USO Canteen FReeper Style....Liberty R&R Goes to Virginia Join Us .......July 6,2002

Aquamarine and Snow Bunny

[Snow Bunny]

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Monticello.......Thomas Jefferson’s home

The Blueridge Mountians of Virginia

Virginia Beach

The wonderful Daffodil Festival in Gloucester, Virginia

Music performed by the Fifes and Drums of Colonial Williamsburg. Tap your toes to the exhilarating martial music that marked the routine of military troops during the 18th century and sent the patriots marching into battle.

A large area of the town of Williamsburg consists of buildings preserved from Colonial times, i.e. from before the Declaration of American Independence in 1776.

Think of the Williamsburg Area... and the images that come to mind are...

`Small Town' Colonial Life...

the Search for American Independence...

the Model for Democracy used throughout the world.

Enjoy a 'Cold One' in the same Taverns where the likes of Tommy Jefferson and Patrick ("Give me liberty, or give me death") Henry, argued over the fate of a super power's Colony… and their lives.

College of William & Mary - Second oldest Institution of Higher Education in the Nation… with today, Graduates from all over the world. There is where Thomas Jefferson and some of his buddies went to school.

Don't forget to ask about the friendly ghost that's been dropping by the Wren Building for several Centuries.

College of William & Mary... which was the school to young law students like Thomas Jefferson.

The second oldest institution of higher learning in the United States... William & Mary began the Honor Society that was based on individual Responsibility... as well as the Phi Beta Kappa Society... which recognized and acknowledged individual Excellence.

The College's Wren Building, was constructed in 1695.

Williamsburg Historic District - the political and intellectual Capitol of England's colony in the New World. Where the ideas and ferment originated for the modern concept of Democracy now used throughout the world. Authentic reconstruction's, shows, exhibits, interpreters. Referred to as the 'Largest Living Museum in the World'.

It was here that the colonists (and their `legislators' who were permitted to make recommendations to the King)... began to understand that they did not have to be ruled by a foreign power... but could manage their own country under rules which they themselves developed by community consensus (discussions and voting).

Walk through and actually dine in the same Taverns... where the arguments took place between the `Crown Loyalists'... and the `Revolutionaries'... and where the concepts that became the America Constitution were discussed by the likes of George Washington and Patrick Henry ("Give Me Liberty, or Give Me Death").

Then let's take a little trip over to Yorktown.

Yorktown is still the small little village on the York River where a Revolution ended… setting the stage for a New American Nation to begin.

Yorktown may be a tiny village, but it's important in American history because the definitive battle of the American Revolution was won by George Washington there in 1781. After Lord Cornwallis surrendered his huge army to the American and French allies on October 19, 1781, Britain soon appealed for peace. As a result, the 13 colonies emerged into the United States of America.

We can’t forget a visit to Jamestown.......the first English Settlement in the 'New World'… now some 400 years old. See authentic replicas of the boats that crossed the ocean seeking religious freedoms and opportunities.

Th time in sheer wonderment at the resolve and fears of men, women and children crossing an Ocean in a Susan B. Constant... a small boat that today, seems like an oversize mini van.

Roughly 400 years ago, on December 20, 1606, three merchant ships loaded with passengers and cargo embarked from England on a voyage that would later set the course of American history.

The Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery reached Virginia in the spring of 1607, and on May 14, their 104 passengers all men and boys began building on the banks of the James River what was to be America's first permanent English colony, predating Plymouth in Massachusetts by 13 years.

[Light Speed]

Great posts on Robert E Lee...and the Army of Northern Virginia.

Years ago in Washington D.C. at the National Archives was fortunate to come accross State Muster in cards and regiment lists.
Having the unit numbers opened the door to following Family members and their units thru the Civil war.
The Peninsula Campaign in Virginia lasted along time...the battles of the Wilderness...Spotsylvannia and Cold Harbor were slugfests with gruesome outcomes for both sides.

In Ken Burns series on the Civil war a narrator tells a yarn about the last stand of the Army of Northern Virginia near Appomatox.
A young southern soldier is retreating from a skirmish with others...
When stopped...he is asked why he is running?
His timely response
"I'm runnin...cuz I can't Fly"!

