Tobacco Heritage Trail

Last week I finally took a ride. It was about 20 miles of well surfaced trail along an abandoned rail line, the Norfolk, Franklin, and Danville, in Brunswick and Mecklenburg counties at the southeast corner of Virginia's Fifth Congressional district. As I had hoped, there was very gentle grade along the entire trail. It seemed vaguely uphill the entire way, but I knew from route planning that it was mostly downhill.  Backward glances confirmed this, as did later reports from local residents.

My current conditioning could handle little more than this ride, and as it stood, I paced myself with frequent dismounts and rest periods where I read a book I brought along and updated Twitter on my progress. Spaced along the route were tables and platforms for mounting horses and outhouses. The route was largely forested with ample shade.  In many was it was an ideal ride.  But I still took about seven hours to complete 20 miles. The one hardship was no access to fresh water along the trail until very near the end, where in Brodnax I found a convenience store where the main road, US 58, paralleled the trail for a couple miles. The last several miles of the trail were asphalt.  This portion, between La Crosse and Brodnax, was well used.  The first 15 miles of gravel surfaced trail was lonely.  I saw not a soul the entire distance.

Part of my intention, expressed since I started to consider doing this in 2012, was to get outside the Charlottesville bubble and to appreciate the many communities and people my Representative in Congress was called to represent. At the time it was Robert Hurt. Currently it is freshman Congressman Tom Garrett. Both have been good at the electoral strategy of sneering at liberals and elites, both in Washington and Charlottesville. I'm not sure what harm we've done to rural America that we should be so despised. My theory has been that we fail to validate them as persons. I know the feeling, in a small way, of being an invalid. There are certain traits of the Fifth district that I would not care to validate, principally the hostility to non-Europeans and even certain Europeans.  Tom Perriello was one of those end-in-a-vowel names like Pelosi that drew sneers from Virgil Goode  (silent e doesn't count) and subsequent Republican candidates.

Lawrenceville, the start of my journey, came to my attention when it was reported that Saint Paul College, an HBCU established by the Episcopal Church, had been closed for a couple years when a large influx of unaccompanied minors fleeing Central America crossed our southern border.  The Federal government had arranged with the owners of the school to repurpose it house a portion of these refugees.  The community would not have it.  Robert Hurt supported their refusal and eventually the settlement never opened and the school continues to lay vacant.  I was allowed to walk around the campus and take a few pictures.  I've not published them yet and may not.  My pastor's sister attended St Paul's in the 60s and I took the pictures for her benefit. I hope to see her at homecoming in early July. I asked the guard what he could tell me about those days.  "The community didn't want it" was his terse response.  I had tarred that attitude with the Bubba brush, but a different dynamic seems to have been in play.  The community, at the west bound of a majority black region centered on Emporia, with a Democratic delegate in Richmond running unopposed, is the sort of powerless community that environmental justice tells me gets forced to accept what might better be sited nearer where I live, but prosperous and powerful neighbors keep away. NIMBY works for me better than for them. Majority Black or not. I has wondered why my outrage at the time was never shared. I still feel troubled by the refusal to accept the refugees.

The trail had several interpretive signs highlighting sources of community pride.  The railroad days, certainly.  Local flora and fauna.  Thoroughbred breeding in the early 19th century, some of the most prestigious blood lines.  And the culture of tobacco, indigenous, colonial, and the heyday. And adjusting to the decline. Upon reaching La Crosse, the old rail route had been given to roadways and the trail shared the road as it headed west to Halifax county. The trail through Brodnax also shared the road.  La Crosse is adjacent to South Hill as well developed freeway exit community along I-85. I stayed the night at one of the Bada Book Bada Boom hotels. In the morning, I rode into the old part of town, which seems to have fared well in the presence of big box stores near the freeway.  I got a ride to my car from a person who picks up customers of Enterprise Car Rental.  I enjoyed her company on the trip.  She was a native of the region. In retrospect it was a wasted opportunity to pick her brain on regional pride and politics, but the conversation took its own natural course. She certainly isn't eager to leave or badmouth her home. Back in my car I stopped briefly in Alberta, a less commercial freeway intersection with a branch of the Community College system and small depressed downtown. I got directions to a church whose pastor had come from Charlottesville.  I didn't meet the pastor, but photographed the church for friends up this way. There was a sign there about a ruse which led to the capture of a Union raiding party during the civil war.

