Southwest Virginia Blogs

If you are planning to come to Floyd tonight for The Friday Nite Jamboree...don't. The Country Store is closed for remodeling until Friday, Feb. 2. Country Store owner Woody Crenshaw is transforming the venerable old store into an upgraded, enlarged music hall along with plans for a lunch counter, retail space, improved sound and new stage. It will be something to see, and hear, when it reopens. Also, if you are planning a dinner at Oddfellas Cantina...don't. The restaurant is closed until Jan. 24 while owners Rob Neukirch and Michelle Morris take a well-deserved vacation.

In Floyd, they say things change slowly but a lot of changes on the restaurant scene. Mama Lazzardos, I'm told, closed for good this past weekend, finally giving up the ghost after months of struggling. Liz's declining health was a contributing factor. Tuggles Gap remains "closed for rennovation" while rumors swirl over whether or not the restaurant and motel have, in fact, been sold. The deal was set but then delayed. Meanwhile, the sale of The Harvest Moon and Over the Moon café is apparently a done deal. Driven by divorce, the property and buildings have a new owner while the Harvest Moon will continue under present management and the Over the Moon café is looking for a new ownere. Stay tuned.

In Floyd, they say things change slowly but a lot of changes on the restaurant scene. Mama Lazzardos, I'm told, closed for good this past weekend, finally giving up the ghost after months of struggling. Liz's declining health was a contributing factor. Tuggles Gap remains "closed for rennovation" while rumors swirl over whether or not the restaurant and motel have, in fact, been sold. The deal was set but then delayed. Meanwhile, the sale of The Harvest Moon and Over the Moon café is apparently a done deal. Driven by divorce, the property and buildings have a new owner while the Harvest Moon will continue under present management and the Over the Moon café is looking for a new ownere. Stay tuned.

I'm sorry but I can't share the doom and gloom that die-hard fans of the too often overrated Virginia Tech football team feel this morning after the Hokies fell to the Georgia Bulldogs 31-24 in the Chick Fil-a Bowl Saturday night in Atlanta. I wish I could be a fan of the team but the arrogance of Frank Beamer's football program, coupled with his overt recruiting of thugs to play for Tech, destroys any desire to become a member of the "Hokie Nation." Tech lost. No big deal. One team wins, another loses. That's what happens in sports. When you remember that this is just a game, that's all that matters.

USA Today's second story about Floyd in recent months (the other was a less-than-stellar piece about the Crooked Road) is bringing mixed reaction when you can find someone who actually saw the article, which ran on Nov. 21. Writes Haya El Nasser, the paper's environmental writer:

There's only one stoplight in town. Locals want to keep it that way. Nothing moves too fast on Floyd time. That's partly why hippies 30 or 40 years ago moved here to the heart of Blue Ridge moonshine country. Today, natives and "alter-natives," as some transplants like to be called, embrace with equal fervor locally grown fruits and vegetables, grass-fed beef, fresh milk and freshly slaughtered chickens. They revel in the ecological wonders of this 3,000-foot-high mountain town where the water is pure, the air clean and the music rich. Hot-list items in town: solar panels, wind generators, organic foods, bluegrass jamborees, clogging, wineries and artist colonies.

Ah, yes. The one stoplight town. Actually, Floyd is a one-stoplight county (or will be once again when they finish that long-delayed bridge project on U.S. 221 near Check). And it's a hippie paradise where life is slow, ponytails abound and tie-dye is the uniform of the day. That's the image to many. Floyd, of course, is much more than that and while Nasser managed to catch some of it, equating the area with the "Slow City" movement that began in Europe, she missed capturing the essence of the county.

