Charlottesville (3/10/2023)

This week’s goodbye tour took me to Charlottesville. It has been a while. Our previous scheduler always complained that Charlottesville was so expensive for us to stay at, moreover, it was thrown in the western region of the state on our schedule, and it showed that we were having too many classes out west. I always tried to argue that the town is very central and could pull in a lot of students from everywhere. Luckily our new scheduler, Lee was easy to convince.

Truthfully, I think I was correct, the class pulled in students from Woodstock (VA), Hampton, Richmond, Culpeper, Appomattox, and the region around Charlottesville. It was good to have folks in the class that I had not seen in a while.

The nice thing was that I had a social calendar while in town. Usually during my travels, I am alone, and since I am somewhat of an introvert, I do not mind eating on my own in a restaurant and being alone. I love to people watch, or even maybe talk with folks next to me. Some trips I make with my colleague Doug, who might take over some of my classes when I retire in June. However, while I was alone on this trip, I had people to meet and talk to. The first evening I met with old friends from Newport News who moved to Charlottesville some 7 years ago. Then the first day of classes the guys from Albemarle County invited me to go out to lunch with them. That evening I met an ex-colleague for dinner. The second (which was the last day) I had lunch with a colleague who was driving through town after her appearance in traffic court nearby. Wow, what a life for a loner introvert.

I just realized that I did not take any photographs in Charlottesville this time around, so this blog will become a restaurant/hotel review. I basically have two main hotel chain brands I stay at; one is the Holiday Inn and the other the Hilton. While the Hilton is more luxurious, I find that some of the Holiday Inn allow dogs in their hotels. Since we are dog owners and now, we are in the process on buying a conversion van and are considering some serious (semi) RV-ing, I need to accumulate hotel points in a chain that allows me to bring dogs. You get it, I stayed at the Holiday Inn near the I-64 interstate highway. I have always liked the place, and it has only gotten better, except it has also gotten more crowded. So crowded in fact that it was difficult to find a parking spot. Reading about boondockers or folks that travel in RVs from free-to-free sites, I am wondering if there were a few staying here in the parking lot. Folks were having charcoal grills lit in the back of their trucks and having fun. More power to them for not getting caught by the hotel staff, if that was the case.

So where did I eat (I am not going to report on breakfast)? In order:

• The Beer Run
• Bodo’s Bagels
• Chang Thai
• Durty Nelly’s Pub

They were all different and all pretty good for different reasons. The Beer Run was difficult to find for an out-of-towner like me. There was hardly any signage and the parking appeared below the building, which I never found in the dark. As you can expect, beer was plentiful, and my eyes went to chicken pot pie. This was more or less a deconstructed chicken pot pie, but nonetheless very good. While their draft beer selection was decent, their bottled and canned beer selection was out of this world. When I mentioned to locals in my class that I ate there the night before, many told me that next time I need to try the nachos and the stout infused brownies.

I had eaten at Bodo’s before and it is still great, service is fast. I had their lox bagel. My only complaint is that it was messy. The cream cheese was a little runny.

Chang Thai was great. It appears to be a relatively new place. I actually have photographs of an inspection I did of the place when it was under construction. Good service, good food, at least what my friend and I had. I am a duck basil fanatic, so I could not skip that when I found it on the menu. They allowed us to sit there for two hours and catch up. No pressure.

Durty Nelly’s is something else. You step into the place, and it is dark. When your eyes get used to the place you figure out that it is a dive bar. The music of the day was some good old-fashioned blues: Howlin’ Wolf, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and alike. I was in heaven. I had a Reuben, and truthfully, it was so-so to OK, but one day, a few days after I am still alive. I got fed and I can tell you it was good. I would love to go back for a beer and just hang. The food was fair, but maybe dinner is better.

Again, no photographs this time, but all places I would go back to and visit again when I return to Charlottesville. But then there are so many other restaurants to try in this great town.

Racism 101 (7/15/2019)

I was born in the darkest of Africa. No, not South Africa as many always want to guess since I am white, so South Africa is a good guess. However, I was born in what was called the Belgium Congo, in those days. In my young years, my family moved to the Caribbean. I will not bore you with my life’s story, but never in my early life did I encounter obvious racism in real life. Yes, my parents would make fun how folks on the island would exhibit status, by putting a TV antenna on their roof while obviously not having electricity at a time that battery powered TVs were not yet invented, or having a refrigerator on the front porch and not having electricity. Sadly, these disadvantaged people were mostly black folks, but again, to me that was more making light of the need to exhibit some form status and trying to keep up with the Joneses, than a form implicit racism. We had black families over and I was partially raised by Rosa our black housekeeper. 

