Posted on by Anne

The right place, the very wrong time

Jim and I took a road trip last weekend to visit our boy in Lexington, Kentucky.

We love Lexington but don’t love the journey there from our home in SW Virginia. It’s a long haul up I-77 in West Virginia. Don’t get me wrong, the highway is a smooth conduit that connects Rt. 460 in Giles County, VA, to Charleston, WV, where we catch I-64 west out to the Lex. The problem is, all the trucks love it, too. So this time we thought we’d mix it up.

Google Maps option #2 took us deeper into the western tip of Virginia to the (beautiful) town of Abingdon, at which point we turned hard right and headed straight into southeastern Kentucky, with no venture into West Virginia at all. We were looking for mountain vistas, smaller roads, and fewer 18-wheelers.

Southeastern Kentucky is famous for its coal mines; I read that coal has been mined there since 1790. But on Thursday, July 28, the day of our trip, it became famous for flooding. Days of unprecedented, powerful rainfall brought devastating floods that wiped out houses, roads, bridges, and at the time of this writing, has killed 28 people. We didn’t see that news early Thursday morning as we set out. We hauled down I-81, stopped for coffee in Abingdon, turned right, and headed up over the mountains.

The views over Clinch Mountain were stunning. As we crossed into Kentucky, we could see waterfalls on the towering stone walls that border northbound route 23. But as we turned west onto 119, we started noticing the water in the creek next to the highway was very, very active. Churning and brown. Then we went through a town and saw folks in camo who were clearly National Guard, and not hunters.

Not long after that, the traffic stopped. The bridge on 119 had washed out. Like our fellow drivers, we turned around.

I was navigating, and at this point, I didn’t want to completely retrace our steps, but instead tried to find an alternate route north, along those picturesque mountain roads. This was the wrong choice.

We muddled north; every road seemed to follow an overflowing creek and we started seeing houses and bridges in ruins. Mud and water filled yards. At one house a car was wedged up against the front porch like it had been thrown there by a huge, angry toddler. We drove through the town of Fleming-Neon, whose Main Street was under water; we followed a side street with a stream of pick-up trucks and ATVs (y’all, so many ATVs) to get to the road on the other end of town. That road was blocked by a mudslide.

For two hours we drove back and forth like a rat in a maze, trying multiple routes that turned out to be blocked, before we finally worked our way back to a clean highway. We drove through the branches of trees that had fallen across roads, and skirted blacktop that was cracking because the dirt underneath it was washing away. We drove through water that was deep enough that we could see that other cars had been swept out of their path (by the time we got there, it had receded: “If that Subaru can do it, we can, too”).

It was a disaster. We had no business being there.

We should have backtracked immediately at the first closed road. We easily could have been stuck in Pike County. And you know what? We would have been stupid tourists draining the resources of an area that already has plenty of stress of its own. We found ourselves in a natural disaster and I thought I could be clever and find a work-around on mountain roads that I do not know. Jim’s driving got us out of that mess. And I hope I’ve learned my lesson that I need to respect bad situations a lot better.

Now I sit here safe and dry at home, fully knowing that our experience is nothing compared to what these folks will be dealing with for the next few years, at least. If you are able to donate to help, Kentucky’s Governor Beshear’s office has set up a site where you can do so. It only takes a minute. I’ve never seen any situation like what we saw on Thursday and hope you never do, either.

Posted on by Anne

Sharing Covid-19 Experiences

I’ve been writing about how the pandemic is affecting my immediate environs, and social media is a rich resource for learning about how everyone is trying to stay healthy and mentally checked-in while quarantined. But there are two groups of folks who would love to hear what YOU are going through!

I’ve mentioned that I do some work with George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. A couple of teams I know are working on projects that study how people are getting along in these challenging times. They would love your input.

Personal Coping Strategies

The Anxiety, Stress, and Relationships Lab (part of the clinical psychology program) has an online survey about Covid-19’s effect on interpersonal relationships. Do you have extra people living in your house right now? Are the stresses of the news and changing circumstances impacting how you might be getting along with them? These folks want to know how you are coping. The survey is completely confidential so you can be totally honest about how you might have been eating more cheese, bourbon, or ice cream over the past month. They will not judge you. The survey form also offers resource information to help you out if you need it, and the information they learn will help other people find positive ways to be resilient in the future.

Faith Communities’ Response

Another group at Mason, the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media, is conducting a survey of how religious communities are adapting in the face of the pandemic. The religious studies department is teaming up with the digital history folks to gather input from churches, synagogues, mosques (tell your own community!), as well as from individuals to learn how they are making due when they can’t get to services. If you go to the Pandemic Religion: A Digital Archive site, you can also read about the experiences of a variety of religious communities. And then add your own experience. It’s not only interesting as heck but is also a solid reminder that we are all in this mess together.

