Randy Fitzgerald

Just a reminder of the Sing Along Randy and East of Afton are a part of this Saturday.  Hope you can join us.

5th ANNUAL

ST. MICHAEL’S OLD FASHIONED

SING ALONG & SOCIAL

FREE   -    ADMISSION   -    FREE

GOOD FOOD & HOME-MADE ICE CREAM at MODEST PRICES

Saturday, May 31, 2008, 4:00 – 8:00 P.M.

GOSPEL / BLUEGRASS / SPIRITUALS

GOOD OLD HYMNS & OLD TIME MUSIC

COME PLAY ALONG & SING ALONG WITH

Randy Fitzgerald & “East of Afton” Bluegrass

“The Coachmen” Gospel Quartet

“Rich Munroe & the Famous House Band”

Sue Wood & Friends (the Marionettes!)

 “Pete Milano – the Mandolineer without Peer & Bob Shaw, too!” 

 “The Dueling Gospel Pianos of Michael Simpson & Lavern Moffat”

“The Choirs of St. Michael’s” + “The McCulloch/Cox Family Band”

 “Bill Evenson & ‘The Laughing Song’” + “Gospel Truth”

“Maggie & Hennessy & Nicole” + “The Incredible Zack Rogers”

 “Benedictine High School Honor Guard” + Cody, the Miracle Horse!

Plus, surprises galore! Including “Goatique” & “Goat Milk Soap!”

UNDER THE HUGE TENT ON THE FRONT LAWN

ST. MICHAEL’S EPISCOPAL CHURCH

8706 Quaker Lane, Bon Air, Virginia 23235

(Take Buford Road from either Huguenot Road or Midlothian Turnpike;

turn west off Buford Road onto Rockaway Road, go one block to huge tent on right.)

Information: 272-0992 or http://www.bluegrassville.com/events.dir/SaintMichaels/homepg.htm

Much more information: www.bluegrassville.com or www.coachmenquartet.com

Barb and I have been blessed by reunions with three ex-Richmonders in the past month, and it’s always fun to welcome former residents back to town, show them the most recent developments to the west and south, and introduce them to the latest hit restaurant. I think this is a city—a whole area, in fact—that people do like to return to, a place that does work its way permanently into the hearts of most who live here.

Barb and I have lived here and left here four different times, transplanting for professional reasons to areas as far afield as Georgia, South Carolina, London and Texas—but wherever we were, we always came back to visit, and finally, more than 25 years ago when we could swing it, we came back for good. I know I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life in any of the other cities where I’ve lived, but I can’t tell you exactly what is so special about Richmond. I have the love for this city that people usually reserve for the town where they grew up—but I came here for the first time as a 17-year-old college student, and Richmond became mine immediately.

When I was an undergraduate in the sixties, I worked after class as a copy boy at the Times-Dispatch, on the night shift.  Like most students in those days, I didn’t have a car so had to take the bus from the University of Richmond and walk a couple of blocks through downtown to get to the newspaper building, and I still remember so well the excitement I felt as I neared the place. Being in the “big city” and working for a major paper—even as a lowly copyboy—especially at night when the streets were deserted and the rest of the world slept—was such a thrill.

A few times when there was a big story or a lot going on in the newsroom, my working “day” would extend past the time of the last bus out, and—having no money for cab fare—I would have to hitchhike or else walk from downtown back to my dorm at the University of Richmond.  Those were the days when one could do either with no concerns for safety. My only concern would have been how tired I was at the end of a long day of school and work, and how early I would have to get up for class the next morning—and, of course, in wintertime, the fact that my teeth would chatter wildly in my head for most of that long cold walk west.

The city worked its charm on me that far back, and though I’ve lived in bigger places, more progressive places, and better-run places, this is the place my heart knows as home, even though it’s not the place I knew in 1960. 

            “When I left here,” said our friend Joyce, who was one of the April returnees to our fair town, “Short Pump was a wooden country store at the intersection of Three Chopt Road and Broad Street, and now it’s a city all its own.” 

            Formerly a Woodlake resident when that community was about the farthest thing out Route 360, Joyce was also interested to see how far development has extended in that direction. She and her family now live in Chicago, but this is still her heart’s hometown.

