May??? It's May Again?

Gosh, I looked at my blog and realized it's been over a month since I've written anything. Just when I think things are going to slow down a bit, I find my calendar filled. Guess who fills it up by saying "yes" to too many things? Oh, well, staying busy keeps me happy and sober and useful. I'm looking forward to a vacation, though. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I'll be able to take one in July, which is not that far away.

I took the picture at the top one evening after work when Morris and I went for a walk through historic Monroe Ward in the downtown area. The picture shows the back of an old store on Broad Street. This area is typical of most cities; a former residential neighborhood turned commercial, followed by a decline as suburbs sprang up around the city. Now, though, people are moving back into the downtown neighborhoods. New apartment and condominium dwellers are revitalizing empty buildings, and events like weekly evening art walks & street festivals bring in people from surrounding areas.

I've been going to brunch, too. I got this plate of goodness at Northside Grill. Richmond is a restaurant town, and there's no shortage of great choices when it comes to dining away from home.

I took a segway tour, and it was a blast! I want to do it again. I went with several of my friends, and no one got hurt. Segways are very easy to navigate, so keep your eyes open for the chance to ride one wherever you live.
Segway of Richmond offers a choice of tours, and they provided friendly instruction.

The weather has been pleasant overall, so I've been exploring the city and going out with friends when I'm away from the office. I usually have my camera charged up and ready for any photo opportunities. The picture below shows the view from Gamble's Hill looking across the James River.

I've been to a couple of cook-outs, and there's nothing like your first hot dog or hamburger off a charcoal grill to convince you that summer is on its way. We were at a picnic in the country, and nearly choked on our food when the seat of Robespierre's camp chair suddenly gave out.

I try to be a good citizen these days. My face hasn't appeared on any "Wanted" posters around town lately.

A cook-out I attended at a friend's house last week featured a delicious Hummingbird Cake. My mom used to make these. Looks good, doesn't it? We also watched an old movie called I'll Cry Tomorrow, starring Susan Hayward, chewing the scenery and trying to dance. The 1955 movie was based on the autobiography of Lillian Roth and her alcoholic downfall. I love old movies.

Last Sunday a friend invited me to the Picasso exhibition (fabulous) at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. No cameras allowed inside, of course, but I took a couple of pictures of the new addition to the museum.

Those are a few of the things I've been doing lately. My life has been full and rich, both at work and play, and I would not be able to say that if I were still drinking. When I was newly sober I met a guy named Jimmy who was trying to get back into recovery. We hung out together quite a bit, but after a year without drinking, Jimmy drifted away from recovery. I was sorry to hear that Jimmy died a couple of weeks ago at the age of fifty-four. I'm sad about that, but there's some anger, too. Jimmy loved life, and he had the tools he needed to live happily but he put them down and the insanity returned.

The other day as I walked out of the museum, there were three goblets of white wine on an outdoor table. The day was bright, crisp, and sunny. The wine was the color of straw, and looked lovely in the tall glasses. A petulant voice in my head said "Why can't you have a glass of wine?"

Instantly, the response came "Because I'm an alcoholic," and I was glad that the answer carried no bitterness or regret. There was a time when I first got sober that these two voices would have held a debate in my head. As I walked across the green lawn at the museum, I chuckled. Remember the old Looney Tunes cartoons that featured an angel on one shoulder and a little devil on the other? Just for today, the angel has the stronger voice.

Shelly

Sheldon & Son
Virginia Beach
For me, one of the unexpected pleasures of getting sober in AA has been the many fascinating people I have encountered. When I first got here, though, it was difficult for me to grasp how willing everyone was to lend a hand just for the sake of helping out a stranger who was trying to stay sober. I met Sheldon at my third AA meeting. He came right up to me at the end of the meeting, shook my hand & introduced himself, and asked me how I was doing. He told me about a meeting at another location the following night, and I started attending that one, too. In fact, I still do. After being in several meetings with me and seeing how lonely I felt, Sheldon asked me to his house for dinner one night. He was the first person to extend the hand of friendship in the fellowship, and we are still best buddies today.

