From City Journal, New York: Philadelphia's Woke Monoculture

Philadelphia’s Barnes Foundation recently held a press event for “Water, Wind, Breath,” its new exhibition of Southwest Native art, pottery, jewelry, and culture. At the Barnes, such events are carefully orchestrated, with a distinct ambience: good-looking, well-dressed employees, all meticulously mannered, especially the women, who have come to represent the best in museum chic. At the Barnes opening, everything stood ready: microphone, guest speakers, a silver and chrome buffet table off to the side with coffee, tea, and yogurt parfaits. Thom Collins, executive director and president of the foundation, explained to attendees how hard the Barnes was working to achieve inclusion, equity, and diversity. It was a virtual copy-and-paste of everything I had heard weeks earlier at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museum of the American Revolution—a mandatory mini-lecture that one now hears at exhibition openings in every museum in the city. A paraphrase of this bit of instruction might read: Lest you have any doubts, equity and diversity are our main goals here. It apparently hasn’t occurred to any city museum official that the constant repetition of this mantra comes close to treating press-review audiences like learning-disabled children in need of constant reminding of a museum’s fealty to the new order. At Barnes, I took some consolation that Collins skipped over the standard “land acknowledgment” boilerplate, which, in case you don’t know, is a three- to four-minute declaration that the ground under a given museum, theater, or venue was once owned by a Native tribe before it was stolen by colonizers or settlers. Land-acknowledgement tributes have become the progressive Left’s version of grace before meals and can be heard at nearly every small theater in the city before a performance of a play. Theaters and museums nationwide have easy access to land-acknowledgment templates. A Google search reveals instructions on how to make your land-acknowledgment statement meaningful. One piece of advice is not to ask an indigenous person to deliver it because “indigenous people already bear enough of the burden of colonization.” The best call-to-action “is to ask everyone who hears the land acknowledgment to take out their phone or checkbook and donate at least $1 to a Native-led organization.” Both the subjects of plays and the topics of museum and art lectures in Philadelphia have veered toward “woke” themes, especially at small venues like Theatre Horizon and the Theater Company of Philadelphia, where plays about slavery predominate. At Theatre Horizon, for instance, James Ijames, whose work tends to focus on race, women, and sexual orientation, will premiere a new play that attempts to reimagine Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson as, respectively, a student and a dean at a Southern university. Slavery and subjects related to race, gender, and other woke topics have been the standard theme for productions at city theaters for almost a decade now. The overemphasis has even hit the grand dame of (former) WASP institutions, the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, where 2022’s list of events and programs includes an imbalance of feminist programs and race-related topics, such as lectures on how women lost the vote, inequality in education, African-Americans in Civil War-era Virginia, and writings from the nineteenth-century antislavery movement. When plays about slavery and race came into their own in the city about a decade ago, they were welcomed. Unfortunately, Philadelphia’s arts and cultural scene today is locked into an endless repetition of these themes. It’s as if each museum and theater were in competition for a woke merit badge. The American Catholic Historical Society, which bills itself as the oldest Catholic historical society in the United States, has taken a decidedly leftward turn as well. On the heels of Philadelphia’s 2020 George Floyd riots, the society booked a program called “The Birth of a Movement: Black Lives Matter and the Catholic Church.” The event’s description included a reference to “a long-overdue reckoning on systemic racism, and the presidential election.” The selection of Black Lives Matter as the centerpiece for a major lecture by a heretofore largely conservative Catholic organization was an odd one, especially since BLM was founded by two Marxists and at one point had as one of its goals the elimination of “hetero-normative relationships” (now scrubbed from BLM’s website). Today you will find no conservative speakers at ACHS. When ACHS does veer off into nonpolitical waters, the subjects tend to be non-threatening ones like the founding of a particular religious order or historical topics concerning the archdiocese. As the city’s arts and cultural communities emerge from the pandemic, the influence of Zoom presentations is diminishing, though some institutions (like the ACHS) are still offering both virtual and live presentations. Most city theaters plan a complete reopening this spring, though classic old venues like the Walnut Street Theatre, founded in 1808 and known as America’s oldest theater, and the Forrest Theatre, named after famous nineteenth-century tragic actor Edwin Forrest, have been hosting live performances for the several months. The Walnut remains decidedly non-controversial and non-political (its last production was about Sherlock Holmes), but the same can’t be said for the Forrest. Its recent production of Daniel Fish’s rehashed and updated Oklahoma!, the 1943 Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, was by all accounts a disaster. While established reviewers like Toby Zinman and assorted “gender-queer” reviewers for small weeklies praised the show’s edgy woke qualities, most ticketholders had little praise for the rehabbed mess they dubbed “Woke-Lahoma.” Almost all the reviews from audience members were negative, while professional reviewers, perhaps attempting to safeguard their progressive credentials, praised it. This ticketholder “rebellion” was heartening. Numerous audience members walked out during the intermission. It’s too early to determine whether the tide is turning, though the Wilma Theater, long noted for its left-wing political curveballs, has taken to asking audiences what they want to see in future productions. What a novel approach! Perhaps more Philadelphia theaters and art galleries will follow suit. Thom Nickels is a Philadelphia-based author and journalist.

