Valley Pike
by Adrian O'Connor

2009 Pikes

Beholding that star

Posted: Dec. 30, 2009

Behold that star!

Behold that star up yonder,

Behold that star!

It is the star of Bethlehem.

OLD BETHEL CHURCH ROAD — How do you know when Christmas has truly arrived?

For me, since coming to Winchester, it used to be the day I first noticed the Christmas trees lined up for sale along the east wall of Rouss Fire Company.

Now it’s the appearance of a small Nativity scene, illuminated by a star, set out in a field along Va. 37 just a stone’s throw from the Amherst Street exit. I don’t know who’s responsible for the display. It doesn’t really matter. I just know that, for me, it’s a tell-tale symbol of the season.

Now for my e-mailing buddy Barney, who presides over The Antique Hospital in Gainesboro, the sure-fire sign of Christmas is a large star directed southeast from a hill between Nain and his home place further up U.S. 522.

Last week, Barney and I got to chatting about such things over the Net to the point that on Monday night I decided to wander up 522 for a look. There it was, much as Barney described, visible first from the sweeping curve descending toward the junction of Cedar Grove Road, then more clearly from the vicinity of John’s Grocery.

“I always look forward to seeing it get turned on at Thanksgiving,” Barney told me, “because, strange as this may sound, it gives me a feeling of warmth and inner peace to see it. That star means ‘Christmas’ to me . . .”

Apparently, Barney is hardly alone in this “feeling.” How do we know? On the spur of the moment Tuesday morning, we decided to meet on Old Bethel Church Road and visit the folks responsible for such “warmth and inner peace.”

I admit to an ulterior motive here. I wanted to finally meet my e-mail chum, and I wanted to meet his dog, Niko, for whom his affection is so obvious in his posts. And, yes, I wanted to prolong this wonderful season a bit more in print.

Happily, Jerry and Janna Cather were willing to accommodate two total strangers, knocking at their door, in satisfying this whimsy.

Jerry, whose family-farm operation — roughly 100 acres dedicated to cattle and hay — dates back at least three generations, has been turning on the juice to the star for upwards of three decades.

Over the years, he says he’s received “lots of phone calls, letters, and now e-mails” about his handiwork, which (pole and all) stands roughly 30 feet high. The universal message from these correspondents: “They tell me, ‘Now, it’s Christmas.’ It’s the northern star.”

As Janna related to us, the hinged pole — actually sections of pipe welded together — stays up all year long. Jerry, her husband of 21 years, starts “revamping” the star, making minor repairs, sometime around Thanksgiving.

“I never know when it’s actually going to be turned on. I get home from work one day, and it’s on. It’s a surprise, even to me.”

Jerry says he’s considered some “modifications” to the star, perhaps even inserting a strobe light in the middle. But Janna “likes it the way it is,” beautiful in its unadorned simplicity.

“When it snows,” she says, “it lights up the ground around it. The ground just glows.”

As does the night sky above the hills of northern Frederick.

The glow extends to this Christmas household. As Barney and I — strangers at the door one minute, chatty conversationalists the next — were taking our leave, Janna said, almost as an aside, “It’s just our way of trying to keep Christ in Christmas.”

That the Cathers do, and wonderfully so, for all who desire to keep the real reason for the season in their hearts from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. And beyond.

“Behold that star,” indeed.

The redemptive power . . . of snow

Posted: Dec. 23, 2009

When I was a kid, one of the common expressions among my dad’s large circle of (predominantly Roman Catholic) friends was “Offer it up.”

Simply put, if you scraped your knee, or got the wind knocked out of you playing football, or suffered any sort of bump or bruise — or even a momentary inconvenience — you were advised to “offer it up” as, say, a sacrifice to God or for the benefit of the souls in purgatory.

In short, it was a way not merely to keep us whippersnappers fully grounded, but also to introduce us to what is known as “the redemptive power of suffering.”

The late Pope John Paul II was a shining example in this regard. As his body grew increasingly frail, ravaged by Parkinson’s disease, he continually “offered up” his infirmity to show that life, even under trying circumstances, maintains meaning, dignity, and purpose.

Rest assured, I can only dream of living up to such an example. And if I’ve started what was intended to be a light-hearted column on such a heavy note, my apologies. But I simply could not resist thinking of John Paul and my dad’s buddies when I pondered the events of this past weekend when I discovered the redemptive power not of suffering, but of . . . snow.

Allow me to explain how my scattered, unorthodox mind works. And let me start with my, ahem, “condition.” Those closest to me know I’m in the throes of end-stage kidney disease, diagnosed four years ago this week.

I try not to talk about it much, but often must do so when asked to explain my expansive dietary restrictions, which begin with “No potatoes, no chocolate.” Let’s put it this way: When folks nonchalantly ask “How ya doin’?” they don’t want you to actually tell them — in chapter and verse.

Suffice it to say, I have good days and not-so-good ones, largely dependent, as I repeatedly discover, on stresses related to my job.

But here’s my point: Saturday, for me, was a great day.

I could have chalked it up to beneficent biorhythms, but I don’t subscribe to that stuff. Or maybe it was due to nothing more than our dog allowing me a snout-free good night’s sleep — i.e., no early-morning interruptions to let her out.

But I prefer to think it was the snow, which started as if coming down on little cat’s feet late Friday evening — just as I was purchasing our live tree from the Boy Scouts on Fairfax Pike. Talk about your salutary omens and good vibes.

By Saturday morning, it was evident my metaphorical kitty had plenty of siblings and close friends. We awakened to, well, if not a full-blown blizzard, then a substantial snowstorm, which lingered and lingered, and lingered some more.

With upwards of 6 inches or more on the ground by morning, our frenetic lives — particularly at this time of year — returned to the essential basics. Digging out, getting to the store and pharmacy, actually sharing three meals together. I loved every minute of it and believe Toni did, too, even though her Christmas shopping schedule went largely by the boards.

Here’s the key: I stayed busy Saturday, but calmly so — despite the weather. I shoveled out our 4-Runner, wisely (at Toni’s behest) left at the head of our long Valley Pike driveway. I cleared an area for that aforementioned hound to do whatever she must naturally do. I navigated the SUV down the Pike to Martins and Rite-Aid. I hauled stuff from the attic to decorate our live tree, a chore which under normal conditions — as Toni will tell you — often frays my nerves.

But not on Saturday, as the flakes continued to serenely — and redemptively — fall. And through it all I felt energized, yet wonderfully serene myself. And redeemed.

Over the ensuing 48 hours, of course, that would change — especially as sore, aching muscles duly reflected the nature of the joyful work undertaken.

But do you know I did? Yes, I “offered it up.”

A hero remembered

Posted: Dec. 16, 2009

“I remember him as a Medal of Honor winner, yes, but more so as a neighbor.”

— Former City Manager Wendell Seldon

If you’ve been following the news lately, the name Van Barfoot should mean something to you.

But, all controversy over flying the American flag aside, the name means even more to folks like Wendell Seldon and Jack Marsh, and Jimmy Gordon and Jerry Headley — people who knew the retired Army colonel, as they say, “way back when.” In other words, when the Medal of Honor winner, now 90 years old, resided in Winchester.

To recap: For a dizzying week earlier this month, Barfoot stood smack-dab in the middle of a controversy. He wanted to display Old Glory from a flagpole he erected in his Henrico County yard. The homeowners association in his neighborhood told him he couldn’t and threatened legal action.

Fortunately, no such court date appears in the offing — the HOA backed down — though the issue, at my last reading, has yet to be fully resolved.

But the mere mention of his name conjured up local memories, and this is precisely what prompted Jimmy, a retired city dentist, to give me a holler. Dr. Gordon, it seems, remembers Barfoot well from the latter’s days as the active-duty adviser to our National Guard unit, first in the ’50s and then again circa 1970.

Jimmy was a high-schooler in the early ’50s when he and his buddy Lee Boppe would seek a preferred cushioned pew at First Baptist Church. Barfoot, less than a decade removed from winning the Medal of Honor for valor during the Italian campaign in World War II, often sat a few pews in front of them. All 6 feet, 9 inches of him — in full uniform.

In any case, Jimmy’s call triggered a succession of others — from Jerry, one of the area’s most highly decorated vets, and from Wendell, who attributes his own extended Guard career to Barfoot’s influence. And, in true serendipitous fashion, I also happened to run into Mr. Marsh, the former 7th District congressman and Army secretary who received his captain’s stripes from Barfoot one day in 1952.

But Wendell proved to be the true gold mine of information as he, as the lead quote suggests, knew the towering Army officer as a neighbor. Barfoot and his wife, Norma, lived three doors down from the Seldons at 627 Pennsylvania Ave. in the city’s North End.

Wendell was already working for his predecessor as city manager, Lee Grant, when Barfoot urged him forward in his Guard career.

“I never would have become an officer, much less a general officer, if not for him,” says Wendell, who retired from the Guard as a major general. “I went to OCS (Officer Candidate School) because of him.”