And if that doesn’t make for a community, I don’t know what does.

Posted on by Anne · 2 Comments

From Here? Come Here?

I am doing some work with the Smith Mountain Arts Council — just press releases, but that’s enough that they invite me to monthly board meetings — and it’s a sad time for the arts council because we are having to cancel all of our events, of course. This was the subject of some conversation at our last meeting (on Zoom); the council comprises many talented and energetic people (mostly retired) who want to offer some kind of outlet for performance and give their neighbors a chance to get out for an evening.

One of the guys in the group finally spoke out, confessing that he and his wife would absolutely not be going out until they were completely comfortable that it was safe. There was much agreement.

Then I ran into a neighbor this morning who expressed some exasperation that businesses aren’t opening back up quickly enough. I was a little surprised by her reaction, and I’ll admit that was because she is well into her sixties, in a demographic that I assumed would be more on the side of keeping things locked down a little longer.

But that’s just my oversimplified thinking, obviously.

I do a lot of thinking about the people who are “From Here’s” — whose families have lived in Franklin County for hundreds of years, who have Confederate soldiers in their family trees, and who have seen the fortunes of this place rise and fall with manufacturing, tobacco, the railroads, and farming. On the other hand, a lot of us folks around the lake are “Come Here’s” — people who are mostly retired, and who have moved from places in North Carolina and Virginia, certainly, but many of whom are from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin (where my neighbor mentioned above originated).

Items like this little fella are available for purchase at a local gift store.

I fall into the trap of thinking that the Come Here’s think one way, and the From Here’s think another. But my conversations over the last couple of days once again illustrate that that’s more than a little naive. Then I default to thinking, gee, I wish I was a historian or sociologist, just to try to make sense of it all.

Tomorrow, I promise, I will lighten up and talk more about fun quarantine activities and pondering if our college son will ever get out of bed before mid-afternoon.

Posted on by Anne · 2 Comments

Covid’s Creep to the Country

I think I’ve mentioned that where we live is fairly rural.

As with some rural communities, there may be some sense of insulation from the effects of Covid-19 as it sweeps around the world. In fact, someone I know was teased a few weeks ago at a local gardening store when he told the cashier that he would load his own mulch in order to maintain some social distance. “A CUSTOMER IS COMING TO THE LOADING AREA,” she announced over the store’s loudspeaker. “BUT HE DOESN’T NEED HELP BECAUSE HE WANTS TO SOCIAL DISTANCE!” There was chuckling. This person now buys his mulch from the Lowe’s in Rocky Mount.

(About ten days after this interaction this same establishment went to curbside-only service. No more loitering in the garden store, y’all!)

And indeed, today’s Roanoke Times reports only 16 cases of Covid-19 in Franklin County, with 19 in Bedford County just across the lake.

However, a large population of our neighbors are retired and are very respectful of the threat that the coronavirus presents. You see some folks wearing masks in the stores, and appreciate businesses’ attempts to distance their customers.

The Burnt Chimney Post Office is not playing around.

We are supporting our small businesses with take-out orders and only venturing out when we need to. But if we went to our windows to bang pots at 7 pm in support of health care workers, I don’t think anyone would hear us.

When I talk to friends in the DC area or our daughter in New York, it is clear that they are living in a world that seems very different, even if I suspect strongly that it is not.

Posted on by Anne · 2 Comments

It’s Still Spring

So…. whatcha been up to?

Here in Wirtz, we’re probably doing much what you’re doing these days: staying put.

But I’m feeling extremely lucky being able to do it.

For one thing, since moving to this area year ago, I have been very fortunate to work as a freelance writer, with my main client being the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at George Mason University. In case you don’t know, Mason is the largest public research university in the commonwealth (!) (that’s right, Virginia Tech!), serving students from its campuses in Fairfax, Manassas, and Arlington, Virginia. The College of Humanities and Social Sciences is one of the largest colleges within the university, boasting over 20 distinct departments and programs. It has some amazing faculty members, students, and alumni, and I help to write about them.

Like most institutions of higher learning (and even not-so-higher learning), Mason has been hustling to meet the needs of its students in the face of this nasty covid-19 mess. What this means for me is that now all of my colleagues are working remotely, just like me. And the messaging has been flying fast and furious, so I have been fortunate to help keep those messages going.

Let me tell you, being able to work during this time is a huge (I’ll say it) blessing. It helps draw my focus from social media, which is so crazy right now, and the news — none of which seems to be all that good. And it’s springtime here, so I can work from an office view like this one.