Fiorella and Padre Pio

The Local Lens: Farewell, Fiorella BY THOM NICKELS | FEBRUARY 9, 2017 For most, the death of a loved one or family member is a traumatic experience. That’s because most of us assume that our lives will go on for a long time. We don’t count on death happening today or even the day after tomorrow, but sometime in the distant future. Death is never a pleasant topic. There are no “nice” deaths, either. One can die instantly of a heart attack, stroke or automobile accident, or one can die slowly over a period of months or years. In the case of the latter, at least there’s a chance for the one who is about to die to say goodbye. In the case of the former, there are no such options. In the Orthodox Church there are prayers asking God to save us from an instant death. It is always better to be prepared for this important transition from life to afterlife. My sister-in-law, Fiorella, recently passed away. We were not extremely close, but we still had a closeness made palpable by decades of family dinners and reunions. When I say we were not extremely close I don’t mean to imply a distance caused by alienation. Like most people, we were caught up in our own lives, which led us to assume that there would be plenty of time to see each other again. Fiorella came into my brother’s life at a point when he really needed change and a life partner. One day my mother called me up and said, “You’ll be meeting Fiorella this Sunday. I think your brother has met his match.” Fiorella had long straight hair, a winning smile, a keen intelligence and an acute sense of humor. Her Italian roots could be traced to the area by the Adriatic Sea. She was born in Italy, but migrated to the United States as a toddler with her parents. She married my brother in Saint Patrick’s Church in Malvern, an old gothic structure with enormous stained-glass windows. I attended the wedding. It was the 1970s and all the men in the wedding party had long hair and mustaches. The reception was a rollicking party along the lines of “Saturday Night Fever.” Fiorella’s mother was a gifted seer who provided her daughter with advice and counseling. Her father had a talent for winemaking; his wine was known for its smooth medicinal properties and it rarely, if ever, caused a morning hangover. We all asked one another, “How does he make this stuff?’ My brother often spoke of his mother-in-law’s intuitive talents. Like the mystic and saint Padre Pio, it was claimed that Fiorella’s mother could be in two places at once — an ability called bi-location. My brother told me that his father-in-law would often see his wife in the garden and then half a second later at the kitchen stove. It was just one of life’s unexplained mysteries. Still, Fiorella’s mom’s excellent “intuitions” were sometimes not what her daughter or my brother wanted to hear. I remember the time when she warned them to travel by plane rather than take the train when planning a cross-country trip. The advice seemed backwards because conventional wisdom suggests that flying would be more dangerous than traveling by Amtrak. Fiorella was afraid of flying and she tried to avoid it whenever possible, so it took all her strength to muster up the courage to fly with my brother when they embarked on their honeymoon to Acapulco. But Fiorella’s mother was persistent: “Do not take the train! Take the plane!” Fiorella’s fear of flying was just too great, so she and my brother decided to take the train, despite the warning. Once on board the train’s sleeping compartment, there was a crash and a sort of explosion that sent the two of them flying off their bunks. Smoke entered their compartment and a lot of panic ensued. The train had derailed or had crashed into something, I’m not sure which, but those uncertain moments were very scary for them. Fortunately they escaped without injury. Fiorella and my brother settled in a house in a development in Exton, PA, where they raised three children. The years advanced and as often happens with families there were times when we Nickels siblings would drift apart only to come together during the holidays or at a 4th of July picnic. On one 4th of July, Fiorella and my brother hosted a massive reunion for my mother’s side of the family. The Muldoon-Kelly reunion covered the waterfront in terms of disparate personalities and incomes. Fiorella and my brother had also managed to obtain old photos of distant relatives in Tyrone County, Ireland. The photos depicted men with long black beards covering their chest and women carrying parasols. Fiorella contracted breast cancer a few years ago. She had a single mastectomy and routine chemo and radiation treatments. After that she and my brother went on an extreme health regime. Life was fine for some time, but then two or three days after Christmas it was discovered that the cancer had returned, only now it was in her liver. In no time at all it seemed the cancer got worse and spread to other parts of Fiorella’s body, and she was admitted to Bryn Mawr Hospital. When the truth of her incurable cancer became an indisputable fact, her youngest daughter, Amanda, came up with a plan. Scheduled to be married to her fiancé, Mark, in September 2017, the couple organized a wedding in the hospital chapel before their big September church wedding. All of my brother’s children pitched in to create what became a miniature but full extravaganza in just 24 hours. That included getting the wedding rings, hiring musicians, a priest, ordering food and champagne and negotiating with a tailor to alter Fiorella’s old wedding gown for Amanda to wear. Fiorella was informed of the impromptu chapel wedding and was given an extra treatment of radiation so she could attend. The morning of the wedding she woke up and said, “I feel great!” The small ceremony turned the hospital upside