I had come down through Nottoway, which is not in the Fifth district.  There the highway follows an active rail line and the towns show the prosperity that brings. Modest, but substantial. Going home, I stayed in the Fifth sort of randomly, but followed Jeb Stuart highway for quite a while. That will remain such, I'm sure, long after some resolution is reached about Confederate monuments in Charlottesville and Richmond. When I reached US 15 I headed north, stopping at Fishing Pig along the way, a Farmville restaurant with a newly opened franchise in Waynesboro that I'd been wanting to visit since first planing bike routes 5 years ago.  It's good to have bitten the bullet and finally hit the road.

Another year meant to be The Year

Every year, I say let this be the year that I tour my Congressional district. This year, no exception. The election of Donald Trump is such a wholly preposterous outcome, that I'm eager to know why my neighbors would choose such a man.  Why they would choose Tom Garrett to be their voice in Washington.  Such sentiments are strange to me.  People with such sentiments, strangers.

I could choose many ways to explore our differences, and indeed already do. Why bike or pedestrian travel? Why a Congressional district the size of New Jersey? Pedaling because it is good for my health and well being, and a nice way to experience unfamiliar places.  The Fifth because I've written my Congressman since the impeachment of Clinton alienated me from my Republican roots and inclinations. Subsequent behavior of the party and its leaders have only caused the growth of this alienation. I live in an enclave within the 5th, desperately needing to get outside this bubble.

So, in this year of no senate contest, but 100 separate contests for Virginia's House of Delegates, I'm doing some preliminary work on my personal fitness and readiness to make several rides, focusing on Delegate contests, where there are contests, important heritage sites like Booker T Washington's birthplace, Civil War sites, and Civil Rights sites, and trails to follow, such as the High Bridge Trail and Tobacco Heritage Trail.

Personal fitness is my current concern. I have a medical referral to a local gym and am working on my wind, balance, and flexibility. I've allowed my resting pulse to rise to around 85 and my blood pressure to around 135/80. I am working to get those numbers down and to walk/ride level ground at a moderately forced pace with pulse under 110 and moderate climbs with pulse under 130. I'm counting on noticeable progress toward that goal during the month of March.

Virginia Senate districts.

Seeing campaign signs for 25th district of the House of Delegates prompted me to check what other Virginia legislature seats which intersect (or are contained in) the 5th Congressional District might be contested elections.  My delegate and senator are both running unopposed.  Senate districts wholly or partially within the 5th are

15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27.

Of these, only the 17th (NW corner of Albemarle, remainder mostly in 7th CD), the 19th (Southern tip of Bedford county, non-contiguous by land with a portion of Franklin county across Smith Mountain Lake -- remainder in 6th and 9th CDs), and the 20th, a barbell shaped gerrymander connecting Henry county through a thin strip of southern Pittsylvania and the City of Danville to western Halifax and a chunk of northeastern Pittsylvania.

I'll see if the few weeks before the election gives a chance to ride.  My local ride in the 25th Delegate district will determine my ambition for more.

Off-year election 2015

Virginia has its state legislature elections in odd years.  In 2015, all 140 seats are up for grabs.  Executive office elections are in 2017.  That's 100 in the House of Delegates (two year terms) and 40 in the Senate (Four years).

I'm in no condition to ride, and will be hard pressed to make the time, but I need to force myself to do something -- and this 3 year old (or is it 5?) false start is one place.  The other day, I realized that the 25th House of Delegates seat is contested and intersects the 5th CD in a corner of Albemarle County, where I live.  The rest is in the Valley, where I had planned a ride (never taken) around the Piedmont battlefield.  But this Pedal the Fifth project needs a ride, and something of a landmark here in Albemarle.  I hate my local roads... but these are fairly familiar and, though will involve some dismount, I'm fairly confident within my competence.

