A Road-Building Nighthawk
Vol. 103, June 4th, 2024 Published a day early online
Out in Craig County
They say there’s five thousand people living in Craig County, but Saturday night, I didn’t see one.
The road felt out of place in the wilderness, like a strand of licorice, draped up the side of the mountain, winding, climbing, then plunging back down into the cool green darkness, an occasional deer lifting her head to stare back as my little car wooshed by.
Somebody built this road I thought, concentrating on the hairpin turns. A friend’s voice floated by on the mental radio.
“My grandfather used to haul iron ore with his mule train. Would take him six days to get over the mountain and back. He finally built the road we use today, along with a church and a little schoolhouse.”
The licorice road eased down from the heights, brought me past a hayfield and slumbering houses on the outskirts of Fincastle, the corporate limits sign burning green in my lone headlights. Someone else’s grandfather built this road. They’re long gone, but if we remember, not forgotten.
Their hard work lives on, bringing us through the mountain pass in the dead of night.
Here’s a thanks to the unseen hands of yesteryear.
The road unfolds in neighboring Bedford county, VA.
Quite The Day
June 4th marks the anniversary of Churchill’s “Fight on the Beaches” speech, Dunkirk, the Battle of Midway, and the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Carol’s Appalachian Word of the Week
Mushmelon: Cantaloupe. “Get yer fresh tomatoes, mushmelon, green beans, and sweet corn over at Carol’s Appalachian Produce.”
Song of the Week
6 Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (J.S. Bach)
Composed in 1720, and ignored for years, they’re now recognized as a pinnacle of European music–for good reason.
Not Having It
This Gray Tree-frog isn’t finding my imitation of him flattering. He wouldn’t sing with me. I even got the hands right.
Quote of the Week
“How strangely will the tools of a tyrant pervert the plain meaning of words!”
–Samuel Adams
Write to Us!
The Nighthawk is a new old-fashioned way to connect, published weekly. You’re invited to write back, or just enjoy reading. Let’s have some fun! It’s a social paper! Send stories, etc to: PO Box 783, Rustburg, VA 24588 or Joshurban@protonmail.com
Letters from Josh
(A weekly update from Josh Urban’s adventures on the farm and in the city. #188)
Appearing in the Altavista Journal, etc: Remembering
Howdy, folks, and welcome back to the show! Have you ever taken a word–say, string–and repeated it until it dissolved into a mush of sound, losing all meaning? String...string. (Yeah, I was a strange kid.) Said over and over, a word can be split from the thing, almost like how Elvis became a caricature of himself.
Don’t fret, I’m a big Elvis fan. I even own an Elvis clock that graced the ice cream counter of a now-closed diner. One day, already a casual fan of his persona, I listened to his “If I Can Dream” tune. It sealed the deal. “Man, that guy can really sing.” (Of course.) But hearing him so many times without listening made the obvious easy to miss.
I’ve been wondering if I’ve done the same thing with the word Sacrifice, especially with our fallen heroes. The living help me out. If I see a hat, I ask, and the veterans share their stories. They’re humbling to hear.
This past Memorial Day was perfect. The sun shone, the fields grew green, and rafts of tiny white Elderberry flowers graced the country roadside as I drove to the gig. When I’m not a pretend newspaper DJ here, I’m a real one out in the world, spinning records for retired folks at their communities.
Standing with a microphone at the Memorial Day party, I mentioned sacrifice. Then I looked over, and saw the man with a WWII hat. His story floated back to me. He landed on Pacific beaches under fire, his best friend cut down in a hail of bullets next to him, staining the surf red. How does one even go on? I looked to the next table, and watched another veteran, moved by the patriotic song playing. He hasn’t told me his story yet, but his eyes said there is one.
The show finished, the gear was loaded, and back out into the sunshine I went, past more elderberry and young corn and American flags blowing in the warm breeze. Sitting on the couch later, I eyed the empty rocking chair. What of the men who never got a chance to grow old? What of the ones who do, but still hear those cries of dying friends in red surf?
“Sacrifice”, said often enough, becomes clean, polite, bloodless, de-horrified. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Lest we forget. It would be easier to ignore, to sweep it all away with lofty policy disagreements, or to put the feelings away with the plastic decorations on the basement shelf, waiting for next year. But I think we’re better than that, more careful than that.
If you feel yourself forgetting, if the word sacrifice turns a little stale–go talk to a man in a hat, and hear what he has to say.
With gratitude,
Josh
Send stories or postcards to P.O. Box 783, Rustburg, VA, 24588, or on X @RealJoshUrban