down when nurses, physicians and even the hospital’s president and CEO crowded into the small chapel. My last visit with Fiorella was on Tuesday, January 31st when I entered her hospital room around 5:20PM. She was alone and she looked to be sleeping. The room was empty except for the sounds of a nurse running water in the bathroom. When the nurse asked me who I was, I told her that I was a brother-in-law. In the few seconds that it took me to say this I thought I saw a smile cross Fiorella’s face. Was I imagining this? My brother had told me earlier that his wife was comatose, but that she could hear what was being said. The nurse said I could spend as much time with her as I wanted, so I sat with Fiorella until the chaplain walked in and told me that Fiorella had actually died hours before, at 3:20PM. Hearing this was disconcerting because all along I had thought that she was asleep. I spent 30 minutes sitting with Fiorella, meditating, thinking of times past. Then I thought of the words of St. John Chrysostom who wrote that although death is terrible and frightening — yes, even its name is devastating — for those who know the higher philosophy there should be no shuddering. That’s because death is merely a passing over when we leave this corruptible life and go on to another, which is unending and incomparably better. •

STEVE BISCIOTTI

There are people who live for football and the Super Bowl. They arrange house parties; they make sure there’s plenty of food, cases of beer or bottles of wine on hand for the ‘life-changing’ extravaganza. For these people—they constitute multitudes-- Super Bowl Sunday is a major national holiday. I’ve never been one of these people. To me, football is boring and watching football is tantamount to watching leaves fall in autumn. Playing football is even worse given the number of physical injuries many of its athletes sustain and that follow them throughout life: bad backs, crushed knees, brain injuries, dislocated shoulders, hip replacements. In years past, I’ve tended to criticize how people can put so much energy and passion into something that’s just a game. But one year it was slightly different for me and that was when I found myself rooting for the Baltimore Ravensover the San Francisco 49ers during Super Bowl 2013. The reason for my change of heart was simple: Steve Bisciotti, the majority owner of the Ravens at that time (he is now the sole owner), is a second cousin of mine, or more specifically, the son of my godmother, Patricia Bisciotti (nee Muldoon), who hails from my mother’s side of the family, the Irish Muldoon-Kelly clan from Tyrone County, Northern Ireland. There was always random talk about Steve Bisciotti and the Ravens in family circles. That talk accelerated in the year 2000 when Bisciotti purchased 49% of the Ravens. It catapulted in 2004 when he purchased the remaining 51% and became the majority owner. While these developments struck me as interesting, I couldn’t say that I was especially excited about it. Since the Irish side of my family is so large, I had never met Steve Bisciotti until 2012. That was at a family funeral Mass for Patricia Bisciotti’s sister, Constance Davis, at St. Anastasia’s church in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania. It was in that church that I was finally able to put a face to the name. Interestingly enough, this was about the time when Ravens linebacker Brandon Ayanbadejo was being castigated by a conservative Maryland legislator, Emmett Burns, Jr. (D-Baltimore Co.) for his open support of same sex marriage. (How mild this issue seems today when compared to the taking-a-knee-madness that plagued many teams, especially the Ravens, during playing of playing of the National Anthem.) Ayanbadejo, who is heterosexual, was not shy about his support of the marriage issue every chance he got. This fact bothered Burns, who wrote a letter to Steve Bisciotti and (then) Ravens President Dick Cass asking that Ayanbedejo be silenced. The Democrat legislator, according to Baltimore’s Metro Weekly, wanted the Ravens to “inhibit” Ayanbadejo and “take the necessary actions,” to have the linebacker “cease and desist” his public support. According to Ayanbedejo, Cass and Bisciotti had a talk about Burns’ letter and then Cass approached him with some words of encouragement, telling him first of all that we [the Ravens] support the right to freedom of speech under the First Amendment.” Ayanbadejo then went on to say that Cass told him, “We’re in support of you and it’s good that you’re able to voice your opinion and say how you feel. We’re not an organization that discriminates.” When I read about this controversy, I knew that second cousin Steve Bisciotti had inherited his father’s benevolent generosity of spirit. I immediately wrote a column about it for the Huff Post, praising my second cousin to the skies, even though I had never met him. (As it turned out, my godmother had read the piece and expressed her appreciation.) Although I had never met Steve Bisciotti, I did know his father. As a college student in Maryland, I visited Steve Bisciotti’s father, Bernie Bisciotti (Uncle Bernie) in a Baltimore hospital with my own father, Thomas C. when Bernie was fighting terminal leukemia. Our visit lasted over an hour, but this was enough time to see that Bernie Bisciotti was an empathetic gentle giant of a man. As a nervous 19 year old, on the verge of doing alternate service as a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War, I was used to untoward looks and disapproving comments from unexpected quarters, especially from disgruntled uncles (the aunts were far more gracious) who saw me as nothing more than a draft dodger. But this was not the case with Uncle Bernie. In fact, the very opposite of this was true; Uncle Bernie wasn’t one to discriminate. The