While at Georgia’s Fort Benning, Wendell procured a copy of Barfoot’s Medal of Honor commendation, which he treasures to this day. He still runs into Barfoot during get-togethers at Fort Lee southeast of Richmond and lives but 10 minutes from him in the Capital City suburbs.

“As an advisor, he was a disciplinarian,” Wendell says. “As an enlisted man coming in, I was most impressed with his discipline, and his just being a good soldier.

“Now, I see him as a genuine person who wants to help people — much like he helped me more than 50 years ago.”

But over that span, Barfoot obviously has changed very little — particularly when it comes to his allegiance to the flag. Wendell recalls his mentor displaying the colors each and every day — from a flagpole in his backyard at 627 Pennsylvania.

“He’s the type you look up to — all your life,” he says. “And I still look up to him, and not just because of his height.”

Snow party

Posted: Dec. 9, 2009

“When it rains, we play in the rain.”

— “The Yellow Jacket,” Randolph-Macon College, 1976

But not in the snow. Not at Handley High. Not this past Saturday.

And the reasons why the Handley administration — with the full consultation and approval of the Virginia High School League — opted not to play the Judges’ Group AA Division 3 state semifinal against Bruton as scheduled?

The timing of the fast-moving storm and the kind of snow that covered the Handley Bowl’s new synthetic turf.

As Bill Stewart, the school’s student activities director, told me Monday, it was Handley’s call to make, which it did around 11 a.m. Saturday, but not before huddling with the Bruton folks and calling the VHSL.

An hour earlier, the field had been cleared — and was clearly playable. But, as Bill noted, not only did the snow keep coming, but it was of the heavy, wet variety that made the task of the ad hoc removal crew all but impossible.

Fortunately, the sparkling new turf came with what amounted to an owner’s manual — essentially a series of “What ifs” that the Handley administration had previously discussed in depth with the company that installed the carpet.

So Bill knew beforehand that a small tractor and plow (with a rubber-tipped blade) was an acceptable instrument to remove the snow. Ron Scott, a WPS employee, handled these duties while upwards of 40 others — parents, students, teachers, and administrators — took shovels in hand for what Bill called a “snow party.”

“We tried to make it as fun as we possibly could.” he said.

So, with the new scoreboards spreading the news (“We’ll try again tomorrow”) and good cheer (“Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow”) and with Uncle Fred’s barbecue emporium offering down-home vittles, the helping hands not only shoveled the turf but also the sidewalks, parking lot, and concession areas to prepare for an unusal Sunday kickoff.

“Ah, the shovel brigade,” a chilled Karen McCoy, Handley’s assistant student activities director and our “front-page girl” Monday in The Star, said Sunday. “Everyone came by, picked up a shovel and pitched in. That’s what made it so great.”

Scott returned Sunday morning to, as Bill said, “knock the ice cubes off.” Andrew Perlick, Handley’s resource officer, gave the Bruton team, which stayed at The Fairfield Inn, a police escort through town. And, at 1 p.m., the officials teed up the ball.

“Our investment in this turf showed its true value Sunday at 1,” Bill said. “The players walked out, the sun was shining, the field was not a factor. It was a fair venue.”

But the air was sufficiently frigid to bring back memories — at least to those who attended — of the last time a local high school team played on a Sunday. That was in 1995, when Strasburg traveled to the frozen tundra of Bath County High and lost the Group A Division 1 title game, 30-20, to the homestanding Chargers.

Jack Smith of Frederick County was there and remembers being “colder than snot.” So, too, was Mike Whittle, who quarterbacked James Wood to its only title in 1970 and whose son, Jeff, was then a freshman at Strasburg. Mike recalls going to the Bath County gym at halftime to get warm — and not wanting to return to the wind-swept field.

Oh yes, a word about the “rain” quote at the top of the column. We ’76 seniors at R-MC were asked to provide some meaningful words to accompany our senior yearbook portraits. One of the Yellow Jacket linebackers, 215 pounds of barely controlled fury, drew upon his gridiron days for his offering.

His name: Jimmy Louthan, Handley Class of ’72. What goes around comes around.

Denny

Posted: Dec. 2. 2009

Tuesday’s front-page feature caught me by surprise, which goes to show I hadn’t stopped by the Post Office on the Loudoun Street Mall in quite some time.

You see, I didn’t know Denny Sours was going to retire. Monday was his last day. I thought he’d just go on forever, dispensing stamps and stories (and folk wisdom) in equal volume. And I never knew Denny had lost consciousness one day at the post he held for 27 of his 44-year postal service career.

But I was sure glad to see Denny get his just due. All too often, front pages — and editorial pages, too — are reserved for the famous or infamous, whose fame or infamy comes either by dint of lofty status or position or because they happened to do something worthy of note, whether good or ill.

But Denny? He received our front-page “shout-out” simply by coming to work every day — and seldom letting one go by in which he didn’t touch his customers’ lives in a positive way. As I see it, front pages need more such stories.

Of course, it helps when the subject has a colorful side — and that Denny most definitely possessed. Few regular habitués of the Loudoun Street station will ever forget his elaborate Halloween get-ups — Superman, for instance.

But me? I wasn’t a regular, merely a sometimes visitor who, more often than not, stopped for chit-chat rather than service. Denny and I, you see, share both a love — for the game of baseball — and a consuming passion. We are longtime fans of the Olde Towne (not Winchester) Team, a.k.a. the Boston Red Sox.

So, ofttimes, I would pop in to commiserate (the Sawx found another way to lose) or, more recently, to exchange verbal high-fives (Sox win again!). And, along the way, I discovered, too, that Denny has played organized ball — either baseball or softball — for something going on 60 years, and that he is a well-deep repository of local history and lore.

We often talked about organizing a trip for local Sawx diehards to Fenway Park, where we’d try our darnedest to secure tickets for those “primo” seats atop the Green Monster. Now that Denny is, ahem, a man of relative leisure, I hope he and his wife, Willetta, will make it to Beantown. And when they do that he’ll think of me.

In the meantime, I — and the rest of his postal patrons — wish Denny the best in his retirement, even as we miss his daily presence on the mall. Greatly.

Back in November, I ran into local dentist Tom Gromling who, for some time it seemed, wanted to pass on a possible Valley Pike topic — local toll gates and, specifically, where they were located.

As Tom suggested, and I was quick to agree, there were more such pay stations sprinkled throughout the Northern Valley than commonly assumed today.

More space will be devoted to this subject in the near future, but, as Tom made it a point to mention Double Tollgate, I will speak to the origin of this uniquely named community, once known (in the mid-19th century) as Highland Corners.

Its current moniker derives from its location at the intersection of not one or two but rather three “turnpikes” — the Ninevah Turnpike heading south to Front Royal, the Winchester Turnpike leading north, and the Newtown Turnpike linking present-day Stephens City (Newtown) and the Shenandoah River by way of the Winchester & Berry’s Ferry Turnpike. Two toll gates served the three roads — hence, the community’s name.

Somewhat ironically, Double Tollgate, as we know it today, still sits at the junction of three highways — U.S. 522 South, U.S. 340, and Va. 277 (the Fairfax Pike).

During the Civil War, a cavalry clash took place there between Gen. John Imboden’s Confederate horsemen and Union troopers under Gen. George Custer.

Taking vets to school

Posted: Nov. 25

INWOOD, W.Va. — In my role as editorial page editor, I see a lot of mail come through either the “snail-mail” or e-mail transom. Most of it is issue-oriented or political in nature, whether on the local, state, or national level.

But sometimes a flurry of correspondence on a certain topic catches my eye or tugs at my heartstrings. A (repeated) case in point happened earlier this month when I received a half-dozen or so letters from military men lauding Millbrook High for its ceremony of gratitude back on Veterans Day.

It must have been some program, as the vets who took the time to write marveled at the simple joy of accepting the thankful plaudits of the younger generation. My Kids Voting colleague, Frederick County Public Schools social sciences supervisor Tara Woolever, made it a point to tell me that Rachel Harrison, a government teacher at Millbrook, has been the driving force behind the annual day of appreciation. A snappy salute to Rachel.

Unfortunately, I did not make it over to Millbrook for the program, but, rest assured, the week of Nov. 11 is already highighted in my 2010 planner. It sounds to me like an event not to be missed.

The same can be said of a Veterans Day — or Veterans Week, as it was held the following Monday — celebration I did attend this year at Musselman High, just across the West Virginia line. This was the school’s second annual “Take a Veteran to School Day” — similar in style and spirit to the Millbrook fete — done in conjunction with 12 schools across the state and sponsored by the West Virginia Cable Telecommunications Association.

Comcast was on hand to tape the veterans’ roundtable, held in the Musselman auditorium following a lunch for the assembled vets. My friend, Berkeley County Schools media specialist Barbara Frankenberry, thought the program would be as enjoyable as it was uplighting. Barbara was right on both counts.