Most of this blog has been all about the neat things to see around this area, and obviously we haven’t been out doing a lot of that. But in the coming days I’ll tell you what it’s like socially distancing in the country, because it sure seems different than what my friends are experiencing in bustling northern Virginia.

I hope you are well and healthy and have something good to keep you busy, too.

Posted on by Anne · 2 Comments

A Long Trip Home

It’s funny how a dreadful event can refocus your perspective very quickly.

Our travel home from Alabama went a little bit sideways, leaving me grateful for everything that didn’t go wrong.

As background, the easiest way to get to Auburn, Alabama, is through Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta. (It’s such a big airport that even Roanoke’s little airfield offers direct flights!) From there, you rent a car and drive straight down I-85 for an hour and a half. Once you cross the Chattahoochee River you know you’re almost there.

Jim, Cora, and I had managed to book our flights home separately but all ended up on the same flight home to Roanoke, an afternoon flight that allowed us to get out of town in a leisurely fashion. The rest of the family had earlier flights, so they scooted out of town with dispatch. As we finished up our breakfast, I got a call from an Atlanta number.

Was I ever surprised to hear one of my favorite voices on the other end: my sister, Sarah. She started the conversation with, “Anne? Everything is okay, but…”

And with those four words, your heart skips because you know that everything is not okay. And it wasn’t. She had stopped off of I-85 in Union City, just south of Atlanta, to refill her gas tank. While doing so, another car drove up to the pump next to hers (as they do). When she turned around to attend to the gas pump, someone got out of that car and into hers and sped off. With all of her possessions.

With a presence of mind that I can only aspire to, she ran into the gas station, called 9-1-1, borrowed a phone, and got in touch with her family, including me. Suddenly grateful to be packed up a little early, we jumped in the car and made our way to Union City. By the time we got there, Sarah had spoken with the police and made a report.

And we had formulated a plan. We picked her up and drove with her to Hartsfield-Jackson. Jim and Cora flew home, but Sarah and I stepped up to the National Rent-a-Car counter and drove ourselves to the airport in Roanoke (me: “Sarah, Sarah, look! It’s Fancy Gap!”). We were met there by her husband, who had spent the afternoon cancelling credit cards, acquiring a new phone for my sis (at the Apple store in mid-December), and driving the four hours from northern Virginia.

She wrote about the experience on social media, making the cautionary point that YOU SHOULD ALWAYS TAKE YOUR KEYS WITH YOU WHEN YOU FILL UP YOUR CAR, but also expressing her great relief that things worked out much better than they could have.

That’s some relief that I share.

Posted on by Anne · 1 Comment

Fear? What Fear?

Come on and take a ride with me.

If you’re going to drive anywhere near our house, you can expect some roads that are pretty narrow and twisty.

They can get a little scary for this suburban gal.

In fact, fear is something I really had to overcome when we moved down here. The roads are generally two lanes (or a little less) without wide shoulders to pull onto. There isn’t much traffic, allowing you to move quite quickly. For the first month or so, I was pretty convinced that there were deer just waiting to pop out in front of the car (knock on wood, I’ve only had rabbits do that so far!), so I tended to hold up whatever traffic we had.

I’ve seen a lot of Ford Super Duty f250 grilles in my rear view mirror, let’s put it that way.

One day, I was rolling up to an intersection with a four-way stop and saw that a van had turned in my direction, but had turned wide and was coming right at me in my lane.

He was right about where that minivan is. But coming towards me in my lane.

In that instant, as I was trying to figure out how I was going to get out of the ditch that I was going to need to drive into to avoid that guy, the van righted itself and all worked out fine. But I was shook up enough to go home and Google “How do people live in scary circumstances?” Because I didn’t think I was going to be able to do it.

What I found was a TED talk from Col. Chris Hadfield; you should watch it if you have a minute because he describes exquisitely how it feels to blast off into space, which is undeniably dangerous. For him, though, the apprehension was worth it because by facing that danger he was achieving the goal he’d had since childhood, of becoming an astronaut.

Truly, I am not aiming so high.

But here’s the takeaway that I got. If you can separate the perceived danger (getting run off the road by a country driver) from actual danger (this most likely will not happen), you can achieve an objective that you want.

And my objective is to learn how to live here. We live here. Jim’s job is here. There are many, many cool things about our new home.

Hadfield concluded his talk by speaking about “taking that ability to adapt, and ability to understand, and the ability to take our own self perception into a new place.” That’s enough inspiration for me to keep getting out on the road.

And then he sang David Bowie’s Major Tom, which is pretty darned brave, too.