Sheldon at work, with his gigantic printing press
Sheldon & I are an unlikely pair to the casual observer. He loves sports; I hate them. He's conservative; I'm liberal. He's industrious and I like nothing more than a nap on an afternoon off work. He gets excited about fishing; I yawn. He's straight and I'm gay. But we have found that these are minor differences. We complememt one another in our friendship, like a pair of salt & pepper shakers.

When I went to Sheldon's for dinner that first evening, we took a walk around his neighborhood. I was charmed by the number of cats that would run out to the street to greet him when they saw him coming. You might be able to fool people, but you can't fool a cat. If they were delighted to see him, he must be a nice guy. Toward the end of our stroll he said "You know, Bill, I don't mean to offend you, but I've been around a few 24-hours [fourteen years at that point] and I can honestly say that I have never seen anyone that looked as bad as you did when you first came in. I was really worried that you were gonna die."

Sheldon insists on trying McDonalds in Canada to see if it's the same as the ones back home; Robespierre looks on with disdain
Sheldon is now approaching his 18th AA anniversary, and our friendship has deepened over the past four years. We laugh and cut up like two 5-year olds, but we are also honest with each other when one of us gets off the beam. He gives me good counsel when I need it, and I try to do the same for him.

Not catching a thing
Neighborhood cats aside, Sheldon at times has an uneasy relationship with wildlife, like the time he was in his backyard, and nearly got killed by a bird. There's a grapevine on a low arbor along the side fence, and Sheldon parted the leaves to peer at a brown thrasher on her nest. The bird fixed a cold glare at Sheldon for an instant, and then exploded off the nest directly at his face. He took a strong peck about a centimeter from his eye, and fell backward onto the lawn - flat on his back with the wind knocked out of him. After cussing & catching his breath, he realized that his head had landed a few inches from a horseshoe spike.

A virgin at the drag show (Sheldon; not the drag queen)
Last summer, while we were vacationing at Sadie's summer home, Sadie was zipping Sheldon along the river on her sea-doo. He had been urging her to "Slow down! Slow down!" As he held onto Sadie, he sensed something over his shoulder, and discovered a very angry seagull bearing down on his head. "Speed up! Speed up!" Sheldon screamed, gripping Sadie tighter and ducking his head. The gull kept up for awhile, but they managed to outrun it before Sheldon went the way of Suzanne Pleshette in The Birds.

Sheldon dated a few goats before he found his true love
This past winter, driving home from from an evening meeting, a deer loped across Staples Mill Road, making a beeline for Sheldon's van. The deer felt it had a date with destiny, for it ran directly across a six-lane thoroughfare devoid of traffic so it could run smack into the front of his van. Sheldon attracts deranged animals.

Sheldon ♥ Sadie
The common squirrel is Sheldon's nemisis. He's indulgent with kitty-cats (I gave him some Hello Kitty stickers and plastic sandwich bags, and he put a sticker on his checkbook), but he shows no mercy to squirrels. I went by his house one time, and asked why he had the kitchen window open. "Shootin' squirrels," Sheldon answered.
"Bastards are eating up my garden."

My pal Sheldon has helped me grow into a better, healthier, happier person, and I've seen Sheldon grow and change, too. It's never too late to become the person we were always meant to be.

What Happened

March 2007

Sometimes when I would wake up, if the skylights were dim and the clock read five, I would lie there in bed and wait. If the skylights grew darker, I would know night was falling. If the light grew stronger, I would have to face another day. The hours on the clock held little meaning for me; time had become strange and warped.

If I couldn't fall back to sleep, I would get up. Within about twenty minutes, the trembling would have turned into violent shakes. Despite having promised myself that I would eat something - anything - when I got up, I would reach for the gin bottle. I knew the only thing that would stop the tremors was more booze. It was challenging trying to control the ice tongs sufficiently to pluck ice cubes and get them into the cocktail shaker successfully, and pouring gin without spilling it all over was hit or miss - pun there for the taking. I'd pour the drink, and many times have to leave the glass on the counter, bending down to take the first sips. I was too shaky to lift the drink without spilling it. Oh, and the glass would have been the least filthy choice near the sink; short, squat juice glasses that were tip-resistant. The days of elegant, chilled cocktail glasses were long gone. I was too weak to stand up long enough to load the dishwasher, so a dirty glass would have to do.