The first veteran to speak had me, as they say, at “Hello.” Dudley Brown, a former Little League coach and Scoutmaster, helped ferry troops to Omaha Beach during D-Day’s second wave — as an underaged sailor. Fifteen when he managed to enlist, he was but a year older on D-Day and “scared to death.” But he survived his baptism under fire.

The second speaker, Leon Reel of Moorefield, gave a shortened version of the one-man play, detailing his 1,026 days as a POW in Korea, to which I devoted a Valley Pike after witnessing it first-hand earlier this year at a dinner meeting of the local Korean War vets.

By the time Reel finished his talk last week, the hour was late. Time was at a premium. I could stay for but one more speaker, and, boy, was I ever glad I hung around to hear retired Army Maj. Thomas Trumble of Jefferson County.

The son and grandson of veterans, Trumble found himself caught in the philosophical and cultural crosshairs of his age — ambivalent and unsure about the Vietnam War even as an ROTC student at Rutgers, but not wanting to let his father and grandfather down. And there was something deep within him that desired “to know what I was made of” — and so he, a reluctant warrior, chose Armor as his area of service and discovered his true sense of self one desperate night on a hill in South Vietnam.

All riveting stuff, especially for the Musselman students, who sat mesmerized. And for me, too. It was quite an afternoon.

Last week, in my extended feature on Handley High football great Dennis Hinkle, I left out a very important person in the lives of Dennis and his wife, Karen — their grandson, Evan.

A 2009 graduate of Handley and now a student at the University of Alabama, Evan is the son of the late Jeff Hinkle, who played on the Judges’ 1984 state championship football team.

‘Start writing!’

Posted: Nov 18

Ask Mike Bolin about monkeys, and the second-year James Wood football coach will likely never admit one had taken up residence on his broad back.

But, all simians aside, Bolin will say, as he did in the glow of late Saturday afternoon, that in the wake of four crushingly close late-season losses there was considerable “name-calling” and “finger-pointing” up on The Ridge. But not among the 60-odd youngsters who populate the Colonels’ locker room.

“All that stuff? Like water running off their backs,” Bolin said. “Those guys in the locker room, they never lost faith.”

And that was a good thing, for in the waning moments of Saturday’s regional quarterfinal clash against Loudoun County, they needed all that commodity of the heart they could muster.

In a game in which the Colonels were compelled to come from behind and then play with the lead, Loudoun County had the ball last. And the Raiders, down two and starting from their own 10 with 1:47 remaining, were driving.

An unease settled over Colonel Nation. Would this game end as so many before had ended in a season that once held unlimited promise? Would school, team, and fans be denied that elusive playoff victory, their first since 1970?

When normally glue-fingered defensive back Harlan Robinson dropped a sure interception at the goal line with 25 seconds left, thoughts of “Sherando 2006” flashed through Bolin’s mind. That year, a dropped pick in the end zone preceded Warrior quarterback Ross Metheny’s winning touchdown toss in that season’s “game for the ages.”

But 2009 is not 2006. Four snaps — and an eternity — after Robinson’s miss, a 32-yard field goal by the Raiders’ Calle Brown knuckled wide after skipping off the top of defensive lineman Chase Tyler’s helmet. The Colonels, 27-25, winners by a head. Faith rewarded.

As Bolin demonstrated, coaches and fans never know when one play will trigger memories of another. Or, as in the case of wizened old sportswriters, memories of stories, either written or read.

And so when the Colonels’ Brock Lockhart rumbled 84 yards to give James Wood the lead, my mind wandered back to a Sports Illustrated article written by the great Dan Jenkins — from 1967, when O.J. Simpson scored an unlikely touchdown against UCLA. The masterful Jenkins took readers through O.J.’s 64-yard romp to paydirt on a play called 23-Blast — “As it unfolded, it looked like a five-yard gain . . .” The touchdown proved to be the game-winner. Lockhart’s was the game-changer.

Moments earlier, the Colonels’ senior had fumbled to start the second half. But when the Wood defense held on downs at its own 15, Lockhart had his second chance.

As that play “unfolded,” it appeared little more than a good gain on first down. But Lockhart suddenly chopped free and angled to the right sideline, where he stumbled. “It was slick out there,” he told me, “and I lost my footing.”

But, much like Afleet Alex who almost went to his knees in the 2007 Preakness, Lockhart somehow regained his balance — without losing stride — and roared up the sideline. At the Raider 33, he deftly sidestepped one last defender and cruised to the end zone.

Minutes before during halftime, I had run into Frederick County School Board member Stuart Wolk, who asked me if I was planning a column on the game. “Only if the Colonels get that playoff victory,” I told him.

As soon as Lockhart crossed the goal line to give the Colonels a 14-11 lead, Stuart turned to me in the bleachers and bellowed, “Start writing, start writing!”

Stuart must have had a clue. But I-of-little-faith did not — unlike Mike Bolin and his band of Colonels. Call it . . . faith restored.

A salute to vets

Posted: Nov. 11, 2009

I could not help but notice that the stars aligned just right for a Veterans Day column.

It doesn’t happen often, so I decided to seize the opportunity for a little reflection. I’m approaching my 700th Valley Pike — this is No. 689, to be exact — and, while a goodly number have been devoted to Winchester life in the 20th century and to local athletes and coaches, I’ve written a bunch about our men and women in uniform.

There’s a reason for this. There are few higher callings in life than to follow the flag into battle, to defend what it’s near and dear to us — namely our land and our freedom. And there’s no greater honor, in my book, than to be decorated for bravery in such pursuits.

I am not a veteran, but I’ve often wondered how I would deport myself in combat, whether I would live up to the high standards set by our fighting men down through the ages. I guess I’ll never know, but that has hardly kept me from expressing thanks to those who have done the fighting so that I may rest comfortably in my bed at night.

So that’s the reason I write about veterans every chance I get — whether those of long ago (whose heroism I can only research) or those of more recent vintage with whom (or with whose families) I can actually speak.

Winchester and its environs boast a proud military tradition, dating back to our “first frontier” days when men like Daniel Morgan, one of my earliest childhood heroes, strode our “forest primeval” like colossi.

And Joseph Bowman, too. The young militia captain reared at Harmony Hall along Cedar Creek fought in one of my favorite campaigns, Gen. George Rogers Clark’s conquest of the Northwest Territory during the Revolution.

Moving to the Civil War, I don’t know about you, but I consider the men who followed the standard of the Southern Confederacy to be genuine American veterans. You may disagree, but in my myriad forays down Valley Pike, I have tried to treat “Southrons” and Northerners with equanimity.

Thus, the valiant efforts of Confederate officers Stephen Ramseur (who fell at Cedar Creek mere hours after learning of the birth of his only child) and George Patton (the grandfather of “Ol’ Blood and Guts” who died here in town shortly after Third Winchester) are hailed in this space no less than, say, the courageous stand taken at Second Kernstown by the Union’s James Mulligan, the lawyer/bon vivant who organized Chicago’s “Irish Brigade.”

Two local heroes highlight what little I’ve written about the First World War. Capt. Robert Y. Conrad — friend to the young future mayor of Winchester, Stewart Bell Jr. — died leading his troops near Verdun a month before the armistice. And Capt. Lloyd Williams, a tough-nut Marine from Clarke County perished as well, at Belleau Wood, but not before bellowing his immortal line: “Retreat, hell, we just got here.”

World War II has consumed most of my recent attention. In that vein, I’ve been fortunate to interview and/or write about, among others,George Craig, the future Handley principal who hit the beach at Iwo Jima; Fred Gordon of Nain, who celebrated a frigid ’44 Christmas fighting the Battle of the Bulge; Richard Purcell of Brucetown, who rolled through Europe as a combat engineer; and, finally, Shep Wohlford and Doug Orndorff, who set out together to reconnoiter German positions during the hell-fire morning of D-Day. Wohlford never returned.

And a most gratifying experience along the Pike was the small part I played aiding Jim and Betty Carroll in their quest for belated news of Jim’s brother, Garland Ray Carroll, a Korean War MIA.

You see, the men highlighted above are all heroes, at least to me. And to them, more than anyone, I wish a Happy Veterans Day — wherever they are.

Still rockin’
Posted: Nov. 5, 2009

“We would never have tried it if we were all sitting around in rocking chairs. But we could do it, we had no doubt.”

— Edwin “Boo” Snider, bass player, Mod & The Rockers

Boo Snider couldn’t believe it. Sure, he had heard the “buzz” around town that the reunion concert would draw a crowd. And he knew his city-based band, Mod & The Rockers, had a “tremendous following” back in its ’60s heyday.

Still, Boo admits he did not know what to expect when he walked into the main hall of the local Moose Lodge two Saturdays ago. What he saw blew him away.

For bass-playing Boo and his bandmates — guitarists Ricky Oates and Phil Zuckerman, keyboardist Steve Dorman, and drummer Gary McIntyre — it was like taking a huge leap back in time, back to the days when 500 rock-loving kids would cram into the War Memorial Building to dance to Mod’s eclectic play lists — classic rock, British Invasion, soul, “anything that came out of the ’60s.”

