On My Mind

Hospital Liability

A story I read in Sunday's paper disturbed me. A 51-year-old man, who had been in the hospital for 9 days being treated for pneumonia, checked himself out of the hospital. No one made sure he had a ride, or someone waiting to pick him up.

Hospital personnel just let him go.

They found him dead just below the grounds of the hospital. Apparently, he tried to walk out. Maybe he was still ill, maybe he had dementia, maybe he was still drugged up and not thinking clearly.

I don't know the whole story, and as a journalist I learned long ago not to judge, but on its face, it seems the hospital potentially has liability here. Shouldn't they ensure their patients have a ride - at least a cab or Uber - before they let them waltz out the door?

Or are we so callous as a society that it doesn't matter if someone walks out of the hospital and dies a few steps from its grounds?

Searching For Bad Guys

Last night, instead of contacting media, the local sheriff posted a video on Facebook that his deputies were searching an area of our community known as Timber Ridge for a fellow who'd been seen with a rifle. He counted off a list of charges the man was wanted for - having a weapon after being convicted as a felon, assault, etc. - and proceeded to say the problem was domestic violence and the person they were pursuing was of no danger to the public.

If there was no danger to the public, then why was half of the county's police force out looking for this fellow?

Why just post this on Facebook, and let the media find out about it that way? Or is Facebook the new media? I don't know. I don't get my news from there. I still read a newspaper.

And where's the promised update? This is not that far from me as the crow flies, nor is it far from people I know and care about. So there's a guy with a gun running around but he isn't a threat but the sheriff is searching for him. As far as I know, he's still at large almost 24 hours later.

Does that make any sense?

Banana Republic

From Georgia (the southern states are so messed up) comes this little ditty: a submitted bill that would allow the party in power to remove prosecutors they don't like.

What is going on in Georgia? The former guy and/or some of his friends is looking at an indictment for possibly illegally involving himself in the 2020 Georgia election.

When we remove officials on party-line whims, when the goals of a new law are strictly to satisfy something so one person or set of persons can benefit at the expense of others, then we've lost the rule of law. 

I believe strongly in the rule of law. I believe in the justice system. I also know it is a human construct, and that on its face makes it corruptible. Having come to the conclusion in recent years that we have no better angels, that most people, in fact, want their devils to come out and play, because it's actually more difficult to be a nice person than it is to be an asshole, I conclude that we, the USA, are doomed.

We've been a banana Republic run by yellow-belly sapsuckers since 2000. I was never an Obama fan, as he didn't live up to his potential. The president who won in 2000 won in what I considered an illegal election, and was given the seat by the Supreme Court, so if one wants to tout election issues, it needs to go back twenty years, not two. The former guy is just Hitler in a blue suit and a red tie. Some of the crap he spewed at this weekend's CPAC meeting was despicable. Does he think he is Jesus Christ? Sheesh. Biden is trying, but he's not what we need right now, and frankly, all politicians at the moment seem corrupt and bedraggled. None of them are shining examples of good government. They all have baggage, though I know everybody does.

Mind Your Own Business

I acknowledge it's everyone's right to do what they want about masks and vaccines, though I think it is irresponsible not to be vaccinated. I'm not talking about just Covid, I'm talking about other things, too, like chicken pox, measles, tetanus, hepatitis, polio., etc.

Vaccines have saved many, many lives.

Today I was the only person in the grocery store with a mask on. And you know what? I don't care. I don't care if people think I may be sick, I don't care if they want to make fun of me, I don't care what they think in the least. Because you know what I think? It doesn't matter what I think.

I don't go up to people and tell them what I think of them. I mind my own business, and I expect others to do the same.

By the way, I have a note I carry with me at all times from my doctor. Do you know what it says? It says I have been instructed to wear a mask when I am out in public at all times. Do you know why? Because I have health issues. I've been a walking illness since I was born. Modern medicine may have saved my life, but some days I don't know what for.

Free Range Zoo

Last week, we took a drive up the road a bit to visit a drive-thru zoo. I am not a fan of zoos, but this was allegedly an open zoo with the animals roaming about on 180 acres. While that may sound like a lot of land, it is not. Not for as many animals as they had in there.

The safari place sells buckets of food, too, and you are supposed to feed the animals from your car. This means the animals are conditioned to think that car equals food. Most of the animals hang out at the entrance of the park, because obviously by the time you get to the middle or the end, you've given out all of your food.

I found it terrifying to have the car suddenly engulfed by a slew of domesticated wild animals. I still have llama slobber on my car window, my repayment for not purchasing the bucket of food.

The following pictures were taken through the car windows, so there is some glare and reflection.

This is what greets you when you drive over the cattle guard and into the safari area.

They don't like unopened windows. Yikes. This is a llama.