After the first drink, my shaking would subside - but so would any desire for food. The first drink would lead to another. And another and another until I blacked out and the cycle repeated itself. For many months, nearly every morning started with an episode of black vomit; I was bleeding internally, and blood would collect in my stomach while I slept causing sudden nausea when I awakened.

My body was starting to shut down. Standing upright for more than a few minutes put me at the edge of collapse. My thoughts, ranging from despair to apathy, were like confetti blowing in a silo, hitting me in the face and then whirling away. Sometimes I would think that I could still get a grip on things, but more & more frequently I just wanted for it to be over. I dreaded each new day, and death seemed like the kindest outcome. Arrangements were made, a will and all the related legal papers prepared, but when I went to have them signed I could only make it as far as the lobby, so that's where we did our business. A few hours later, I fell into a seizure at a dear friend's house, and was taken to the hospital.

I told the doctors that my problem was alcohol, and they ran all sorts of tests. My organs had started giving out, and none of the test results looked promising. I wasn't allowed solid food, but I got insulin, oxygen, anti-seizure medications, and bags & bags of blood and potassium. I didn't know it at the time, but I was going through a physical detox regimen. It would take half a year to determine what liver function remained, the doctors said. Once stabilized, I was told that if I drank more alcohol I would die. After four days, I was sent home.

"Well," I thought, "this is the end of the line. No more alcohol. Look what it did to me, and how lucky I am that they got me back on track. No more drinking for me." By early evening, I had the cocktail shaker in my hand.

For two nights I drank. Life during the previous years had seemed like a dull nightmare, where the edges are blurry. Now, this was like a lucid dream in high definition, and it wasn't fun to watch. Now, I did not want to drink and I could not stop myself. Before, I had been able to soothe myself with the idea that I could stop drinking at a time of my choosing if I truly had the desire. I suddenly realized that this thing was far bigger than me; more powerful, stronger.

Man, I thought I'd hit rock bottom before, what with the vomiting, tremors, starvation, seizures, and then having hoses and tubes inserted into every orifice on my person. But on this second night after returning home, this drink in my hand when I wanted so badly to live, well, it crushed me. Terror is the best word to describe my predicament when I realized I could not stop drinking even though I wanted to stay sober. I was utterly defeated and I knew it. I just did not know what to do about it. The answer would be revealed to me while I slept.

Upon awakening the next morning, I found a local website for Alcoholics Anonymous. I read everything they had to say about alcoholism. I found the listing for a meeting very close to my home later in the week. I looked at the information about the meeting over and over. I knew I would go. I made that resolution with some excitement & fear, but as I sat there contemplating my decision a sense of calmness settled over me. The turning point had been reached when I decided to ask for help; my clumsy prayer was answered. It was April 7, 2007.

And from that moment up to today, I have not found it necessary to take a drink.

Yes, We Have No Burnett's

The moment one learns English, complications set in. — Felipe Alfau

Somehow, certainly not by careful design, much of my worklife has been spent communicating with others by telephone. In my younger days, I was an employee of the good old Bell System, back when people could choose between telephones with buttons or dials. When I began working there, no one had a cell phone & nearly every household had landline service. Subscribers in rural areas could still get party lines.

When it was time for the Christmas holidays (Remember those? We were able to say "Merry Christmas" back then without offending anyone), I would volunteer to work the skeleton crew so that most of my co-workers could leave early on Christmas Eve. We didn't get many calls on that day anyway, and I'd get to leave early on New Year's Eve as a trade-off. I recall one Christmas Eve when I got a call late in the afternoon from an elderly woman.

She was in a nursing home and was being moved to another room. She needed to get her phone service moved as quickly as possible, because they were moving her that very day. When I told her we could not move her phone until the following week, she immediately started wailing. She sounded so frail.

"Oh, Lord! You got to move it today, else I won't be able to talk to my family on Christmas!"

I felt quite bad for her, but the technicians were booked solid, and only emergency orders had a hope of being worked the following week. I was already expediting her order because of the circumstances.

She continued to whine and moan, and I did feel sorry for her. I had questions, though, and said "I'm so sorry the nursing home is moving you to a different room with no warning. That's very unusual."

