* * Visiting the Udvar-Hazy

Jane and I just returned from a three-day holiday weekend to Northern Virginia and our nation’s capital. 

For many years, I have wanted to see the Smithsonian annex, the air and space museum located near located at Dulles Airport called the Udvar-Hazy.

We stayed at the beautiful home of a friend I have met through motorcycle rallies and his wife in Vienna.  Traffic was horrendous on Interstate 81 on our way northbound on Friday, likely due to the number of Easter weekend travelers on the road.  Fortunately, the weather was sunny and nice, as it would remain all weekend.  We arrived early enough in the afternoon to avoid the evening rush hour traffic of the Washington, DC Metropolis.  We walked with our friends out of their subdivision, across a two-lane bridge spanning the Dulles Airport toll road, and to a beautiful arboretum and botanical park.  Many of the trees were in full bloom and the spring flowers were bright and fresh.

Driving around the area, I was impressed by the grandeur of the homes, many of them surely costing multiple millions of dollars.  However, the smaller roads throughout the area were often narrow and winding, with neither shoulders for bicycles nor sidewalks for pedestrians.  People seem quite willing to spend enormous sums of their houses but little on the taxes that would fund adequate roads.

On Saturday, we backtracked to the west and entered the Udvar-Hazy museum.  Interestingly, there is no admission fee per se; however it costs $15 per car to park.  The week prior, I had spoken with a young friend who is a graduate student in aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech.  I mentioned to him that we were planning to visit this museum.  He indicated that he had long wanted to see it himself.  So he and a friend joined us for our self-guided tour.  He was very knowledgeable about airplanes of all types.  He liberally sprinkled words like yaw, roll and pitch, sub-sonic, trans-sonic, and super-sonic into the conversation.  We were particularly impressed by the SR 71 spy plane, the Blackbird, the fastest airplane ever built.  The museum houses many significant specimens, including the Enola Gay, the World War II bomber that dropped the first time bomb over Japan.  There is also the last Concorde, the supersonic passenger airplane taken out of service by Air France in 2003.

The museum had a nice display of engines used in airplanes, both including piston engines like those in everyday automobiles, turboprop engines often used in commuter airplanes, and turbojet engines used in commercial airliners.  I was particularly impressed by a 28 cylinder piston powered rotary engine, the Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major.  It had seven cylinders in a radial pattern around a central crankshaft, then with four banks of additional cylinders behind the front set.  The challenge to design this engine in 1944 must have been enormous.

The space wing of the museum houses one of the space shuttles.  I never realized how huge these things were.  There were many full-size missiles plus scale models of great rockets on display.

Later that afternoon, we called on my brother who lives in Great Falls.  He took us to the school that his he and his wife have established for special needs kids.  It is housed in a former fitness club bay in an industrial park building.  The school has a large indoor playground area where fitness and exercise are active parts of the everyday experience for the kids.

That evening, our friends took us to a delightful Thai restaurant in Vienna that seated only 22 diners at a time.

On Sunday morning, Jane and I drove into Washington, DC hopeful to see the cherry blossoms at peak.  Traffic was light on Easter morning.  While most of the trees had dropped their blossoms already and many were covered in fresh green leaves, the Capitol Mall was still beautiful.  It is always impressive to see the Capitol building itself standing high above the eastern end of the mall and the lawn of the White House to the north.

Traffic coming home was substantially less than it had been on Friday, which was a welcome change.  It took four hours from crossing the Potomac River into Virginia to arrive at our doorstep.

* * Seeing and hearing a virtuoso fiddler in concert

It has been said that there are only two types of music: bad music and good music.  Perhaps in the case of violinist Adam DeGraff, there is a third: exceptional music.

I met Adam a couple of years ago in his home in Lewisburg, West Virginia.  I was interviewing at him for my book, The Spine of the Virginias.  Adam was preparing to leave on an extended tour a pianist in a partnership they called Pianafiddle.  I was never able to properly certify that the transcript notes that I wrote from my conversation with Adam were correct.  Therefore, I didn't feel comfortable in including his chapter in the book.

Nevertheless, I found his story compelling.  Adam was a child prodigy on the violin, learning to play at age 4.  He finished his undergraduate degree at Northwestern University in Chicago, his hometown.  He got a Master's Degree at Rice University.  Before he graduated he won a job as second principal violinist at the Richmond Symphony at age 23, a dozen years ago.  He and his wife lived and worked near Richmond for five seasons.  But he wasn’t happy.  From my transcript:

“Orchestral musicians rank very high on job dissatisfaction scales.  By contrast, chamber musicians are much more satisfied and happier.  At the time I had been courted by some bigger orchestras from some bigger cities to audition and to work for them.” 