This photograph of a mask was taken at an exhibition of Congo masks at the museum in Richmond, this past January.   It supposedly comes from the region I was born in.   Boy I would not feel comfortable going back there if our xenophobic leader would tell me to go back there.  Moreover, read the book: How dare the sun rise, by Sandra Uwiringiyimana which is partially set in that area as well and in the US, and you will also understand what the result can be of tribalism and racism 

The first time that I consciously encountered racism was during my first visit to the U.S. The passenger ship that we had taken from the island (Curacao) where we lived, to travel to Europe (Lisbon) had docked in Miami and we were allowed to take excursions. It was 1959, I was almost six years old and all I remember from that outing was taking a “train” ride through an Indian reservation and watching Indians do their thing. Half-naked Indians sitting in front of teepees, cooking above fires, etc. I have no idea whether these Indians were actually living there, or if they were actors and went home after the park or reservation closed for the night. However, I can clearly remember that it hit me as sad and exploitative. Closing my eyes, I am still on that open choo-choo train looking at those indians some 60 years ago. On the other hand, seeing alligators for the first time was kind of exciting, another thing I remember from that day.

Whether it was racism or tourism or a combination of it all, I will never know; however, the next time I noticed real racism was driving through the inner city of Baltimore with friends who we visited during our second visit to the U.S. four years later (1963). Our friends, who were Dutch, had recently emigrated from the island to the U.S. They were somewhat down and negative about the African American folks who moved into and lived in their neighborhood. They told us that when the blacks moved into a neighborhood, it was downhill from there. They were exploring to move out to the suburbs, away from it all. When we came back two years later in 1965, they had done just that and moved out. 

I think it was during my visits to Baltimore that I learned about the divide between black and white. At that time, in 1965, we had just left the Island of Aruba where we had lived for about 9 months. I remember so well that almost every afternoon after school, I would walk with a black classmate (friend) of mine to the harbor in Oranjestad to go fishing, and we would fish for part of the afternoon. If we would not go fishing, we would play soccer (football) or climb in either the mango trees or the tamarind tree in our backyard and eat the fruit. Fruit that was not ripe we would lay on top of the roof for a few days to ripen. We were completely colorblind although I had no idea what that word meant or that that word even existed. My father had a dark room where we printed photographs and that was where I learned the words black and white.

I think the sad part is that the common thread here is that the place I was exposed to racism was in the U.S., the country in which I now live; the country I have become a citizen of. I am sure that there was racism on the islands, in the Netherlands where we went on vacation, but it must have been hidden or more below the surface. Maybe my parents did not associate themselves with those people. Yes, we had the riots in 1969 in Curacao where half the town burned down, but my understanding was that these were more labor related than race; although some tried to relate them to what happened here in the US after the assassination of Martin Luther King around that time. However, I was young and naive and I am sure race played into it. After hearing what happened in the Congo, my parents were scared and we moved to the Netherlands fairly soon after those riots.

Where am I going with this blog post? I am a member of a religious community (the UU) that is mostly white and which has a “Black Lives Matter” banner hanging in front of the church. At home, we have a yard sign that says the same thing. I have written about this issue before <here>, where I wrote about my experience in New Mexico being stopped at immigration checkpoints in a vehicle with Mexican Americans, who were US citizens. I was the only non-citizen and experienced first hand that racial profiling in this country is real, but then in a ridiculous way. 

We have elections coming up where the leader of one party has been called a racist, actually acts like it or at least panders to them. This week he called out four female representatives of color with non white last names and two with non-christian religions and told them to go back to their country. Three of the four were born in the US and one is a naturalized US citizen. He has called neo-nazis good people.

It amazes me that in the 60 years since my first visit to this country there is still so much hate, fear and distrust to go around between the various races in this country. While it seems we made progress, I also see that in the past years we slid back. Maybe people filled with hatred and fear are coming out of the woodwork and dare to express themselves more? Whatever it is, it is going to take time to reverse this trend, but we are going to have to do it. We have to fight it and the people who refuse to call it out like many of the Republicans in congress and the senate who just shrug their shoulders and ignore what the guy at the top is saying.

Charlottesville (8/21/2017)

I am Charlottesville!  I visited Charlottesville last week on my way to one of my teaching gigs, upstate.  It was only two or three miles out of the way, so I felt like I could do it.  Leaving town, the car I got was tuned to an AM station that played the rightwing character known as Rush Limbaugh.  His discussion was upsetting calling the people that want the removal of the confederate status worse than ISIS who are destroying the museums in Syria and Iraq.  It was nauseating!  No mention of course that a lot of these statues were put up in the Jim Crow era, as a direct result of the voting rights act and the end of school segregation in the 1960s.  They were a kind of “in your face” statement to the black community at the time.  Here in Virginia, black kids have to go to General Lee Middle School every day; if that is not in your face!

