* * Bud and Stuart and my Civil War quest

James I. Robertson, Jr., or “Bud” to his countless friends, has died.

Bud held the C. P. “Sally” Miles Professorship at Virginia Tech from 1976 until his appointment in 1992 as Alumni Distinguished Professor, which he held until retirement in 2011, during which time he taught in the History Department, specializing in the Civil War.

My relationship with Bud began in the early 1970s when I took his Civil War course, a diversion from my Mechanical Engineering courses. He was a rock star even then, teaching to a packed 300 seat auditorium. He made a war that had been over for 100 years relevant and fascinating to 20 year old college students. Every lecture had a “and you were there!” theatric quality to it.

Bud's Civil War was not about battles and troop movements and strategy. His was about the soldiers, the wives and girlfriends back home, the medicine and prisons and food and songs, the toil and fear and horror and death. Bud’s subjects were living an unprecedented tragedy in our nation’s most terrible time, and many of them were the same age or younger than the students in his class.

When I got the idea in 2008 to write my first book, The Spine of the Virginias, about the odd sibling relationship between Virginia and West Virginia, knowing that the latter had split from the former in the Civil War, I went to see Bud. “Come by my office during my regular office hours. I still consider you a student,” he invited.

He said he was not knowledgeable about the West Virginia foundation story, but his friend Stuart McGehee in Bluefield was, and he encouraged me to contact Stuart, who was an associate professor of history at Bluefield College and then at West Virginia State University in Institute. McGehee also was the longtime director of the Eastern Regional Coal Archives at the public library in Bluefield.

I asked Bud, "If I can get an interview with him, will you go with me?" and he said yes.

So I picked up Bud at his home in a north Blacksburg neighborhood and off to Bluefield we went. I have to tell you that Bud was a bit of a control freak. He INSISTED that we leave 2 hours early to meet Stuart. I had just done the drive a week earlier and knew it took 75 minutes. But Bud wouldn't have it. So we arrived 45 minutes early and walked the downtown of Bluefield while we waited to appear on time.

When we met Stuart, he and Bud chatted about family and friends and old times. Then Stuart looked at me and said purposefully, “Now what can I do for you?”

Bud replied instead, “Michael is thinking about a book about the border communities between Virginia and West Virginia and wants to know about the split,” or something like that.

For the next 90 minutes, Stuart took over and explained the foundation story, from his often contrary and somewhat controversial perspective. Bud and I sat transfixed. It was a lifetime memorable moment, as Professor McGehee was every bit the equal as a storyteller as Professor Robertson.

I shortly realized I was in the presence of two geniuses; it was the easiest, most informative interview I'd ever done. Stuart’s knowledge and Bud's encouragement helped me decide that I could really write my book. Seven more have followed.

On our way home, Bud and I were talking about the state of America's politics. Now mind you, this was 12 years ago. As a lifelong scholar of the American experience, he said, “People today think our democracy can withstand any threat. It can't. We'd be wise to start thinking about ourselves as countrymen and less as political rivals.”

We did quick calculations in our heads and figured during his 5 decades at Tech, he had taught over 20,000 students. When he was forced by a broken leg to take a semester off and a replacement was brought in to teach for him, half those enrolled dropped it.

I still remember some of those lectures, his mellifluous voice, his mild speech impediment, and his unmistakable Southside Virginia accent. Even Hokies who didn’t take his class knew of him, one of Tech's truly larger than life individuals, and arguably its most decorated and beloved educator.

After retirement, Bud moved to Virginia's Northern Neck, and we were only in sporadic contact. But his influence on my life is inestimable, and I will always appreciate it.

Stuart McGehee was my age, and he took his own life a couple of years later, after learning he had pancreatic cancer. And now Bud is gone as well. As the Civil War has faded into the past, so have these two giants of history education faded into the ether, held alive by the memories of the students they enlightened, motivated, and enthralled.

* * Like dodgeball on a motorcycle

Sometimes it gets a bit spooky out there.

Motorcycling is my favorite pastime. The combination of curvy roads, mild climate, scarce traffic, and great scenery makes our mid-Appalachian region one of the world’s best places to ride. And never are my rides better than with my only child on the back. Thus it was on last evening’s ride.

Until we started seeing the deer.

Whitney is 28 now, but she’s been riding pillion (back seat) on my bikes with me since kindergarten (hers, not mine). So she’s basically got 23 years of experience riding with me. I have wireless communicators that affix inside our helmets that allow us to talk while we ride.

