* * Searching for Milepost 0

So where is this Crooked Road?

My upcoming book is entitled, *Harmonic Highways, Motorcycling Virginia’s Crooked Road*. So as you can imagine, it helps to know where it is!

The Crooked Road is a tourism initiative established almost ten years ago by the state legislature to showcase the traditional music heritage in Southwest Virginia. It nominally runs from Rocky Mount in Franklin County westward to Floyd, Galax, Abingdon, and Bristol, where it fish-hooks to the north to Norton and eventually the western terminus at Breaks Interstate Park on the Kentucky border. My plan is to travel the road from east to west, so yesterday I went to Rocky Mount looking for Milepost 0.

Jonathan Romeo, until recently the interim executive director of The Crooked Road, couldn't tell me where it was. He said to his knowledge, there was no official starting point. I told him, “I suggest the Franklin County Courthouse.” My reason was that most courthouses were their communities’ most important, and often most impressive buildings. So yesterday, I drove my grey Honda CBX to Rocky Mount to have a look.

My first stop was a visit with newspaper reporter Morris Stephenson who I met on an earlier trip.  He insisted the beginning is definitely the intersection of SR-40 and Business US-220, the corner of Main and Franklin Streets, near downtown.

The intersection of SR-40 and US-220 was by an overpass where 220 swept over an active railroad line. On one corner was an old Exxon station.

Then I followed-up on my own idea, of the courthouse.  The courthouse was an impressive, white structure with gleaming Doric columns.  Morris told me that the original Civil War monument out front had been hit by a pickup truck driver in 2007 and was replaced with a replica in June and dedicated a month ago. It was a pristine white.

In Morris’ article, he quoted dedication keynote speaker Bud Robertson saying the War eliminated slavery and established a union. “‘Union’ is the single most important word that describes the war,” Robertson said. “It's the single threat that now binds us all.” My guess is that Robertson said, “thread” rather than “threat”.

I told Jonathan that I didn’t want to embarrass anyone by reporting that The Crooked Road staff didn’t know where it started. He said he’d take up the matter with the executive committee, “Hang in there with us and I promise we will find the answers to your questions.”

Stay tuned.



* * Surviving the ascent of Mt. Rogers

Every few years, I make a point to climb Mt. Rogers, Virginia’s highest peak on the border of Grayson and Smyth Counties.  Jane accompanied me on this trip on Saturday. 

Jane and I reached the trailhead at Elk Garden between Rogers and nearby Whitetop Mountain at 10:00 a.m. and donned our hiking boots.  At our current ages, me in my mid-fifties and Jane plus five, we now use trekking poles on our hikes to help with balance and agility.  We crossed highway SR-600 and began ascending through a grassy field with grand views in the warming sunshine towards the end of a record-breaking hot summer.

We entered the woods and the sky clouded, blissfully moderating the heat.  We spoke with a group of 6 hikers, 3 men and 3 boys, outfitted for an overnight stay.  This was the first backpacking experience for the boys and it reminded me of my first ascent when I was a mere pup, walking with my dad. 

At our lunch stop, Jane was laboring hard, but still game to continue.  We sat on flat rocks in another grassy field, overlooking the sublime scene before us.  The air has an intense, dramatic quality at higher elevations, where land and sky merge. 

We continued onward, on the mostly level trail, me moving 40% faster than she.  She had recently been forced to give up bicycling, as her balance has faltered in recent years.  Would she be okay navigating the rough and rocky trail?  How many more times would she be able to ascend this mountain?

From my prior trips, I knew there were no views from the summit.  Instead, there is a northern forest of spruce, fern, and hemlock.  The transition from open field to northern forest is abrupt, like Shoeless Joe Jackson leaving an Iowa Field of Dreams disappearing into the cornstalks in center field.  The northern forest is a magical place, dark with overhanging evergreens and thick with mosses and ferns.  It smells good, like what an air freshener should smell like. 

