something to do with choices from top in a run-off election to follow. Whomever gets elected has a wide job classification awaiting him, to be sure. My ideas concerning the future of the "Crescent City" have recently been somewhat modified. How about yours? We need to know more about the people of the entire Gulf Coast area. The whole area needs greater stability as a much valued commercial, industrial , and business community for our Gulf energy business. A.L.M. April 22, 2006 [c311wds]
Friday, April 21, 2006
TOURIST NUMBERS There can be little doubt that the higher costs of gasoline has inhibited the number of tourists we now see here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. It seems to me we used to keep closer tab on the people who visit our to our part of the nation for pleasure rather than business and commerce. The complex nature of the vehicular traffic which now uses Interstate 81 defy any tabulation of who, what,from where and why? Rest stops are now used by everyone because filling station pit stops are fewer on related roads. I notice fewer guests at the many Bed and Breakfast locations,too. Generally motels and restaurants are prospering with new and larger ones being planned. o many attraction in the Virginia are so often of an historical nature which attracts a steady group of "learning" visitors of students. I also wonder if the Internet causes increases or decreases in the number of guests we see. The fact that they can see the attractions on their screens at home is all the more reason they want to see them in person. We have the homes of two presidents - Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson - and both can be seen on the Internet, but there can be nothing which can equal which lives when you are actually standing in the very spot, in the very room where the presidents stood in the past. As a tourist, you are "there" in a unique manner. It is a good feeling to live in a section of the country which has a strong appeal far beyond that of mere novelty or uniqueness. Ours is an historical and geological attraction with us at all time. Come to be with us in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. We gave up on counting long, long ago. A.L.M. April 21,2006 [c313wds]
Thursday, April 20, 2006
JOHN BELL CLAYTON There must be times when local historians need a swift kick in the pants for not remembering certain things. Some years ago I entered the name Charles M. Manley for recognition as the inventor of the radial engine for aircraft. I have contended that the City of Staunton Virginia ought to have at least a marker of some sort recognizing the talents and accomplishments of this interesting personality. He, perhaps, suffered a bad press during his lifetime when he was often pictured as the pilot on Langley's non-flyable aircraft. There are prints and even a newsreel or two showing Manley as the man in the bay after a typical Langley launching. The last column did on Manley was in June of 2003. You can reread it simply by going to "Google" and asking for it. I have another name I want to suggest for recognition. This one is for all of the Valley of Virginia area, but it centers on Staunton because John Bell Clayton lived in Augusta County. Clayton was born in Craigsville,Virginia passed away some years ago in Los Angeles,California in a different world from formative years. Among his many writings are three novels. The very titles suggest both action and nostalgia and he did well in both areas. One was called "Six Angels At My Back", another was: "Wait Son. October Is Near" and a third was called "Walk Toward The Rainbow." His wife Martha Carmichael Clayton had a brother we all know and remember by the odd name of "Hoagy"...that's right...the pianist and the composer of "Stardust" and other song favorites we all revere. He had a sister who lived in Deerfield, Va. nearby - Mrs. Mary Bartley. Clayton attended Churchville High School, then Dunsmore Business Collge in Staunton. From there he entered the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va and after three years joined the staff of the city's daily newspaper The Charlottesville "Daily-Progress". He served as Managing Editor there . He later worked for the Scripts-Howard "News" in Washington,D.C. and he was associated with the production of Robert Allen's "Washington-Merry-Go-Round". He worked for at time with United Press in Philadelphia and with "The Examiner"in San Francisco - all the while gathering absorbing a rich store of genuine Americana and local lore which, then, showed up in his numerous short stories. You and I may have some of those stories,too They appeared in the nation's finest magazines "Collier's", "Harper's", "The American "Mercury" and "Esquire". John Clayton, of Craigsville-Churchville,Va. Lets not allow the values he held so dear pass us by. A.L.M. April 21,2006 [c449wds]
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
FRIEND-ABLE I have found it to be true most of the time: "No one is a complete failure. They can always be used as a bad example." We see it work out best, of course, when we are looking at, talking about, watching other people at work or play. We seldom wonder how we appear in the eyes of other men and women who area our friends and associates. That's another word we tend to kick around a bit too freely I think. Who, exactly do we call our "friends"? And, who, please list for me to those whom you include among your associates. Maybe some of them would rather not have anything to do with the likes of you. We are also guilty of bending the meaning of some words to better fit them to our idea of what we wanted them mean. Some people gather friend " to be used as needed." That is certainly not a firm basis for friendships of a durable nature. One tends to maintain a life-long pledging sequence seeking "brothers" who will have connection for your career. Age elements creep in, as well. We choose different friends as we get older and they us. You can sense that has arrived when people speaking of you say you are "looking good" rather than that you are "good looking." Look at yourself carefully when you deliberately think about getting new or added friends. Yes, such need do arise. I know people who have moved just a few blocks from their older neighborhood; made little or no effort to build new friendships and now wonder why people could be so heartless as to ignore them in their old age. A discontented person finds no easy chair anywhere in a home furnished other than with friendships in progress and those embodied in memories. We cannot, of course, count on too many occasions in a lifetime which will yield only good cheer and happiness. So it is with friendships. Some will be bright and sunny while others will prove to be unpleasant. In this time when our television producers are over accenting "realism" a preset a-day maxim might be: "You have to expect the bad with the lousy." There will be some of it, anyway. Your prime concern: Be sure you are friend-able. A.L.M. April 1, 2006 [c402wds]