So after she finished work, we suited up and took out the 2015 BMW R1200R, pointed northeast. It was a clear, pleasant evening, 5:30 p.m. by the time we left. We rode from my house in south Blacksburg down Jennelle Road into Ellett Valley. On Luster’s Gate Road, we spotted our first deer, a doe munching on the grass on the left side of the road. Then three more before we reached Luster’s Gate. We took Harding Avenue towards town, then Happy Hollow Road over to Mt. Tabor Road, where we saw a couple more before reaching the new pipeline crossing. It was getting worrisome.

She has a job and friends and a busy life of her own now, so we never seem to have enough time together. These are our opportunities to catch up. We take turns telling about our lives. She talked about joys and challenges in her job. Friendships. Holiday plans. Everyday stuff.

She said, “We’ve not had a lot of common activities, so this has become our easy form to have uninterrupted chat time. I’m not on my phone and you’re not on yours. I’ve had weekends busy lately, so we’ve gone in the evening.” And that’s prime deer time.

Then another one ran across the road.

We talked about the danger, about how this felt like playing dodgeball. Everybody around here has a deer/car collision story, of damage or a near miss. Fortunately, neither she nor I have ever hit one, but my wife did, causing significant damage to our car.

Whitney has been around horses her whole life, and she commented on how an experienced observer can typically anticipate a horse’s movements and reactions. But deer are totally unpredictable, and there are too many of them. Their carcasses are littered all over local roads, even the interstate highway where you’d think the noise of the vehicles would scare them away. Hit one with a car and there’s often significant damage. Hit one with a motorcycle and it is often fatal to both deer and rider.

I had a couple of conversations recently about the deer population around here. One was with a man from Oregon who moved here to take a job. He said there were deer in Oregon, too, “but nothing like here. I commute on Route 8 and I see them every day.”

One friend hit one with his car two weeks ago, and he said, “After being blindsided 2 weeks ago on 460 and almost killed – and my Cadillac a total loss – I am discovering that there’s not much you can do.”

Another friend told me, “Deer are very predictable to an experienced observer. You can predict where a deer is likely to be and at what times of day, but ya gotta know the territory and stay alert! I sold my deer rifle last year but harvested over 50 deer in my hunting career. I enjoyed the hunt and my family loves venison. One of the survival strategies of deer populations is to reproduce fast enough to replace the members lost to predators. They are really good at that! If there are not enough predators and hunters, an area can quickly be overpopulated.”

Perhaps they’re predictable to an experienced observer, but typically when you’re hunting, you’re stationary and just watching them, while when on a motorcycle, you’re moving rapidly, lucky to see them at all before they become a danger. On one near-miss I had years ago, a fawn ran right across the road in front of me, narrowly missing my front wheel. I had zero time to react.

“There’s three deer in the field on our right,” Whitney announced. “I hate hunting and the senseless killing of animals,” she continued. “It’s sad for me that there is an overabundance of some species and not enough of others. Too many species are going extinct, but we’re overwhelmed with deer.

“As a passenger, I could look at all the deer that weren’t a hazard and see them for their beauty while you as a driver were focused on the road. There were lots more than you saw.”

Hunting has never appealed to me either. But if anybody wants to cull the herd, I’m all for it.

If I die an accidental death, I suspect it’ll be by collision with a deer.

* * Stink bugs are worse than you think

Brown marmorated stink bugs. Yes, they are awful. But they may not be as bad as a biblical plague, according to Tom Kuhar, professor of entomology at Virginia Tech. We got together recently to talk about the infestation that we see in this area, how it came about, and where he expects it to go over the coming years.

The stinkbug that is now clinging to the screen on your window, looking for a way to get in for the winter, is descendent of a hitchhiker that likely arrived from China in a shipping container, some 25 years ago. Tom said, “We can literally track it into the Beijing area.

“Entomologists have run the DNA and tracked it to that specific area in China. All the bugs in eastern and central United States are genetically similar to those in that part of China. Other populations of this invasive species have entered the United States on the West Coast. “You could not design an insect that would have a better chance of hitching a ride in a shipping container and making it here.”

Tom is originally from Baltimore and attended college at Towson University before earning his graduate degrees at Virginia Tech. He said, “I fell in love with insects at Towson and went to Tech because of their entomology department.

“I fell in love with this area the second I got here; I loved everything about it. Growing up in Baltimore, I was really surprised to become so interested in the agricultural side but I realized that I could help a lot of people by better understanding insects. I could learn to answer questions for growers and other people who are affected.”

He started his career with Virginia Tech at a research facility on the Eastern shore, but eventually landed a position on campus in Blacksburg. He supervises graduate students who are working with a variety of different insects.

Stink bugs are particularly insidious and nasty because of the defensive odors that they produce when bothered; when you squish them, they smell awful. They get into everything, even the smallest spaces. They winter in sheltered places like your house. They are undoubtedly living in your house as you read this.