[andysandmikesmom]

Yes, indeed, my husband was really frightened...and should anyone ask him about it, he swears he was not dreaming, but wide awake...so who knows what was going on...

[Aquamarine]

You forgot about Patsy. :)

Click on the pic

[Sabertooth]

Bump!

[SAMWolf]

Booker T. Washington
1856-1915, Educator

Booker Taliaferro Washington was the foremost black educator of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He also had a major influence on southern race relations and was the dominant figure in black public affairs from 1895 until his death in 1915. Born a slave on a small farm in the Virginia backcountry, he moved with his family after emancipation to work in the salt furnaces and coal mines of West Virginia. After a secondary education at Hampton Institute, he taught an upgraded school and experimented briefly with the study of law and the ministry, but a teaching position at Hampton decided his future career. In 1881 he founded Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute on the Hampton model in the Black Belt of Alabama.

Though Washington offered little that was innovative in industrial education, which both northern philanthropic foundations and southern leaders were already promoting, he became its chief black exemplar and spokesman. In his advocacy of Tuskegee Institute and its educational method, Washington revealed the political adroitness and accommodationist philosophy that were to characterize his career in the wider arena of race leadership. He convinced southern white employers and governors that Tuskegee offered an education that would keep blacks "down on the farm" and in the trades. To prospective northern donors and particularly the new self- made millionaires such as Rockefeller and Carnegie he promised the inculcation of the Protestant work ethic. To blacks living within the limited horizons of the post- Reconstruction South, Washington held out industrial education as the means of escape from the web of sharecropping and debt and the achievement of attainable, petit-bourgeois goals of self-employment, landownership, and small business. Washington cultivated local white approval and secured a small state appropriation, but it was northern donations that made Tuskegee Institute by 1900 the best-supported black educational institution in the country.

The Atlanta Compromise Address, delivered before the Cotton States Exposition in 1895, enlarged Washington's influence into the arena of race relations and black leadership. Washington offered black acquiescence in disfranchisement and social segregation if whites would encourage black progress in economic and educational opportunity. Hailed as a sage by whites of both sections, Washington further consolidated his influence by his widely read autobiography Up From Slavery (1901), the founding of the National Negro Business League in 1900, his celebrated dinner at the White House in 1901, and control of patronage politics as chief black advisor to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.

Washington kept his white following by conservative policies and moderate utterances, but he faced growing black and white liberal opposition in the Niagara Movement (1905-9) and the NAACP (1909-), groups demanding civil rights and encouraging protest in response to white aggressions such as lynchings, disfranchisement, and segregation laws. Washington successfully fended off these critics, often by underhanded means. At the same time, however, he tried to translate his own personal success into black advancement through secret sponsorship of civil rights suits, serving on the boards of Fisk and Howard universities, and directing philanthropic aid to these and other black colleges. His speaking tours and private persuasion tried to equalize public educational opportunities and to reduce racial violence. These efforts were generally unsuccessful, and the year of Washington's death marked the beginning of the Great Migration from the rural South to the urban North. Washington's racial philosophy, pragmatically adjusted to the limiting conditions of his own era, did not survive the change.

The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what a man or woman is able to do that counts.

~ Booker T. Washington ~

I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high water mark of pure and useful living.

~ Booker T. Washington ~

[SAMWolf]

Wow! Sorry, I don't know why she wasn't on the list.


Patsy Cline
Virginia Patterson Hensley
BORN: September 8, 1932, Gore, VA
DIED: March 5, 1963, Camden, TN

One of the greatest singers in the history of country music, Patsy Cline also helped blaze a trail for female singers to assert themselves as an integral part of the Nashville-dominated country music industry. She was not alone in this regard; Kitty Wells had become a star several years before Cline's big hits in the early '60s. Brenda Lee, who shared Cline's producer, did just as much to create a country-pop crossover during the same era; Skeeter Davis briefly enjoyed similar success. Cline has the most legendary aura of any female country singer, however, perhaps due to an early death that cut her off just after she had entered her prime. Cline began recording in the mid-'50s, and although she recorded quite a bit of material between 1955 and 1960 (17 singles in all), only one of them was a hit. That song, "Walkin' After Midnight," was both a classic and a Top 20 pop smash. Those who are accustomed to Cline's famous early-'60s hits are in for a bit of a shock when surveying her 1950s sessions (which have been reissued on several Rhino compilations). At times she sang flat-out rockabilly; she also tried some churchy tear-weepers. She couldn't follow up "Walkin' After Midnight," however, in part because of an exploitative deal that limited her to songs from one publishing company.

