Category: Notes from Virginia

The weather can shift here like a violent mood, and the seasons explode like a sunrise into Spring, dogwood blossoms, birds and humming green life dance across the sky toward sunset, echoing over the horizon through the silent bare branches of Winter.

A cloud that looks like a Timber Rattler slithers through the orange dusk fading out my window over the dark Appalachian Alleghenies in the West. It’s Friday night and the icy trees outside seem to watch it along with me, peering over neighborhood chimneys as the stormy viper welcomes the night.

The Timber Rattler cloud reminds me there are two other poisonous snakes in these parts – The Eastern Cottonmouth and the Northern Copperhead, all collectively known as Pit Vipers which is a pretty cool name.

While I haven’t seen any of them yet, and they’re probably hibernating right now, I have seen another resident snake in our backyard – A big black rat snake. It looked like it had just eaten a squirrel when I saw it. I say squirrel instead of rat or mouse or cat because we have tons of squirrels all over our little Shangri La, skipping jolly and hanging upside down from our bird feeders. But in the weeks after the picture below was taken, squirrels became mighty scarce.

This snake ain’t poisonous, but just as lethal since she bites critters then squeezes the F out of them until they suffocate and die. Then she eats them.

Anyway, all these snakes reflect a part of this North Virginia countryside – Along with the country living, pastoral beauty, farms, woods, wineries, mountains and streams, a history of violence, death, pain, and suffering are also baked into the pie – – –

* * * * *

It’s a new day and I’ve decided to finish this here at a bar in Old Town where I can enjoy the afternoon and have a beer – Much better than a Starbucks, even though Starbucks has started serving beer. Which I think is weird and unnecessary. Who the F would get a beer at Starbucks? If you would, my apologies, but it strikes me as being like if Taco Bell suddenly started offering Chinese food and sushi.

Anyway, I’m writing this in a bar which I’ve never done before, but last time I was here I saw others doing it, so when in Rome –

When we first got here to Winchester, Virginia, last Fall, I was talking to one of my next-door neighbors and her friend as they worked the front yard. The friend was a tough, longtime Virginia Woman whose spiked amber eyes would send a cottonmouth skittering for cover.

“Oh yeah, this ground is soaked in blood,” she said with a wave of her hand, addressing the entire surrounding Shenandoah Valley. “A lot of people died here – right where you stand – And many of those who didn’t probably wished they did – Amputations, piles of limbs, faces blown off. I tell you, it was awful.”

Things had gotten dark quick, but she wasn’t kidding:

Winchester was a major crossroads during the Civil War, with all kinds of turnpikes, railroads and other avenues leading both the North and the South to converge here with violent results.

Winchester is said to have traded hands between the Union and Confederate armies over 70 times during its brutally bloody war years – Some say that’s an exaggeration, but if it is, it’s not much of one. As the North and South got more and more pissed off at each other and puffed their chests toward war in the early 1860s, Winchester was like a rope in a kind of tug-of-war between the two.

Before the war, no need nor desire to secede from the Union was embraced by many of Northwestern Virginia’s hard-working farmers, tradesmen, artisans, and (surprise) free African Americans. In fact, that’s how West Virginia came to be – Those folks breaking off from Virginia with a Hail no! We ain’t gon’ go!

But many others in the region, including the relative few that relied on slave labor, leaned toward joining the states to the south that were melding into the Confederacy.

And then Johnny Reb put an end to any more debate by cracking off a few shots at Fort Sumter, whereby Abraham Lincoln called Bullshit, opened up a Costco-sized can of military whoop-ass, and it was game on! Sweet Virginia was not only in a war, but she was the frontline and home to the Confederate capital, Richmond, which is about 2 hours Southeast of here, on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

SIDE NOTE: If you’re ever in Richmond, Virginia, along with the rest of its history, there is a really cool Edgar Allan Poe Museum –
“But Edgar Allan Poe lived in Baltimore – Everybody knows that!” The man sitting next to me here at the bar has apparently been reading over my shoulder. “Why in Sam Hill is there an Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond?”
“Well, Sir,” I reply, “I always thought Baltimore was Poe’s hometown too – I mean even Baltimore’s football team is the Ravens for crying out loud, and he did live in Baltimore a bit. But Mr. Poe actually spent much of his tragic and often miserable life in Richmond. That said, he did end up in Baltimore on the way to a writing assignment and that’s what sent him spiraling through all kinds of crazy, mysterious shit which led to his early and horrible demise on the side of a road there.”
“What? What happened? How old was he? What did he die of?”

(These are always the questions people ask about someone who has died, the macabre gears spinning behind their eye-balls, wondering if the same could happen to them!)

“Well, historians, scholars, some English professors, and other Poe-enthusiasts are still trying to figure that out. But if you’ll buy me a beer, I’ll tell you what I know after I finish writing this.”
“Bartender!” he says, slapping the bar.

Anyway, after the Rebs fired on Fort Sumter, Winchester found herself a key component in the South’s fight for independence, though many pro-Union folks remained in the town. These Unionists …
“Would you get to the damn point?” the man next to me pipes up again. “What the hell does this have to do with the mystery of Edgar Allan Poe’s death?”
“My apologies, sir, but I told you I needed to finish writing this first, then I’ll tell you what I know about Mr. Poe.”
“Very well – I’ll just order a pitcher then.”
“Thank you.”

