The Morgantowner: Chesterfield County, Virginia

I have to drive home tomorrow, possibly in time for a 4:30 meeting and a 6:30 showing of the film "RBG," about Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Still, I want to do this now, because I haven't (yet) written about my April journey to Chester County, Pennsylvania.

This month, I visited Chesterfield County, Virginia. It is to Richmond what Chester County is to Philadelphia, both a suburb and a different place. Google Maps suggested driving to the Washington Beltway, then west and south to pick up 95 through Richmond, south to Chesterfield Court House, the name of a place, and the location of, um, the courthouse. That route was 327 miles, which is too far in my algorithm. They suggested a shorter route, through Cumberland, Maryland and zigzagging southeast, that was six minutes longer and only 293 miles. I had other ideas. The direct route looks like US 119 from downtown Morgantown through Grafton and onto US 250, which runs from Lake Erie to Norfolk, across the covered bridge in Philippi, then on to Elkins and across the mountains into Virginia. I figured I would pick up I-64 in Staunton, Virginia, a pretty town I have visited, and it would be easy from there.

The reason Google doesn't suggest 250 is that it is mostly a two-lane road which twists and turns over a number of mountains. It is somewhat treacherous and a slow drive. It's also gorgeous. It being May, I assumed snow would not block my route, which can happen in winter.

The drive was fun, and beautiful, the temperature dropping from 82 to 69 in the mountains, with pouring rain added as a challenge. For the first time, I wished our 2012 Suzuki were a performance vehicle, with more power and better handling. It did take me more than seven hours to drive, even though I didn't stop much. I went from Monongalia County's courthouse to Chesterfield County's shiny new government complex in 293 miles.

The motel, a branch of "The Usual Chain," is in Bellwood, mainly a jumble of cheap motels and gas stations off I-95 in an industrial area south of Richmond in Chesterfield County. It was close to 7 P.M. when I showed up, so no nap. I asked the desk clerk where to eat besides McDonald's and Burger King (both visible from the motel), and she suggested a Chinese place, a few blocks away. She didn't recommend walking, but I did. It wasn't far, on combined US 1 and 301. No sidewalk. I had chicken lo mein and egg drop soup, hot water with an egg dropped in and a plate of greasy noodles and chicken with a paper sack of fried crispy noodles. On the way back I stopped at a gas station/convenience store, where i bought an orange. The clerk, a young Arab guy, not bad looking, with a few extra buttons open on his shirt, scowled at me. How could he not be angry? I smiled and batted my eyelashes at him as a friendly gesture. At least he knew I wasn't a hostile white guy.

I tried to watch television a bit in the room. I saw the finale of "Dancing With The Stars." I was glad Adam Rippon won, although I gave a lot of points to Tonya Harding just for doing it. Of course, the two figure skaters made the finals. And the football player, whose name I didn't catch, was sexy enough. Still, the commercials annoyed me. I tuned them out while catching up on Facebook.

Richmond is an independent city, and most of the city south of the James River was annexed out of Chesterfield County. Manchester, the original county seat, became an independent city, then asked to be annexed to Richmond. I figured I would visit that part of Richmond this trip. I picked five historic places from The National Register in Chesterfield County and five in South Richmond. I also, typically, looked up a big park, a Reform synagogue, a college, a shopping mall and an independent bookstore. I found all of these in Chesterfield County and more. I left the motel at 9:15 this morning and started with the south end of the county.

Virginia State University, the nation's first post-Civil War college for African-Americans (Negroes in the usage at the time) is at the far south end of the county, near Petersburg. It was farther away than I wanted to go. I visited instead the Chester campus of John Tyler College, a two-year institution with two campuses in the county. First, I looked for Point of Rocks, a plantation house on the James River. It's on private property and a sign at the entrance says you have to make an appointment in advance to see it. I moved on to the college campus, pretty, small. I noted magnolia trees and others I didn't recognize.

Chester is the largest place in Chesterfield County. Like Baltimore County, there are no incorporated towns, so everywhere is a "Census-Defined Place." Chester has a new, old-looking development with stores and apartments above. It didn't look like it was flourishing, although it seems like a good idea.