            A week before Joyce arrived, Barb’s old friend Pat came in from the North, after another long, hard winter in Ithaca. She and her longtime partner, Stephen, whom we were meeting for the first time, were passing through on their way to Florida—a highly suitable spring destination for a couple fresh off fighting the snows of upstate New York for five months.

            Stephen reviewed operas for USA Today for a good while, so Barb told him it was to his credit that he was willing to come here to meet and sit down with me, a fellow who plays banjo in a bluegrass band. “The bluegrass band thing didn’t seem to bother him,” Pat volunteered.  “However, when I told him that earlier this month you two had gone to Dollywood—now, THAT slowed him down a bit.”

            This week, Mary came in from Columbia, South Carolina—and I had no apprehensions about her arrival because she came bearing her fiddle and a raft of funny stories about the years she spent in Richmond.  She’s here for a few more days, and I have no doubt that at some point during her visit, she will say, as she always does, “I sure do miss this town.”

            And then she’ll break out her fiddle and break out her bow and play a little “Old Joe Clark” to let us all know she’s once again home.

The first one we noticed—and I think it was several years ago—was Jeffrey’s.

It appeared overnight on the shoulder of the east-bound lane of I-64 somewhere this side of Charlottesville—a little memorial site with plastic flowers and a cross and just his lone name: “Jeffrey.”

Barb and I travel I-64 a lot, back and forth for weekends our four-room farmhouse up at Keswick, and Jeffrey’s memorial gradually became a ritualistic part of the trip. Each time we’d come upon it, Barb took to saying, “Here’s a prayer for you, Jeffrey,” and then she’d get quiet for a few seconds and leave me to my thoughts, usually ones about my own kids—and then we’d move on past, literally and symbolically.

Some months later and closer in towards Richmond, another similar memorial sprang up—the same colorful display of artificial flowers and this time the name “Nicole.”  Somebody’s daughter.  Did she love to dance?  Did she kiss the top of her Daddy’s head the way my daughter does?

I feel sure that Jeffrey and Nicole have to have been young people.  I can just see their grieving parents out there creating these little shrines, coming back periodically, probably at night when the traffic is not so bad, to pull over to the side of the busy interstate and hurriedly replace the fading flowers or straighten the cross and think—what?  What would a parent think here at the very spot where their precious child lost the spark of life?

Last year “Sammy” appeared on the side of the road, joining a group no one’s child should ever have to be a part of.  His memorial is near Zion Crossroads, I think—looking a little newer and fresher than the others.  Who was Sammy?  Was he a teenager?  A small child? A college student? 

Barb and I have both lost a lot of people in our lives, but none of them were young and none died in car wrecks—except one who was very important to us. He was the first great loss of our lives, and his fatal car wreck came the year I graduated from the University of Richmond.  My best friend in the class of 1963 was a brilliant young man from Richmond named Dave.  Dave was the one who got the best grades, who had nailed down the best job and had it waiting for him after graduation. Like me, he was one of the few guys in the class who had married as an undergraduate, and Dave and his wife had a precious baby girl. Barb and I spent a lot of time at their house, and they at ours. Dave’s wife and daughter had already moved to Tidewater that spring, anticipating his graduation.  On the night he took his last exam at UR, he headed home, and he didn’t make it past Williamsburg.  He hit a tree. 

Barb and I were 22 years old. Dave was our age. Dave was us. Forty-five years later, I still never drive to Williamsburg without thinking of Dave.  I wonder where the exact spot was where he was killed.  I have crazy thoughts like wondering if the tree he hit is still there. I think if I knew which tree he hit, I would have to go at least pin a ribbon on it, place a flower beneath it, maybe curse it, put my hand on it, stand beside it and say a few words to him, to tell him how life turned out and how much he has missed.

            My thoughts are my memorial to Dave, but I understand exactly why those who loved Sammy and Jeffrey and Nicole wanted to put down something tangible—something to comfort themselves and show others that these kids shared this earth with the rest of us, and that they left it too soon. And perhaps something to serve as a reminder for others who pass this spot, and that one, and that one, to slow down, be cautious, look out, treasure your young life so that you’ll be around to enjoy the old life, too.

