A Jewel in the Valley

I inherited wanderlust from my mother. If I had my way, I would travel somewhere half of my life, and use the other half planning the trips. And although a 100 mile drive to Staunton, Virginia for a weekend doesn’t exactly qualify as globetrotting, it was a lot cheaper than Paris.

Pam and I celebrated Valentine’s Day at a marvelous Hotel called the Frederick House.  It’s actually more like a Bed and Breakfast, only it is made up of three separate houses that provide over 25 rooms. Our accommodations in the Patrick House were a huge two room suite, beautifully furnished and appointed with everything except a coffee-maker, my only complaint of the weekend.

At this point I should mention what a trooper my wife is. She woke up Thursday morning, the day before our trip with a cold which only got worse Friday, the day of our departure. Instead of just staying at home and resting, she chose to go, figuring that if she was going to be sick all weekend, she might as well be staying in a beautiful hotel. Despite much sneezing and coughing and general icky-ness, she soldiered on, outside, in 30 degree weather, walking everywhere we went without one complaint. What a woman!

Staunton is a small town in the Shenandoah Valley that was once the frontier of our state, since it was where the railroad ended. It was a supply dump for the Confederate army during the Civil War, but oddly no battle was ever fought there which had the happy result of preserving its beautiful Victorian mansions built mostly by rich railroad men. Today it has a population of 24,000 souls, and if our trip experiences are a fair representation, all of them love their city. Everyone we encountered and I do mean everyone, from the owners of the Frederick House, to the guy behind the counter at the visitor’s center, to the guy who drove the 25 cent trolley, to random people on the streets; all were as friendly and helpful as people could possibly be, each of them clearly proud of their town, and for good reason.

We arrived around 3 o’clock on Friday afternoon; 24 hours after the town got pelted with 18 inches of snow. Not only were practically all of the downtown streets plowed but most of the sidewalks as well. I was surprised at how hilly the place was, but despite the tricky terrain, the city government had the streets safe for cars and pedestrians in less than 24 hours.

So, what is it that one does in Staunton, Virginia for two days, you might ask? Here goes, and try to keep up:

1. Had a terrific dinner at Aioli’s, a Mediterranean restaurant, a short walk from our room.
2. Went to a play, Shakespeare’s As You Like It, performed by a superbly talented group of actors and musicians at the Blackfriars playhouse, a Globe Theatre replica built back in 2001.
3. Took a tour of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and birthplace.
4. Walked through the newly redecorated Stonewall Jackson hotel.
5. Toured two Museums
6. Took a trolley ride around and through the city with stops at the most memorable buildings and homes.
7. Walked the length of Beverly Street, the major boulevard in downtown, and probably the biggest reason that Staunton was voted by Smithsonian magazine as one of the best small towns in America. Beautiful, clean and entertaining.
8. Took in a movie at one of those old downtown movie theatres that only has a couple of screens, and tons of legroom!
9. Had a fabulous lunch at the Clocktower, and delicious lasagna at Emilio’s.
10.  The Frederick House provided breakfast each day, which was amazing. The menu was printed on the back of their coffee mugs and featured only 6 choices, but the four that we tried were perfectly prepared.
11.  Attended a glass blowing demonstration at a place called Sunspots.

My best story of the weekend involved me losing my gloves. I absentmindedly left them on the seat beside me during my first trolley ride. An hour later we stood at the trolley stop hoping that we would get the same driver and trolley as before. When I got back on, three women were sitting right next to the gloves and asked me if they were mine. They seemed so relieved that I had found them. If that had happened in downtown Richmond, in an hour’s time those gloves would have already been exchanged for crack!

So, once again Pam and I discover another jewel of a town in the Valley. How blessed we are to live in this state?

The Curious Case of Michael Sam

 A few days ago the sports world was repeatedly beaten over the head with the “very important news” that Michael Sam, star linebacker of the Missouri Tigers and hot NFL prospect, had openly declared his homosexuality. We were assured by breathless sports reporters and talk show hosts that this was “huge” and consequently just had to be talked about ad nauseam for three days. In much the same way as Jason Collins, a washed up seven foot tall basketball player, was canonized a year ago when at the end of his career he went public with his sexual preferences, sports fans now know every detail of Mr. Sam’s life. He appears to be a great guy.