No camera or such.  I've pondered over the years whether I ought get a smart phone just for these trips -- GPS and Camera and stay on the grid (where there's a signal, at least).  But I'd just as soon be unencumbered and off the grid.  At least while I get my feet wet.

Bragging on the fifth?  Chiles peach orchard.  The Miller School.  The Plank Road.  Claudius Crozet and the railroad.  I'm sure there will be much else to speak of, after the ride.

Maybe 2014 is the year.

I've gained some weight.  Heavier now than feels comfortable on the bike.  I need to address that.  It is Lent, after all.

I want this blog to be political, but not partisan.  I myself am partisan, in my own weird way.  But this is a blog to take the 5th district to the candidates, and the representatives, not vice versa.  A travel blog.  A man on the street blog.  A rip in the filter, find grounds at the bottom of the coffee cup blog.  (or loose leafs from that herbal tea party treat).

Anyhow, I write because I've just been to a partisan event.  Toward the end of a Greene County Democrat meet the candidate events, I walked in having seen a full parking lot at a church I've been eager for some time to attend.  I thought it might a church function.  It was a party function.

I met Lawrence (no "call me Larry") Gaughan.  I met Ben (no "that's Benjamin to you") Hudson.  Both are unfamiliar names, though most names in politics are to me.  I did read about their candidacy a few weeks ago.  I'm told the choice between them will be made by convention (unless one emerges supreme by acclimation prior to that) on May 31, and not be primary.  I was a bit underwhelmed by both, but hope to have the remedied in the future.

I told them an a party chair there -- for Greene and the 5th district both -- that I own this blog name, which I think is kinda precious and regret not making the intended use of.  I am VA5TH.  That's a mighty responsibility.  Now I need to back that up with visits to Wine and Hunt country in Rappahannock and west Fauquier, presidential sites like Camp Rapidan in Madison, Civil War sites along Lee's retreat, and sites associated with great men such as Booker T Washington and Patrick Henry, not to mention World Heritage Site Monticello, the crown jewel of the 5th.  I need to show the candidates and the current and future representative of the 5th what the district's heritage and populace says about our ambitions and ideals, as well as our appetites and interests.  And perhaps my providential accidental visit to that party event will motivate me to get some of that done this year.

Maybe along the way I will finally meet Robert (Bob!) Hurt.

Posted on another blog

This blog was and is intended as a see the sights and meet my neighbors blog.  I have a different place for rants.  But this being a Fifth District rant, I thought to link to this.

A funny thing about trying to improve one's condition.  Take a week off, and you're a month behind.

I had thought of this project as motivational, to help plan bike trips that would be challenging and interesting -- meet my neighbors, talk politics, and visit heritage sites.  I can do that before and after the election, since I'm not advocating any candidate, so much as yearning for a change in the conversation that moves away from taking stands (or seeking accommodations) with hot political issues, and, by side-stepping them, work toward some forward progress toward paying off our debts to our ancestors and our progeny.

There are times in my life when I write poetry.  Now is not one of them.  But I'm reminded of an old poem of mine.

I shall never see pyramids,
Tow'r over desert wide,
So simple, basic to the eye,
With labyrinth inside.

I shall never see the Kremlin,
Nor hear recitation
Of Pushkin and poems to honor
One who outlived Lenin.

I shall never see Istanbul
Straddling Bosphorus' strait,
Nor Black Sea's shores where Ovid rests,
Augustan exile's fate.

I shall never see Walden pond,
But then again, I might,
Wilderness there seen other than
Wealth untapped to exploit.

I have seen Monticello's dome,
And fields it overlooks
Where mighty pen grasped liberty
From monarch's greedy hooks.

I shall never see progeny
Brought subject to a crown,
Pushkin, Ovid, Jefferson, and
Thoreau will pull such down.

I think I may make one or two rides in October.  Nothing in Sept.  No clear window of opportunity.  The one ride which is most compelling right now goes through Columbia, Dillwyn, Farmville, and Cumberland.  I want at least to do that.  Others in mind are the Piedmont wine and fox country of Facquier and Rappahannock, and around Smith Mountain lake with a visit to Booker Washington's birthplace.