fact that he seemed so calm and peaceful when he knew he was going to die also impressed me as something very rare. The man, so close to death, seemed happier than ever. Finding Steve Bisciotti standing by himself after the funeral Mass in the church drinking his trademark bottled water seemed to me to be the perfect opportunity to tell him about my meeting with his father so many years ago. I went over and introduced myself and reminded him that his mother was my godmother, and then recounted my hospital visit with his father. He smiled and listened politely; at the mention of his father, Bernie, he showed an even greater interest. I may have mentioned my Huff Post piece about the Ravens but by then our connection seemed to be fading. Since I had come late to the funeral, perhaps the multitudes of friends and cousins in the church had already bent his ear into a state of total exhaustion. In any event, I returned to my pew feeling a sense of disappointment. It was as if I was not a family member but a casual friend of a family member. I thought of H.L. Mencken’s comment. “Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of himself.” The following year, 2013, he would see his team, the Ravens, win the Super Bowl. At home in front of the television set I saw my godmother at the conclusion of the game walk out into the middle of the field in a rain of confetti and bombast. There she was, the woman whose smiling face that can still be seen in old family 8mm films stepping out of a car and entering my family’s house on Bond Avenue in Drexel Hill, a coonskin Davy Crockett hat on my head. There she was in the national limelight. “That’s my Aunt Pat,” I told the people watching the game with me. “My godmother has confetti in her eyes!” Steve Biscotti was right beside her in center field, hugging and smiling. After the disappointing experience at the funeral, I wondered if I was expecting too much from a man I’d never really known except through family talk. Did my expectations come from having seen his father so close to death, a scene that Steve Bisciotti didn’t see because he was a little boy at the time? Writing and publishing the Huff Post piece also caused me to expect more. In the end, I decided it was a second cousin thing. Second cousins rarely rate; they are bottom of the totem pole people. Historically, they might be compared to third and fourth class Titanic passengers. The proof of this came after the funeral when it was it was stated through word of mouth that only first cousins were invited to the funeral luncheon. Second cousins and others had to fend for themselves (check out those nearby restaurants, etc.) I’ve encountered this once or twice before on my mother’s side of the family. The Irish seem especially prone to weird bouts of exclusivity. Certainly, inviting second cousins to the funeral luncheon was a very affordable thing in this case, given the success story mentioned above. Throughout my life I’ve been to funerals both high and low. Even at the low ones or funerals for very poor people, there were always a few sandwiches afterwards and a cup of coffee Listen up all Ye Wealthy: It’s about the camaraderie as much as it is about the food! After the funeral, my interest in football went up a notch but it didn’t last long. It’s still a beastly sport although the smell of autumn and the sound of cow bells when a football game is being played can be a wonderful thing. And football parties are great as an excuse to have a party. They’re fun, especially when nobody is watching the game but engaged in conversations with their backs to the TV. One more thing: Sometime after the funeral I went home and Googled Steve Biscotti’s name, having heard something about the beauty of his huge estate on Maryland’s Severn River. When I spotted a picture of the residence, I thought I’d gotten one of the Royal Family’s palaces in England by mistake. It was breathtaking, as they say.

LIVE NATION IN PHILADELPHIA

On December 6, 1969, Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones looked out over the massive crowd at California’s Altamont Speedway and saw the concert security staff, the Hell’s Angels, beating up an audience member. The Angels, who were paid in beer rather than cash to act as security that day, had apprehended a man named Meredith Hunter, 27, who attempted to approach the stage. When Hunter attempted to approach the stage a second time, this time with a revolver in view, he was beaten by the Angels and then stabbed to death by a Hell’s Angel named Alan Passaro. The melee, which was captured on film (and later incorporated in the film, ‘Gimme Shelter,’ caused a nervous Jagger to announce, “People, people, let’s be cool!” The murder of Hunter would come to be known as Rock’n Roll’s Darkest Day, officially marking the end of the 1960’s peace and love era which had its peak expression only months before at Woodstock. The 1969 tragedy at Altamont has arguably been superseded in darkness by the troubling developments at Live Nation Entertainment – which bills itself as “the world’s leading live entertainment company.” The company’s recent production of the Astroworld Festival in Houston on November 2 saw 13 people killed and 300 injured when a crowd surge during the concert caused concertgoers to trample one another. Live Nation has a history of safety violations over the past decade. The massive concert enterprise also seems to thrive best in large Democrat-controlled cities where the urban landscape cultivates its own style of rough and tumble audiences and artists (Christian conservative rappers like Bryson Gray need not apply), especially artists who not so long ago specialized in ‘F—k Trump’ lyrics.) Consider Live Nation’s track record in Philadelphia. Philadelphia’s annual 2-day Labor Day concert