I had seen the old court house on my way in, but i went back today and visited the museum in the replica of the original courthouse, from 1754, torn down for the new old courthouse, constructed in 1917. I learned about the native tribes, the English settlers who came from Jamestown early in the 17th century, the story of Pocahontas, who lived nearby, and the massacre carried out by Powhatan tribe members against the English in 1622. There was a lot about tobacco, too. I found out that the monument to Confederate soldiers is from 1907. Conventional wisdom is that these were built in the time when "Jim Crow" laws, mandating segregation, were coming into place, and were intended to intimidate African-Americans. I would suggest that forty-two years after the end of the Civil War, the Confederate Veterans were in their sixties, and wanted to be remembered after they were gone.

West of the Courthouse is Pocahontas Park, a Civilian Conservation Corps project from the 1930s and early 1940s. This is a major park, now surrounded by suburbs, with well-marked trails, an amphitheater and two lakes. It comes from the same inspiration as Coopers Rock in West Virginia, only on relatively flat turf.

Kingsland is listed as a historic house across I-95 on the street where my motel is located. Wikipedia says it was moved in 1994 and reconstructed. It's apparently not at the address listed.

I looked also for a road marker on US 1 and 301 at Falling Creek. This is where the first North American Iron Works was built around 1620 and the United Daughters of the Confederacy put up a plaque at the first American wayside pull-off early in the last century. There is a park along the creek, fast-flowing and full after quite a bit of heavy rain. The Powhatan massacred all the workers at the mill in 1622. It was rebuilt later for metal and later grain, but only a few ruins remain. There is also the remains of a 19th century bridge, the last in Virginia, partially destroyed by flooding after Tropical Storm Gaston in 2004.

By this time, it was 12:30, and I was hungry. I saw online that there was a Wegman's on US 60, west of Richmond, near Midlothian, and thought about lunch there. Route 150 is an expressway around the south and west sides of Richmond, and I took that from US 1 ( Jefferson Davis Highway, still) to US 60. I headed west on US 60, clogged with cars, and lined with auto parts stores, fast food joints, and a hundred little shopping centers. I stopped at 1 P.M. at Chesterfield Towne (sic) Center, the big enclosed mall. It's one floor, has a Macy's and a food court. I was going to visit there anyway, so I thought I would just eat in the food court. I didn't want to make Wegman's an extra stop. I went for a chicken gyro, figuring it at least had lettuce and tomato on it. It was huge, and came with fries, which I ate, drowned in ketchup, which is not a vegetable. At least I didn't have sugar in my iced tea.

I couldn't find my lightweight jacket when I left the house yesterday, and that jacket dates from 2011, so it could easily be replaced. There is an H & M for men in the mall and they had a lightweight jacket I liked for $34.99. I thought I might get it after lunch and checking out Macy's, where I found Kenneth Cole and Calvin Klein dress slacks on sale, regularly $85 and $95, respectively. I tried them on in my usual size, and they were too small. I could wear the Coles, but not the Kleins. Turning into my mother, I said "I'll lose ten pounds and they'll fit," and bought them anyway. The clerk who took my credit card was a short guy about my age, bald and with a mustache and wearing slightly dressy jeans, so dressed as I dress. His name tag said "Sonny" so I assume he is Filipino, as they have names like that. They don't have the Kenneth Cole jeans I found at Macy's in New York in December 2016, and have pretty much worn out.

I returned to H&M and looked at that jacket and some shirts I liked. I know I'm 68 and fat, but I like to dress hipster. People often say I look "dapper." Two young women were working in the front of the store, chatting with each other. I tried to catch their eyes, but they studiously ignored me. Just to see if there was anyone else working in the store, I walked to the back. Sure enough, there was another woman at the cash register. I looked right at her, but she wouldn't acknowledge I was there. I walked out. I guess maybe it's the policy of H&M not to wait on people they don't think should wear their clothes.