It was that way the night of Oct. 24 when those same fans — some on the far side of 60 and wearing time’s ravages on their sleeves though not in their hearts — began pleading for Mod’s rendition of the Vanilla Fudge standard, “You Keep Me Hangin’ On.”

But it was more than that, more than a simple musical reunion. It was a night of youth recaptured, or at least remembered. Boo and his buddies signed preserved covers of their only album, cut and pressed in ’67. Someone produced a Front Royal teen dance poster for them to autograph. Forty “Mod” T-shirts, made especially for the occasion, sold out in a flash.

“Someone said it was ‘something else — and it sure was,” Boo told me in a purely serendipitous interview the following Monday.

And with the sweet immediate memory of it all still enveloping him like a warm caress, Boo received a Sunday call from one of his oldest friends — and onetime garage-bandmate — Bill Hall.

“He was almost crying,” Boo said. “He said we nailed it, just nailed it.”

Like many groups of that era, Mod & The Rockers evolved from an earlier band — in this case, a bunch of Handley and James Woods guys who liked to rock and called themselves “Boo and the Whoos.”

Hall was in that band. He played tambourine, as did Bill Myers, now one of the managers at Kern Toyota-Scion. Pete Clowe, son of the late Winchester mayor “Miff, also played, along with (at one time or another) harmonica stylist Charlie Kline, who passed away last year, and drummer Mark Bittner.

And, of course, there was the core who later formed the nucleus of “Mod” — Boo, Oates, Dorman, and McIntyre.

“Everyone got interested in bands when The Beatles came out,” Boo said. “The British Invasion kickstarted the whole boom.”

To be sure, “Boo” and “Mod” were not the only bands to surface in that seminal time. Popular as well in ’60s Winchester were Brutus & the Roamins (led by Hugh Brent), Sandy & The Satins, and The Princetons.

Boo clearly remembers his first gig, playing for a basement party on New Year’s Eve 1964. The rest is history. The day after high-school graduation in 1966, Boo, with Dorman in tow, drove to New York City to retain the services of an agent. In due time, “Mod” was performing at venues and colleges — U.Va., Virginia Tech, Penn State, and Hampden-Sydney (where they were known as “our band”) — all over the East Coast.

Boo, now retired after 28 years with the DMV, still recalls Clowe’s words to live by: “If you play bass guitar, you’ll never be without a band.”

On a recent nostalgia-dripped Saturday night at the Moose, those words rang ever so true.

‘Pioneer’ Hornets

Posted: Oct 28, 2009

Last Friday, I attended the Shenandoah University Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the behest of my buddy Bobby Orndorff. I truly didn’t know what I was in for.

I’ve only gotten to know Bobby well in the past year, or ever since I had the privilege of interviewing him and his sister, Kathy Manuel, for a World War II story on their dad, Douglas, who stormed the beaches of Normandy.

So when he asked me if I’d be his guest at his induction Friday, I was only too happy to oblige. I figured it would be something akin to the annual Hall of Fame ceremony at James Wood. I could see Bobby ushered into the SU Hall and still catch a goodly portion of the James Wood-Millbrook football game later that evening. Silly me.

Little did I realize that this was an “event,” complete with dinner. You never have to ask a newspaperman twice about food. The mere suggestion of a buffet line is akin to offering a flame to a moth.

Even more to the point, little did I know the evening would take on the trappings of “old home week.”

For, you see, unbeknownst to me (and this was information I should have known), in addition to Bobby, two friends of somewhat longer standing — Susan Short of Salem (late of Winchester) and Murrell Bolliger of Fox Drive — were to be inducted as well.

I quickly surmised this had Valley Pike written all over it — and a theme promptly presented itself. Each friend in this trio was, in his or her own way, an SU pioneer.

The same could be said of the 1963 golf team, which claimed the school first’s national athletic recognition with a third-place showing at that year’s NJCAA tournament. And so, too, of the night’s final inductee, Deanna Estes, Class of 1998, the Hornets’ first women’s lacrosse star in addition to being a three-time All-Dixie Conference selection in basketball.

To get back to my friends, Bobby was a standout quarterback at James Wood and a local baseball pitcher of sufficient renown to have his mound exploits feted in Sports Illustrated’s Faces in the Crowd.

When Coach Rec Brown was making SU’s first go at the gridiron in the mid-’60s, he talked to future legend Walter Barr, then an assistant to Jim Casey at James Wood, about prospects — particularly Bobby, who could run and throw with equal proficiency.

Bobby signed on and, with him at the helm, the gutsy SU fledglings managed to win three games in 1965, their first year of competition. He quarterbacked the Hornets a second year and, in 1967, earned team MVP honors in baseball before transferring to Concord College in Athens, W.Va.

Murrell, an early-’50s prep star in his hometown of Grafton, W.Va., came to Shenandoah virtually on a whim. Certain he did not want the railroad job held out by his father, Murrell beat his way to Dayton, where the college was then located, and presented himself at the door of school president Forrest Racey — in June long before the start of the next semester.

Working through school on an impromptu work-study program devised by Racey, Murrell excelled in hoops, many games scoring in excess of 40 points. He later took his skills to WVU, where he played with Jerry West. He is now a local artist of some repute.

Susan, an old refereeing buddy of mine, came to Winchester in 1977 to attend the conservatory and play the flute. She left as the first SU woman to amass 1,000 points on the basketball court. She also played four years of softball.

When Susan, a middle child sandwiched between two sports-loving brothers, arrived at Shenandoah, the school did not recruit women hoopsters, but simply selected a squad from among the student body. So she, like Bobby in football and the high-scoring Murrell also on the hardwood, blazed a trail for future Hornets to follow.

“Pioneers, O pioneers.”

Horse-race tout(not)

Posted: Oct.21, 2009

CHARLES TOWN, W.Va. — My father, God rest his soul, talked often of his “misspent youth” — proof positive of which, he said, were his reputation as a pool shark and an ability to handicap horses.

Alas, Dad never passed any of these, ahem, skills on to his only son. I’ve never been much of a pool player, to which my buddy, Handley High metal-working teacher Steve Robeson, can attest. Steve shoots a pretty mean game. I’m simply cannon fodder whenever we get together in the basement of his Clarke County home.

As for the horses, let’s just say that, until this summer, I had been to the track — any track — but one time. Granted, that was a biggie, the ’85 Kentucky Derby, but despite a penchant for the ponies that runs deep in O’Connor blood, I just didn’t know my way ’round a racing form or to the parimutuel window.

This summer changed that, somewhat. I’ve been to Charles Town three times now — the last being Saturday night for the West Virginia Breeders Classic — largely through the courtesy of Dickie Moore, who runs the racing operations there, and Rudy Telek, a friend of some years who owned and trained horses.

Unbeknownst to him, Rudy serves as Yoda to my latent but now blossoming interest in the “sport of kings.” Dad, from his ethereal perch, must be smiling.

In any case, Saturday night was a hoot, largely because my wife and mother-in-law accompanied me to the track and to all the hoopla surrounding the Breeders Classic.

We had been to a family wedding in Maryland and, when we arrived in Charles Town, I realized — no surprise — that I had little money for betting purposes. The dark-haired moll — as opposed to the gray-haired one, my mother-in-law — who runs with me ponied up a couple of tenspots, but quickly reminded me that failure to reproduce them at evening’s end would result in an accident. She’d break both my legs. This neophyte better was clearly on the spot.

Fortunately, instinct told me that, in all things Breeders Classic, bet on most any horse owned or trained by a certain James W. Casey. I would have done so anyway. Pulling for former James Wood athletic director Jimmy Casey is like cheering for the home team. And when one of his horses is appropriately named “Colonel JW,” well, you get my drift.

The Colonel cruised to victory in the third race. I put a five down on him, collected $12 for my perspicacity, and quietly slipped the Hamilton portion of my winnings to the dark-haired one. Now at least one of my legs was safe.

My two female companions left after the fifth race — we had two cars — but I hung around, as I had more work to do.

After just missing another winner, by a head, in the sixth race — on a non-Casey entry named Darth Tater — I tested my new-found betting boldness by going for a Daily Double in the twin $500,000 features immediately following. The team of Casey, as trainer, and owner Mark Russell had a horse in each race — Natures Annuity, a long-ish shot in the seventh, and the spectacular Russell Road, the favorite in the eighth, the 23rd running of the Breeders Classic.

But Russell Road, for all his talent, presented a bit of a dilemma. Unlike other horses in the field, he had never run distance, in this case a mile-and-an-eighth. But, as I noticed in the racing form — I was learning — he had won twice on off-tracks. And Saturday’s track, a goopy mess, was about as “off” as they come. So I put down a five on Russell Road and another deuce on a 1-3 Exacta (Russell Road and a comer named Peaceful Bliss).

Long story short: Natures Annuity lost in a photo finish, but Russell Road exploded off the far turn and splashed to victory, with Peaceful Bliss closing for second. My “home team” won, and I collected the princely sum of $14.80.

