EPISODE 7: COUNTRY ROADS AND D-DAY MEMORIAL

In Fairmont, West Virginia I asked an old codger at a gas station - the old kind without any food store attached - how to get to highway 310 which looked like a nice back road to head over the hill. He said that it was a dangerous road and that I should take Highway 150 instead. I started singing:

Country roads, take me home,
To the place I belong
West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains…..

He said, if you take 310 you just might meet John Denver. (OK, so this conversation did not go exactly like this. You can’t tell me that my old Peace Corps friend Paul Theroux - same director, different continents - doesn’t embellish his conversations.) I said OK I would use his road but when I came to a traffic signal where he told me to turn right I saw a sign to Highway 310 and turned left. It was a nice back road.

The longest covered bridge in West Virginia is located in picturesque Philippi. This is also the site of the first land battle and first death in the Civil War. In the interest of full disclosure, and for those who noticed that Dustin Hoffman was driving the wrong way across the Bay Bridge to Berkeley in The Graduate, I took the picture inside the bridge coming back the “wrong way”.


Philippi covered bridge


Philippi covered bridge

I had a very nice drive over the Allegany Mountains into Virginia through beautiful territory listening to country music on the radio. “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off”. It doesn’t get any better than that.

On the other side of the mountains is the town of Staunton, the birthplace of Woodrow Wilson. He only lived here one year so his connection is a bit tenuous but his library and museum are here anyway. I found this small museum interesting because Wilson was the subject of my first real research paper in High School. I was doing research on the sports and hobbies of three presidents, Wilson, Taft, and Roosevelt. This was assigned by my teacher and friend who used his students’ research to help write a book on the subject. This is the same person who wrote the children’s book on Jumbo I mentioned way back in Episode 3.


Woodrow Wilson's Birthplace

Staunton is also the site of the Sattler Brothers museum but I gave that a miss. What I did do was have my first WalMart experience. I had gone to a photo shop earlier to try to figure out what to do with my chip that contains my lost photographs. The woman at the shop suggested that I not reformat it but buy another chip and I could do that at WalMart. I protested but she said she would never have film processed there but their stuff is cheap. When I checked into a rather fancy private campground outside of town their brochure of Staunton attractions included WalMart so I figured this was in the cards. When I got to the megastore I recalled that I needed to buy other stuff too: batteries for my flashlight, pillow cases to cover the disreputable ones I bought at a motel back in Washington for 25 cents each - not to sleep on but to use to sit on in the back of my truck, duct tape to make some minor repairs. I got a little carried away. And I got such a kick out of the fact that they really do say “Attention WalMart shoppers” over the intercom. It was not too bad, very much like Costco and the employees were very helpful. It was a little weird to see some of the RVs parked outside for the night. (More on RVs and campgrounds later.) I got so carried away that by the time I got to a very famous restaurant (Mrs. Rowes) it was already closed. And I had been trying to decide between their world famous pan-fried chicken and pork chops. But I went there for breakfast the next day and had country ham on buttermilk biscuits. Yummmm.

I stopped in Lexington mainly to visit the George Marshall museum at VMI. I learned that in the late 1930’s he was stationed in Vancouver, WA supervising the Civilian Conservation Corps in the area because they needed some military supervision for some reason. General Marshall was chief of staff in WWII, Secretary of State under Truman, and Noble Peace Prize winner for organizing the Marshall Plan. Not noted, but discussed in the Truman Library I visited earlier this summer, Truman and Marshall had a big argument over Israel but Truman decided to recognize the formation of Israel over Marshall’s strenuous objection. Just for kicks here is the soda fountain where Truman had his first job as a kid in Independence, MO.


Clinton soda fountain

Back to this trip. While in Lexington I also checked out the nearby Washington and Lee campus chapel where Robert E. Lee and his horse are buried (Lee inside, Trooper outside). The chapel is on the left in the following picture:


Long way from Berkeley

The next stop in Virginia was the D-Day Memorial in town of Bedford. I had attended the dedication in 2001 and this visit was a lot less hectic. In 2001 the names of the fallen were not in place yet, so I wanted to revisit the memorial to see my dad’s name. By coincidence the name of the father (Frank Elliott) of a woman I know in the American World War II Orphans Network (AWON) happens to be on the same plaque. This memorial is located in Bedford because this small Virginia town lost 19 young men on D-Day, the highest percentage of any town in the nation. It is an interesting memorial, run by a small independent group that had some real financial problems at first as they got in over their head. These problems seem to be solved. yet the entire memorial is still not complete, but what is there gives a nice impression. It is sort of a pay-as-you-go effort; it appears that those military units that have plaques on the walls are there because the various units themselves have funded them. But the overall effect is pretty impressive.


D-Day Memorial


D-Day Memorial 2


D-Day Memorial 3


Against all odds


The Fallen


List of KIAs


Lt. Marks


One way to look at it

After I left Bedford I headed for the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is one of the most scenic highways in the country. It was started by the Civilian Conservation Corps and still has the feel of an older highway from an earlier time. I was thinking this when a series of vintage vehicles drove past going the other way. I almost got into an accident pulling over to the side of the road but I could not get my camera out in time. In any case, here are two pictures from the parkway. The first is supposedly of the most photographed item on the parkway – so why should I be any different? The second is of the underside of viaduct, the last section of the parkway to be constructed. It is an amazing engineering feat where the viaduct was constructed around the side of a rocky mountain; each section of the viaduct was built from the previously built section and the supports were placed from above.


Where I first met you


Why not a goose?