These are either fallow deer or axis deer. I am not sure which.

When I saw this, all I could think of was hakuna matata, from The Lion King. However, the guidebook doesn't say they have wart hogs. This may be a kune kune pig from New Zealand.

I think this is an eland, which hails from Africa.

This may be an elk.

I am not sure whether this is a blackbuck from India or a scimitar horned oryx from North Africa.

Some kind of deer. Fallow deer, maybe.

The little axis deer are very small. They came from India. There were a lot of them.

More deer.

Notice the field. There is little grass there for the animals to eat.

This is a blackbuck, which comes from India.

I think this was another elk.

They don't mind getting close.

These were resting a little distance from the car. I think they're elk.

Elk, I guess.

They had several white animals. In the wild, when we see albino deer on the farm, it generally means the herd is too large and there has been too much inbreeding.

This is an axis deer from India.

I think I liked the zebra the best. This is a "Grant's zebra' from West Africa and/or Zimbabwe.

This bird was huge. Ostrich, I think.

This was further into the park. The animals all came running toward the vehicles. Note again the lack of grass in the fields.

A kune kune pig from New Zealand.

A llama who is figuring out it should have gone to the front gate, I suspect.

You could see the giraffes but they were in a different fenced-in area and so they did not come near the car.

A fallow deer. They are found in Europe and Asia.

The farewell team of llamas.

We probably won't go back. We both thought the animals looked listless and sad. We know how many cattle we can run on the pastures of our farm, and it's not anywhere close to the number of animals on this small acreage. The organization feeds hay and there appeared to be a steady stream of cars behind us with the animal food, but this is not what I consider fun. It was a nice outing with my husband as far as that goes, but animals like these need to be roaming free. At the least, the herds of small deer and llamas need to be thinned out. There were too many ostriches, too.

Fenwick Mines

Recently, we took a trip to Fenwick Mines, a National Forest designation in a nearby county. It's a hike that is allegedly handicapped accessible (I think it would be a bit bumpy for a wheelchair myself) and it offers a pond and creek with a water fall. 

Unfortunately, the bridge to the pond was out of commission because a tree had fallen across it and damaged it. The hike to the waterfall was too steep for me to climb even with a cane. The walking was fine, though, and the trail, even with tree roots, was decent.

 

The waterfall was barely visible from the road and we stopped and I took this photo of it. I imagine up close it was quite lovely. The colors on the trees had not changed as much as we'd hoped when we were up there.

Fenwick Mines is also part of the Virginia Birding and Wildlife Trail.

We visited on a Thursday. It is an uncrowded spot to go in these times of Covid. The restroom facilities are not open at present.

The Homogenization of America

Back in 1970, my little county celebrated it's 200th birthday. It precedes the creation of the United States, you see, and is quite old. At one time it was the wild west.

The folks who celebrated back then put out a little magazine about the county's birthday. It was supported by ads. Loads of them in the back, all looking the same. Big black letters in a box, with the name of the business.

Local businesses. About 100 of them.

Today, we are working on a magazine to celebrate the county's 250th birthday next year. And the ad sales?

Well, McDonalds, Walmart, Cracker Barrel, Applebee's, etc. don't want to support the locality in which they have a business. Neither do the hotel chains, or anything corporate with a headquarters elsewhere. Or the big supermarkets. No local marketing budgets, no little coffer of coins with which to support any local endeavors.

No reason to support their county.

Nope. These companies do not give back to the communities. They don't support little league teams, or offer up door prizes for school functions, or do any of that stuff, at least, not on a regular basis. Walmart used to give money to the schools some years ago but I think that stopped.

Profits have to go to the stockholders, after all.

I find this a very distressing and sad state of affairs.

I'm guilty, though, because while I do shop locally when I can I also don't hesitate to go into the supermarket or buy off of Amazon.

However, there is no reason other than greed for large corporations not to have small marketing monies available to franchises or stores all over the nation. Why can't the big hotel chain at Exit 150 support local things?
 

End of an Era (?)

Today is the day that the editor of The Fincastle Herald, Ed McCoy, steps down from his 34-year journey as the news guide for the county. He began working for The Herald in August, 1984, and I started freelancing for him in October, 1984.

So we have known each other a very long time, and over the years I like to think we have become friends. He's grown a bit more libertarian in his thinking as he's aged and I've grown a bit more liberal, so sometimes our political discussions can be entertaining, but they were always thought-provoking.

My first article for Ed was about making apple butter. His criticism of the story was this: it's great writing, but there isn't any "you" in the story. None of my personality came through.