And got to keep my legs.

Hall of Fame memories

Posted: October 14, 2009

BERRYVILLE — High-school memories have been my stock-in-trade these past few weeks, what with Handley High re-dedicating both the renovated school building and the lush new Handley Bowl on successive Saturdays.

These events offered Handley grads the opportunity to look back at their days “on the Hill” and in the “Bowl.” We at The Star certainly hope you enjoyed our special section on the sports complex as well as our “wrap-arounds” on the restored school. I, for one, appreciated the chance to plumb the depths of Handley memories.

But, right smack in the middle of all that, I was invited to attend the Clarke County Athletic Hall of Fame’s luncheon, cobbled together by Charlie Ramsburg and Steve Denney. The theme was the ’50s, and three Hall of Famers — Ken Stickley, Donny Royston, and Coach Don Maphis — spoke of athletic life and times in that era.

Charlie’s essential question to the trio was: “How did athletics affect your life?” The three men, each in his own way, had ready answers, but, as expected, the tell-tale stories that dotted their little talks were what galvanized the attendees’ attention — and mine.

Still, what Donny had to say about the influence of sports on his life truly hit home, first humorously from a teen’s vantage point and then from a philosophical perspective, thoughtfully assumed more than a half-century removed from those bright Friday lights.

“I didn’t think about it much when I was playing,” said Donny, a 1955 grad and Clarke County High School gridiron standout.

“I was just having fun, getting away from milking cows and handling a pitchfork. Daddy said, ‘You can play ball, but you still have your work to do.’ We had 40 cows.”

Then he turned serious: “It matured me, taught me responsibility and about how my actions affected others . . . I understand now that the individual really isn’t important, but rather what you do collectively as a team. If your team lost, what did it matter what you did?”

Neither Donny nor Ken played for Coach Maphis, who came to CCHS in 1957. But both did come under the influence of the man he replaced, the late Doug Cochran.

“He had a tremendous impact on all of us,” Donny said.

That would be an understatement, as Cochran, who coached three sports, probably spent as much — or nearly as much — time with Clarke kids during their teen years as did their own parents.

Ken, who played on the last six-man football team at the old Boyce High in 1948, participated in no less than five sports at CCHS.

“I didn’t like to study much,” he said. Still, after playing football for Emory & Henry, he coached at Blacksburg High for 10 years and eventually became a high-school principal. Hence, he must have hit the books sometime.

In addition to starring on the gridiron, Donny had the special, ahem, privilege of being Walter Barr’s catcher during baseball season. To say the future gridiron coaching great had a penchant for wildness — what strong-armed southpaw doesn’t? — is perhaps an understatement.

“I caught Walter because no one else would try,” Donny said. “You had to be a gymnast. He threw so hard. I’d tell the batter, ‘Better not stand there, he’ll hit you.’ And he’d hit ’em.”

But Donny was behind the plate, catching his buddy, on one of the more memorable afternoons in CCHS history, when Barr tossed back-to-back no-hitters in a doubleheader against Warren County.

“Coach Cochran asked, ‘How’s he doing?’ before the second game,” Donny said. “I said, ‘I think he’s pretty good — now.”

Pretty good? How about “awesome,” the word Coach Maphis employed to describe his tenure in Berryville?

“I’ve never been in a community like it,” he said, duly punctuating the afternoon’s delights.

Another ‘ring’ story— but with a twist

Posted: October 7, 2009

Simply put, I love writing “ring” stories. You know the type: Person loses cherished band and figures it’s lost forever until one day — voila! — it returns, often via odd and intriguing circumstances.

I enjoy telling these tales because the reader is assured of a happy ending. In other words: no happy ending, no story.

That said, if I mention “lost rings” and “Leesa Mayfield” in the same sentence, I’ve already pretty much tipped my hand. But, as with most “ring” stories, how Leesa, an architect with Carter + Burton in Berryville, came to have such a smile on her face recently is what renders this tale so riveting.

It all started in July of last year when Leesa and husband Tim, a Winchester attorney, went to a family reunion at Lake Monticello near Charlottesville. Prior to going for a swim, she applied sun-screen and, as is her wont, took off her rings — a platinum wedding band and diamond engagement ring — to do so. While in the lake, she realized the rings were gone.

No biggie, Leesa thought, she had simply laid them down on a beach chair. But when she and Tim got back to their belongings, the rings were nowhere to be found.

“I was getting more and more upset, as you can imagine,” Leesa says. But an extended search, which included the use of a metal detector belonging to “a friend of a friend,” yielded nothing.

Though Tim, a stoic sort, remained calm — “He’s such a rock,” she says — Leesa, by her own admission, was “hysterical.” But then, who wouldn’t be?

After a few hours of retracing steps and combing the area, the Mayfields gave up. During a vacation trip to Crete a few months later, they bought a “simple band, sufficiently tight,” for Leesa’s ring finger. And their lives moved on . . .

Until this past Aug. 18, eight days after their seventh anniversary, when Leesa received “a cryptic message from a police officer.”

The caller, who identified himself as Sgt. David Jones, addressed Leesa by her full name — Leesa Jean Mayfield — and asked if she had, in the last seven years, spent any time at Lake Monticello.

Intrigued, Leesa returned the call, and Jones, an officer with the Charlottesville PD, asked if she had “lost anything.” She said yes, and he probed further, requesting the inscription inside the wedding band and a description of her diamond. He had both rings.

How he found them is what gives this tale its special twist. A long-time hobbyist specializing in underwater metal detection, Jones decided, on a whim, to go to Lake Monticello, not one of his accustomed hunting haunts. That day, he found eight rings — including Leesa’s two, in five feet of water.

Jones then employed his police acumen to find Leesa. Using the inscription — “TMM & LJN, 8-10-2002” — as a starting point, he searched Virginia state records for all weddings held on that date. Leesa and Tim were the only couple whose initials matched up.

Jones tracked Leesa down through her parents, who reside at Lake Monticello, and then rang her up with that “cryptic message.”

As fate and chance would have it — again — Jones was slated to be in Winchester soon thereafter on police business. And so, with the rings tucked safely in a box his wife used to store her rings, Jones met Leesa on the corner of Piccadilly and Cameron and returned treasures deemed “long-gone.”

“He was so humble about it,” Leesa says. “He wouldn’t take any reward. All he said he wanted to see was the grin on my face, which he saw plenty of.”

Today, the rings reside where they should, snugly secured by that replacement band until Leesa can get them properly resized.

“What are the chances of all these chance occurrences coming together like this?” she asks, still clearly amazed at her good fortune. “It was meant to happen, I guess, but it’s still sort of crazy.”

The long way home

Posted: Sept. 30, 2009

“Dreams and goals and belief in yourself gets you further in life than someone who’s just worked hard.”

And, in doing so, the man known as “Mr. Clutch” came to uneasy and, at times, bittersweet terms with the community that bore him and gave him a foundational launchpad to future success. More than 50 years in the making, it was a long way home.

But West has long been a hero, albeit in exile, in East Bank High circles after leading the Pioneers to the West Virginia state championship in 1956. The town was re-named “West Bank” for a day when the team returned home from defeating Morgantown, 71-56, in the title game.

As any sports fan can relate, a storybook career followed, first at WVU, then in Rome with the 1960 gold-medal Olympic team, and finally with the Los Angeles Lakers. And East Bank, for many years, was the place he came from, never a destination. Until Saturday, when all that time, for three or four hours at least, was suddenly swept away.

West is spending a lot of time in his home state these days, 100 miles or so to the east in Greenbrier County. So when the East Bank High alumni association asked — yet again, as I learned — if he would accept its Alumnus of the Year award, he agreed.

My wife, as you may know, is also an East Bank alum. We seldom miss one of these reunions — and this year, I figured, would be no exception, not with West coming to the annual gala at the Charleston Civic Center. But Toni, obligated to an event in Winchester — a benefit concert for the Laurel Center — could not make the trip. So I went alone, to her high-school reunion.

And was I glad I did, for through the intervention of Toni’s matron of honor, Janet Taylor, and her brother-in-law Gifford Basham, a long-ago teammate of West’s, I was granted an interview with the Hall of Famer and living legend. An interview which, in conjunction with his acceptance speech, afforded me a rare glimpse into the personality of a complicated man.

Now in his early seventies, West has had ample time to reflect on his life and, more importantly, on East Bank’s formative role in it. “These are my roots,” he told me, “but my dreams and goals were different.”

He was, he related, a painfully shy youngster, given to talking to himself on long walks in the West Virginia hills around his home. Basketball became his passion. not only because he could run and jump, but because it was a game he could play, if need be, by himself.

“You are your own best friend,” he said. And many days, at a backyard goal tucked in the shadow of the Chelyan Bridge, that “friend” kept West company as he honed the skills that would make the lights dim in arenas all across the country and, eventually, in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

What drove him as much as anything, I learned, was a slight uttered by a neighbor couple who said, within his earshot, “There goes that West boy. He’ll never amount to a damn.”

