Category: Virginia

Untold story #1 from the last two months: how we sold our house at my ten year reunion at the University of Virginia, 3000 miles away from home. While we were at the Court Square Tavern.

We had left Kirkland on a red-eye Thursday night, bound for Charlottesville knowing that our agent was going to be showing the house while we were gone and trying to forget about our house being on the market and just enjoy the reunion. After we met Don Webb and our other friends at dinner, relaxing and enjoying became a lot easier. I already wrote about our trip to Court Square Tavern that night. What I didn’t write was what happened after we got there.

After we had been there for about half an hour, Lisa’s phone rang. She excused herself to stand over by the door where she could hear better, and Don and I continued to catch up. Then Lisa came back to the table with an odd look on her face. “What’s up?” I asked.

“James [Raysbrook, our realtor] says someone wants to buy the house. But we have to sign the offer and fax it back by 9 pm Pacific time.”

I looked at the clock. It was currently 10:40 Eastern time. An hour and 20 minutes wasn’t going to be enough time to find a Kinkos, call James with the fax number, and fax the documents back and forth.

Then inspiration struck. Lisa asked the bartender whether James could send us a fax on the Court Square’s machine. Twenty minutes later we had the offer in our hands and were paying scant attention to our beers as we pored over the details with James on the cell. Twenty more minutes later and I beckoned to the bartender again.

“You’re probably wondering what we’re up to. Well, we’ve just signed the papers to sell our house in Seattle and need to borrow your machine one more time to fax them back, if that’s ok.”

The guy was very clearly amused as hell, and I could see him cataloging the story to retell tomorrow. But he never cracked a smile. He said, “Of course,” and led me back up the stairs to the business office, where we faxed the papers back.

Smooth as silk. I’ve decided: from now on, I sell all my houses at the Court Square Tavern.

On Tuesday, Denbigh Presbyterian Church in Newport News, Virginia suffered its second arson attack of the summer. The responsible party torched an education wing, including burning decorations and banners made for Vacation Bible School.

And this was the second break-in and fire this summer at the church. On June 14, someone broke into the church office, set fire to the copying machine, and damaged items in the pastor’s study, including pictures of past ministers.

The Newport News police have arrested a 15-year-old male and charged him with the crime. (This article in the Daily Press, registration required, says he’s been charged with burglary, arson, destruction of property and petty larceny, and that he’s being questioned about the June incident.)

It’s hard for me to write about this dispassionately. I grew up in that church. I was baptized there and confirmed there. I sang in the choir. I went to Vacation Bible School there and Sunday School. Frankly, I find it really hard to forgive this one. I believe in forgiveness, but it’s hard to practice it when I’m so mad. I don’t understand what would drive someone to do this. Break in and look for food, sure. Break in just to break things?

I’ve never met the Reverend Deborah Dail, the current pastor of the church, but I am awed by her ability to forgive even this repeated attack.

As I find out more about what’s happened, including opportunities to help, I’ll post more.

Lots of good posts from Greg today over at the Green[e]house, after the weirdness of Cathy’s Tuesday primary loss. I’m certainly looking forward to talking with you over some drinks soon, Greg. In the meantime I’m just glad to welcome you back to the ranks of active bloggers.

I don’t really have a future reading list yet, but if I did these two books, edited by fellow UVA grads (and married couple) Cathi Hanauer and Daniel Jones, would definitely be on it. The Bitch in the House, billed as a collection of women writing candidly about the challenges of managing careers and families, has been followed by The Bastard on the Couch, which deals with men’s views on their roles in the families.

From what I can glean from the write-ups (and an interview with the writers in the online mag for the University of Virginia’s College of Arts and Sciences), the Bastard’s response to the issues in the first book is essentially a “dunno, I’m just incompetent about a lot of household husbandly things and I acknowledge it.” I hope that after reading it I’ll have a more informed critique.

Washington Post: U-Va. Sets $3 Billion Campaign for Gifts. Having breathed a sigh of relief when the last capital campaign (which began right after I graduated) finished in 2001, it’s interesting to see the approach being taken on this one. The $3 billion goal looks to be aimed at finishing projects left unfunded by the last campaign, including the performing arts center, as well as starting new buildings, special institutes, hospital facilities, and raising professors’ salaries. A goal stated more quietly is reduced dependence on the state for funds; this is the state, after all, that tried to starve the University in the early 1990s.

While it’s good to see Casteen living up to his reputation as überfundraiser, one wonders about the effects of perpetual capital campaigns on the University’s alumni. Is severing the school’s connection to the state legislature worth the relationship risk? On second thought, maybe it is.

