Letters from Josh
10/17/22 Vol. 104
(A weekly update from Josh Urban’s adventures on the farm and in the city.)
Howdy, folks! The pull of the Past is strong in the autumn. The evening was chilly and the stars just peeking out. I ambled up to an evening tour of a museum called Avoca. Any fellow Ben Stiller fans out there? The Campbell County Library must be, too. They were hosting an event called Night At the Museum in Altavista, VA. Before you could say “ORANGE MOCHA FRAPPUCCINO!” I had tickets to the tour. (If the reference leaves you vacant-eyed as a male model, please get yourself to the nearest library and borrow Zoolander.)
Gnarled trees graced the grounds. They might remember the stories firsthand, as old as they were. We humans had to gladly pretend. We followed the lady with the lantern, entering the Past. Charles Lynch sat in his cabin, cleaning a rifle, telling tales of revolution. (His brother started the ‘Burg.) With limited ammunition, the Patriots were down - but not out. He mined saltpeter and manufactured musket balls, providing most of the Virginia militia with a way to back up their motto. (No, kids, not Virginia is for Lovers. Try “Sic semper tyrannis” - thus always to tyrants.) Sudden marching orders to Guilford Court House in North Carolina put his men in the hot seat. The North Carolina defensive line fired one volley, and then fled the professional brutality of the Redcoats. Lynch’s men held on as long as they could, spoiling Cornwallis’ tea something mighty.
I ducked out of the tiny cabin, impressed. Make things happen.
The grand house was more gracious than imposing, radiating a warm glow of the years and lamplight. A ghost of a young woman was charmed we could stop by. Her father must have been a stressed man, what with the railroad to run, the Avoca mansion to build, and his daughter doing cartwheels, dress tied ‘round her ankles, a rose in her teeth, reciting Shakespeare for a rapt male audience. No wonder they named the new railroad town Gladys in her honor. Her first husband fought in the Great War, which would eventually shatter him. The end isn’t always on a front. She graduated college, was fluent in several languages, taught Japanese kids English, smuggled Jews out of Europe, married a doctor, raised a family...and lost her only daughter to another doctor’s incompetence. Her husband died soon thereafter, and in sorrow, she eventually returned to Avoca. Gladys would try to give the neighborhood kids cookies, but they’d run away in fright from the “Ghost of Avoca” - a lonely old lady in a long black veil.
I almost cried.
I did get misty when the slave ghost “Allofthem Pinnell” told his story of wife and daughter being sold in front of him. “The master said “take a walk to the river.” We all wanted to walk with him...and walk right in it, drenching ourselves in the sorrow of the world, deep enough to drown. Instead, his example, and nuanced storytelling, gave another way: of remembering, of walking back from the river, and onward.
Finally, a ghost of a widow mourned graveside. Her husband, the general...he was so close. But like her childhood home, the war took him, too. Funny how far a tragedy can reach.
What do we do with all of this? History shows that time is often parallel, whispers advice to pull back from the brink, and offers a candle in the darkness. Allofthem closed his story fittingly: “There’s a lot of spirits at Avoca tonight.”
With an ear to the wind, I listen.
- Josh
Allofthem Pinell. Photo Campbell County Library System.