"Mmmm, well, yes. I suppose so."

"Why are they doing that?"

"It's this lady I'm in this room with. It's all her fault! She keep worrying me & worrying me. And when I hit her, they move ME!"

There's always more than meets the eye. Here she was acting pitiful, and she'd just been caught beating up her roommate. I told her her service would be moved at the end of the following week, and wished her a Merry Christmas.


Wilton, circa 1750-1753
The photographs on this post are of Wilton, a plantation house owned by the prominent Randolph family. Yes, Morris & I were out exploring again. It was a chilly day with drizzling rain, so the pictures look a little gloomy. I decided to be adventurous and play around with some button called picnik. Usually, I limit photo manipulation to cropping and adjusting the contrast, but I experimented with some of the more mundane picnik features this time. I didn't want my pictures to look too freaky.

Front view of Wilton
It took a lot of money and many slaves to support the lavish lifestyle of the landed gentry in Old Virginia. By the time a few generations had passed, the economic climate had changed. The last of the Randolph family to live there was Robert, who died in 1859. Here's what a northern visitor in 1833 had to say about the house:
"...spacious wainscoted rooms, high ceilings, broad staircases and fine hall give you a very magnificent idea of the grandeur of the former proprietor who so long ago had an establishment that wants for nothing but a fitting up, to vie with modern elegance. But such ruin! - Broken down fences, a falling piazza, defaced paint, banisters tied up with ropes etc. etc. - the general aspect of the house is that of forlorn ruin."

Center Hall at Wilton
The illicit photo of the interior was snapped when our guide, Tom, dashed off to the bathroom before we began our tour. Honestly, what is it with us Americans? You can go to Europe and practically lick the walls of 12th Century structures, but over here we act like something 100 years old will turn to dust if it's looked at cross-eyed. Photography, with or without flash, was not allowed inside the house.

One of the most striking qualities of Wilton is that the entire interior is elegantly paneled - even the closets. The early Randolphs were very wealthy indeed, and the house reflects their importance in colonial society. But consider this: hot, humid summers + no window screens + mosquitos. Sure, the place looks great now that it's renovated, but in its heyday on a summer night it would have been filled with a bunch of hot itchy sweaty malarial rich people. I'll happily accept reduced circumstances with window screens & air-conditioning.

Rear view of Wilton
Zooming back to current times, I once again find myself in a job that requires a good amount of telephone conversation. The wonderful thing about answering the AA hotline is that you never know what to expect. It is quite common for callers to pay no attention to what we say when we answer the phone, and we do get a lot of wrong numbers since ours is one digit different than a local television station's phone number. I fielded calls all day when the nation's TV stations went digital two summers ago. I finally started telling callers that unless their television was causing them to get drunk, I could not help them.

The previous office manager told me a story that still makes me grin. It goes something like this. She answered the phone one day with the usual "Alcoholics Anonymous, how can I help you?"
"Uh, yeah, my wife handed me this number and told me to call it. Who did you say this is?"
"Alcoholics Anonymous."
"F%CKING BITCH!!!" (shouted to someone in background as the call was disconnected)

The Chesterfield Apartments
Richmond's first AA meeting was held here in June, 1943
A few weeks ago I got a call from a blurry-sounding woman asking a question. After a bit of confusion, I understood that she was asking about a brand of liquor, Burnett's, and whether we stocked it. I told her I couldn't help her.

"This isn't the ABC store??? Who is this?"

"This is Alcoholics Anonymous."

"Huh? Who?"

"This is Alcoholics Anonymous. We're who you call if you want to stop drinking."

"OH MY GOD!!!" she screamed, and slammed the phone down.

So Long, 2010!

Let me apologize in advance. I had dreams of crafting a poignant and deeply meaningful post about personal growth and the transition of the years with such simple eloquence that you would be left dabbing your eyes and whispering "Bravo. Well done."

But, here it is New Year's Eve already and I'm dressed for a party, and my French cuffs make typing an annoyance. You're stuck with another dashed off bit of fluff and a few recent photos. Who was I trying to fool, anyway? Deep & meaningful? You can't get blood from a turnip.