Today’s post was going to be about all the music folks I caught up with over the reunion weekend, including the aforementioned Messrs. Webb and Barker, the elusive Justin Rosolino, and the mysterious Dr. Strangepork—wait, wrong show. But I didn’t quite get there. Next time…

I took the Nikon with me to the reunion, and practiced on a familiar subject, the Grounds (aka campus) of the University of Virginia. It’s a worthy subject as well as a nostalgic one; the original grounds, designed by Thomas Jefferson as his last major project, are designated as a World Heritage site by UNESCO (together with Monticello). The buildings, which draw on an array of classical models and incorporate multiple architectural details, were meant both to provide housing and classroom for students and teachers and to be a living classroom for students of history and architecture. It was in this spirit, as well as with my Class of ’94 ring on, that I took my camera along. The result was a collection of almost 50 shots of the Central Grounds area of the University.

I tried to think more about composition this time out. I know there are things I could do to improve light-dark balance, but I only had three days in Charlottesville, and two of them were raining or cloudy. I also tried to grab photos of some interior spaces which were meaningful to me but haven’t been excessively photographed (example: the basement rehearsal room for the Glee Club in Old Cabell Hall). Despite the conditions, there were a few photos with which I am pretty pleased.

I could probably continue to go blow by blow through the reunion weekend, but I thought focusing on some highlights would be more memorable and appropriate. And, as always, the highlights of any reunion are the people. I’ll save the music folk for another post, as this one will be lengthy enough without them.

The first night’s conversation with Scott and Susan Barker was an early highlight. I don’t think that, ten years ago, I knew Scott would be back at the University teaching, but I certainly knew he was destined for great things. The fact that Susan thought he was a good guy is definitely proof of that. —Friday night was the Barkers’ tenth wedding anniversary as well, they told us over a plate of Big Jim’s Barbecue. I asked them whether the tenth was traditionally the Pork anniversary. I don’t think they appreciated my joke…

We spent some time talking with Dan Herzfeld and his beautiful fiancee, who clearly outclasses all of us and with whom Dan is appropriately smitten. We saw Dan after Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball lecture, during which he handicapped the presidential race. He’s a powerful speaker, but at the end I had to agree with the guy on the Lawn who said, “The bottom line according to Sabato is that it will be a close race, unless it’s a blow-out.”

Saturday afternoon I bumped into Doug Acton and his wife and new baby. Doug has been busy in the military-industrial complex, primarily on the IT side. He was one of two physics classmates I ran into over the weekend; the other, Patrick Manigault, had finished his Ph.D. only to decide it was time to do a career change. He’s now in consulting. (Sound familiar?) At the same reception I ran into Carrie Smith, who was a year ahead of us and also went to the same high school (and middle school) as I. She and her husband appear to be doing well.

On Sunday we breakfasted with Greg Greene and Esta, who drove up from Richmond. The morning was a little comical, as we started out planning to go to Duner’s for brunch only to learn from the helpful lady at our B&B that it no longer did brunch. We then tried the Biltmore and other Corner restaurants, only to find they didn’t open until 11. This left us with the Virginian, about which Bernie Fallon (who was unable to attend the reunion due to work) always said, “Who eats there? You never see anyone go in or leave. Parents don’t eat there, faculty don’t eat there… who eats there?” Well, Bernie, apparently the answer is: people who want Sunday brunch before 11 am.

Afterwards we stopped at the Brown College (née Monroe Hill) reunion brunch, where we saw Marc and Diane Leipzig and their little baby. We also said hello to Carl Trindle, who is still in residence at Monroe Hill (he jokingly calls it his “sinecure”—certainly given his contributions and continued work it’s much more significant than that).

Carl Geisler told me that he thought later reunions, when everyone’s kids were grown and life was more certain, were better. I disagree. The best reunions are ones where the years melt away and you’re speaking with the same people you studied, ate, drank, laughed, and lived with. By any standard this counts.

I started Saturday on a somber note, in the University Chapel, in memorial to passed classmates.

Written at 2:12 pm Pacific time on Saturday, June 5: After a brief nap on Friday, we made our way to an informal barbecue dinner for my class. Since the rain was still coming down in sheets, we had to navigate our way to the Aquatic and Fitness Center, where we eventually found ourselves and met up with Don Webb, fellow Glee Club alum Scott Barker and his wife Susan, Lara Dalch, Steve Eslami, and a bunch of other folks. After eating and catching up on old times for a while, Don, Lisa and I drove back over to downtown where we found our way to the Court Square Tavern.