I had one more place on the National Register, a pretty brick Gothic-style Baptist church from the 1820s out US 60 through Midlothian almost past the exhausting parade of colonial-style shopping centers. From there I headed back near the mall, then north to find the nearby Reform synagogue. It is set in a woodsy neighborhood of colonial-style houses and shopping centers, a relatively modest modern building.

My last stop in Chesterfield County was a bookstore, specializing in old books. I arrived there at 3:45 to find that they closed at 3 P.M. It was only fifteen minutes back to the motel. I fell asleep at 4:25, woke up once and went back to sleep until 5:30.

I heard thunder when I woke up and saw a torrential downpour out the window. I turned on the TV news and found that there was a "Severe thunderstorm watch" until 9 P.M. But the weatherman's map showed that the storms were passing through, and after a few minutes, it had stooped raining. I decided to head up US 1 to historic Manchester, in the City of Richmond, but once the county seat of Chesterfield County, and also some of the old tobacco factories and riverfront neighborhoods in South Richmond. The weather had cleared up where I was, but north on US 1 the sky was deep black. As I entered Richmond, it started to rain, then pour. It got so bad, I pulled into the parking lot of an auto repair shop to wait it out. Meanwhile, I could see water up over the curb on the street. After about fifteen minutes, I decided to head back south. It was like in those public service ads that say "Don't Drive Into Standing Water." I did anyway, as did the few other cars on the road. It was probably two feet deep in spots and still raining. The radio said there was flooding on the roads. No kidding. But once I left the city, it all cleared up again. I continued south on Route 1, past where I was staying back to Chester, figuring I could get a bagel and a cup of yogurt at a grocery store, or maybe find a salad bar. There was nothing but auto shops, Mexican places and the worst of the fast food chains. I finally stopped and asked Google maps to find me a Kroger. There was one nearby, near the old courthouse, but it was 7:20 and they had just finished cleaning out the salad bar, and the bagels were gone. I bought a banana and a pear for later, and figured I'd eat at McDonald's. Then I saw a Shoney's across the street. I drove there. People were looking dazed on the parking lot, and seemed to not know what to do with their cars. I chalked this up to the age of people who eat at Shoney's.
Then I saw the sign "Tuesday $6.99 Senior buffet." Oh.

Long story not as long as it could be, I embraced my senior citizenship, and although I told myself I wouldn't eat too much, I just had a little piece of fried chicken, and some bread pudding and banana pudding and chocolate pudding, and two kinds of pasta. Still, I had baked fish and salad and fruit. And "unsweet" iced tea. I'm not losing any weight. It was starting to rain and it was getting dark (15 minutes earlier than in Morgantown) when I left, stuffed. It occurred to me that the old people at Shoney's are not any older than I am, nor any more dysfunctional in their cognitive abilities.

I noticed I was wary here, as I often am in The South, including in my native Maryland. Although I didn't get into Richmond as planned, Chesterfield is fairly cosmopolitan, despite the sprawl and the apparent lack of public transportation. There has always been a large African-American presence here, and now there are many Latin-Americans and Middle Eastern people. I tried to be relaxed and jokey with the few people I met; they weren't having it. I didn't see recycling or much bicycling infrastructure. Lots of churches, and colonial-style shopping centers, fast-food places and car washes. West of Richmond, it's a bigger suburb and on Midlothian Pike (US 60), just an annoying parade of retail with no thought to planning at all.

Still, I give the county a "good" rating. The President beat Hillary Clinton by a few points, but didn't get a majority. Many voters went third-party and the Democrat won in the last Governor election. Other than the "minority" people, I think the well-off suburbanites (a large chunk of the population) can see through the demagoguery and the lies and, even if they usually vote Republican, are done with this guy.

There's incredible history here, going back to the earliest English settlements, through the Civil War (Lee stopped here between Richmond and Appomattox), and of course, I didn't see Richmond, which is right here adjacent. A woman I asked about sunscreen in Macy's raved about a particular neighborhood in Richmond, where I could get non-allergenic sunscreen, and was disappointed when I said I wouldn't get there this trip. If I lived around here, I would more likely be in the city than out in Chesterfield County.

Home tomorrow (Wednesday). I still have to figure a route.