Of course, if Michael Sam gets drafted and makes an NFL roster he will by no means become the first homosexual to do so. He will just be the first one we have known of beforehand, which I suppose is newsworthy…I guess. Maybe it’s just me, but the only thing I would care about as an owner or general manager of an NFL team would be…can he play? Actually, that’s not entirely true. I would also want to know what kind of character he possessed. Was he an arrogant, trouble making egomaniac in college with poor work habits? If so I would pass. By all accounts Mr. Sam was a model citizen. He was also Defensive Player of the Year in the mighty SEC last year, so if I need an undersized outside linebacker who can get after the quarterback, I would pick him in a New York minute.

Listening to sports talk radio the past three days has been like peering into a petri dish full of something terribly noxious yet unidentifiable. Some guys are opposed to an openly gay man being inside an NFL locker room, some squeamishly so. Other guys thought that it would change the entire culture of the locker room, forcing everyone to walk on eggshells for fear of saying something politically incorrect. Still others didn’t care one way or the other. I count myself among that group.

And yet, there was one objection that kept coming up to which every single talking head I listened to was unanimous in their condemnation. Every host from the national shows and two of the three local guys were condescendingly dismissive of anyone who brought up the question of how appropriate it was to have a homosexual man walking around a locker room full of naked men. Wouldn’t that be weird and borderline sketchy? Anyone who dared broach this topic was subjected to a withering smack down by the snarky host, the primary point being something along the lines of, “Dude, just because someone is gay doesn’t mean that he gets all turned on by the sight of a naked guy. That’s insulting!!”

Ok. Humor me for a second. Let’s do a little thought experiment. Suppose in the distant future of sport in America, it becomes acceptable for men to play traditionally women’s sports. A young, handsome and strapping 20 year old man would then be allowed to roam the locker room of his predominately women’s tennis team. Our straight young man would be showering with Maria Sharapovas as far as the eye could see. Would anyone have a problem with that? I mean, besides his girlfriend. What’s the difference between this hypothetical and the real situation that Mr. Sam will be presented with this summer? As a heterosexual man, I am naturally attracted to women, especially the female form, and in the case of lithe, athletic 20 year old tennis players, double-especially. Mr. Sam has shared openly his preference for men. He will be surrounded by 40 of the most physically fit and elite male forms known to exist on this planet. Are we being asked to believe that this is a total nonissue? If the tables were turned, I can say without hesitation that my wife would not at all be happy with my presence in a locker room full of naked women, even if I never acted inappropriately, because…it’s just wrong and dangerous for a man to subject himself to that sort of temptation. Not because men are uncontrollable ass grabbers, but simply because it isn’t appropriate or healthy. End of thought experiment.

I wish Michael Sam every success in the NFL. And I eagerly await one of my hipper friends explaining to me why my thought experiment is terribly flawed.

The Grammy's Salute to the Beatles

It was my very first television memory. All six of us were gathered around our jumpy RCA victor black and white TV that Sunday night 50 years ago. I was two months shy of turning six years old. My brother Donnie was 15 and about to have his life changed by those four boys from Liverpool. My parents were about to be horrified.

Ed Sullivan, looking an awful lot like Richard Nixon with his five o’clock shadow, spun around and shouted, “The Beatles!!” I was mesmerized by the spectacle of the thing. The volume and intensity of the screaming girls was actually a little scary. I glanced at Donnie and Linda. They were both nodding their heads in rhythm to the music. Paula’s expression was wild eyed excitement, not unlike what one would expect on Christmas morning. Mom and Dad stared at the screen as if they were watching someone killing a living thing. They were both destined to hate their music, but what they really didn’t like were their haircuts. Thanks to Ed Sullivan, a generation gap was introduced into the Dunnevant home.

All of this comes to mind after watching the Grammy’s salute to the Beatles special the other night. It was easily the best two hours I’ve spent in front of my television in quite a while. The musicians selected to perform their songs were all wonderful. Towards the end, Ringo performed a three song set followed by Paul who absolutely nailed “Get Back,” I Saw Her Standing there,” and “Birthday.” Here were two guys in their 70’s still having fun playing rock & roll. It was a joyous night.

My wife often accuses me of being out of step with contemporary music. She is correct. The music I most enjoy all seems to have been originally recorded 30-50 years ago. “You have to keep up with the new acts honey,” she says. “If you don’t, you’ll get old!” I must admit that I was introduced to a few of them watching this show and was mightily impressed. But when your first introduction to contemporary music was the Ed Sullivan show on a February night 50 years ago, it’s a hard act to follow. Transformational talent doesn’t come along every day, and when it does it has a tendency to ruin you for whatever follows. There were thousands of classical musicians from 300 years ago who have completely vanished from history, so ordinary and unremarkable were their works. We still celebrate the likes of Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach because they were special, transcendent talents. Similarly, the vast majority of current popular music will be a mist 300 years from now. Not so the Beatles.