Adam learned that job satisfaction dropped as the orchestra became bigger and better.  So he quit, sold his home, and did the Green Acres maneuver, buying a farm in West Virginia. 

When I asked him about living in West Virginia, he said, “I can be really enthusiastic about a lot of things about West Virginia.  It is the most beautiful place I have ever lived.  Geographically, it is ideal for me.  I love the weather, the scenery, and the lush green forests.  It is not too hot.  It is not too cold.  It is not too humid.  Richmond was oppressively hot and humid.  It is not too dry.  The mountains are not too big.  They feel gentle and protective.  The water quality is excellent.  So, on that front I am absolutely thrilled with where we live.  I don't think I could ever move away, simply for those reasons.”

About the music he’s found in this area, he said, “We have been heavily influenced by the type of music we see and hear here.  We are all influenced by everything in our environment.  Before I moved to Virginia I had never played anything but classical.  Once I moved to Virginia I began to play some bluegrass.  I was a hack; I really wasn't very good at it.  I tried to learn some of the old time music.  I used to be a purist with classical but now I am letting the eclectic influences into my playing.  When we play in Pianafiddle we do everything from straight bluegrass to blues and jazz and klezmer and classical and Celtic.  Sometimes we pile all these influences into the same piece.  I'm sure I would never have known the difference between old time and bluegrass had I not moved here.  There are huge differences.

“I’m embracing the new knowledge and skills I am developing here.  This is really good.

“My grandmother needled me repeatedly about giving up the good money and job security of an orchestra, just like any other good Jewish mother.  I finally said to her, ‘Grams, I am making more money than anybody in the Chicago Symphony.’  Not only that but my living expenses in West Virginia are a mere fraction of what they would be in Chicago.  This is a modest house and I can’t even imagine what something like it would cost there.

“If the Vienna Philharmonic called and asked me to play would I go?  Yes.  I would go and play for a few months to see if I liked it.  But I am having fun.  I am really having the time of my life.  I am a very happy man.  We have been following our bliss lately, and everything is working well.”

Adam played a couple of short pieces for me in his studio, but I had never heard him in concert until the other evening when my wife and I went to Roanoke where Adam played at the Jefferson Center with his old friend Russell Fallstad, in a duet they called Dueling Fiddlers.  To hear these two classically trained musicians romp through rock-and-roll, bluegrass, old-time, and Bach was truly extraordinary.  Imagine Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven on a 200-year old violin!

I’m no musician myself, but I enjoy live music immensely.  It is flattering to me as a native to Southwest Virginia to know that these exceptional musicians have been captivated by our heritage music.  If you get the chance, please attend a concert.  Learn about Adam and Russell on their website:

http://www.theduelingfiddlers.com/

* * Meeting the most interesting people

Much of my writing is centered around the people I meet as I travel through the various communities in western Virginia and in southern and eastern West Virginia.  Often, people will ask me where I find such interesting people to interview.  A good answer is long and complicated.  The easy answer is, they come from everywhere.  But yesterday, I had a surprise acquaintance.

I ride motorcycles almost every weekend for fun and exploration.  One of my most frequent riding partners is a local man named Mike Gunther.  MG and I have ridden thousands of miles together over the years.  He is every bit as interested in seeking new places and new experiences as I am. 

Yesterday he charted a course for me and two other riders into primarily Wythe and Carroll counties.  We left Interstate 81 at the Grahams Forge exit in eastern Wythe County.  We stopped to take some pictures at a mansion which evidently is showcased a couple of times a year for holidays and special events.  Clearly, someone has put a considerable amount of money into the mansion, an elaborate metal gate and several outbuildings. 

We wound our way to the southwest through Porters Crossroads, Cripple Creek, and Speedwell.  From there, we turned southward and crossed the Iron Mountains in the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area.  We entered the town of Fries where Mike wanted to look for a monument that he remembered seeing with me on another ride years earlier. 

Fries it is an interesting, historic former mill town on the New River near Galax.  Once the home of a bustling cotton mill, Fries is now largely without commercial establishments. It is the quintessential lost town. All its residents are either retired or commute to jobs in other cities.  We stopped at a convenience store situated near the River and the New River Trail State Park. 

MG began asking several local patrons if they had any idea where this monument might be.  He described it as a long, wall-like structure made of river rocks and thought it was west of town.  I told him that I remembered a different sort of monument, built more in a vertical fashion almost like an obelisk.  I thought it was northeast of town.  Asking around, we found ourselves in conversation with two retirement aged man.  I ended up speaking to one of them in an extended conversation about the mill where he once worked and about the music reputation of Fries.