Circumstances were not wholly to blame for Cline's commercial failures. She would have never made it as a rockabilly singer, lacking the conviction of Wanda Jackson or the spunk of Brenda Lee. In fact, in comparison with her best work, she sounds rather stiff and ill-at-ease on most of her early singles. Things took a radical turn for the better on all fronts in 1960, when her initial contract expired. With the help of producer Owen Bradley (who had worked on her sessions all along), Cline began selecting material that was both more suitable and of a higher quality than her previous outings.

"I Fall to Pieces," cut at the very first session where Cline was at liberty to record what she wanted, was the turning point in her career. Reaching number one in the country charts and number 12 pop, it was the first of several country-pop crossovers she was to enjoy over the next couple of years. More important, it set a prototype for commercial Nashville country at its best. Owen Bradley crafted lush orchestral arrangements, with weeping strings and backup vocals by the Jordanaires, that owed more to pop (in the best sense) than country.

The country elements were provided by the cream of Nashville's session musicians, including guitarist Hank Garland, pianist Floyd Cramer, and drummer Buddy Harmon. Patsy's voice sounded richer, more confident, and more mature, with ageless wise and vulnerable qualities that have enabled her records to maintain their appeal with subsequent generations. When k.d. lang recorded her 1988 album Shadowland with Owen Bradley, it was this phase of Cline's career that she was specifically attempting to emulate.

It's arguable that too much has been made of Cline's crossover appeal to the pop market. Brenda Lee, whose records were graced with similar Bradley productions, was actually more successful in this area (although her records were likely targeted towards a younger audience). Cline's appeal was undeniably more adult, but she was always more successful with country listeners. Her final four Top Ten country singles, in fact, didn't make the pop Top 40.

Despite a severe auto accident in 1961, Cline remained hot through 1961 and 1962, with "Crazy" and "She's Got You" both becoming big country and pop hits. Much of her achingly romantic material was supplied by fresh talent like Hank Cochran, Harlan Howard, and Willie Nelson (who penned "Crazy"). Although her commercial momentum had faded slightly, she was still at the top of her game when she died in a plane crash in March of 1963, at the age of 30. She was only a big star for a couple of years, but her influence was and remains huge. While the standards of professionalism on her recordings have been emulated ever since, they've rarely been complemented by as much palpable, at times heartbreaking emotion in the performances. For those who could do without some of more elaborate arrangements of her later years, many of her relatively unadorned appearances on radio broadcasts have been thankfully preserved and issued.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Happy Birthday, Mr. President

click on the photo

Willie Nelson, Living in the Promised Land

[SAMWolf]

Nice balloons!

[lodwick]

Hi Clara - hope the weekend is GREAT for you.

bttt

Happy Birthday Mr.President!

Don't miss this one.

[Aquamarine]

Great post Victoria. You, SAM and others are making some awesome posts today!

[Pippin]

I live in apart of the country that is full of ghost stroies. Not only because of how long there has been people living here. But the history and the tragedies that have occured through the centuries. The home of one of the Presidents who came from Virginia, I forgot who but I think it was Tyler, Is said to be haunted. The Constellation frigate in the Baltimore harbor has it's ghosts. I'm sure with all the battles that have takne place from the Revolution to the Civil War, there is bound to be sightings of ghosts of the soldiers who fell on these battlefields.

[lodwick]

Well - that reply cracks me up - and makes complete sense. Thanks.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Posts #92 and #107 are for you, too. :-)

[Victoria Delsoul]

Thanks Aquamarine. You did great, too.

[Victoria Delsoul]

Thanks. :-)

[Victoria Delsoul]

I like your bumps.

[andysandmikesmom]

I think so too...I think that there is a continuim of time sometimes, and that often great events, even tho long over, leave something like a 'fingerprint', in the form of sounds or maybe ghosts....that there is still something left from those events...

[Pippin]

Thank You, Lodwick!

[Pippin]

Hi, Sam!

[Victoria Delsoul]

Great post, Sam. Thanks.