Jamey Singleton's tortured career as a weatherman at WSLS Channel 10 in Roanoke is over, killed by an act of vengeance by someone he thought was a friend. For the 28-year-old Singleton, who battled heroin addiction and the near-fatal drug overdose of his friend Marc Lamarre, another meteorologist fired by Channel 10, the firing Thursday over a nude photo of him published on the Internet is the latest bizarre twist in a troubled life. He says he doesn't blame Channel 10 for their actions. "What's decent, what's indecent, what shocks and what offends -- that's really up to them," Singleton told Lindsey Nair of The Roanoke Times. "I can't blame them if...after everything that's happened they said, 'That's the straw that broke the camel's back.'" The photo, taken as he stepped out of a shower at a friend's house several months ago, was -- he thought -- a joke. But Singleton stopped hanging out with that friend, and others, as part of drug rehab and the friend turned on him, publishing the photo on MySpace on the Internet and sending it out by email. That, Channel 10 said, violated the "morals clause" of his contract. The bizarre story of both Singleton and Lamarre brings back memories 40 years ago of another Channel 10 weatherman, Floyd Countian Marty Hall, who was sacked by the station after he was busted for possession of marijuana. Marty died a couple of years ago. Singleton got a rare second chance from Media-General, the large corporation that owns Channel 10. Many would have fired him because of his drug use but others have been given such chances. While we lived in the Washington, DC, area, popular Channel 4 anchorman Jim Vance went into rehab for cocaine use. The NBC-owned station didn't fire him. By all accounts, Singleton cleaned up his act but betrayal by a friend derailed that second chance.

Nice piece about Barry Poss, founder of Sugar Hill Records, in The Independent Weekly that serves Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill in North Carolina. As writer Gayson Currin notes:

Barry Poss is an unlikely curator of Americana. Poss was born in Brantford, Ontario, a small Canadian city where his exposure to roots music was, at best, limited. He headed south to attend Duke University in 1968, a James B. Duke Graduate Fellow studying sociology. A decade later, his master's degree was finished, he had a chapter left in his dissertation, and he was eligible for a lofty faculty position. Poss passed, though, responding instead to an advertisement from County Records, a small, traditional music label in Floyd, Va. He became their graphic designer and, before long, asked permission to start his own County-associated imprint, Sugar Hill Records. These days, he's back in Durham, living in Duke Forest, retired from day-to-day label functions but active and enthusiastic -- the proud father of a label that has spawned international success with newcomers Nickel Creek, archival glory with Jerry Garcia's Old & In the Way and stability for people like Tony Rice, Doc Watson, Dolly Parton and Sam Bush.

Eric Schmidt, son of an economics professor at Tech, grew up in Blacksburg. He didn't go to Tech though, choosing to study engineering at Princeton and then get a masters and doctorate from the University of California. After a stint at Sun Microsystems, Schmidt became chairman and chief executive officer at Google, the Internet search engine giant. But he remembers Blacksburg and dropped a cool $2 million grant on Tech's College of Engineering this week. The grant establishes the Paul and Dorothea Torgersen Dean's Chair in Engineering, Torgersen was dean of the College of Engineering when young Schmidt used to mow his lawn. He also served as Tech's President from 1993-2000. "The idea that Eric Schmidt would think so much of Virginia Tech's College of Engineering, when he did not obtain his degree here, is overwhelming," Engineering Dean Richard Benson told the Roanoke Times.

Looks like Jim Webb took the Senate race in Virginia, providing the final nail in the coffin of what was once Republican control of Congress. The Democrats now have two years to prove they can handle the job. Given the level of voter anger we saw on Tuesday night, they had better deliver. Got a nasty email from a GOP supporter of outsted incumbent George Allen, accusing me of helping defeat the Senator because of my story about his raciak slurs. I doubt that my story had that much effect on Allen. His many missteps had already doomed his campaign and the barrage of negative ads that he and the Republican Party unleashed on the Commonwealth in the final days turned off many voters. But if my story helped end Allen's career, let me say "good riddance." The man deserved to lose and if I helped paint him as the racist and bigot he is, then I was doing my job as a journalist. And if Jim Webb fails to deliver on his campaign promises, I'll be first in line to nail him.

Up, for the most part, all night and we still don't know who won the Senate race here in Virginia. Webb is ahead but a margin of under 10,000 votes with 2.6 million votes cast means an almost certain recount -- probably a repeat of last year's attorney general race when it took weeks to learn the eventual winner. They're still counting votes in Montana where Republican incumbent Conrad Burns trails challenger Jon Tester by about 1800 votes. If the Dems take both races they control the Senate. They won the House by an overwhelming majority. Unfortunately, the anti-gay marriage amendment won in Virginia, gathering 57 percent of the vote. In Floyd County, the preachers did their job of motivating voters from the pulpit and it gave the amendment a margin of 66 percent. The Bible belt still has our county in a tight cinch. Allen carried 57 percent of the Floyd County vote -- a drop from the 65 percent he received six years ago and far below the 63 percnet margin that incumbent Democratic Congressman Rick Boucher pulled down. I'm going to get some sleep.