on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, sponsored by Live Nation, has been drawing thousands of people since its inception 8 seasons ago. Called "Made in America" (MIA), when the festival began it was briefly criticized for being “too white” and not diverse enough. Since that first concert, organizers have gone to extreme lengths to balance the equation. Rap and hip hop became an essential part—the majority part-- of the Parkway concerts but it was (and is) the rap and hip hop of the woke variety that is promoted by CNN. Live Nation’s contention that the MIA festival also includes pop and electronic music has always been an exaggeration. While this latter category of music is given a cursory acknowledgment on stage, the bulk of MIA concerts on the Parkway (curated by Jay-Z) feature such artists as Meek Mill, Jay-Z, Justin Bieber, Lil Baby and a host of other rappers. Proceeds for Philadelphia’s 2021 MIA festival went to the ACLU with other proceeds going to The Reform Alliance -- a left progressive organization intent on eliminating “oppressive” probation, parole and bail issues. While some of the Alliance’s concerns might need looking into, the bulk of the organization’s focus is aligned with the progressive policies of Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner. Philadelphia has one of the highest rates of gun violence in the nation. The goal of The Reform Alliance is the replacement of America’s justice system “with a restorative system that is fair, accountable and invested in rehabilitation, support and wellbeing.” All of this sounds quite benign on the surface but it is also suggestive that these grand “restorative systems” will end up in the hands of radical left. As of this writing, The Reform Alliance has certainly failed in one of its main goals: to “make communities safer and stronger.” Keep in mind that MIA organizers boasted that they were able to collect thousands of signatures in support of the Alliance during the 2021 festival. Supporting The Reform Alliance, of course, means supporting Larry Krasner. There was a time when the ACLU did some good things for the American citizenry, but that "do good" era is certainly over. The ACLU in 2021 mirrors Marxist/Communist models with a social agenda reflecting the beliefs and convictions of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and the Southern Poverty Law Center, and champions positions and causes that are clearly antithetical to what has been called the American Way. One aim of the ACLU in 2021 seems to be the total remake of American society -- as explained quite powerfully in Mark Levin’s book, American Marxism. Live Nation’s MIA concerts transform Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway into a street version of Astroworld with overflow crowds that often spill out into the surrounding neighborhoods. At one MIA concert several years ago, neighbors in the Art Museum area complained of drunk and drugged-out MIA attendees urinating or vomiting on their cars and property. Mayor Jim Kenney, who loves these outdoor city extravaganzas because they bring a lot of money into the city, has always turned a deaf ear to the residents of high-rise condos along the Parkway who have complained about the mayhem and noise created by MIA. Many Parkway residents leave the city every Labor Day weekend as Live Nation invades Philadelphia. The city bends over backwards to accommodate MIA, rearranging or canceling bus routes, restricting parking and blocking off major and minor streets. It’s really a case of Live Nation and MIA holding the city hostage for two days. The tragedy at Astroworld, highlights the lethal mix of dark woke rap with Live Nation’s insatiable hunger for bigger and better concerts. It was Astroworld’s star performer, Travis Scott, after all, who announced at one of his concerts in 2015 for fans to jump the security barricades and follow their passion. “There’s not enough security to stop them all from hopping the fence,” he told the crowd. For that stunt, Scott, aka Jacques Bermon Webster, was sentenced to 1 year of court supervision after pleading guilty to reckless conduct charges. The rapper also made headlines that same year for kicking a cameraman off his stage. At the ill-fated 2021 Houston concert, Politifact reported that Travis Scott preformed for 37 minutes “as a mass causality unfolded.” In 1969, Mick Jagger, claiming he never knew the fatal stabbing of Meredith Hunter was taking place, kept on singing “Under My Thumb.” Scott’s Astroworld concert, or a trip to its theatrical stage name, Utopia Mountain, cost fans $350 a ticket (resellers got $993.00 per ticket). At this year’s Astroworld event, fans rushed the security barricades, knocking them over in a mad rush. Some saw this as evidence that Scott’s concert was "Satanic," although this charge was later lampooned in the press as absurd. Travis Scott has offered his condolences to the loved ones of the people who died. “I’m absolutely devastated by what took place last night,” he’s on record as saying. “My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival.” Scott then offered to cover the victims’ funeral expenses. Live Nation stated that it was "heartbroken for those lost and impacted at Astroworld.” Meanwhile, Philadelphia has its eyes set on the 2022 MIA Parkway concert when residents of the Parkway and the Museum area will either leave town or weather the two-day musical lockdown when the city is held hostage once again. You can be sure that the ACLU and The Reform Alliance will be there with their petitions and sign-in sheets, bringing in the masses -- while from behind the microphone audiences will hear the latest woke rap sounds of "F—k Trump" or whoever else happens to be on the Left’s current enemies list. One thing is certain: Philadelphia’s MIA crowds will never shout “F--k Krasner.”