Driving down Monument Avenue in Richmond for the first few times I was in awe, the statues are beautiful and I did not really look at what they depicted or stood for.  It helped that I am a foreigner and was not really educated about the U.S. Civil War that much.  For us Europeans it was more about the War of Independence, and living in Yorktown that is just amplified.

But I have become much more sensitive to the racial relationships.  I often jokingly call myself the token or sometimes the only "real" African American.  I was born in Africa and I am a U.S. citizen.  But I am as white as any other full blooded Caucasian. 

So why did I go to Charlottesville?  I went for three reasons:

1. To pay my respect to Heather Heyer and the spot where she was killed.
2. To pay my respect to the town I like a lot, Charlottesville is a great, liberal town.
3. For myself and to symbolically poke those KKK-ers, Neo-Nazis and Alt-Right criminals in the eyes and metaphorically kick them in the testicles.

This last point was particularly important to me after listening to the radio and after a weekend of hearing Trump saying that both sides were at fault and that what he called the alt-left were violent as well.  There might have been a few, but the counter protesters were resisting fascism, racism, anti-Semitism, and discrimination against women. 

HBO was showing that the right wing groups were marching and chanting the following three slogans:

1. Jews will not replace us
2. You will not replace us
3. Blood and soil

The first and the third are direct quotes of slogans that were chanted in the 1930s under the fascist Nazi regime of Hitler (anyone want to buy my tiki-torches?  I am not sure if I can ever light them again without having to vomit).  The result was the gas chambers.  I had an uncle who died in a Nazi concentration camp and a father who spent time in one.  That is why I stand with the people resisting the rightwing wingnuts.  We need to squash them and that is why I dare to say that until Trump changes his tune, as a son of a father who spend time in a concentration camp and a nephew of an uncle who died in one, he is not my president.

Charlottesville (3/30/2015) ... or about man's dominion over nature.

Monday included another afternoon road trip, this time to Charlottesville for a class I'll be teaching tomorrow.   It was a strange day that started out with a migraine and I was dragging.   Waiting for ever thing to settle down and the pain killer to work, I picked up a book that I've been working through on environmental justice (see the tab on my blog about books I've been reading for the title).  I am reading this book because of an interest I have in how to sell conservation in particular to people who are more cavalier about environmental protection.   I am very passionate when I teach and hopefully I can convert one or two persons and make them respect and protect the natural environment, but I am still frustrated that some people still don't get it.

Reading the book I hit the point on the so called idea that man has been given dominance over the natural environment by our Christian god (Genesis 1:26).  Being a Pantheist, I believe in the Devine in everything and in humans being part of it and not in charge of it.  But, I have often wondered how this thing about human dominion all got started, in particular since that attitude could be so destructive to the environment.  The authors of the chapter I was reading credits John Locke (1623-1704) for this notion, but reading a biography of Locke, it seems that he built on the philosophy of Francis Bacon, who interpreted the bible in such a way.  Granted this was all thought up in the 17th century and we did not know about photosynthesis,  evolution and other great scientific discoveries.

Locke had some other  interesting ideas.  He believed that "Land that is left wholly to Nature, that hath no improvement of Pasturage, Tillage, or Planting is called, as indeed it is, waste, and we shall find the benefit of it amount to little more than nothing"  (Locke 1694, Second Treatise, Sec. 42-43).  In other words, nature itself was worthless and had no function.  Not the brightest idea, but on the other hand, Locke did have some great ideas on religion (tolerance) and private property, and some of his ideas were championed in the Americas.   It seems that Thomas Jefferson was a reader of Locke; and wow, here I find myself in Charlottesville the home of Jefferson.

Locke calculated that improved land derives 99 to 99.9 percent of its value from cultivation rather than from the land itself.  This philosophy still permeates part of our economic system and explains our relationship with nature and public land.

With this notion we are ignoring that:

1. Nature's inherent value apart from human utility,
2. Nature has a psycho-spiritual value,
3. Nature's ability to create (wildlife, natural resources but also oxygen, clean water),  
4. Humans are part of nature.