The picture at the top was taken at Homemades by Suzanne, a fine cafe & bakery in a small town just north of Richmond. Morris & I were eating lunch in the front dining area when I noticed the warmth of the old wood of the tables & chairs. It was a cold, windy day and the cafe was cozy.

We rode up the Old Washington Highway to Ashland. The narrow road was still icy from our Christmas weekend snowstorm. Along the way, we passed through the former whistle stop known as Elmont which is surrounded by large stretches of farmland. The wind raised snow wraiths from the fields, and we were happy for the warmth of the car.

Ashland is a charming town with the railway running right down the middle of the main street, Railroad Avenue. Many beautiful old homes and buildings line the split street, and an Amtrak train rumbled by as we drove along.



The picture below was taken at an old church on England Street.

Next we have the train station, built in the 1920's when some Ashland residents would take the local train into Richmond each day for work. Behind the station is the Henry Clay Inn, still in operation.



Ah! Lunchtime! The fare at Homemades by Suzanne is mouthwatering comfort food, especially on a cold, wintery day. I had a deviled egg, succotash salad, and macaroni salad. Perfect.


Later that day, back in Richmond, we had dinner at Garnett's. After Morris & I parted, I walked for a bit along Park Avenue and took a picture of one of my favorite churches at the corner of Park Avenue and Meadow Street.



During my workday, one of my duties is answering the local Alcoholics Anonymous hotline. By now I know that the call volume ramps up during and after the holidays. At the end of the day, I transfer the calls to a volunteer for the night. While I was at home one evening, I got a few text messages from that night's volunteer.

Lyssa: (9:12pm) Lord...was I this pathetic and wallowing?

Lyssa: (9:18pm) Clearly, I was. Don't want to sound callous.

Lyssa: (9:20pm) I must have been a real bite in the ass to be around...

Me: (9:23pm) Are you on the phone with the still-suffering or just randomly musing?

Lyssa: (9:25pm) Just hung up but was held captive by former (still, occasionally?) self for twenty minutes.

Me: (9:27pm) I know the feeling. I talked to me this afternoon for about the same amount of time.

And that's how it can be when we answer the phone. Sometimes the caller is ready for help. Sometimes they just want a sympathetic ear. Some callers get hooked on the sympathy, and still keep on drinking until they lose everything.

I always keep in mind something a man with 30-plus years of sobriety shared in a meeting:
"Sympathy will kill an alcoholic."

I remember that, and dole out sympathy sparingly, but I can go long with empathy & encouragement. I'm incredibly grateful for the opportunity to answer those calls. Those of us who do agree that it goes a long way in helping us stay sober. It's a marvelous mirror of our former selves. When I hear the misery, self-delusion & self-absorption, the bewilderment & madness, it reminds me that that's how I was, too. I do not want to ever return to the life I led before I found recovery.

Happy New Year, everyone! I'm off to a big ol' party. See you next year.

Cake Walk

Last Saturday morning was an opportunity to sleep late. The soul was willing, but the body woke up at four in the morning. I could tell it would be useless to fight it, so I went ahead & got up, fixed coffee, got scoured & dressed, and went to Walmart before everyone else decided to go. There were few shoppers (nice!), but I also missed out on photo-ops for POW. I wasn't there to roam the aisles, though; I was on a mission to buy my neighbor some holiday containers for the party mix she makes each Christmas.

I went to my group's Saturday morning meeting (8:45 instead of the weekday 6:45), picked up a box of pastries that Romeo made for a party I was attending in the evening, and went to Jean-Jacques Bakery for a cake I had ordered for the same party. By the way, the first photo shows a sidewalk dispenser for a local weekly periodical, in case you were wondering, and no, I have no idea who that lady is supposed to be.

This all leads to the photos I'm posting today. I had called Jean-Jacques Friday to order an Almond-Amaretto cake, but they told me they couldn't make one for the following day so I went with a Chocolate-Rum cake.

Jean-Jacques is a bakery of local renown in Carytown, an upscale street of retail establishments in Richmond. I popped in at ten on Saturday morning and was told the cake wasn't quite ready. I said it wasn't a problem at all and that I'd just wander around Carytown for awhile. I grabbed my camera from the car and took a few pictures.