I'm in Rocky Mount, Virginia in a spacious historic suite in an antebellum mansion built in 1850 by a man named John Hale. The Greek Revival building was once the manor house of the wealthiest plantation in Franklin County. Hale’s vast estate included 250 slaves and compromised most of the town on Rocky Mount. Hale’s son, Major Samuel Hale, left home to join the Confederate army a mere three weeks after his marriage. His life was cut short when he was killed on May 12, 1864 while engaged in a counter-attack to restore the Confederate front. The estate today is known as The Early Inn at the Grove, voted Virginia’s best Bed and Breakfast five years in a row. With six sumptuous guest suites and situated on ten acres of land, the Inn is the crown jewel of the Blue Ridge Mountain area. My first morning at the Inn includes a home cooked breakfast by twenty year old Autumn, the Inn’s housekeeper who also cooks breakfast for guests. The extremely conversational and friendly Autumn is a prime example of southern hospitality. Later, she introduces me to Nate, the tall black groundskeeper, while showing me around the grounds. During the tour I spot a small white wooden house and ask if this was one of the old slave houses. Both Nate and Autumn say that it was then Nate asks if I want to see the old smokehouse. The look inside the old smokehouse is like an old barn. A short winding staircase ascends several feet above my head and as I look up, I see a cobweb or two. Nate tells me how slaughtered animals used to hang here by the rafters, salted and smoked, long before the days of refrigeration. I’m familiar with the mystique of old barns, having grown up in rural Chester County. Autumn points to an old oak tree, well over a century old, that came down during a bad storm. Instead of removing the majestic bark from the property the Inn decided to carve out the center of the bark to create a kind of planter. In the spring the mighty remains sport dozens of colored wildflowers. “It’s beautiful. It’s just something you have to see,” Autumn says. Unfortunately, it is winter but I can still see remnants of flowers and it’s not a bad look at all. Since 1850, the mansion has had only had three owners, a testament to the love and devotion each family has felt for the house. I was assigned the Magnolia Suite with its massive bathroom and couples’ shower (though I traveled alone). Each suite has its own unique design and furnishings. Rocky Mount is a compact and walkable town. The place has virtually no crime, no homeless problem. Police siren sounds do not exist, or if they do, they are as rare as a blue moon. In the evenings, I had the mansion to myself because there didn’t happen to be any other guests. I checked out the ample library, the dining room (the go-to spot for catered events) with a working fireplace, and a living room where I encountered the southern aristocratic gaze of Elizabeth Taylor Greer, framed high on a wall in the style of a fresco or mosaic. Being the only occupant in such a large place causes one to have unusual reflections. I kept thinking of Elizabeth Taylor Greer and her husband Thomas Keister Greer hosting parties together in the mansion. I also thought of one event in the mansion at the conclusion of the Civil War when a slave girl ran out to the Union Army advancing on the property and presented the soldiers them with a plate of hot biscuits. A newspaper account of the incident, framed for Early Inn guests to read, has the slave girl cowering in fear under the folds of her mistress’ dress after she presents her gift. There are, of course, stories of how the mansion is sometimes haunted, but isn’t every old house that survives the centuries? The haunted house thing has indeed become a tired old cliché. In this case, I was told of a wandering (lost) but happy Confederate soldier who is said to walk back and forth in the front yard by the fallen oak tree with its attendant wildflowers. To be sure, I experienced no creaky sounds or the opening and closing of shutters but had two very tranquil nights, one of them in the library reading up on Thomas Keister Greer, who had male relatives in the Revolutionary and Civil War, the War of 1812 and WWI. Keister himself fought in the landing at Okinawa in WWII and wrote about his experiences which were later quoted by his wife in her biography of her husband. “His precious Virginia was on the losing side in the Civil War but he was on the winning side in WWII,” she wrote. Elizabeth goes on to say that her husband’s “love and loyalty for heritage, history, knowledge, family, Virginia and his country served this Virginia gentleman well.” Keister’s love for heritage and tradition caused him to leave one branch of the Episcopal Church, which he thought was becoming too liberal, for a more conservative parish. Exploring Rocky Mount is best done on foot. There are innumerable antiques and old record shops, such as Antiques and Collectibles of The Crooked Road, Renick Antiques and Collectibles and the Rocky Mount Farmers Market. The Harvester Performance Center attracts major musical talent and it’s just a few blocks from The Early Inn. There’s also a marijuana head shop (I don’t smoke), a large Artisan shop with new and old items as well as a space for photographer Dwight A. Hayes, who sells framed works from his international travels. Artfully framed color and B&W photographs from Hayes’ trips to Greece, the Holy Land, Ireland and the Middle Eastern desert sell for shockingly reasonable prices (they’d cost six times as much in Philadelphia). I chatted with Hayes about his work and wound up hearing some of his life’s story: how he started out as a Jehovah’s Witness but later became a Baptist preacher. I purchased a framed print of his as a Christmas gift for a grandniece—a full rainbow over the Sea of Galilee—after which the two of us talked religion for almost an hour. Hayes signed the photograph and told me that one of his son’s was a preacher too. “You don’t call yourself a minister or a Reverend?” I asked. “Oh no, I’m a preacher. When I go to the Holy Land I love hanging out with the Catholics. I love Catholics,” he said. Hayes also said that he was fascinated with the Orthodox. I said my good-byes to Hayes and headed over to an antique record store where I found a miniature buffalo, not a taxidermy specimen obviously, but a knick knack covered in what looked like real animal hair with tiny enamel horns. The little buffalo was made in a “charge” position. The price was $25.00 but I asked if I could take it for $20.00. The proprietor, a lean man