One of Locke's ideas was about waste.  He be lived that no one should enmass more property than he needed.  Man should not waste land and what he grows from the land; otherwise he had to share is excesses.  So Locke was a property guy who had somewhat socialistic tendencies before socialism was invented.  The biographer tells us that this notion was easily abandoned by Locke's followers with the invention of money.  Now the excess crops, milk or meat could be sold and would not go to waste (the birth of capitalism).

The photo below was taken at Monticello.   I got there 45 minutes before closing and the ticket police would not allow me to go for a short walk in the woods without paying.   Like I would be able to make it all the way up to the mansion in that time and take the free tour.  Oh well.  At least I got to look at the green roof above the gift store.  It is amazing how at least part of our society is finally understanding that Locke was just a reflection of the level of science at time he lived, and that nature has a function and value.  I think it would have been something Thomas Jefferson would have embraced; however, he would probably have grown crops on the roof.

Charlottesville (8/27/2014)

In my continuing report on my travels, one more picture of Charlottesville.  The students were back in town and we went in search of a cup of coffee. There is a Starbucks located right on university row and again it was a pleasure just to walk on a busy sidewalk with tables and students enjoying lunch.  Driving through Charlottesville I was amazed how bike friendly the place was.

I picked up my coffee, and the cup collapsed, burning my hand.  Oh well, I got a refill and a coupon for a free beverage.  Nice service.  Thanks Starbucks!

Charlottesville (8/26/2014)

On the road again this week after a long hiatus.  Thank goodness this road trip took me to a great city.  Somehow Charlottesville embodies a lot of what I like in a city: it has atmosphere, a city center and great places to eat.  Classes had just started at UVA (I think this was the first day of classes).

After a day of teaching, most of us involved with the training decided to go unwind on a terrace of a wonderful pizza restaurant.  Sitting there with a micro-brewed beer we talked about the class, work in general, people we had in common and life itself, we started noticing that a person jogged by at least every 30 seconds.  Being all men in our group, the scantly dressed women joggers were the most noticeable, but yes it was approximately every 30 seconds.

Siting there I realized what I missed so much now I live in suburbia.  Charlottesville is very much like the older European cities; but then Thomas Jefferson lived there, and good old Ton was a fan of old Europe, in particular France.  I live in the suburbs.  A major highway divides the area into smaller subsections and all the shopping is concentrated in mini strip malls and grocery stores along the main drag.  Walking and biking along the main drag is dangerous to your health (or should I say life).  There is nothing really going on and if you don't know where you are, you could be in a suburb in any town in the US.  Some readers will tell me that Yorktown has a few interesting restaurants and is a walking/biking community.  It is, but it is small, part is owned by the park service and the development along the water was planned for tourists rather than the locals to meet, great and entertain.  But it is the only thing we have and people hunker for it,  Activities in Yorktown are consistently well attended.  Now we are building town center like developments in Yorktown, but the first thing that went up was another chain restaurant (Subway) rather than a nice funky restaurant with outside seating and a fun place to hang out and go for a drink with your friends.  More in my posting for the next day about this.

I had to take this photo of the public transport in Charlottesville.  It's free.  Yes we have free transportation in Yorktown, from one tourist attraction to the next, but it is not like this.

Crozet (7/24/2014)

The past week I was traveling again, and I got as far west as Roanoke and Daleville (see also this and this post).  It is a two-day class and it really depends on who your fellow teachers are on what you do the evening in between.  A few weeks ago my fellow teacher was an outdoorsy person and a trail runner, so after class I went for a hike while she went running (she's 30 years younger, so I was not even going to pretend to want to keep up with her).  This past time the first thing my fellow teacher said when the day was over and even before all the students were gone was: "where can we find a good beer?"  Thank goodness, Daleville has a restaurant called the "Tap House" which is where we hung out for a while.

In other words there was little opportunity to explore and take pictures.  So on my way home I had this internal debate of where to stop for dinner; and eventually my craving for a good pizza won.  I still think that Crozet Pizza in Crozet is probably one of the best pizza joints in all of Virginia.  Crozet is located just west of Charlottesville and is home to some really good pizza and good beers.  I had a wonderful meal there.  The town of Crozet is just a nice place to visit, and it is a nice distraction form the monotony and insanity of driving the interstate highways.

In all, it was a successful week of teaching stormwater in western Virginia.  The most exciting thing was so see so many old friends and students from previous classes.  It made me feel at home and just in a very ice comfortable atmosphere.  In addition, I got one of the nicest compliments in a while when one of the students told me that everyone in his office still talks about me and the classes that they took from me.  All very positive and among the best classes they ever had, which makes me feel it is worth it; the travel, the staying in motels, the exhaustion, and loosing my voice so now and then.