When this man looked for a piece of paper to write down his phone number, he showed me a letter that was on a letterhead from the Ku Klux Klan.  This man told me that he was a national leader of the Klan.  He said he had been interviewed by many newspapers and magazines.  I asked him if he would allow me to interview him for my next book and he said yes.  When I told him that my family was Jewish, he seemed unfazed.  “You bring your tape recorder down here and I will tell you anything you want to know.”

This morning, I called and made an appointment and I will visit with him again this Wednesday. In all of my wanderings and in all of my conversations I had never met a person associated with a hate organization.  This Wednesday is likely to be a very interesting day.

On our way home with MG leading the group, we found a monument built of river rocks, much taller than wide, and resembling an obelisk.  It was northeast of town.  Sometimes I get lucky.

Please stay tuned and thank you for reading my blog.



* * Hiking with Professor Smith

Today I’m hiking with Professor Smith.

I’m on my way to southwestern Craig County, to day-hike the Appalachian Trail.  After the brutal winter we’ve had, the ground is dishrag wet and an overnight rainfall has left streams of water surging across Mount Tabor Road out of Blacksburg.  My immediate destination is the trailhead at Millers Cove.  From there, my plan is to hike northbound on the Trail, although in reality, this hike, along Cove Mountain, angles mostly southward.

I park the Honda Accord in a small, unpaved parking lot where the back end of the car overhangs a 4-inch deep rivulet of water.  I throw my mountain parka, my bagel, my water bottle, and by other hiking accoutrements into my pack.  I lace my hiking boots and grab my trusty hiking poles, and set off.

Under overcast skies and in cool temperatures, I make my way over the rickety wooden footbridge spanning swollen Trout Creek and begin the ascent of Cove Mountain.  The trail makes its way gently uphill through a mixed pine and deciduous forest, with mostly small trees, often broken.  At one point, I cross a raging stream of water a yard wide, an intermittent watercourse that has been dry every other time I have walked here.  Sunbeams penetrate the clouds, and I remove my fiber-pile jacket and stash it in my pack.  It is perhaps 48F, but it is warm enough with my exertion to be comfortable in a T-shirt.

As my body adjusts to the rigors of climbing this mountain, I think of Professor Smith.  Professor Smith is not actually physically with me this day, although she has hiked with me in the past.  Today she is with me only in spirit.

My wife and I had hosted her to dinner two nights earlier.  She does not have the strength to hike with me now.  Professor Smith has cancer and the drugs she is taking make her body too weak and sore to engage in activity as strenuous as hiking.

I reach the crest of Cove Mountain where a rugged granite outcropping allows a terrific view to the northwest over the Craig Creek Valley and to the distant ridges beyond.  Most of these mountains are shaded by clouds and are dark and foreboding.  I guess that the clouds are only perhaps a thousand feet above these ridgelines.  That proximity lends greater grandeur to the mountains.

The Appalachian Trail stays close to the crest of Cove Mountain as it makes its grand fishhook sweep to the east and then south, punctuated by the dramatic rock outcropping at Dragon's Tooth at the extreme southern end.  Ostensibly, walking this ridgeline would seem easier than ascending or descending the mountain.  But in reality, the ridge is seldom flat and often rocky, making the effort every bit as great.  However, this effort is rewarded in several places where expansive views open to the northeast down the long valley towards New Castle, to the east and the humpbacked ridge of North Mountain, and finally to the southeast and the scenic Catawba Valley, bracketed by Catawba Mountain, McAfee's Knob, and Tinker Mountain.  Far on the eastern horizon are the dramatic Peaks of Otter, the pyramidal Sharp Top to the right and the more rounded Flat Top to the left.  The trees have not yet sprouted leaves, so the views are more open.  The mountains are shades of brown and purple, brighter when lit by sunbeams.  White grain silos stand like phallic symbols over the green Catawba Valley. 

Nobody is on the trail except me.  The air is fresh and crisp, and it smells good.

I seldom carry a cellular telephone while hiking, but on this day for an inexplicable reason, I have mine with me.  I am surprised when it rings. On the other end of the line is a friend in Seattle catching me up on the events of the day on the other end of the continent.  We truly live in an amazing world.

I begin to tire with exertion towards late morning.  Although I remain an enthusiastic hiker, I have never been particularly strong and have always struggled to keep up with fellow hikers.  So I’m happy to be alone where I can walk my own pace.  Because my toes are short and misshapen and my feet are flat, I have never found a pair of boots that don't hurt after several miles of strenuous walking.  My calves are tight and my thighs ache. The movement of my arms with my trekking poles strains my upper arms.  My neck and shoulders hurt, too.  However, I decide this is a perfect day for hiking.  The humidity is low, the temperature is comfortable, the insect pests that plague summer hiking are absent, and the views are splendid.  The pains I have are good, and are minor compared to what Professor Smith is going through.