The bakery is in Cary Court, a very small shopping center in the heart of Carytown that opened in 1938. It was Richmond's first strip shopping center, and was an instant hit. Soon, other properties along Cary Street were converted to retail shop space, and the area drew tourists as well as locals.

Below are some views of modern-day shop windows. Sorry about the glare on the windows; it wasn't the best time of day for taking pictures.





Today's Carytown is billed as "A Mile of Style" and is clearly a commercial street, but this merchant district got its start during the Great Depression (the economic depression of the 1930's; not the current one) when residents began converting the lower floors of their homes into small shops. With the fabulous Byrd Theater and Cary Court drawing visitors from surrounding counties, residents gladly took advantage of ways to make the most of the traffic. These blocks of Cary Street gradually transitioned from residential to retail, and by the 70's became known as Carytown.

Below is a new photo of a placque in Cary Court that shows an old photo of Cary Court. Trippy, huh? Other than the cars, it looks very much the same today.

More window shopping below, this time at For The Love Of Chocolate, a very dangerous store in Cary Court. Very, very dangerous. This photo shows a mere snippet of the alluring perils that await visitors. For a candy store, it covers a lot of square footage, and every nook & cubbyhole is packed with sugary hazards and menacing chocolate pitfalls.

I stumbled out of the chocolate shop with my virginity intact, and went back to Jean-Jacques to see if my cake was ready. The young woman behind the counter greeted me with a rather sick expression on her face.

"Um, we found your order and I don't know what happened I'm sorry we've looked everywhere and here's your order form but they must have forgot to make the cake we're so sorry would you pick out another one from the case and we would like you to take it please for free okay?"
"Gee, sure. No problem at all. Could I have that Almond-Amaretto cake?"

So, somehow - planetary alignment, Fortuna's Wheel, my Higher Power peeking at my bank balance, take your pick - I walked out of the bakery with my original choice free of charge.

I actually felt a twinge of guilt, as if this shouldn't have happened to me. Then I considered that I've learned to accept the bad things in my past and the troubles of today with as much grace as I can muster, and I need to learn to do the same when good things come my way.

Farewell, Fall! ...or Guerillas in the Mist

Winter doesn't care about our calendars. She has already flounced in and sat down, disdainfully waving off December 21 and declaring "I just happened to be in the neighborhood, so I thought I'd drop by." It's been quite brisk in the mornings when I leave the house, and the Farmers' Almanac is predicting "colder-than-normal temperatures" for my little God's half-acre.

It was 16º when I drove away from home this morning. The air felt cold & harsh; Sarah Palin weather.

I am grateful for a home with heat, a car with heated seats, and an indoor job. It's also a beautiful, clear-skyed sunny day, even if it is cold.

Before autumn gave way to winter, I was out early one morning when a lingering layer of fog gave an ethereal look to Richmond. I took a few pictures on Monument Avenue before heading to the office, and I'll share a couple of them here. The first is of the Matthew Fontaine Maury Monument, erected in 1929. This monument is unusual in that Maury is depicted seated, and is not the dominant feature. F. William Sievers, a Richmond sculptor, felt that a man's ideas are bigger than he is; a large globe behind Maury is surrounded by farmers & sailors in a storm. The globe itself is detailed with wind currents that were mapped by Maury, the Pathfinder of the Seas. These images are appropriate to Maury's analysis of weather systems to improve the lives of sailors & farmers. The base of the monument is surrounded by reverse intaglio images of fresh & saltwater fish. It is a lovely and atypical memorial sculpture along Richmond's famous avenue.

Of course, I also had to see how General Lee & Traveller were handling the fog. They were in the thick of it on their forty-foot granite pedestal. Traveller was the most famous of Lee's horses, and Lee remarked in Lexington, following the Civil War, that his horse was "presenting the appearance of a plucked chicken" because souvenir seekers yanked his tail nearly bald. Traveller walked in Lee's funeral procession with his saddle & bridle draped in black crepe, and died the following year from tetanus. The Lee Monument was unveiled in 1890, and stood alone in the middle of nowhere for eleven years until development of Monument Avenue caught up.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Four years ago I would have been home drinking & feeling sorry for myself. Each year in sobriety has been better & better. I had a full day, and was tired by the time my head hit the pillow.