But my wife is right. Maroon 5, Imagine Dragons, Dave Grohl, John Meyer, Keith Urban, John Legend and Alicia Keys were all fantastic, immensely talented performers. I probably should tune in more often. It’s bad enough that I am getting old, it would be a crime if I start acting old.

Just don’t ask me to give Hip Hop a listen….not gonna happen.

I Got This!

Alright, listen up. I’ve got big plans for Valentine’s Day weekend, plans that will be severely inconvenienced if this Snowmageddon materializes. I don’t ask much of the weather. When winter comes I expect it to be cold and miserable with a lot of cold rain and yes, even the occasional snow storm. But when I hear weather people throwing out words like “historic” and “massive” I become concerned.

See, I came up with this epic plan to take Pam to Staunton after school on Friday for the weekend. There’s this awesome Inn called the Frederick House, dinner reservations at an Italian restaurant called Aioli, then Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” at the Blackfriars playhouse after dinner. I’ve got it all planned out. So, this snow thing will just have to wait. Don’t you see?

The best part is, once we get to Staunton, everything is within walking distance of the Inn. The problem will be driving from Richmond to Staunton, a distance of 108 miles, through what is predicted to be anywhere between 4 and 30 inches of snow. I’m not kidding. Our intrepid weather forecasters are sick and tired of being so embarrassingly wrong all the time, so this time they have all decided to cast a wide net. Yes, somewhere between 4 and 30 inches should cover it gentlemen. Thanks for the heads up!

It’s Valentine’s Day, and this year will be the 30^th time I have celebrated it with Pam. This is no small thing. 30 years is a long time and worthy of grand gestures. So, I am bound and determined to do this thing. It will be an adventure, much like our 30 years together. Will we make it there in time for our dinner reservation? How many 360’s will we do before we make it to Charlottesville? Will we make it over Afton Mountain? If I wrap the Cadillac around a tree will Pam insist on a divorce? If we do make it there in one piece will Pam be so traumatized by the trip that I end up sleeping on the couch?

It was the pioneer spirit of adventure that built this great country. Well, sometimes we have to channel our inner pioneer. The results of such courage are the stuff of which great memories are made.

I got this.

How Valuable Are 3 College Credits?

I noticed that someone had left me a message on my cell phone. I recognized the name. He was one of my favorite kids from my days in the youth department of my church, now no longer a kid but a fully functioning, employed citizen making his way quite successfully in the world. He was very agitated, practically shouted his message at me, demanding that I…write a blog at once about something that had just happened at our church. So, I suppose from here on out I shall refer to him as my source.

Apparently, on Friday February the 7^th at Grove Avenue Baptist church there was an all day event sponsored by the Words of Victory Television ministry, Liberty Online University and something called the King Is Coming College. It was an Old Testament survey course which featured 8 thirty minute lectures by a Dr. Ed Hindson who was described as one of America’s leading Bible scholars. I didn’t attend the event. In fact, in doing research for this blog I had to rely upon the church’s website. So far, nothing was amiss. This type of event is what church’s do, you know, teaching about scripture and such.

But then I saw the one sentence in the course description that had my source positively apoplectic with rage. This $98, 8 hour lecture is advertised thusly:

This is a diploma course, or you can earn up to 6 college credits.

My source’s best friend attended the event, sat through all 8 lectures and found them to be quite informative. At the end of the day he was given a diploma and told he had earned 3 college credits. The only trouble was, he had taken no test, and wasn’t required to demonstrate that he had mastered any of the material. In other words it was, “Here’s your certificate and your 3 credit hours. Thanks for coming.”  My source could hardly contain his outrage. Each 3 hour course he took over 4 years at Virginia Tech were both expensive and demanding, requiring him hours of mostly late night cramming, one test after another, and hours and hours of study. When he recently looked into taking a night class at VCU to brush up on his Spanish he was told that the 3 hour credit class would set him back $1800 and require an entire semester’s worth of work. But at our church, one only has to cough up a hundred bucks, listen to some guy lecture for 8 hours and BAMM, 3 college credits, plus they throw in a boxed lunch!

“This is embarrassing,” my source intoned. “Don’t they see how this sort of thing plays in to the stereotype of Christians being anti-intellectual? It’s a slap in the face to anyone who has ever had to work their butts off to get an education when our church is throwing around college credit hours like candy.”

My wife pointed out that the two courses she has to take every five years to validate her teaching license cost her over $800 and although they are online classes, they require weeks of work, testing and study to pass. “What about the Liberty University students who took an Old Testament survey course on the campus in Lynchburg,” she asked. “Were they charged $98 and not required to pass an exam?”