in his fifties covered in tattoos, readily agreed and took the buffalo to the counter so I wouldn’t have to carry it around with me. In the meantime, his mother appeared on the scene, perhaps the real proprietor of the store, and wanted to know where the buffalo came from. I was called over to the counter. “You have good taste,” his mother said. “If there’s another buffalo maybe you can get two for 25.00.” It so happens there was another buffalo there but that buffalo looked beaten up with missing patches of hair and what seemed to be a twisted leg. “I’ll take just the one,” I said. By now her son was at the other end of the store and out of hearing range. “My son was in the Navy,” his mother told me. “He started to come home with tattoos (raises eyes), and now he’s covered. Oh, well, what can you do?” I headed over to Rocky Mount Burger Company, touted as the burger place in all of the Blue Ridge Mountains, skipping an opportunity to go to Buddy’s BBQ or the Homestead Creamery, which would have meant using the rental car, a Toyota with racing stripes and a great engine. I don’t do burgers often but I delighted in this specialty while sipping a Kendall Jackson chardonnay (all their red wine was from a box). The music was Rolling Stones, Kinks, The Who. I would return to the burger place in the evening because I didn’t want to use the rental car at night. When I did, I had a long ‘life conversation’ with my server, a young mother with two children at home (and a husband, no less) about how rapidly society was falling apart. That evening in the Early Inn, I wandered around the mansion after the staff had departed, paid my respects to the portrait of Elizabeth Taylor Greer, and went into the B&B’s kitchen to help myself to yogurt, coffee and various snacks made available for guests. The winter sun was beginning to set so I walked to the central Greek Revival door, unchanged since the mistress of the house and the little slave girl opened it to greet the victorious Union Army. I rubbed my hand into the wood thinking of all the people who’d left their fingerprints there, then opened it and stepped outside. I did not see the ghost of the Confederate solider, although I did spot a still standing Confederate monument to the Civil War dead on my first day in Virginia. It was a tall, graceful looking statue surrounded by a wrought iron fence. Soon I would see another statue just like it in Floyd, Virginia, known as the state’s liberal hippie-populated community where the famous Floyd Country store (and its Friday night bluegrass concerts) is located. I was looking forward to going to Floyd in a day or two, the second lag of my trip. Autumn said that Floyd to her was like a piece of Heaven. What to do before dinner? I thought about heading over to the Twin Creels Distillery, not far from the Inn, to sign up for a Moonshine tasting. Thomas Keister Greer wrote a masterful book on the area’s Moonshine wars during the Prohibition era. (The Great Moonshine Conspiracy Trial of 1935). That’s when politicians and police were paid off so that the great southern tradition could continue unabated: free flowing Moonshine as an alternative to (legal) soft drinks and weak tea. The South certainly didn’t take Prohibition sitting down. I visited my first distillery, the Franklin County Distilleries, on my way into Rocky Mount from Salem. I was shown around the place by Taylor Spellman, Director of Public Relations for Virginia’s Blue Ridge, and Kathryn Lucas, Spellman’s assistant. As we drove into the distillery parking lot, we noticed a man in a Santa Claus suit directing traffic into the place. The distillery had the look of a rustic barn with lots of wood framing and high ceilings. Scattered around the place were barrels of this and that. We sat at a small bar and were greeted by the bartender, a tall gentleman who looked like the very heart and soul of the non-urban South. Friendly and open like so many Virginians I would meet, he recommended a spicy Bloody Mary, which put me in the mood to talk to that Santa Claus out on the road. No sooner did I think Santa Claus, then there he was. Turns out he was the brother of the owner and he wanted a picture of the three of us. This was after a gentleman sitting in the back of the distillery with a friend came up to me and asked if anybody ever said that I looked like Andy Warhol. “Yes,” I answered, “From time to time, the last time was when somebody called out to me from a truck: ‘Andy Warhol!”” The men were former Northerners (Long Island), retirees, and said they loved life in Rocky Mount, just as Autumn said she loved life in Floyd. I returned to the Rocky Mount Burger Company later that night until closing (9 pm), then headed back to the mansion, walking through the vast front yard where the Union cavalry marched and where Johnny Red still paces nervously among the trees.

Thom Nickels Contributing Editor Follow Thom Nickels From Rocky Mount, I headed into Floyd County, Virginia to Apple Ridge Farm, a former dairy farm with 250 apple trees. The farm was purchased by John R.F. Lewis and incorporated as a non-profit in 1978 as an education and retreat center for inner city youths. Lewis, a black educator, has transformed the farm into a national treasure that has helped 70,000 children over the last 40 years. The rustic design of the buildings, many of them wooden, has the look of an old Scout camp. There’s the massive Spangler Pavilion, usually rented out for weddings, a “real” swimming pool (the deep end is ten feet), and a high tech classroom for the kids that is powered by solar panels and a wind turbine. Located deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, one first notices the turkey vultures circling in the sky. These graceful birds glide high and low in search of fresh carcasses below. The surrounding forests are inhabited by small bears (not dangerous, I was told), an occasional (but very rare) black mountain lion, foxes, and plenty of deer. It was hunting season when I arrived at the Farm, so when I was shown my Apple Ridge Caboose B & B Car, I was informed that if I wanted to hike in the woods I should wear orange if I didn’t follow the proscribed trails surrounding the three Caboose “apartments,” (all former Norfolk-Richmond caboose cars). Hiking outside the marked margins meant that you risked encountering hunters and bears. I was assigned Caboose #3, a red caboose recently refurbished to accommodate overnight guests. “Cute” doesn’t begin to describe this cozy space with a miniature refrigerator, microwave, coffee bar, Futon sofa, a doll house