Y'all Come Go With Us
Just got back last night from a last-minute overnight stay in Floyd, VA to visit Joe's mother Lucy and then drive over to nearby Ferrum to see Joe's old stepfather Leighton who was coming into town again for the first time in 20 years. And seeing how it really has been about 20 years since either Joe or I have seen Leighton we were both pretty eager to drop whatever we were doing (which wasn't much) and haul ass across the state and make the visit ourselves. Plus I was anxious to see the old college campus again after all these years. Leslie told me that it had changed quite a bit, but I had a hard time picturing it in my head the way she kept describing it to me. Ferrum, as well as Floyd, are both little more than a stoplight in the middle of the mountains, or in Ferrum's case, they haven't even upgraded to a single stoplight yet. But pulling into Floyd at about 9pm at the single intersection that marks the settlement, I have rarely seen a spot in all of Virginia like looked like it was practically designed to sell picture postcards (and believe me, a lot of Virginia looks like that in a lot of different ways). Old-timey mercantiles, quaint country store fronts done up in dazzling Christmas displays, and more well-scrubbed white people in woolly holiday sweaters cavorting about than a Hallmark Christmas television special. Lucy and her former boyfriend David were playing with their band at a folksy little restaurant on the "strip" and Joe and I ate dinner and enjoyed the show, with Lucy on the fiddle and David on the Celtic harp with five other musicians playing old Irish, Scottish, and American folk music, while once or twice Lucy got up to sing and did a particularly heartbreaking rendition of Dan Seals' "Everything That Glitters Is Not Gold". It's been awhile since I've heard Lucy perform, and it was a nice way to relax and unwind after the hectic six-hour drive on the cold, rainy interstate and vertiginous mountain roads to get there. Route 8 is a genuine death trap, kiddies. I shat you not.
After the show we went back to the little cabin that Lucy and David were sharing about 2 miles down the road from the intersection.
The cabin living room, where we sat and relaxed and caught up after the gig. I gave Lucy my old copy of Castle Waiting, which she seemed very excited about. And Joe showed David the comic book we've had for years that we only just noticed recently mentioned David by name, in reference to the bestseller he wrote about 20 years ago himself.
The bedroom at the cabin that Joe and I shared, with all our "overnight" luggage strewn across the bed. We're quaintin' it up in style!
We brought Tyler and Buchanan with us for the trip. Tyler because he hasn't seen Ferrum since we've last seen it. And Buchanan because his little hippo ass would be pissed if we had left him home.
Next morning we drove up the mountain overlooking Floyd to visit Lucy's sister, Joe's aunt Sumani, who is building a house on a shared community-owned 100-acre property up there. We trudged through the woods to see Sumani's two cows, Nandi and Shanti. Nandi took a particular shine to Joseph. He's got that natural knack with women.
Joe and Nandi with Sumani's new house in the background.
The front of Sumani's soon-to-be eco-friendly new digs, complete with solar panels for home heating and her solar boiler. Also has a root cellar and a living roof, and that entire front area will be the space for her new garden. Oh, and a wee little cat door there in the front, too.
The side of Sumani's new house. The slanted roof catches rainwater in the low gutters, which runs down into the filter pipes and comes out of the little white spout there on the lower center of the photo. She seems to be ready for The Big One. Er, whatever that big one is.
After the visit with Aunt Sumani we make the 30-minute trek across the mountain to Ferrum (passing old Runnet Bag River, where I used to drive up to many early mornings and wade out to the giant rocks, lying there and fall asleep listening to the water rushing by) where we meet Leighton for breakfast. Living in Martha's Vineyard all these years, seventy-seven years old and still as whip-smart and funny as anyone I have ever met. Here three generations pose in the restaurant parking lot.
The old "77". I can't believe it's still here after all these years. Even some of the waitresses still work there since I used to eat at this place regularly back in my college days. One of the last times I ever saw Leighton was having breakfast with him here back in the summer of '88. Still around the corner from the bank where I kept my money, the mini-mart that used to be Frank's Market, and the laundromat where I was molested by the old mountain man. Ah, memories.
After breakfast we went to visit some old neighbors of Joe's family further up the mountain over Ferrum, and spent a few hours there under the unseasonably warm afternoon sky telling old stories (Joe was struck my lightening as a child in this same yard!) and harmonizing together while Lucy played a variety of instruments. Here's Lucy as she cranks out "Going Down This Road Feeling Bad" while Leighton enjoys a beer.
Lucy fiddles around.
Moms, pops, and a very perplexed-looking son. Joe often wondered if he was left on someones doorstep at a tender age.