I was out of the house before the sun woke up, and went to my usual 6:45 meeting at Holy Comforter Episcopal. Then Robespierre & I met at Lakeside Presbyterian because we thought they'd be eating breakfast. When we walked in they were having a meeting, so we turned tail and met friends for breakfast at Aunt Sarah's (a pancake house, not a relative). After that, Sherry & I went back to Lakeside for a 10am meeting. From there, I dashed over to Ginter Park Baptist for a Thanksgiving dinner/midday meeting. Then I bought a plant for my friend Brenda, and went by her place for a visit. From there, to Robert's so I could meet his mother who was in town for Thanksgiving. I ended the day at my neighbor Karen's for our own Thanksgiving dinner, and she made enough food for an army. Just when I thought I would pop after dinner, she announced that she had made a sweet potato pie (her first), so what could I do?

I woke up in the night with a food hangover. I felt a bit miserable until I considered that it was a hangover borne of food & fellowship, not loneliness & alcohol. I met some new friends, and spent time with some dear old ones. All in all, a wonderful Thanksgiving that left me feeling very thankful, indeed.

Autumn Night at Ashland Presbyterian Church

Dogtown & Hanovertown

A sign along the road at Hanovertown
On Sunday, I rode out to an antique mall northeast of town with Morris to visit a vendor who has a massive collection of magazines, postcards, photographs, and ephemera. Morris looked at postcards, which I usually look at also, but Sunday I got caught up in a box of old bills, report cards, business correspondence, advertisements and the like.

One 1956 company newsletter featured the story of Susie, a squirrel who would come to the back door & knock until someone brought her peanuts & "peacans." A letter from 1938 complained haughtily that the electrical work had not been completed when the writer & his wife went to their river home for the weekend. Another business letter from a firm's president extended get well wishes to one of the owners, and said he'd enjoyed seeing him at the fox hunt when they "rode to hounds." An invitation from St. Benedict's School announced their Final Ball at Tantilla Gardens, a long-gone Richmond ballroom, where you could "dance beneath the stars" courtesy of a roof that rolled back above the dance floor. A receipt from a local bakery showed that someone thought a half-dozen of their eclairs was well worth forty-six cents.

It's caused me to wonder over the past few days at all the slips of paper that have passed through my hands over the years.

Retirement for an Old Farm Hand
When we left Antique Village, we rode out through the countryside of Hanover County, turning off the highway onto River Road. We were searching for Hanovertown, a dot on the map and a place of which we had never heard. Sure, there's Hanover Courthouse, with the Houndstooth Cafe at the intersection of Routes 54 & 301, but Hanovertown? It seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, and there was little to indicate that there had ever been a town there.

Grocery shopping in downtown Hanovertown.
This market featured self-checkout, like many of the large grocery stores in town. Instead of an automated cash/credit card machine, there was an old metal breadbox with a slot cut in the top.
Hanovertown, not even a wide spot in the road these days, was a thriving village in the late 1700's. Originally settled in 1676 as Page's Warehouse, it was Hanover County's first major settlement. When the House of Burgesses decided to relocate Virginia's Capital, Hanovertown lost by only a few votes to Richmond. The quiet, bucolic landscape today does not hint that Cornwallis burned warehouses here in his failed Virginia Campaign in 1781, or that this land saw another bloody battle during Grant's Wilderness Campaign in 1864. Prosperity of landowners was made possible through enslavement, when the lives of some human beings were considered simple investments. Here is the text from a newspaper advertisement:

Fifty dollars reward. Runaway from the subscriber, on 21st instant, a mulatto man named John, alias John Strange. He is rather of small stature, well set, has a round and remarkably pleasing visage, and is an excellent house servant, hostler, and driver...He has a wife at Mr. Mann Pages, near Hanover-town, where he may probably lurk for some time. If apprehended, great care should be taken to secure him, as I expect he is desperate as well as vicious.
--Spencer Roane, May 28, 1805


The previous evening, Saturday, I was invited to speak at an AA meeting in the Manchester section of Richmond. Manchester, now part of the city of Richmond, was a separate town until it consolidated with Richmond in 1910. Manchester sits opposite the James River from downtown Richmond, and was a working-class town from early times. Its nickname, Dogtown, can be found as early as 1887 in a Richmond Times newspaper article. Today, Manchester is starting to show signs of renewal but its revitalization, though promising, is still tenuous. In general, most people would not want to walk the sidewalks in this area at night.