sized dining room table and a large bathroom with an easy- to- work shower. The Caboose apartments are situated on a section of railroad track and are located up a hill that is slightly apart from the rest of the Farm. There are no TV’s in the Cabooses so I was glad I brought along books. The mini-refrigerator was adequately stocked with muffins, yogurt, juice, a diet Coke, bagels and a number of complimentary quiche dishes provided by Igne, Apple Farm’s Director, who gave me a tour of the encampment when I first arrived. The staff of Apple Farm introduced me to the dog Copper, possibly the friendliest dog in the Northern Hemisphere. This handsome copper colored Lab obviously comes from good stock. “Don’t be surprised if you wake up in the morning and find Copper sleeping outside your Caboose. Don’t worry, he won’t go inside. He respects boundaries,” I was told. I’m not one of those people who do somersaults every time they meet a nice dog (no face licking, please), but it didn’t take me long to like Copper, who would run up to me from out of nowhere, tail wagging, intelligent eyes alert, as if we were old friends. Copper followed me on my first day at the Farm, obediently stopping and waiting while I checked a text or made a quick call. Hang around a good dog long enough and you’re soon talking to them as if they were human. I told Copper that I wasn’t going to be hanging at the Farm that day but that I’d be heading into the town of Floyd in the rental car. There were several things I had to check out in Floyd, such as the Floyd Country Store, a store called The Republic of Floyd and a couple restaurants. Of course, the best way to get to know a new place is by walking around and mixing with the general population. In last week’s Free Press piece on Rocky Mount, I recounted how a young woman named Autumn from The Early Inn told me how she thought that Floyd was ‘heaven on earth.’ I’m always curious to see what other people mean when they compare a city or town to ‘heaven.’ Floyd is ten miles away from the Farm; to get there you have to drive on winding rural roads that take you into the heart of the Blue Ridge countryside. I was afraid of getting lost the way I got lost years ago in a rental car in the mountains of Austria when I nearly took a wrong turn and wound up in Czechoslovakia. I didn’t get lost, as it turns out, but made my way into Floyd, amazed to find it similar looking to any small town near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. No matter where you travel in the United States these days, all the small, remote towns seem to have the same generic look. Driving into the center of Floyd, the town’s uniqueness come to light; in some ways it reminded me of parts of Denver, Colorado in the 1970s. Parking is easy in Floyd and the drivers are polite as they seem to be in the entire Blue Mountain region: no honking, no road rage, no muffler noise pollution, and certainly no ATVs or dirt bikes. In the 1970s and 80s, Floyd attracted back-to-the-land types, hippies and Whole Earth Catalog devotees interested in organic farming, herbal remedies, hand crafted jewelry, pottery, and good coffee. Politically, the residents are fiercely independent and not party-line establishment people. The town voted overwhelmingly for Bernie Sanders over Joe Biden in the Virginia Democratic primary. In 2016, 66% of Blue Ridge Mountain voters voted for Donald Trump. Previously, Republicans in the area were Ron Paul supporters. Ninety six percent of Floyd residents are white; 2 percent black. In 1861, the town of Floyd was divided on the issue of secession with some residents opting to remain loyal to the United States, but after the secession vote on May 23, 1861, the vast majority of Floyd residents embraced the new Confederate government —as John F. Kennedy would say—“with vigor.” The Floyd Country Store is well known for its Friday Night Jamboree where you can listen (and sometimes dance) to Gospel, old-time bluegrass bands and traditional Appalachian music. During the warmer months a number of bands play on the streets outside the Floyd store. The multi-purpose store is also a restaurant, a café, a country music store and a music school. American roots music—fiddle and banjo dance tunes-- can also be found on the so called Crooked Road (Franklin County) with multiple music events featured nightly at many different venues. Walking around Floyd, one is made aware that the town’s counter cultural legacy has been commercialized to some degree. (Much to my surprise and delight, I spotted a small Confederate War memorial that the Cancel Culture people hadn’t managed to destroy. ) To experience Old Time Floyd or the authentic old town before the town got popular, you have to visit in the mornings when the old timers or long term inhabitants are out on the streets in force playing banjos or engaged in flat dancing. This is what I learned after conversing with two construction workers at the Apple Farm. Both men were working on a small community house for the B & B Cabooses when I stopped by and introduced myself. I had just parked the car near my #3 red Caboose when I heard hammering and sawing inside the unfinished house. One of the men introduced himself and told me right away that he and his co-worker were Jehovah’s Witnesses and native Virginians. I mentioned that I had just been to Floyd and they asked me what I thought of it. I said I liked it and that it reminded me of Boulder, Colorado, another former hippie town that, once it was “discovered,” became an expensive and elite town. “People outside the state are attracted to Floyd because it is so beautiful, but once they get here they start complaining that the town doesn’t have the amenities that their home town had, and then they try to reshape Floyd into their old hometown,” the contractor said. “To see the real Floyd, you have to go in the morning. The summer and autumn around here are great. Floydfest, the big music festival in July, attracts thousands of people from all over the world. Floydfest is what drew me to the Floyd area in the first place….” My conversation with the contractor occurred on my last night at Apple Farm. In the meantime, I had to deal with a dire weather report that had 50 mph-plus winds due to sweep into the Farm area. It so happened that the deadly tornados that had so devastated Kentucky had occurred the day before. Before the high winds and rains moved into the area, I asked the men if my Caboose would remain stable should the worst happen. “You’re in a fortress,” the contractor said. That proved to be true.