“Ninety percent of the issue of the stink bug,” Tom said, “is that they are a nuisance for everybody. But they are particularly damaging to farmers, especially those who grow fruits and vegetables. I was in an older house that had an open attic in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia in 2010. The owner was a scientist. He was meticulous with his record keeping. He killed that year hundreds of thousands of stink bugs. They seek shelter and then they aggregate into large masses that may contain thousands of bugs.

“There have been some wineries that had to close down their wine tasting in late September because of all the bugs swarming around. The bugs can get crushed with the wine grapes and possibly taint the wine depending upon the type.”

“From an agricultural standpoint, they can be absolutely devastating. Stink bugs eat by piercing fruit or pods with stylet type mouthparts that inject digestive enzymes that liquefy the tissue, which can be sucked up by the bug. You can’t always tell if an apple is damaged until you cut into it and see these ugly brown channels in the meat. A wholesale apple grower may find this in a few samples from a particular grower and he will reject the entire crop. This is devastating to the orchard owner.

“Soybeans, corn, vegetables, grapes, there are many other commodities that are equally at risk. Mitigations have included insecticides and physical netting over the plants to keep the bugs from reaching the fruit. Scientist learned that there is an aggregation pheromone that attracts these bugs. So they can put this on select trees, effectively sacrificing those trees in favor of the neighboring trees.

“We will never fully get rid of stink bugs. They are a fact of life, here to stay. They are prolific breeders. They feed on many different types of food crops. They travel significant distances. They are opportunistic and they go where the best food is. But they are not invincible. They do not tolerate heat very well, and they do not tolerate extreme cold.” If bugs did not find sufficient shelter, many will not survive the winters in our area. Unfortunately, they are adept at getting into cracks and crevices.

“Ironically, another invasive bug has arrived from China that may prove to be the stink bug’s worst enemy, a tiny wasp that lays its eggs inside the stink bug’s eggs, killing them. “There has been some good news. 2009 was the worst year for pest problems in Virginia. Since then, Mother Nature appears to be taking care of it in different ways. Things have not been as bad since.”

* * Kenny Brooks coaches for character

Kenny Brooks is the woman’s basketball coach at Virginia Tech since 2016. His season starts soon, so I was delighted he was willing to take a few moments from his frenetic schedule to speak with me about his experience in Blacksburg.

Kenny is from Waynesboro and he played at James Madison University. He coached men’s basketball briefly at his alma mater, then women’s basketball for 14 years where he was the winningest coach in their program’s history. But when Tech fired his predecessor, he sensed he might be on the short list as the new coach, as Tech’s Athletic Director Whit Babcock was also a JMU graduate and a friend.

“I spent my whole life in the Shenandoah Valley. When Whit called me, my wife and I drove down. I didn’t know much about Blacksburg or Tech. The only experience I’d had here was when I played against Tech, and knew nothing about the campus.

“JMU is in the CAA (Colonial Athletic Association) and Tech and UVA are in the ACC (Atlantic Coast Conference). Whit and his staff showed me their vision here. I knew it needed to be something extremely special to pull me away from JMU. It was.

“The vision is more than wins. There needs to be support from the entire Athletic Department because there are no guarantees in the games. I felt that at JMU. I needed to see that here. The philosophy. The belief. At JMU, we never felt less important than the men’s sports. I needed to see the financial support and the spiritual support to be the best we could be.

“I need to feel confident that if I bring a recruit here that she at least has the potential for a great experience, socially, athletically, and academically. I take that responsibility serious.

“I had the best experience at JMU. My kids need to have a lasting, positive memory. We had success at JMU. Everybody there is booming with the same confidence I had. Everybody needs the same passion that I have. I felt that I’d find that here at Tech.

“Justin Fuente (in football) and Buzz Williams (in men’s basketball) had come in, and there was new energy. There was a shot in the arm. It was a good time. I felt (moving here) represented growth in my career. I could have stayed at JMU, perhaps won a few more (conference) championships, and maybe retired there. For me, to go to the most prominent league in the country (the ACC) and test my wits against Hall of Famers, was enticing. Every year I coach against two or three coaches who are in the Hall of Fame already, people who have won national championships. You strive to go against and win against the best.

“We want to contend for the conference championship here, every year. When we arrived, everybody, and I mean everybody, said, ‘You’re going to love it here.’ It seemed like as much a slogan as ‘This is home.’”

“So what’s in the water here?” I asked.

