Glade Creek Grist Mill,
Jim Trodel – Licence CC BY-SA 2.0
When people I meet ask where I’m from, I tell them Welsh and French by blood. English by schooling (failed Latin – no Greek), and Virginian by the Grace of God. Why not? Virginia was England until 1776 and it’s still a great place for an Englishman to live. The local church used Aquia Sandstone to build the quoins, doorways and window frames. I feel Aquia Church should be named after a saint, and would like to suggest St. Robert E. Lee. But it’s also America, the United States of. And being this close to the Swamp there are lots of foreigners. The worst ones are New England liberal socialists. Not being content with a new home and cheap cigarettes, they feel an urge to seek office so they can show us yahoos exactly what’s what. That’s the reason local school boards are pushing Critical Race Theory down nursery school throats, and forcing it in the other end by enema all the way to grajumacation – a ceremony celebrating the end of 13 years of nutrition during which the victim is unable to read the piece of paper he’s handed by the “ejumacation professional” most frequently a woman. Home schoolers are increasing rapidly and I run into groups of them while walking the dog in the Civil War park, which was abandoned woodland until a few years ago. The Union soldiers retreated from Fredericksburg to lick their wounds, built hooches for shelter, and pretty much ate every piece of livestock in the county. Doc Stone was a local veterinarian who dealt with wounded enemy troops as best he could. He has a shopping center named after him.
We used to shoot Yankees when we seceded back in 1861 and continued to do so until 1865, so please don’t call us ‘septics’ any more. The evidence of The War Between The States is everywhere from White’s Ferry and Ball’s Bluff all the way down to Richmond, yet for some reason all we ever hear about is slavery bad. Well, Santayana once quipped those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Sadly those who do learn are equally doomed – thanks to democracy. Personally I think today’s people, by which I mean voters, taxpayers, and sports fans, enjoy being slaves, after all why are so many openly on drugs, and being cared for by both therapy and the prison system? Freedom is fleeting and lately I’ve come to appreciate Deuteronomy chapter 28. I also understand why useful idiots are the first ones lined up against the wall. Furthermore there’s that Stalin thing going on; and then one day for no reason at all, people elected a dictator.
Nearby Fredericksburg was the victim of two sieges the second of which involved removing families from their homes on Christmas Eve and frog-marching them 20 miles out to Salem Church – a place which was in the middle of nowhere as recently as in 1985. Other battles were fought at Chancellorsville – a farm. Wilderness – a forest, and worst of all Spotsylvania Courthouse which raged for 13 days. Lee was able to stage an orderly retreat while Rebel marksmen picked off ill-trained blue-coat city boys from Ohio and New York like it was open season on illegal immigrants. Manassas remains the site of 2 decisive Confederate victories, and is a mere one county north.
A hop skip and jump from here is the old gold mine on Warrenton Road. In 1846 there was a gold rush which ended in 1849 as the prospectors rushed to Sutter’s Mill in California. My best buddy and me panned Kellys Ford in 1985. The dust is in there sure enough but I forgot tweezers. We discussed making a bicycle powered sluice to get the dust out, so I got married instead. My pan is still behind the hedge.
The last US soldier to be killed by a musket ball, happened a mere three counties away, and was in the 1930s as the Feds cleared the Blue Ridge squatters out to make way for a National Parkway. Make way for car culture. I’m sort of glad they put up a fire fight. Will we do the same as we have nothing left to lose? For 300 years the families that had occupied that land chopping down trees and running moonshine stills, but never thought to register deeds at their local courthouse. Too bad, pal. You should have thought of that instead of dodging taxes. But anyway the blood that coursed through their veins was either Scottish or English. You need to see which church is closest to the court house to figure that out. In this neck of the woods it’s Episcopal Church – the one with female bishops.
In many cases it’s rumored the hillbillies inbred, they haven’t married more than 10 miles away in 4 generations. I doubt that very much because they had county fairs and summer church camps to widen the gene pool, and have done so for a few centuries. In fact, they still do in the form of Sunday drivers who wend their way on limousine tours of wineries like Blenhein (Dave Matthews), Trump (Don Jr.), RdV, Afton Mountain, Glass House, Whitehall, and Well Hung. Yes, and mountain men gave us bluegrass music too. White culture is the best. Except that today’s fourth wave feminist would rather have a career as a wagie-cagie with health insurance than be responsible for raising the next generation.
© Reader Stephen 2022