Tuesday, April 18, 2006
WATER!WATER! It's everywhere! It must seem to be that way to many people living in the Sacramento Valley where heavy rains and melting snow in the mountains have caused steams to go wild causing damage down stream. Certainly the people along the coast Gulf states must feel they have seen enough water to last them for a long time. But, here in Virginia, in the eastern section farmers and cattlemen are awaiting rain which,unless it gets there very soon, will be too late for some of them. Everywhere,now,one sees bottled water selling well. In recent years we have "discovered"' more "springs" than we ever knew we had. At site after site of established old-time medicinal and otherwise springs one can see them have recently been covered over or modified in some way to assure they can be repaired to produce a steady stream of salable "spring" water. So often that word "spring" is the magic term. Any such term suggests they have been using this valued spring water for many years. You can now enjoy it canned and cooled. Special arrangements have been completed so all of us can depend on having sufficient supplies on hand in spite of the great demand for the pure products from Nature' Old medical claims which used to be associated with springs of various classifications, colors, and taste have been set aside, perhaps for later use should the mania for fresh Spring water wane. At the moment,I have a bottle labeled forthrightly as being from the Berkley Springs Water Works, Berkley Springs, West Virginia Water Works and and that they have been bottling the tasty fluid since 1974. I live at Weyers Cave, Virginia which gets its water supply from a site called Dice's Spring. The town uses just a portion of the springs daily output. None is bottled as far as I know. We have that all the time, but bottled water still sells well, by the case, at local stores. A.L.M. April 18, 2006 [c356wds] hvttku
Monday, April 17, 2006
"UP IN YEARS" That's the title of a small booklet of essays written by Clara Cassidy, in 1974, at Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. It is an autographed copy. It contains thirty-six, one-page essays, two recipes for cookies (Ginger Snaps and Sugar Cookies, a full page black and white drawing of comfortable-looking, armless rocking chair - a drawing done by A. Preissler and on display at the Albatross Gallery, Harper's Ferry. This is the sort of nostalgia book one buys on the spur of the moment when traveling, reads through hurried, then,so often, gets lost on the back of a bookshelf or in a drawer with travel folders, motel, post cards other such things which en to save themselves for many years. The kindly lady pictured on the back cover is about right in every respect as what I imagined Clara Cassidy to be or have been, because, having been born in l902 in Lancaster Count, Nebraska at would place her right up there as the book's title suggests "Up in Year" and there is a parenthetical subtitle appended which sets the tone of the entire book for me: "Up In Years(...and off my rocker.) Clara Cassidy was a warm somebody I'd liked to have known. She wrote short essays about her "Neighbors", A Funny Happened" in which she discovers that "...what happens is not important. What matters is one's attitude to what happens." She compiles "Rainy Day Lists" and urges you to do so, as well. She contrasts her early living in Nebraska and in California's Sacramento Valley She gave her opinion in sideway glances at society: "Suppose Goldilocks have been put in a day care center? What if Red Ridinghood's grandmother had lived in a Leisure Colony?" or "Sometimes well-meaning relatives remove all incentive for living by being too helpful." I find, too. that Clara Cassidy was quite adept at composing those short seventeen syllable Japanese style poems called "haiku".None are included in this rocking chair book but she did a great many of them - indicative, perhaps, of the precise, manner in which she had trained her alert mind to work. Some people think "checkers";others think "chess". "Many" she commented at one point, "seek companions of same age and similar tastes, thus guaranteeing a humdrum old age." A.L.M. April 17 2006 [c395wds]
Sunday, April 16, 2006
HENRY,JOHN Patrick Henry became the first governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia following the "unpleasantness" with King George III. We are here to talk about the Henry named John ,however, rather than this "Pat. John was the railroading man. After that same revolutionary event of about 1776, John Henry got busy and helped this new nation built a fantastic railway system which brought the many types of people spread out over many miles of a wide variety of lands so different they were lost until he joined them together as a sturdy, fighting unit when the chose be be that. John Henry - that coal-burning chunk of national movement - put in untold hours of back-breaking labor; of pot-belly removing stress an strain, or brain-clearing competition with others of like mind set and temperament. He touched all social segments of the growing nation; he brought in new citizens from Europe;from the Orient ,as well,to help him build his vast network of tracks, bridges, tunnels all stretched together,it seemed at times, by miles of telegraph poles and endless miles of lines. Some critics can make a pretty good case of John Henry having overdone a good thing and pushed his railroads into areas of corrupt political and social scandals and skulduggery we are still attempting to define. Our National Railway system - our John Henry scheme - "growed up," like Lil' Eva, into slave-conditioned circumstances. It showed its many faults;it revealed its own inner sinfulness and sottish tendencies and could not or would not could not abandon and decry its Gay 90's excesses. Nostalgia took over and destroyed that quality core which had made it great. It lost it; national appeal hesitated too long until the steel network -the actual superstructure was antiquated,inefficient, obsolete - backward an acronym and embarrassment. Other aspects of wheeled wandering took over. Overactive enthusiasm for air travel drew many devotees-including grand dirigibles and blimps the family car took over to some extent, but it remained for the truck - the multi-tonned, big 'uns, the trailers, semi formed into one, two, even three units moving as one, the "articulated lorries"- if you are English. That is what is here now. The system is here to b used. Even now we are, oft times grudgingly, we are allowing modifications of existing highway system to accommodate those vehicles we still regard as "behemoths". Distribution systems are being drastically and dramatically changed to suit the needs of shifts of population centers and other vagaries of the fascinating international commercial world. John Henry now rides a rig. A.L.M. April 16,2006 [c444wds]
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