“I’m still learning. It’s a feel. It’s the way people are treated. It’s about the maroon and orange. All athletes have an affinity for their school. You bleed, you sweat, you cry and you form a strong relationship with your school. If I go back to Harrisonburg and JMU, I’m revered as an athlete. You feel the love.”

“So the day you took off that JMU hat and put on the VT hat, how did you feel?” I asked.

“Weird,” he laughed. “Not just for me but for people associated with me. I was associated with JMU for so many years.

“Every Virginia Tech alum I come across loves it here. It is about the experience. The way people come back with the gleam in their eye, bouncing around, reminiscing. I’m enjoying the beauty of Blacksburg, the camaraderie. It’s different for me than my recruits. I knew what my kids at JMU were experiencing because I’d come through before them there. I may have had the same professor they did. You can tell what a special place this is by the reaction of the alums when they come back to visit. I never met a Virginia Tech Hokie that didn’t love it here. The friends, the supporters. It already feels like home. It feels like we can build something extremely special.

“I’m here to build character. I want these ladies, when they come through, to be better in all aspects of life. They’re prepared for the next level. Yes, I need to win games, but my job here is to prepare people to be successful through life. I want fans to be proud of the program year in and year out. I love where we are as a program. We have wonderful young ladies; they represent the university to the utmost, they play hard, and they win.”

The season starts November 5^th in Cassell Coliseum.

* * Karen Chase and her Carrying Independence

“By the time I was 17, I had visited 44 states and 9 provinces,” said Richmond based author Karen A. Chase who was in town recently to promote her new book, Carrying Independence, a novel of the Revolutionary War. We had a chance to catch up and talk about her process and our nation’s history. Chase may be an unexpected writer of American history, as she’s from Calgary, Canada.

 “My father was a schoolteacher and my mother was a stay at home mom. Dad loved the battlefields and museums and my mother loved bookstores and historic homes. So I was always in historic places and reading about more of them in between on the road. My experiences with American history were first-hand.”

I asked her why she was particularly drawn to American history. She said, “American history was older than Canadian. Canada was still part of the (British) Commonwealth, so there was not the history of turmoil and drama and massive restructuring of the United States. Until the United States was formed, all the countries of the world were ruled by monarchs who were deeded by God or Allah or other deities to run their countries.

“The USA had to fight its way and think its way out of that, and build a government of and by the people. That spirit of ‘Why do we have to do it the same way everybody else has done it?’ is enticing. It was the life I lived as a designer, which has been my career.”

Chase was educated in Advertising Art from San Antonio College and she has worked most of her career in advertising, marketing, design, and branding. She ran her own company for 16 years, mostly print but some on-line work. She’s worked for companies, non-profit organizations, and other authors. She got a job in Roanoke and has since moved to Richmond. Increasingly she has gravitated to creative writing.

While in Roanoke, she built an ad campaign for a local company that ran an ad in the newspaper. At the same time, she was working as a volunteer on the weekends at the SPCA. She said, “I was cleaning cat cages and one of the ads I helped build was lining the cage and the cat had defecated all over it. I thought I needed to do something more permanent with my life.”

She started learning more about our American Constitution and its time period. When she learned that the Declaration of Independence was not signed by all the men on the same day and at the same place, she became intrigued. How were the additional seven necessary signatures obtained? She envisioned a story with a character employed by Congress to travel to each man and obtain his signature. That became a book called Carrying Independence. The book took 6 years of research and writing, followed by 4 years of attempting to get published.

“The Declaration of Independence was a contract to keep the men and colonies united together. It needed to be signed. I needed to do research to find where they were and to visit those places. For example, George Wythe was from Williamsburg, and his wife was sick so he went home before signing it.” She envisioned someone carrying it to him.

The country was busy fighting a war. There were needs to clothe and feed and arm an entire army against the British who were already here. Nobody definitively knew where Wythe and the others signed it. So for Chase as a novelist, that opened the door to her creativity. “I can craft answers. I can be a puppeteer of fictional characters!”

I asked Karen what she learned, both about history and the writing process.

“Writing can be extremely fun! I have a good time writing and researching. I travel to the locations. I get to meet and talk with a variety of people who nerd out about the history as much as I do. I always hoped writing would be fun, and not a grueling, bloodletting exercise. I love going to bed thinking about the book and waking up ready to return to my desk and write more. I build characters, people who will fulfill the role of conveying the message I want for the story. Writing has changed the way I look at the world. My observational skills have improved dramatically both of the world outside and internally.

“What I’ve learned about the history is that it has been written too often and too long by men about men. There are an estimated 900 books written about George Washington. Books about women and Native Americans and African Americans and ordinary people has been left out, unexplored, and obscured. That is something we need to remedy now.”

Learn more about Karen and her new book at www.karenachase.com.