We ate a celebratory candy bar and some orange slices near the US Geological Survey marker imbedded in a table-sized rock that marks the summit and then retraced our steps downhill. 

Jane was visibly struggling, complaining about sore feet, hips, and knees.  My feet were sore as well and my neck was stiff.  I walked ahead a mile and then waited for her to catch up.

Jane successfully completed the hike, saying only the next day, “I survived.” 



* * Reading and signing books in Bluefield

Last week, I traveled to Bluefield, WV, to do a book reading/signing at Gary Bowling’s House of Art.  It was a great opportunity to see several old friends, meet several new ones, and sell some books.  I read mostly from my new non-fiction, The Spine of the Virginias, but also from my novel, Union, WV. 

Lou Stoker, mayor of Bramwell, attended.  She and her daughter Dana are featured in the book and I read from the chapter about them.

Fred Powers, a retired coal miner who I interviewed but was unable to feature in the book, also attended.

Stuart McGehee, to whom the book is dedicated, died last January from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after he learned he had terminal pancreatic cancer.  His son, Joe, who is 17 and a high school senior, attended.  It was my first opportunity to meet him.

And of course, Gary Bowling was my host, along with Terry Rowe who put the event together. 

I was already underway when a man entered wearing a crisp dark suit, white shirt, and dark tie.  He looked immediately familiar but I couldn’t place him.  Afterwards, when he had me sign the books he’d bought, he said he was Pete Richardson, a Bluefield lawyer.  He’d graduated from VT with me 34 years earlier!  After his engineering degree, he’d gone to law school and now practiced law.  Amazing! 

Terry had also set up an interview by local television personality Vain Colby, which is now on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLe7wcEjf-U.  Please take a look.

I also met William Paine, a radio personality who has a show called Radio-Active in Bluefield.  He’s going to feature me on his show on September 9 at 9:30 a.m. on 1440 WHIS and 1470 WTZE on AM frequencies.

On my way home, I sold several books to Ron Kime at the Big Walker General Store in Bland County and delivered a book to Buzz Scanland who manages the Mountain Lake Hotel. 

The books continue to delight readers.  Have you bought your copies?



* * Getting to know an Appalachian Mountain Gentleman

One of the great pleasures of writing non-fiction books is the people I meet.  One Appalachian mountain gentleman I met recently while researching my next book about motorcycling the Crooked Road has become a particular favorite.  He is Buddy Pendleton of Woolwine, Virginia.

Buddy is in his mid-70s and is an accomplished fiddler.  He’s a wiry man, as slim as a fence-post, with a mop of grey hair covered by a mesh cowboy hat.  He always wears a long-sleeve button-down shirt and a black vest.  He is elegant in a modest way.

We re-connected late last week at the 75^th Annual Old Time Fiddler’s Convention in Galax, Virginia.  He jammed mostly with my old friend Jack Hinshelwood, but was also called upon to play with several other folks.  He speaks slowly and deliberately in a quiet monotone.  His hand shakes a bit when he holds a fork or writes with a pen.  But when he has a horsehair bow in his right hand and a fiddle against his cheek, incredible things happen.  His music is lyrical and flowing. 

He told me, “I have always enjoyed playing at the fiddler's conventions.  At one point, I had a pretty lucky streak going.  I was playing at several different conventions.  I had 13 first-place wins in a row.  This winning streak spanned from one year to the next.  I won first place at the Galax Fiddler’s Convention a couple of times and was second place 2 or 3 more times.  I had 5 consecutive wins at the Union Grove Festival.”  Nobody has equaled his feat since then.

Buddy lives in nearby Patrick County.  His half-mile dirt driveway connects him to a country lane and to the rest of the world.  When I visited him for our interview, a fallen tree hung at head-height over the road and I felt like I had to duck to get under it on my motorcycle. His car wears a sheen of green as if it is a growing thing itself.