Professor Smith's cancer is being treated aggressively.  Her hair has grown back now and is an attractive grey.  She lost every strand of it a year ago while undergoing chemotherapy and at one point was as bald as Michael Jordan.  She has had a double mastectomy, and she is as thin and flat-chested as a Cub Scout.  She explains to us that her current cocktail of drugs impedes the production of estrogen because the type of cancer she has feeds on estrogen.  She tells us that without breasts and without estrogen, she is practically devoid of everything that makes her a woman.  In a constant state of weariness and pain, she lives only to continue teaching her beloved students and trying to set right a troublesome late-teen daughter with a predilection for bad decisions.

I stop for lunch near the junction where a short spur trail leads to Dragon's Tooth itself.  I choose not to go this short final distance because this landmark often draws crowds of people, sometimes loud and typically bothersome to me.  so I sit on a large flat rock and soak in a rare moment of sunshine.  Then I retrace my steps along the mountain, carefully rationing the quart of water I carry. 

I see a white-tailed deer romping across the trail ahead of me and wonder by what evolutionary misfortune could this species has evolved with this white flag of a tail, flashing to predators, both human and animal, its movement.

I think back to my recently deceased friend who shot himself in the head after being diagnosed with fatal pancreatic cancer.  I think about all the obituaries I’ve read which have the phrase, “she lost a courageous battle against cancer,” and wonder what courage it takes to endure constant pain with the knowledge that the effort might prove futile anyway.

At the rock outcropping on the crest of Cove Mountain, I take my last extended break. I watch a red tailed hawk soar above the Craig Creek Valley.  I eat a banana, re-tie my shoes, and prepare for the final descent back to my car.  I amble downhill slowly, savoring the last moments on the trail.  I reach my car tired, hungry, and thirsty.  But I am exhilarated and pleased that my health has remained good enough for me to continue to enjoy climbing mountains well into geezerhood.

I remove my hiking boots and gently massage my painful toes.  I think again about Professor Smith and wish her a rapid recovery and many more years of improving health.



* * Publishing my two books: the time is near!

Two years ago I began the research and writing process that I hoped would lead to my first published book.  Several times along the way, knowledgeable people said to me, “The writing is just the beginning.”  How prophetic those words have become!

This journey led to a book that has come to be titled, The Spine of the Virginias.  This nonfiction book is about the people, history, places, and culture along the border between Virginia and West Virginia.  In the process of writing this book, I interviewed upwards of 150 people and traveled uncountable hundreds of miles.  Ultimately, a 400,000 word manuscript was whittled down to 133,000 and was ready for publication last summer.  At that point, I began the process of searching for a suitable publisher.

Meanwhile, I began to write a novella about a Civil War soldier who became the model for a monument in Union, Monroe County, West Virginia.  My original plan was to embed this novella within The Spine of the Virginias.  But I quickly decided that this was not appropriate for two reasons.  One, The Spine of the Virginias was already too long and this novella was an easy thing to cut away.  Second, having a fiction embedded within a nonfiction was quirky, and my early readers were confused by it.  So I removed it and set it aside.  However, as the months went by I began to resurrect the story and ended up writing a full novel located in contemporary Union where the novella was told to my protagonist by an elderly great uncle.

At that point, I had two books awaiting publication.

Within the past couple of months, I have entered negotiations with Pocahontas Press, a publishing house in my town of Blacksburg.  Pocahontas specializes in nonfiction history and culture.  I have reached contractual terms with the principal of Pocahontas Press, Mary Holliman.  Mary has assigned the work of editing and page layout of the book to a Virginia Tech student intern.  Her work is now underway.  The book will be printed in a hardcover 6 x 9 format and will hopefully go into print production within the next couple of months.

Because Pocahontas Press does not typically work with fiction, I have decided to publish Union, WV through one of the Internet-based self-publishing companies.  This company works with "print on demand," meaning that books are printed digitally, one at a time.  While the cost per copy to me is slightly higher, this means that I will not be forced to speculate on buying a large quantity of books that may or may not sell.

Hopefully, Union, WV, will be in production within the next few weeks, meaning what started out as my second book may actually reach publication first.

I appreciate the patience shown by everyone who has expressed his or her interest in my books.  Hopefully the time when you can own your copy is near.  When I actually have books available to sell, I will make a general announcement through my website, through Facebook, and through press releases.

Again, I appreciate your support and welcome your feedback.  Please stay tuned for further announcements.