So, there you have it. My opinion? There’s nothing wrong with this event that eliminating the granting of college credits wouldn’t solve. Absolutely nothing wrong with listening to one of America’s leading Bible scholars talk about the Old Testament all day. But college credits are a valuable and hard fought commodity, and this sort of thing cheapens them.

This reporter was able to discover that next month's video travelogue presentation about the Holy Land trip would not include an honorary doctorate for all attendees.

Job Lock? Tell me about it...

When the Congressional Budget Office released its latest assessment of the impact of Obamacare on the economy this week, we discovered that nearly 2.5 million jobs will be lost because people have been “liberated” from something called job lock. Apparently, this is a condition afflicting many Americans who have been holding on to their jobs for one reason and one reason only, so they wouldn’t lose their health insurance. Now that Obamacare has broken the bond between employment and health insurance, and provided tax-payer subsidies to pay the premiums, millions of Americans will now be freed from their jobs, freed to pursue their dreams, perhaps to write poetry as Nancy Pelosi predicted many months ago.

So, job lock enters the lexicon, defined as a horrible dream killing condition that heartlessly requires people to work for a living. Thanks to Obamacare, we can now tell our bosses to take a hike, secure in the knowledge that our neighbor’s taxes will pay our health insurance premiums. This is what passes for liberation in 2013 America.

Well, I should point out that some of us have been suffering from job lock for years, and it has had precious little to do with health insurance. Below is a partial list of the many factors that have had me locked to my job for 31 years now:

My wife

My mortgage

My pesky kids and their education

My desire for nice vacations

My fondness for fine dining

My selfish insistence on driving a Cadillac CTS

My pending retirement

Now, before any of you start plastering my Facebook wall with accusations of insensitivity, let me say that I’m sure for some of the 2.5 million people in the CBO report, Obamacare has indeed allowed them to quit a job they may have only kept for purposes of having health insurance, and for them that is a good and happy thing. I can and have made the argument in the past that coupling health insurance with employment was a policy mistake made after World War II that has hidden the true cost of coverage from ordinary Americans and therefore distorted the market for it. But to hear every Democratic politician greeting the news that there will be 2.5 million LESS people working as magically transformative news has been rather disgusting. Yes, in an era that has seen record numbers of people simply stop looking for work and at a time when only 62% of able bodied adults are participating in the work force, we celebrate the news of even more?

I can’t wait for the New York Times headline the next time some big American business announces a mass layoff…Microsoft Liberates 5,000 Job Locked Workers!

The Curse of February

February has been the author of more than one bout of depression in the history of this world. The French have a word for it, ennui, that is, a feeling of listlessness brought on by a lack of excitement. Leave it to the French to come up with a five letter word that perfectly captures the essence of an entire month.

My back yard looks like a breeding ground for mud pies.  Five days in, the sun has been out once. Today it’s raining and this weekend there may be two days of snow. The good news is that there are only 28 days in February, irrefutable proof that God is merciful. Just 23 more days. We can endure anything for 23 days, right?

February is to the Gregorian calendar what your boring idiot uncle is to the Thanksgiving dinner table…an excruciating experience that must be patiently endured.

February’s favorite book of the Bible is Ecclesiastes. “Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!”

Man has attempted many times through the years to break up the relentless boredom and hopelessness of this wretched month. The most enduring attempt was the invention of Valentine’s Day. I’m told that this day has its origins in the Roman church. Whatever its beginnings, it has morphed into a financial windfall for the Greeting card, flower and chocolate businesses. I have nothing against Valentine’s Day. I celebrate it with great vigor and imagination, especially since there is literally nothing else to do. But, how a day dedicated to love got assigned to February remains a mystery. After all, the old proverb goes something like this, “springtime, when a young man’s heart turns to thoughts of love,” not “February, when a young man’s heart turns to thoughts of suicide.”

Thanks to the writer of Ecclesiastes we know that there is nothing new under the sun, so my struggles with this time of year are nothing new and certainly nothing that my ancestors didn’t also wrestle with. They survived, and so will I. All I’m saying is, it’s no wonder that the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre happened when it did. Can you imagine the horror of having to endure the month of February in freaking Chicago??

Al Capone: J***s f*****g C***t, if I have to spend one more night cooped up in this G******d hotel room, I’m gonna f*****g kill somebody!! Hey, wait…that’s a GREAT idea!

So, at least I don’t live in Chicago or North Dakota or Newark. It could always be worse. Besides, pitchers and catchers report in less than two weeks.