Nobody seems to get much sleep at the Galax Convention.  I hit the sack around 11:30, but was awoken by sweet fiddle sounds well into the night.  The next morning, one of the other guys apologized for waking me.  But I remember in my dreamlike state thinking how good the music sounded.

Buddy doesn’t perform very much any more.  But if you have the chance to hear him, do it!  Be prepared to be astounded.



* * Writing a book: it's audacious

Writing a book is an audacious thing.

This thought swept through my mind over and over again as I sat in a metal folding chair in the shade of the historic Tingler’s Mill in Paint Bank, Craig County, on a recent hot Saturday.  Before me were two empty rows of three chairs each, pointing at me as if a silent audience.  I was there to do my first public signing for my two recently released books. It was high noon, time for the event to start.  Nobody had arrived.

Anybody can write a book.  You don’t need a degree or certification.  There are no entrance exams, qualifying interviews, or required qualifications.  All a person needs to do is to find a topic, find sufficient time, and go for it.  People buy it and read it.  If the book is good and well-marketed, lots of people will read it. Short of slandering anyone, you can write most anything you want.

My quest to become a writer played out this way.  For many years, I managed a printing company that my wife and I inherited from my parents.  I had dabbled with writing but had never done anything professionally.  The experience and positive feedback gained from writing this column and others convinced me that if I ever had an opportunity, I would seize it.

I had long had an interest in our sister state of West Virginia.  Unlike the inherent parity of North and South Dakota and North and South Carolina, our relationship with West Virginia seemed decidedly uneven.  Why weren’t we East Virginia?

To Civil War buffs, the answer is well-known.  West Virginia was carved wholly from Virginia during the Civil War, the only state ever created from another state without the parent state’s consent.  What is less known, especially by me, were the details.  Even more interesting was the current relationship between the two states, the way people lived and how the cultures compared. 

When our financial planner gave me the go-ahead to jettison my conventional occupation, I decided that was the time to pursue my dream.  A two-year effort ensued, the results of which is a nonfiction book called The Spine of the Virginias.

Coincident with writing about the formation of West Virginia, a story began to take shape in my head about a fictional angry young man from Northern Virginia who becomes an accidental visitor to a small, contemporary Appalachian town.  While recovering from physical and emotional scars, he learns about his great-great-great-grandfather, who was a Confederate hero in the Civil War.  This story maneuvered its way into a novel that I entitled, Union, WV. 

It was these two books that brought me to Paint Bank on this hot Saturday afternoon.  I intended to read aloud from these two books and hopefully entertain my audience.  By quarter past noon, I still sat alone.  I thumbed through my books and began reading aloud, just for practice.  I apologize if I sound self-absorbed, but sections of both books are still interesting and poignant to me, even after reading them dozens of times.  With nobody around, I entertained myself. 

By 12:30 p.m. nobody had arrived.  So I thanked the store manager for arranging the event and I departed.

This account has three epilogues.

First, upon leaving Paint Bank, I turned northward and crossed into West Virginia.  I rode into the town of Union to check on the retailers who were selling my novel.  The grocery store owner’s shelf was empty; he appeared to have sold out.  But in reality, he had removed the books from his shelf and was selling them by request only.  One customer bought a book and within days had brought it back demanding a refund.  Apparently, she expected it to be a definitive historical novel of her community.  Instead, it is a raw, risqué book that if made into a movie would be rated “R” for language, sexual content, and violence. I apologized to him that he had incurred her wrath vicariously for me.

Second, days later, I received a nice note from the manager at the store in Paint Bank.  “I'm really sorry things didn't go better for you here. Good news though. I sold several of the books around 1:00 p.m.  Buyers they said they would have came out and listened to you had you stayed.  We have only 2 more of your books left!!! How about that?”

Third, the next day, while walking my dog on the Huckleberry Trail, a bicyclist recognized me and stopped to say hello.  He had bought my novel several weeks earlier.  He apologized profusely for not having written to tell me how much he thoroughly enjoyed it.

Writing a book is an audacious thing.  I am now at work on my third.