I learned to deal with that by coming up with entertaining ledes to articles (that's the opening sentence to non-newspaper folks) and then going on mostly with "just the facts." I tend to be a just-the-facts kind of writer but Ed did bring out the best in my work. He was a good editor and I learned how to give a story life under his tutelage. He taught me as much as any of my professors at Hollins. Maybe more.

Stories that I remember best include one about two sisters who played basketball, which I started out with, "It must be the Tootsie Rolls," because the two girls ate the candies before games, going up in a hot air balloon, a series I wrote in Craig County about the state of the community over there and what would happen if a county went bankrupt (something that looked very likely at that time), a story I wrote about the Social Services Angel Tree that ultimately brought in $15,000 in donations, a story about the possibility of Nestle' bringing a water bottling facility to the area, and oh gosh, I wrote so many I can't possibly remember them all or pick out a best one. There were literally thousands of them.

Ed challenged me to go beyond my comfort zone, sending me on stories I'd have preferred not to write. (I never did like to write stories that tore at my heart, the ones about sick people or people fighting the tough fight against an illness or whatever.) I wrote them anyway and always did a good job with them, usually better than I ever thought I would, because I had Ed to talk it over with before I started the article. Once I had the slant, which in the early days I often needed help finding, I could move forward and create a moving piece.

As I aged and felt more comfortable with my talent and work, I turned down stories occasionally, mostly those that involved children at the schools because I became ill every time I entered a classroom. Finally, I settled into what seemed to be my forte', government writing. That suited my "just the facts" style and allowed me to feel like I was contributing something to the community by educating them about what is going on in their county.

My editor and I had many long discussions about what was going on in Botetourt. We argued with the county over Freedom of Information Act issues, and we discussed in detail how and what we should write. We profiled person after person and multiple businesses - you can find copies of the article I wrote and he edited and published hanging on the walls of many businesses in Botetourt. Just last week someone I'd written a story about told me they had the article hanging on the wall of their home. I'm sure there are just as many with his byline hanging on the walls of businesses and homes, too.

Ed and I both love history and I wrote many pieces about the multitude of historic legacies Botetourt County has to offer, as did he and other writers. Ed actually turned a series of stories about the Civil War into a magazine/book and he gave me kudos in his preface for my help over the years, which I greatly appreciated.

When I was 10 years old I said I wanted to be the editor of The Fincastle Herald. That apparently was not to be - health issues kept me from applying for his position this time, and previous opportunities never came about when I could manage it - the last one being shortly after my mother passed away in 2000. After that the newspaper, like so many others, fell upon difficult times and I was lucky to freelance for the paper for as long as I did (I stopped in 2016, although this past September I filled in for a week while Ed took a 10-day vacation.).

However, Ed gave me the opportunity to cover the county, and the chance to fill the paper with my byline, and I will always be grateful to him for that. Because he believed I could do it, I can call myself a professional writer.

Thanks for allowing me to be a freelancer for The Fincastle Herald, Ed. May your retirement be filled with lots of hunting and good times.

Ed with his camera (2016)

Ed received a proclamation from the Board of Supervisors for his long service to the community on 12/20/2018. Pictured from left: Steve Clinton, Mac Scothorn, Ed McCoy, Billy Martin, Ray Sloan.

Ed with Supervisor Mac Scothorn. Ed called Botetourt County a great place to work, full of
beautiful lands and wonderful people.

I had to laugh because even though today (12/21) is technically Ed's last day of work, yesterday he was still taking notes like a good reporter at a meeting. (I confess I do the same.)
 

Tearing Up The Corner

A new Sheetz is going on at the corner of US 220 and Catawba Road.

Formerly the land housed a small building with various shops, an old barn, and some storage units. The small building was a bit historical, as well as the barn, but, you know, progress.

I meant to take photos back in the spring but by the time I got around to doing anything they'd already vacated the premises, put up fencing, and removed signs.

This used to be Ikenberry & Garst, a grocery store, long ago.

This is what it looked like Monday:

I shot the picture from the parking lot on a hill across the street.

The Sign Doesn't Matter

I saw this at one of my local grocery stores:

It's an emergency exit. Here's a close-up of the sign on the door:

It says "Do NOT Block or Obstruct Access"

If I were a fire marshal, I'd have given them a citation.

Remembering HFI

Saturday's Historic Fincastle festival was a memory tour, of sorts. One stop had a bunch of old souvenirs and other items from the days when HFI was a force to be reckoned with by citizens and government alike.

I wrote a number of the advertisements and other things for HFI. Not everything, but a good bit of it.

HFI did a lot of stuff at one time.

Those newspaper inserts like the one on the right were the types of things I wrote for HFI.

The Festival was a big deal in its time.

HFI has put out some books and other items over the years.

I started to buy one of the tomato can labels, but I didn't.

These were some of the T-shirts. I think there was a different T-shirt design almost every year.