Well, “solitary person” or not, he would show them. He had “dreams,” after all, and a vehicle to achieve them — his everlasting “love for the dimpled brown ball.”

So that, in a sense, was East Bank’s backhanded bequest to Jerry West. It gave him drive, a reason and a desire to excel. And one winter’s day in 1956, he returned the favor with a state championship.

“I learned how to dream there,” he told me as I wrapped up my interview. “And mine came true.”

“West Bank,” indeed.

Two guys talkin’ (Handley) sports

Posted: Sept. 23, 2009

October figures to be a busy, busy month at The Star, what with a new National Guard set for dedication and the annual public service awards dinner put on by Shenandoah’s institute for government and public policy.

But even these doings pale somewhat in comparison to what’s going on at Handley — that is, respective dedications of the renovated school building, the Handley Bowl, and the soon-to-be-christened Patsy Cline Theater.

Come the second weekend next month, The Star will publish a special section devoted to the “new” Handley Bowl. My task: write a feature on the “great moments” in the history of that storied expanse.

I’ve been busy this past week e-mailing and interviewing folks who could lend reminiscence and perspective to such an endeavor. Naturally, this prompted me to give a shout to former state Sen. (and former Star sports editor) Russ Potts, who possesses near-total recall of most all things “Bowl”-related.

Now, as The Star’s opinion writer, my relations with Russ have, at times, been strained. Chalk that up to the nature of politics — and to the man’s inherent feistiness.

But, for the better part of an hour Monday afternoon, it was just two guys — or, really, two old pressies — talkin’ sports. I had forgotten the pure pleasure of chatting with Russ about something so near and dear to our hearts, namely high-school athletics.

Of course, all I had to say was: “Great moments in Handley Bowl history, you’re on.” And Russ took off. I quickly realized that such an invitation to conversation is akin to Forrest Gump’s observation on life being like “a box of chocolates” — you never know what you’re gonna get.” In this case, tasty little sidebars to the “Bowl memories” that probably would not find their way into print in the special section.

With Russ, thoughts trip along like the water of a mountain creek after a spring rain, gushing toward an obvious destination yet taking no direct path. And so a discussion of Handley opponents during the ’50s suddenly veered into a question: What football team from these parts boasted the most Division I recruits within its ranks?

The answer, as I soon learned, was the ’56 Warren County squad that sent John Marlow and Jimmy Fox to Virginia, Dwayne Fletcher and “Cowboy” Henry to Maryland, and Gene Kendall to Duke.

In due time, this Wildcat contingent would be compared to the team Russ called Handley’s “greatest,” the 1967 edition that featured quarterback Doug Toan, ends David Dixon (older brother of veteran Judges basketball coach Tommy), and Don Ratliff, and linemen Rocky Yost and Keith Kaval.

“And remember,” Russ said, “Monte Hinkle was only a sophomore on this team.”

Ah, the multi-talented Monte, who, as a senior in ’69, was a one-man gang in Handley’s 32-0 conquest of James Wood — scoring three touchdowns, swiping two passes, falling on two fumbles, and, for good measure, booting a field goal.

“He was All-World that day,” Russ said, which led to this rather oblique query on my part: “The Hinkles, Monte or Dennis?”

Russ knew immediately what I was getting at, and, scarcely blinking an eye, said, “Dennis, without a doubt. And you can call Monte down in Texas and he’d say the same thing.”

Five years or so Monte’s senior, Dennis was that rare combination — an athlete strong enough to excel in the shot and discus and fast enough to run a sprint relay leg. And, on the gridiron, he was 220 pounds of pure two-way terror.

But, unlike Monte, who started for three years at Maryland, Dennis chose the workaday world upon leaving Handley. Still, Russ remains convinced that, given a different mindset and circumstances, Dennis could have played for pay on Sundays . . . in the NFL.

Who’s to argue?

Touchstones

Posted Sept. 9

Dec. 7 — Pearl Harbor for most Americans, but for me, it was my first day on the job at The Star.

The year was 1992, and now, fast approaching two decades removed, I can still remember so much about that day — from what I was wearing (a gray, pin-striped suit) to where I stopped for breakfast and what I ate (the “old” McDonald’s near Handley, hotcakes and sausage) to what time I arrived at the newspaper (7:30 a.m.).

But my most enduring memory, perhaps, was where I went for lunch that day. Or, rather, where the ladies from down the hall — writers Terrie Mahoney, Terri Higgins, Susan Abramson, and Marcia Langhenry, and news secretary Priscilla Lehman — took me.

Swirls on the Old Town Mall.

Little did I know, but that gray December day would signal the start of a trend. Well, more like a fixation or, perhaps more accurately, an ongoing love affair — sometimes tempestuous, never boring, and forever constant — with a modest little eatery and the two women who threw open its doors every morning to folks like me.

I could descend into the maudlin and the mundane here, and remark that Swirls had that “Cheers”-like atmosphere — y’know, where “everybody knows your name.” I’ll resist that urge.

Suffice it to say though, it became, simply, my place — a haven, a sanctuary, a refuge, a haunt, a home-away-from-home. And I was hardly alone in this feeling.

From its space for 14 — expanded to, say, 25 once outdoor seating was implemented — I found kindred spirits, people drawn to this place in the heart as I was. They became more than mere acquaintances, but close friends, occasional news sources, even a few groomsmen in my wedding.

At the center of it all were the two women — Lynn, the mom who dished out more than top-drawer soups and sandwiches but also the latest news around the mall and the town; Judy, the daughter who never forgot a name, a birthday, or your culinary likes and dislikes. They are the reason why, after many fleeting references to Swirls in this space, I am finally devoting a column to lives spent making palates and people happy. Maybe I should not have waited so long.

For, you see, over the last five months, as many of you already know, we’ve lost them both — Lynn, first, to retirement back in the spring, Judy to an untimely death in July. And then, this past Saturday, Lynn passed as well.

I take solace in the fact that these two women, touchstones both, knew how much I appreciated them. God knows how they “spoiled” me and many other longtime patrons. But it went further than that, as Lynn would often give me wake-up calls from the restaurant back in my bachelor days. And Judy served as my fellow “bookie” during March Madness when our Star office pool spread to the mall. And together, back in December, they prepared a succulent birthday feast — lobster stuffed with seafood and Caesar salad — for my wife and charged me nothing but the cost of the ingredients.

They were more than two ladies behind a counter. They were friends of years, friends of tears, folks on whom you could depend. And I was just one of many on whom they lavished attention.

In other words, they are worth remembering and, toward that end, one of their closest friends, Christopher Morrison, former owner of Bangz Salon, has started a blog site — swirlsturn.blogspot.com — to which people can send their favorite stories of Lynn, Judy, and their beloved beanery. Stories he hopes to compile one day into some sort of memory book.

So, write Chris soon and, while you’re at it, don’t forget that Swirls still lives. New owners Stephen and Keveney Furst want nothing more than a chance to keep old traditions alive and, at the same time, create new memories of their own. And keep the “Swirls turning.”

Howard Allen’s
home movies

Posted Sept. 9

A few weeks back, one of my treasured Valley Pike sources, Howard Allen of Middleburg, who grew up on Clifford Street in Winchester, stopped by bearing gifts. Well, one gift, really.

And what a gem it was — proof positive that Hollywood did once come to our fair city, to film a short flick titled “Winchester’s Heroes.”

Nearly three years ago, I had written a column about this one-reeler that featured local folk, most notably longtime city physician Dr. E.C. Stuart Sr. But save for the trusty memories of Howard and my Sacred Heart ushering buddy, Charlie Lillis, there was no tangible evidence that the little film was even made. Until now.

Howard’s gift, you see, was a DVD of Allen family home movies — grainy 16-millimeter images largely taken, circa 1929-30, by Howard’s mom, Dorothy Gilpin Allen, renowned as the first woman ever to sit on City Council.

There, amidst myriad sequences of her three sons — Howard and younger brothers Lewis and Douglas — at play was a historical treasure: Mrs. Allen’s “movie about a movie.”

The footage is only a few minutes long, but it confirms all of Howard and Charlie’s memories from roughly 80 years ago. Much as Howard told me in December 2006, Doc Stuart is clearly delineated as the “hero,” emerging from the smoke of a traffic accident, staged at the corner of Loudoun and Piccadilly streets, with an automobile tire around his neck.

Howard particularly wanted me to see this bit of local history, and suggested that I look past his mom’s cinematography of family life. I knew this would be impossible, as the amateur historian in me would be unable to resist taking a giant step back in time, to Winchester — and small-town American life — as it once was.

And, just as I figured, this footage, even that portion over-exposed, proved irresistible. How often do you see the ’20s and ‘30s as they truly were, captured on film?

For years, I had only the childhood reminiscences of my dad, 10 years older than Howard, as an entry point to an era. Through Mrs. Allen’s film-making, his memories of a day and time — and particularly of how kids chose to amuse themselves — came to life.