So, Winchester being such a strategically important town for both sides, the Union by and by came on in and occupied it, much to the chagrin of the Winchester Women, who were notorious for telling Union soldiers to, literally, go F themselves. The Winchester Women would also reportedly shoot at the Union boys from the Old Town Winchester windows as they retreated when Rebel Yells began echoing down the streets.

Which is what happened in the First Battle of Winchester.

The Confederate boys marched up the Shenandoah Valley this way and, judging by the battle maps I’ve been able to find, must’ve camped in my backyard and all around where my house now sits. I can picture their tents in the field beyond our little woods too, tough people gearing up for a fight.

Their battle lines were just up the pike from our place, stretching across where the small airport now is, around the present-day Costco and onto the bluff overlooking Old Town Winchester.

Suffice to say, Stonewall Jackson and his boys proceeded to overwhelm the Yankees in that first Battle of Winchester and occupied the town for a time before their services were required elsewhere. I often think of them at their fires, telling stories, singing, smoking, dreaming of the ones they loved, likely hoping they’d get to see them again.

Anyway, those soldiers were all right on our property and it’s a strange feeling to behold, especially when you can feel their presence, consider their joys, sorrows, and pains. And sometimes they – or someone else – make their presence known. Whether it’s someone that lived in our lovely house previously or ghosts that are still finding their way, footsteps walking around upstairs making the floor creak are an eerie and clear sign that some folks, so far unseen, still wander around over our heads at night up in the room we call “the office.” I always hope it’s our dogs making the racket, but sure enough, I’ll peak into the living room and they’re in their usual spots, snoozing on the new leather reclining couch I got up at the Costco.

I haven’t heard the inexplicable and tell-tale sound of those steps yet tonight, but when I get home I likely will. It always gives me chills and scared as I am, I’ll sometimes go up there to recreate the creaking floor for my wife.
“Yep,” she always says. “That’s it.”

“You about done there, son?” says my new friend next to me.
“Yes, I say,” wondering if I’ll hear the ghosts walking around tonight.
“Well, I’ve almost finished this pitcher of beer, so can you finish telling me about what all happened to Edgar Allan Poe?”

And I do.

Folks used to head West, risking their lives and all they held dear to seek new fortunes and pursue mythical dreams. Or maybe they were just sick of the East Coast weather, were ready for a change, or, like my Great Grampa James Peck, run out of town and sent fleeing for their lives, leaving everything except the shirts on their backs behind.

“Dark and dusty, painted on the sky
Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye …”
– John Denver, Take Me Home, Country Roads –

Apparently Great Grampa James had quite the way with the ladies, including good-looking married dames, so he had to hop a ship out of Maryland in the middle of the night, post-haste, escaping around Cape Horn and up to California before a pissed-off husband could stick a different kind of horn up his you-know-what. For all I know, he may not even have had his shirt – or his pants for that matter, given the compromising circumstances – But apparently he made it to sweet California. He was a showman and a professional roller skater so he did pretty well there, eventually going on to receive the first DUI ever bestowed in the great Golden State – Love You, Great Grampa James!

Anyway, back in the East Coast old country – long before Great Grampa James – others would pile all their stuff and provisions into a wagon for the trip from the East Coast to the West, crack the whip and head out, leaving behind friends and family they’d likely never see again.

A ways back up my wife’s family tree, some of her Great-great-greats traveled with the Donner Party. They decided to split off from the Donners when confronted by the Sierras, however, and hung back from trying to get over those mountains so late in the season. Which turned out to be a pretty tactful decision, and I’m grateful to them all these years later because, well – I love my wife.

Sappy stuff aside, my wife’s long-ago-relatives breaking off from the Donner Party are part of why my wife and I ended up together. Her gritty ancestors apparently made it over the Sierras in the Spring, headed for the California coast, and Abracadabra! A few generations later, we ended up building our lives in California too, skipping through the alpine sunshine of the mountains, digging our toes into the warm sandy beaches and deserts, working our asses off toward dreams of our own, never taking the breezy sun on our faces or a swim in the cool blue Pacific for granted.

But fast-forward to 2019 – With the highest taxes and gas prices in the country, brutal traffic, insane housing costs – Sandi got a great opportunity elsewhere, and with Disneyland also evolving into the most ridiculous place on earth (try Knott’s Berry Farm instead), we sat up like beach prairie dogs and looked around:

With our youngest kid off to the University of Washington, and California having seen better days, we decided to take on a new adventure of our own, and moved back East to Winchester, Virginia.

Founded in 1754 or so, Winchester is both blessed and haunted by its history. Cloaked in beauty that echoes through the Shenandoah Valley, which is formed by the Blue Ridge Mountains on one side and the Appalachians on the other, Winchester hosted several pivotal and bloody battles during the Civil War. The town has also been home to some notable folks, such as a young George Washington and Patsy Cline. Both left their footprints here, and now we will too while we make this place our little oasis for awhile –