The University of Virginia first year law student and blogger who sees disruption of George Allen campaign stops as his mission in life found himself handcuffed and led out of a gathering in Weyers Cave.

Reports the Associated Press:

A liberal blogger who was manhandled by supporters of Sen. George Allen this week was handcuffed by authorities and escorted from another rally Saturday after an Allen backer claimed the man pushed him to the ground.

Mike Stark told The Associated Press that sheriff's deputies detained and released him. He was not charged.

"I'll own this town," Stark, a first-year University of Virginia law student, was overheard telling sheriff's deputies as he was led away from the rally at Shenandoah Valley Regional Airport.

Stark said that he was attending the event as a reporter for the Air America Radio network's "The Young Turks" show and that he wanted to ask Allen about his arrest record and why he didn't do more to stop his supporters from wrestling him to the ground at a campaign event on Tuesday.

On Saturday, Allen supporters formed a human wall to block Stark's access to the senator, who is in a tight election race with Democrat Jim Webb. As Stark tried to sidestep the wall, he brushed the side of a supporter, who fell. A deputy sheriff grabbed Stark, put his arm behind his back and led him away to the cheers of about 100 Allen supporters.

Stark said that he had little contact with the man and that he overheard him tell another supporter that he planned to "take a dive."

The first time this happened Stark made the Allen campaign look bad. He should have left it at that. Now he is just viewed as another fruitcake that reflects badly on Webb supporters.

USA Today hit town Thursday with a reporter and photographer writing about the "Slow Food - Slow Cities" movement, an Italian-born trend that is supposed to be some sort of protest against fast food and fast lifestyles.

We can hope Haya El Nasser, USA Today's environmental writer, is a better reporter than Jayne Clark who wrote, in a manner of speaking, about Floyd in a recent USA Today piece about the Crooked Road -- a poorly written report that was sketchy, vague poorly reseached and hardly worth the effort. But that's the reason that USA Today is called "McPaper" in journalistic circles.

Nasser writes a lot about urban sprawl. I read her work when we lived in the Washington area (where she is based). What I remember most about her work is that it is hardly objective. Reporters with an agenda always bother me, even when that agenda is anti-growth, which I support. Journalism is better served by objective writers.

According to Jorge Ossanai, a doctor in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, the Slow Food movement "rejects the globalization of taste that does not belong to the people." In other words, we should always eat local food and shun chains like McDonalds, Hardees and Applebees. We should avoid cookie cutter shopping malls in favor of local shopping. Both are laudable sentiments but we should also remember that business operates on the model of supply and demand. If such places did not offer appeal and services, they would not survive. I would love to buy everything I need in Floyd but, once in a while, I have to venture down to Roanoke and pick up something at Macys, Lowes, Home Depot or Sears because they have things that aren't always available locally.

It also means we're supposed to slow down our pace of life. That's why most of us came to Floyd in the first place and we don't need a hipper-than-thou movement from across the pond telling us how to do it. If I read the "Slow Food, Slow Movement" manifesto correctly, we're supposed to embrace our local lifestyle based on what some folks in Italy say is good for us. Is that a reverse form of "globalization of taste?"

I'm always weary of embracing the trend du jour, especially one that brings a reporter from a national newspaper to town so she can write about how wonderful life is around here, which prompts others to move here so they can complain about how much better life would be is we just did things their way. Media attention is always a double-edged sword.

Fred First over at Fragments from Floyd thinks the attention is a good idea. So does David St. Lawrence at Ripples. I hope they're right but I also hope we don't have to remember the old Mongolian proverb of "be careful what you wish for."

The season is over for the girls' volleyball team of Floyd County High School. It ended at the hands of Auburn in the regional semifinals at Glenvar Middle School Wedneday night.

The Lady Buffs went down 3-0 in the best of five series. They fought hard but were clearly overmatched by the girls from Auburn.