And so, by observing Howard and his brothers riding bikes and scooters, learning to skate, kicking a football, playing baseball, and shooting marbles, I could envision my dad immersed in the same simple — and simply wonderful — pursuits. Call it spontaneous play, but, back then, even trying to balance a long stick in the palm of one hand was fun.

Of course, I also caught more than a glimpse of what Winchester was like when Model-Ts chugged up and down Clifford Street — a backdrop to the Allen brothers and their friends (Harry and Phyllis Fowle, Bill Gaylord, Edwin Harlow, Brad Beverley, Levan and Warren Stultz, and Bill Wall) at play. And when sledding on Shiner’s Hill was a cherished wintertime endeavor.

To be sure, the Allen family as a whole came alive as well. For instance, I had always heard that Howard’s dad, Dr. Lewis Allen, for years had led the Grand Feature Parade during Apple Blossom, resplendent astride his horse and dressed in his World War I uniform. And there on film he was, in this instance atop Marcel out in front of the annual Confederate Memorial Day parade on June 6.

But some traditions, I learned, remain unaltered — and wonderfully so. For there in black and white were Howard and his brothers, flowers in hand, marching to Judge John Handley’s grave on the last day of school.

Nowadays, city schoolchildren perform this ritual a bit earlier in the spring, but the beaming faces now mirror the beaming faces then. In some ways, the more things change (in Winchester), the more they stay the same.

‘Miracle’ man

posted Sept. 2, 2009

STEPHENS CITY — A framed photograph occupies a place of honor in the living room of Sybil Pitt’s Wakeland Manor home.

It’s a close-up of a man in a naval uniform and hat, sipping from a cup. Tea, perhaps, or maybe cocoa with a bit of “sweetener” added.

The man’s eyes — steely yet somewhat tired, averted from the warming cup, toward a distant shore perhaps — suggest the evocative photo was not snapped in a serene moment. And it was not.

The man pictured is Sybil’s father, David Tawse, a commercial fisherman by trade but skipper of a Royal Navy minesweeper for the entire duration of World War II.

The photo — a classic depiction of British resolve during England’s darkest hour — was taken, Sybil says, in June 1940 immediately after her dad had completed no less than seven runs across the Straits of Dover as part of his nation’s all-hands-on-deck effort to evacuate, under fire, 338,000 Allied troops stranded along the French coast.

Like so many seafaring Englishmen, David Tawse, wearied but unbending, played a small but critical role in what is still referred to as “the miracle of Dunkirk.” Over a nine-day span (May 26-June 4), a flotilla of “little ships” — everything from fishing smacks to ferries — rescued an army.

Sybil was but a child of 7 when England called her dad, a 40-year-old father of six and a minesweeping veteran of the First World War, back into service in June 1939. His first job as skipper? Laying minefields around the British coast.

A year later, Sybil and her family, from their home in North Shields along the mouth of the River Tyne on England’s northeastern coast, knew nothing of the heroic “goings-on” nearly 300 miles to the south — that is, until it was over.

One day that June, Sybil was taking her little sister to a park near their home when a “telegraph boy” passed on his bike, eventually stopping at Mrs. Rigby’s house two doors down. And then he stopped again — at her house.

Sybil’s mom, fearing the contents, would not open the telegram. And then she and Mrs. Rigby commenced arguing about it. In due time, the telegram was torn open. The four-word message from Capt. Tawse: “All safe and well.”

Sybil’s dad never spoke much about the Dunkirk experience, at least not to his children. He did tell his wife that he made the trip across the straits seven times, once picking up “a couple of German airmen who had been shot down.”

Before his discharge in 1946, he also swept the harbors of Alexandria, Egypt, and the Greek port of Piraeus for mines.

War did eventually come to England’s north country, particularly after the Nazis had seized Norway. North Shields and the Tyne ports felt the wrath of German bombs, and Sybil remembers spending “quite a few nights in the air-raid shelter.”

Her oldest brother went off to war, serving in North Africa and Italy, and she vividly recalls taking great delight in mimicking, along with her friends, Winston Churchill’s famed words of defiance, “We shall fight on the beaches . . . We shall never surrender.”

In 1975, married and with two children of their own, Sybil and her husband came to the Northern Valley when he accepted an offer from Cives Steel to work for a year at its plant here in Winchester.

But, with the employment situation dire in Great Britain — Sybil was thinking of her children’s prospects — the Pitts decided to stay in Virginia. And here Sybil remains.

But in 1972, before they left England, Sybil and her family took a vacation to where her dad had contributed to a “miracle.”

“It’s amazing so many survived,” she says. “You would have thought they’d be sitting ducks.”

Thanks to David Tawse, and countless others, “they” weren’t.

From Chartwell to Dover
posted Aug. 26, 2009

We were sitting at the cafe tables in front of Canterbury’s Chaucer Hotel, my new friends and I — John Harris, a retired educator from Berryville, and Jack Lentz, a former pharmaceutical salesman from outside Pittsburgh — all of us hangers-on (for want of a better term) with the Piedmont Singers, showcasing their talents as a summer “replacement” choir at England’s greatest cathedral.

As the following day would see us touring Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s country estate, the conversation, at Jack’s instigation, turned to “great men.”

Jack said he had long considered Churchill the 20th-century’s greatest man. But now, in the wake of John Paul II’s transcendent pontificate, he wasn’t so sure.

I offered a solution, one that has worked for me as I’ve pondered similar questions — split the century in two. Give Churchill his due in the first half, and the Polish pope his in the second.

Jack — accompanying daughter Kathy, her banker/singer husband John Hudson, and their son Patrick on the trip — seemed to like the idea. And so the talk drifted deep into the warm British night.

*

Chartwell, serenly set in the Kentish hills, is the antithesis of its owner. After all, it was Churchill who said, “It is better to be making the news than taking it, to be an actor rather than a critic.”

At Chartwell, Churchill made a home in the midst of making history. His imprint is everywhere — in the swimming pool and water garden he built, in the studio where he escaped the exigencies of the day, artist’s brush he hand. The house was his refuge.

And yet, its rooms also brim with the energy of Churchill’s restless and active mind, and the significance of world-altering events. In the library, you can almost feel the great man’s presence, surrounded by books as he works on one of his own. In the study, you can almost see Churchill pacing to and from his lectern, fashioning a speech or lecture.

In September 1939, mere hours after the outbreak of the Second World War, Churchill left Chartwell for London, as the newly appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. By the following May, he was Prime Minister, as England entered her darkest hour.

*

Our travels later that week would, coincidentally, take us to Dover Castle, where Churchill’s England faced its first test under his inspired leadership — how to evacuate nearly 400,000 British and French soldiers trapped on the beaches of Dunkirk.

A walk through Dover’s marvelously maintained “secret wartime tunnels,” built into the fabled “White Cliffs,” showed us the guts of a rescue operation orchestrated underground by Vice-Admiral Bertram Ramsay in the latter days of May 1940.

To many of us the story was already well-known, how scores of vessels — from Royal Navy ships to the most humble of fishing smacks, lifeboats, trawlers, and ferries — crossed the Straits of Dover to take the men home.

Initially, Ramsay thought but 45,000 of the men stranded on the shores of France could be rescued. By operation’s end, his ”little-ship” flotilla had ferried 338,000 across the Channel to safety.

Later it was written by the one of the participants that “it is given to few men to command a miracle. It was so given to Bertram Home Ramsay, and the frail iron balcony that juts from the embrasure of the old casemate in the Dover cliff was the quarter-deck from which he commanded one of the great campaigns in the sea story of Britain.”

So lucky was I to walk the tunnels that Ramsay walked, and stand beneath that same “quarter-deck.” And I learned that some men, like Churchill, have greatness written all over them — and some, like Ramsay, have greatness unwittingly thrust upon them.

Rediscovering history

posted August 19, 2009

Back in my collegiate days at Randolph-Macon, I took two semesters of English history. It was, as you might expect, a “survey” course. So, by dint of necessity, my professor raced through the centuries and hit only what he deemed were the highlights.

Earlier this month, courtesy of my wife and the rest of the Piedmont Singers who sang for a week as a “replacement” summertime choir at Canterbury Cathedral, I engaged in some advanced British studies. Some things my prof had mentioned only in passing many years ago, I discovered anew and experienced in depth.

So in what, precisely, did I immerse myself? My journey started — no surprise here — at . . .

Canterbury Cathedral — American history dates back a “mere” 400 years. The Anglican sanctuary in Canterbury sits atop the site of England’s first church, established by St. Augustine at the turn of the 7th century.

The core of the current cathedral was built in 1070, shortly after the Norman conquest. What we saw just weeks ago was largely what pilgrims to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket witnessed following the cathedral’s final expansion in 1498.

’Tis small wonder then that those latter-day pilgrims — singers from the United States — experienced awe at the prospect of filling the towering Gothic expanses with sacred music. I felt it, too, but never more so than when hearing anew the horrific tale of . . .