After the visit and before we left for home, Joe and I made a stop at the Ferrum College campus to stroll around the very site where the two of us initially met and dated during that first year together in 1987-88. That was my dorm on the far right, Susannah Wesley Hall (the girls dorm) in 1987. My room was top floor, 5th from the left. Joe's dorm was Chapman Hall (the boys dorm) the one on the right. Dude, I can't tell you how many record albums are probably at the bottom of that lake. Probably tons of, like, Rick Astley and shit. I remember Joe and Brian and I making boats out of wretched old LPs and marching down to the lake to set them afloat. Of course, being albums, they sank straight to the bottom. And the lake seems to have far more ducks now than it did then. We had one ugly little duck that my roommate Amy named Fred, and when that duck would be floating serenely across that water surface Amy would stick her head out of that top floor 5th-from-the-left window and scream "FRED!!!!! FRRRRRED!!! COME HERE FRED I HAVE BREAD FOR YOOOOUUU!! COME HERE FRED GODDAMN YOU FUCKING DUCK!!!" which would could hear from where I was standing taking this picture. Yeah, I kinda don't miss living with that.
Joe and I climb the hill to the student center, where the cafeteria, post office, and several student lounges are located. I remember the day after Joe and I first kissed (well, first made out in the school chapel) and I was walking out of this building from the post office, having just gotten a letter from my old friend Jeanne Gainer from back home. I saw Joe coming up the sidewalk and I got suddenly very shy, but trying to play it cool because I was still trying to impress this guy. Well, I open my letter and Jeanne had sent me a picture of her and her pumpkin patch, surrounded by pumpkins as high as her chest, and I laughed so hard I fell over and tumbled down this very same incline all the way to bottom. Where Joe was standing to greet me. Yes, I'm all full of smooth moves that way.
Some boys playing football in the open field behind the cafeteria. That's the gym behind them, where I used to go swimming. I took horseback riding lessons a little further up that mountain behind the building. It truly is a splendid sight to see in the early fall, when the gold and red leaves are still on the branches.
I used to work in this cafeteria during the summer months, and boy has it changed. It was closed at the moment but I took this picture through the glass doors. That soup and salad bar used to be a conveyor belt where we'd put our dirty trays down and they would travel down into a little slot in the wall where they would be cleaned in an assembly-line fashion in the back with hose and a long trough of sudsy water. Once Brian set a plate of Doritos on fire and sent them on the tray down the conveyor belt, and we could hear the dishwashing staff in the back shriek and go nuts and turn the hose on it full blast. Later that summer Joe got arrested for sneaking in at night and sliding through the conveyor belt slot so he could break into the arcade in the student lounge below to play video games all night. Even funnier, some other kid we new was already there, having done the same thing before Joe had squeezed his way in.
Overall despite the many changes to the student lounge, the new bookstore, and two other new buildings, Ferrum College really didn't look any different from when I was there back in the 1980's. I wandered the campus with the good and bad feelings I had about being there again, remembering the intensity of everything, and how much this little spot in the mountains shaped my life, and made me so much of what I am right this minute. Ferrum was the first place and the first time in my life where I met people that I truly could relate to, as strange as that may sound today. Only in the boonies could I meet individuals where I didn't feel like such an outsider anymore. People with my passions for music, where even the simplest pop tunes took on such rich, complex, and downright frightening textures in this foreign landscape, on these country roads under the ominous shadows of these sleeping giants. I really wish I could have stayed longer. Maybe even overnight. Hike through the cold, dusky mountain forests with Peter Gabriel and Public Image Limited on my Walkman like I was 18 years old again.
After the show we went back to the little cabin that Lucy and David were sharing about 2 miles down the road from the intersection.
The cabin living room, where we sat and relaxed and caught up after the gig. I gave Lucy my old copy of Castle Waiting, which she seemed very excited about. And Joe showed David the comic book we've had for years that we only just noticed recently mentioned David by name, in reference to the bestseller he wrote about 20 years ago himself.
The bedroom at the cabin that Joe and I shared, with all our "overnight" luggage strewn across the bed. We're quaintin' it up in style!
We brought Tyler and Buchanan with us for the trip. Tyler because he hasn't seen Ferrum since we've last seen it. And Buchanan because his little hippo ass would be pissed if we had left him home.
Next morning we drove up the mountain overlooking Floyd to visit Lucy's sister, Joe's aunt Sumani, who is building a house on a shared community-owned 100-acre property up there. We trudged through the woods to see Sumani's two cows, Nandi and Shanti. Nandi took a particular shine to Joseph. He's got that natural knack with women.
Joe and Nandi with Sumani's new house in the background.
The front of Sumani's soon-to-be eco-friendly new digs, complete with solar panels for home heating and her solar boiler. Also has a root cellar and a living roof, and that entire front area will be the space for her new garden. Oh, and a wee little cat door there in the front, too.
The side of Sumani's new house. The slanted roof catches rainwater in the low gutters, which runs down into the filter pipes and comes out of the little white spout there on the lower center of the photo. She seems to be ready for The Big One. Er, whatever that big one is.