Saturday night, a few friends & I went to Belle's studio (shown below) for a meeting of the Dogtown Drunks. Belle had invited me to speak on the 4th & 5th steps. The room was packed. Most in the crowd had walked over from The Healing Place, a men's treatment & recovery center that takes in the homeless with addiction problems.

Belle's studio in Manchester, home of the Dogtown Drunks
It was the first time I had been to this meeting. When I was introduced to speak, I looked at the faces that surrounded me, mostly of younger, African-American men, and hoped that I would have something to offer them in the way of hope & recovery. Our life experiences differed, but we had at least one thing in common: alcoholism or addiction.

Belle's collection of driftwood from the banks of the James River
4th Step: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5th Step: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

I talked briefly about how each step provided me with a foundation for the steps that followed, and the principles behind each step. I mentioned how my first sponsor looked over my 4th step list, and gave it back to me, telling me to include my good qualities in addition to my faults so that the moral inventory would be complete.

Mostly, though, I told them about the gift I received when I finished my 5th step.

Two days after I sat down with my sponsor to complete my 5th step, I was at home alone after an early meeting. Without warning, a tide of anger rose up in me that was all-consuming. Anger, undiluted & elemental, at the man who had molested me when I was five. It burned through me, and left me shaking and weeping. I felt drained, and I sat and sobbed. I finally cried for the first time for the little five-year old boy inside me who had been betrayed by a neighbor. I had finally let myself feel the anger.

The emotions and conflicting feelings I had tamped down, suppressed, and ignored for years came up and out. I felt like I had gone over a waterfall in a wooden barrel. The wave of profoundly visceral feeling passed, and I dashed the tears from my eyes, blew my snotty nose, and just sat there. I felt clean and empty. And I had another gift coming.

I sat there, still a little stunned, and an awareness dawned. I realized that, up until that moment, I had held a deep & unacknowledged resentment against my parents. It was a revelation. Now, finally, I could understand that my parents did the best they knew how to do at the time. I saw that when they asked me "Why didn't you tell us?" it was not an accusation. They were also hurt & bewildered. They were first-time parents in the 1960's thrust into a situation with no frame of reference. As a sense of forgiveness grew in me, my shame & guilt slipped away. Those feelings had become obsolete; I was the only person who had ever given them form & substance.

I shared an abbreviated version of my 4th & 5th step experience to the Dogtown Drunks, and I told them why I thought it was important. It is estimated that roughly 80% of alcoholics and addicts experienced abuse in some form as a child. I do not understand the correlation, but I knew that the chances were good that a fair number of the men & women in that room had suffered mental, physical, or sexual abuse as children. I also knew that the 4th and 5th steps are a pathway to freedom, and that the secrets we keep...keep us sick.

The 5th step was scary for me; more frightening than my moral inventory. Sure, I could make a list of my character defects. But, to sit down with another human being and share all that stuff? I put it off as long as I could, until I started feeling restless, irritable, and discontented - in other words, sick again.

I could not have predicted the outcome of taking the 4th and 5th steps beforehand. It took a leap of faith to do something I did not want to do. When it was all said & done, I could look the world in the eye. I could be alone at perfect peace and ease. My fears had fallen from me, and I could feel the nearness of my Creator. I felt like I was in the midst of something spiritual. A few readers will know exactly what I'm talking about.

On Saturday night, in the dim light of Belle's studio after I'd sat down, men began to share. I had been guided by something other than myself. I had shared once again what was uncomfortable for me. One by one, from here & there around the room, the secrets began to be told. It was a very humbling experience for me to be in that room Saturday night. Some men left that meeting afterwards to return to The Healing Place. Some left to spend the night outdoors, wherever they could find a little shelter. I hope they slept peacefully.