Murder in the Cathedral — Again, I knew the basics of the Becket story, how he died at the hands of the king’s knights. But I had forgotten that St. Thomas was once a king’s man himself, a bosom buddy of Henry II, who made him his chancellor and then archbishop of Canterbury — the latter without benefit of Holy Orders.

But duly ordained and then consecrated a bishop the following day, Becket, in time, became a true servant of the church and defender of the faith. As such, he butted heads with Henry, who, irked at the behavior of his old friend, supposedly uttered, “Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?”

Four knights took the king at his word and, in the deepening twilight of Dec. 29, 1170, found Thomas in the cathedral and killed him. Every day in Canterbury, save one, I made sure I stood, for at least a moment, at the very spot where Becket fell, martyred for the faith.

Battle of Hastings — For students of history, this climactic clash on a hill a few miles from the English Channel evokes little more than recitation of a date (1066) and two names (Harold and William). But walking the battlefield, remarkably unscarred after 950 years, provides keen insight — and historical sinew and context — to the transactions of Oct. 14, 1066.

As with so many battles, the outcome hinged on a decisive moment, a critical mistake. William of Normandy, later “the Conqueror,” had the better army; Harold, king of the Saxons, the stronger position atop a hill — and the advantage of defending his home turf.

For a spell, it appeared as if a good defense would prevail against a superior offense — until William feigned a withdrawal, hoping the Saxons would pursue him. They did, and the tide turned almost instantly. The rout was on, and English history changed forever.

Leeds Castle — Leeds is justifiably known as England’s “most beautiful castle,” and, with its sprawling lawns, lush gardens, and fascinating aviary, the well-preserved keep did not disappoint.

But what really caught my eye was a portrait, a familiar face. Leeds, you see, is the ancestral home of the Culpeper and Fairfax families. Our own Thomas, Lord Fairfax, proprietor of the Northern Neck, left the castle in 1747 to come to Virginia, to the Valley, and, eventually, to Winchester.

Next week: Churchill at Chartwell, Dover Castle, and the miracle of Dunkirk.

The Pike Across the Pond
Posted Aug. 17, 2009

Hey folks, I'm back -- back from a most enlightening and educational trip "across the pond," as they say.

I'm using this vacation to England as a vehicle to start something wholly new and different -- a Valley Pike blog. Truth be told, I never thought this particular medium would suit me, as, for nearly 30 years now, I've been a traditional words-on-paper journalist. Or, in other words, not a stream-of-conscious sort of writer eager to tap thoughts out off the top of my head.

But, in the interest of change -- and old dogs seeking new tricks -- I've concluded that Valley Pike is, more than anything at times, a conversation between me as columnist and whatever loyal readers I may have. In other words, certain questions and observations pertinent to the column seem to pop up that might best be addressed in "blog" form.

What's more, there's a great deal I wish to convey about the England trip that, perhaps, could best be done in this format. And so, with somewhat bated breath, I launch this new endeavor.

First off, I made this journey as both spectator and tourist. My wife Toni, you see, is a member of the Piedmont Singers, a 33-member choral group that scored a most illustrious one-week gig -- as one of the "replacement" choirs for the regular choir (currently on vacation) at Christ Cathedral in Canterbury.

The Piedmont Singers, who hail from all over the map of Northern Virginia, are directed by Wendy Oesterling of Winchester, who also oversees the choir at the Episcopal church in Middleburg.

Over eight days in Canterbury, the Piedmont ensemble sang at daily Evensong services as well as the main Eucharistic service on Sunday. For Toni -- as well as the others, I dare say -- getting the chance to sing at one of the world's more notable cathedrals was a distinct thrill. And, for me, the opportunity to walk in the footsteps of one of my favorite Catholic saints, Thomas á Becket, was equally thrilling.

I plan on devoting at least one, and probably two, columns to the historical highlights of this trip. By virtue of side ventures and tours taken over the week, we managed to cover the breadth of English history, from the establishement of the first church in Canterbury through Britain's dark days in World War II. For now, let me offer a few tangential observations pertinent to the here-and-now.

Weather -- For about six weeks prior to our departure, Toni closely monitored the temperatures in Canterbury, and they were fairly uniform, rarely exceeding 70 degrees. So, wouldn't you know it, we landed in England only to be greeted by a heat wave. Temperatures regularly reached the mid-80s, with high humidity.
No problem for us Americans? Well, not really, as the old English hotel in which we stayed -- the Chaucer (fittingly for Canterbury) -- had no air conditioning. And neither did most of the buses that carried us from site to site.

Needless to say, we creatures of comfort were decidedly uncomfortable, a condition exacerbated by the Brits’ approach to . . .

Hydration -- We Americans love our drinks cold (and bottomless), with as much ice as possible. The British part with ice cubes as if that commodity were gold bullion. Singers (and their hangers-on, too) need water or other forms of liquid refreshment, lots of it -- and, while bottled water was readily available, only the lone McDonald's and Burger King outlets in Canterbury offered that perfect combination of syrup and carbonation we Americans crave, and take for granted.

Traffic -- Canterbury is a bustling city, but what a relief it was not to be encumbered by wave after wave of stop lights. Not that Canterbury was light-less, but the British move traffic along by virtue of the "roundabout," or traffic circle. Getting accustomed to them, I realize, might take some time, but I'd like to see more "roundabouts" in these parts, wherever feasible.

Downtowns -- One thing I noticed in most every town through which we passed in southeast England, whether large or small, was the absence of vacated downtown storefronts. The "sceptr'd isle" has long been known as a "nation of shopkeepers," and that distinction still seems to apply.

Yes, there were larger grocery stores — we spotted an Aldi minutes upon entering Canterbury -- but there was also no shortage of, say, independent butchers. And no shopping malls, from what I could see, and no ubiquitous tanning salons. It all made each English town, no matter how humble, lively as well as charming.

Just a few observations, if you will. I'll see y'all on Page B1 on Wednesday.

Promise Kept, Sort Of
Posted July 29, 2009

"The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep."
— Robert Frost

OK, OK, I know that late July is a fine time to be quoting a poem titled "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening."

But, as Frost penned these verses in the throes of an uncharacteristically sizzling Vermont summer, I claim a certain latitude in using them -- especially as the "lovely, dark, and deep" description came to mind Sunday evening, as I was tramping through First Woods at the Third Winchester battlefield.

What brought me to First Woods? A promise, made back in the chills of mid-November when I first walked the carefully maintained and marvelously interpreted battleground of Sept. 19, 1864.

On that cloudy and windswept afternoon, I started at the Red Bud Road side of the site, and made it as far as the fields fronting Hackwood before -- hands sufficiently frozen and darkness looming -- turning back. I vowed then that, come better weather, I would walk the full length of the five-mile trail.

An e-mail exchange with Beth Stern of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation reminded me of this pledge, and so this past Sunday I intended to fulfill it. But, as is my wont, the day slipped away from me -- and I didn't alight from my car at the Millbrook High end of the trail until 7:45 p.m. Again, approaching nightfall -- and humidity and bugs rather than wind and cold --would be my adversary.

With only the sounds of my footsteps crackling on the gravel and a lone bunny for company, I strode purposefully through First Woods toward the setting sun -- and Middle Field, where I absorbed the agony and ecstasy of Phil Sheridan's Army of the Shenandoah that fateful late-summer day.

The agony came late in the morning when Gen. Cuvier Grover's division of XIX Corps, attacking Second Woods from the west, lost touch with VI Corps, advancing to its left along Berryville Pike. Grover tried to realign, but one of his brigades, led by Gen. Henry Birge, surged forward, driving the Confederates out of Second Woods.

Excited by their success, Birge's men pressed ahead, leaving both flanks exposed. The Confederates seized due advantage, pummeling both flanks and, with James Breathed and Carter Braxton's artillery laying down a withering fire, pushed the Federals back across Middle Field.

Grover's division would suffer 1,500 casualties. Gen. William Emory, commander of XIX Corps, called Middle Field "a perfect slaughterhouse."

But the blue-clad legions regrouped, and that afternoon ecstasy came. As XIX Corps tried to reorganize, Gen. Joseph Thoburn's division of VIII Corps formed up in First Woods, awaiting word from Sheridan that the corps' other division was poised to attack from the opposite side of Red Bud Run.

At 3 p.m., Thoburn's men heard "a mighty battle yell" from the men of future President Rutherford B. Hayes on the other side of the creek. The divisions moved as one and, as a Union soldier recalled, "for 30 minutes the battle that ensued was perfectly terrific." And perfectly successful for the Federals. The Confederate line under Gen. John B. Gordon gave way and the Rebels, fighting valiantly, fell back on Winchester under constant attack.

Sheridan's army sustained 5,000 casualties in the battle. Confederate Gen. Jubal Early lost far fewer -- 3,500 -- but that constituted a quarter of his effective fighting force. And he lost Winchester.

I, on the other hand, gained considerable knowledge. And kept a pledge, sort of. One day, I'll walk the remaining mile or two of the battlefield -- I promise.