            Last week I drove home from Charlottesville and caught a glimpse as I drove past the Ferncliff exit of what I think was a new memorial—at least it was one I’ve never noticed before.  It was some flowers on the ground, and like all the others it was on the eastbound side of 64, this time in the median rather than on the shoulder. I think the name was “Chris.”

            Here’s a prayer for you, Chris:  When we drive past this spot, we’re thinking of you, we know you were here, and we know you were loved. If the dead can take comfort, we hope you find some in your roadside memorial because, sadly, with its riches and abundance, that’s all this world can offer you now.

I first saw her in the alley behind our house, somewhere beyond gaunt and bone thin, backbone protruding, limping a little like someone who had walked a long way.
            We’ve all had that stray dog turn up in our yard, haven’t we?  We’ve all searched the classifieds hoping for a frantic owner, we’ve all sent out a message on the neighborhood yahoo or google group:  “I found a dog, I think a spaniel of some kind. Black and white. Is she yours?”
            Our notice was handicapped a bit by the fact that we couldn’t really swear that this dog was a “she” at all. I saw her off and on and from a distance for four or five days, but neither Barb nor I could ever get close enough to determine gender. Yet we independently starting referring to her first as “she,” and then as days passed, we called her Blanche, because like the character in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” she clearly was depending on the kindness of strangers.
 She was lost, no doubt about that.  She had that frantic, harried, exhausted look of the lost dog that never stops moving. I think she had probably been on her own for a good long while, because I’ve never seen a skittzier dog in my life. If she was in the backyard and we opened the backdoor—zoom!—she was gone. My good neighbor Patrick said he turned his car down the alley one day, and while he was still four houses from her, she took off like a shot, disappearing almost like an apparition.
She may have been tired and not feeling well, but she was fast.  We had no hope of getting a hand on her, even after Barb had been putting food out for her for several days. I still can’t tell you whether she wore a collar. We didn’t see one, but it could have been buried in her hair, and we never got close enough for a good look. 
Even from a distance, this dog had something about her.  There was a dignity in her condition, a wisdom in her demeanor.  She had obviously learned life’s hardest lessons during her travels—known hunger and cold intimately, experienced betrayal and perhaps even cruelty, and most of all, she was well versed in confusion. 
The first night she came into the yard, Barb was appalled at her condition. “She’s starving,” my wife said, and then went into the kitchen to try to find something that a dog would eat from a household of vegans.  There was no meat, of course, no milk, no eggs, no bread except whole wheat—never a canine favorite.  Finally, in the back of the cabinet, Barb found a small can of corned beef hash, appropriately enough for St. Patrick’s Day, dumped it onto a paper plate, and set it by the back steps.  The dog was nowhere to be seen.
“If she’s anywhere around, she’ll smell it,” said Barb, and we went back inside and watched from a living room window.  To our amazement, she soon appeared from within a thick stand of azalea bushes on the west side of our house.  First that white head popped out, disembodied and cautious, and gradually the rest of the dog crept across the patio and gobbled the feast in a few bites.
Watching the intensity of her hunger, Barb and I were heart struck.  “Do you want to keep her?” I asked. 
“No, we made a pact not to have any more pets,” she reminded me, “and I’m sticking with it.”
While no one has enjoyed pets more than Barb and I have, we’re done.  No more dogs, cats, canaries, cockatoos, parrots, goldfish—all of them. We’ve agreed.
When I got home from school the day after St. Patrick’s, there was a big bag of dry dog food on the back porch. And so we fed the dog and watered her.  And spoke to her kindly from a distance.  And, day after day, we watched her disappear into the shrubbery after she ate or run away when we approached.
One morning, she didn’t appear to get her breakfast.  I went out and checked the azaleas.  They were mashed down, like the places where baby deer often sleep in the middle of an open field, but she was gone.
“Darn,” said Barb.  “How is it they capture your heart so soon, even when you’re dead set against it?”
I guess she’s still out there somewhere, still lost, running frantically in one direction and doubling back in another, who knows how far from home?  If you see her, please remember her name for now is Blanche, and she depends on the kindness of strangers.