Don and I had joked for years about the tavern that we would make it our home away from home. We had passed many good nights there—with Scott Norris and John McLaughlin after their return from their post graduation trip to Europe; with John Navarrete and others watching Nav try his first hefeweisen and blurt, “It tastes like sweat socks!”; and with other Glee Club friends, including Jon Vick, who would always start the evening with a Newcastle Brown Ale.

We found a seat in the small booth on the upper level beneath the specials chalkboard (where Nav had sat). In Vick’s honor, we started with Newcastle and proceeded to some serious reminiscing. And we continued to reminisce into the wee hours of the morning.

Written at 5:54 am Pacific time on Saturday, June 5: We landed at Dulles a few minutes before 7 am yesterday morning. After pausing for a Starbucks fix in the terminal, we started looking around for the mobile lounges. —A moment here. I don’t think I appreciated the quintessential weirdness of Dulles while I was flying from it as a consultant, but man. Those mobile lounges. The big ol’ flying wing. You just know Eero Saarinen was hanging out with Austin Powers in the shagadelic sixties when he designed the place. On the plus side, riding in those lounges you get an unparalleled view of the airport’s real activity, which as Lisa put it appears to consist of very large slow moving machines trying to run into each other.

We got out of Dulles and navigated reasonably successfully back out into the suburbs. We wanted a proper breakfast and decided to head back to old haunts, so we made for McLean and got full breakfasts at La Madeleine, the local chain farmhouse-French restaurant. Then we realized we hadn’t packed for a weekend of rain, so we napped half an hour in the car to wait for Nordstrom’s to open so Lisa could go in and buy some more rain-appropriate shoes. Ah, the joys of travel.

We eventually made it to Charlottesville and checked in to the Inn at Court Square, which if anything actually excels its appearance on its website. Our room is furnished with antiques and looks out onto a park, and was gorgeous even in totally pouring rain. (Oh yes. So much for beautiful pictures of the Grounds.) We grabbed a late lunch at Michael’s Bistro and killed time until the first event, the class dinner, at which we met up with a few old friends. More on that in a moment.

I was worried about adjusting to the Charlottesville weather. After all, Charlottesville is in a mid-Atlantic state where temperatures and humidity typically run high, and every summer I’ve experienced since 2001 has been in temperate, dry Seattle.

The adjustment isn’t as hard as I feared, as it’s raining here, and likely will all weekend. Sigh. Bang goes my hope of getting really excellent pictures of Grounds.

Speaking of the Jefferson Society, and in the spirit of other walkthroughs, here’s a visual tour inside Hotel C, the West Range building designed by Jefferson that has hosted the society since 1837.

Hooblogger Dave Tepper writes, “Overlawyered.com provides the most cogent analysis I’ve seen yet of Virginia’s latest anti-gay law. Simply a vile, disgusting law all around. I’m still encouraging people, including a gay friend of mine who’s considering going to grad school at U.Va., to boycott the state.”

While it isn’t exactly a surprise that Virginia isn’t progressive on this issue, the specific implications of Virginia’s holding as null and void civil unions and “partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage” are pretty alarming. I guess, living in blue states for the last four years, I had forgotten how the “mainstream” feels about issues like this.

Issues like basic human decency. And good models of marriage. My home state, lest we forget, was also home to a particularly keen model of marital bliss.

And, of course, to my 10th college reunion this weekend. I’ll be interested to take the pulse of other alums on this one. My feeling is that many of my friends will hold my position, but some of Greg’s friends from the Jefferson Society will try to play the usual gay-bashing cards.

Robert Kellogg, former chair of the UVA English Department, former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and first principal of Monroe Hill Residential College (later Brown College) died on January 3, 2004. I didn’t learn about it until today, thanks to the Alumni Magazine.

To me, he will always be the teacher who inspired in me a passion for the English language, its history, vocabulary, and usage.I took a course in the History of the English Language my third year from Professor Kellogg. The course, which covered semiotics, phonetics, basic linguistic theory, Old, Middle, and Modern English, resulted in my first paper on the Internet when I wrote about some of the words and expressions I observed people using in Usenet and IRC. (Portions of the essay, including Professor Kellogg’s introduction to its publication in a UVA undergrad journal and the glossary, by far the most useful portions of the text, are somewhat foolishly reproduced on this site.) I went on to take two semesters of Old English, including reading Beowulf in the original, and to become a passionate student of the language (though my impoverished writing on this blog may not always reflect that).

In 1999, at my five year reunion, I tried to see Professor Kellogg, to tell him how grateful I was to have had him as a professor. I didn’t realize that he had retired already by then, though he might have been teaching in his beloved Iceland. I never got in contact with him again, so I will have to settle for thanking him here.