For several of the girls on the team, basketball will be thier next shot at state glory. The girls team that went to the State semifinals last year is back, intact, and hoping for another ride into the playoffs.

Should be fun to watch.

Roanoke police chief Joe Gaskins is trying to spin his way out of a ranking that, for the first time, places the city within the top 100 most dangerous cities in the United States.

Roanoke's move up the rankings is no real surprise. Anyone who has come out of a store or restaurant there to find their car broken into knows the city's crime rate is sprialing out of control. The city's own crime statistics shows the city has the state's highest rates of rape and aggravated assault, although Roanoke did drop from second to fourth in state rankings of overall crime.

The rankings by survey firm Morgan Quitno, shows aggravated assault, homicide, robbery and burglary increased in Roanoke last year.

"We're not where we need to be," says city councilman Sherman Lea. "We're not where I would like it to be."

But as dangerous as Roanoke may be, Mogan Quitno says the city is still safer than Richmond, Portsmouth and Norfolk.

The Roanoke Times Sunday endorsed Democratic challenger Jim Webb in his quest to unseat Republican incumbent George Allen.

Said The Times in its editorial:

In Iraq and at home, America is on the wrong course, one mapped by the Bush administration and followed -- in lockstep, eyes forward, no questions asked -- by incumbent Republican Sen. George Allen.

Voters would be wise to select a better representative.

Democratic challenger Jim Webb is as independent a thinker as Allen is an administration parrot. Plus, Webb is feisty and smart.

Virginia and the nation will be served better by far if the commonwealth's voters elect Webb to the Senate on Nov. 7.

His first priority as a senator, Webb said in an interview with the editorial board, would be to reorder the nation's national defense and foreign policy, starting with Iraq. We strongly approve.

So do we here in Chateau Thompson. Webb came to Floyd last week for a campaign appearance at the Country Store with popular former Gov. Mark Warner. I listened to what he had to say and liked what I heard. I've also been present when George Allen hurled racist epithets and have no desire to have a bigot represent Virginia in the Senate.

Sunday's Roanoke Times features a distubring story about the challenges facing the Appalachian Trail, talking about encroaching civilization, pollution and other threats.

Writes John Cramer:

The Appalachian Trail runs beside the properties of the Cochrans and Wingates in the Catawba Valley, making the fabled footpath a part of their lives.

But like landowners from Maine to Georgia, the two Southwest Virginia families have different opinions about encroaching development, which has become the biggest threat to the national scenic trail.

Bill and Katherine Cochran, who live beside the AT, support conservation easements and tough land-use regulations to protect the trail and Catawba's open spaces. They put several of their acres into a scenic easement, promising never to develop it. They believe some sacrifice is required for the greater good of the community and the natural world.

"We recognize the value of the trail -- it's a national treasure," said Bill Cochran, an outdoors writer. "When you live alongside it, you're part of something bigger than yourself."

Harold Wingate, whose Homeplace restaurant property abuts the AT, said he also supports the iconic footpath.

But he favors a free marketplace and strong property rights, where landowners don't give up without a fight -- or a fistful of dollars.

Some of the same challenges face the Blue Ridge Parkway.

The Crooked Road, and Floyd, are featured in Friday's Washington Post Weekend Magazine. Included, of course, is a look at the Friday Night Jamboree, the County Store, County Sales and The Pickin' Porch.

The print edition also featues a mention of Oddfellas Cantina.

Been out of pocket for a while for a variety of reasons -- the main one still being recovery from knee and ankle problems.

Getting old is a bitch. Will try to catch up on things this weekend.

SMART-1, the ESA spacecraft that set the record for slowest trip to the moon, has ended its mission by crashing into the moon.

SMART-1 is not the first spacecraft to crash into the moon, though, and it won’t be the last.

The Soviet Union’s Luna 2 was the first lunar impactor, way back in 1959.

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will also include mission finale impacts.

It's official. Arrow Truck Sales, a subsidiary of the giant Volvo group, will take over the Branwick Building on Christiansburg Pike and put 25 countians to work remanufacturing truck components for used Volvo and Mack Trucks.

The announcement came today after the Floyd County Board of Supervisors, the Industrial Development Authority, Branwick, and Arrow Trucking reached agreement on a five-year lease.

More to follow.