After the visit with Aunt Sumani we make the 30-minute trek across the mountain to Ferrum (passing old Runnet Bag River, where I used to drive up to many early mornings and wade out to the giant rocks, lying there and fall asleep listening to the water rushing by) where we meet Leighton for breakfast. Living in Martha's Vineyard all these years, seventy-seven years old and still as whip-smart and funny as anyone I have ever met. Here three generations pose in the restaurant parking lot.
The old "77". I can't believe it's still here after all these years. Even some of the waitresses still work there since I used to eat at this place regularly back in my college days. One of the last times I ever saw Leighton was having breakfast with him here back in the summer of '88. Still around the corner from the bank where I kept my money, the mini-mart that used to be Frank's Market, and the laundromat where I was molested by the old mountain man. Ah, memories.
After breakfast we went to visit some old neighbors of Joe's family further up the mountain over Ferrum, and spent a few hours there under the unseasonably warm afternoon sky telling old stories (Joe was struck my lightening as a child in this same yard!) and harmonizing together while Lucy played a variety of instruments. Here's Lucy as she cranks out "Going Down This Road Feeling Bad" while Leighton enjoys a beer.
Lucy fiddles around.
Moms, pops, and a very perplexed-looking son. Joe often wondered if he was left on someones doorstep at a tender age. 
After the visit and before we left for home, Joe and I made a stop at the Ferrum College campus to stroll around the very site where the two of us initially met and dated during that first year together in 1987-88. That was my dorm on the far right, Susannah Wesley Hall (the girls dorm) in 1987. My room was top floor, 5th from the left. Joe's dorm was Chapman Hall (the boys dorm) the one on the right. Dude, I can't tell you how many record albums are probably at the bottom of that lake. Probably tons of, like, Rick Astley and shit. I remember Joe and Brian and I making boats out of wretched old LPs and marching down to the lake to set them afloat. Of course, being albums, they sank straight to the bottom. And the lake seems to have far more ducks now than it did then. We had one ugly little duck that my roommate Amy named Fred, and when that duck would be floating serenely across that water surface Amy would stick her head out of that top floor 5th-from-the-left window and scream "FRED!!!!! FRRRRRED!!! COME HERE FRED I HAVE BREAD FOR YOOOOUUU!! COME HERE FRED GODDAMN YOU FUCKING DUCK!!!" which would could hear from where I was standing taking this picture. Yeah, I kinda don't miss living with that.
Joe and I climb the hill to the student center, where the cafeteria, post office, and several student lounges are located. I remember the day after Joe and I first kissed (well, first made out in the school chapel) and I was walking out of this building from the post office, having just gotten a letter from my old friend Jeanne Gainer from back home. I saw Joe coming up the sidewalk and I got suddenly very shy, but trying to play it cool because I was still trying to impress this guy. Well, I open my letter and Jeanne had sent me a picture of her and her pumpkin patch, surrounded by pumpkins as high as her chest, and I laughed so hard I fell over and tumbled down this very same incline all the way to bottom. Where Joe was standing to greet me. Yes, I'm all full of smooth moves that way.
Some boys playing football in the open field behind the cafeteria. That's the gym behind them, where I used to go swimming. I took horseback riding lessons a little further up that mountain behind the building. It truly is a splendid sight to see in the early fall, when the gold and red leaves are still on the branches.
I used to work in this cafeteria during the summer months, and boy has it changed. It was closed at the moment but I took this picture through the glass doors. That soup and salad bar used to be a conveyor belt where we'd put our dirty trays down and they would travel down into a little slot in the wall where they would be cleaned in an assembly-line fashion in the back with hose and a long trough of sudsy water. Once Brian set a plate of Doritos on fire and sent them on the tray down the conveyor belt, and we could hear the dishwashing staff in the back shriek and go nuts and turn the hose on it full blast. Later that summer Joe got arrested for sneaking in at night and sliding through the conveyor belt slot so he could break into the arcade in the student lounge below to play video games all night. Even funnier, some other kid we new was already there, having done the same thing before Joe had squeezed his way in.
Overall despite the many changes to the student lounge, the new bookstore, and two other new buildings, Ferrum College really didn't look any different from when I was there back in the 1980's. I wandered the campus with the good and bad feelings I had about being there again, remembering the intensity of everything, and how much this little spot in the mountains shaped my life, and made me so much of what I am right this minute. Ferrum was the first place and the first time in my life where I met people that I truly could relate to, as strange as that may sound today. Only in the boonies could I meet individuals where I didn't feel like such an outsider anymore. People with my passions for music, where even the simplest pop tunes took on such rich, complex, and downright frightening textures in this foreign landscape, on these country roads under the ominous shadows of these sleeping giants. I really wish I could have stayed longer. Maybe even overnight. Hike through the cold, dusky mountain forests with Peter Gabriel and Public Image Limited on my Walkman like I was 18 years old again.Eh. Maybe in another twenty years.
posted by Melissa at 5:52 AM
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