The farther down I wound, the harder it rained on Purgatory.
Funny name for a mountain, but fitting in this case. Route 43 clung to the edge, twisting, turning, dropping down the grade. Ah, so that’s why it’s called a Hairpin.
Sneak past the flooding patch on the road, duck under the railroad bridge, and then…
Welcome to Buchanan - Gateway to the Shenandoah Valley.
The rain let up for a minute on Main street. I darted inside. Hey, nice sign!
“…But, Aliens.”
The Buchanan Library rocks.
Man, they’ve got the coolest building ever. Most libraries are built to spec–sensible, calm, quiet, practical, sharing a similar lineage. We visit these temples of knowledge in appropriate hushed tones matching our muffled footfalls, trying to behave in case the priestesses throw us back on the ignorant streets. (I’m this close at the Rustburg library. See “The Bell.”)
Buchanan’s branch is in a former 1920’s pharmacy building, complete with 20’ ceilings, hardwood flooring that creaks in a delightful way, and a fine collection of corners that multiply in any old storefront on any main street in a mountain town. The crown molding, banisters, trim, and side passages seem to be living, a generational family in architecture, echoing the residents in the town. We go way back.
…But, Aliens
So there, through an arched doorway into the magazine room, with a view of the rainy street outside, we assembled, about fifteen of us, to talk about if aliens exist.
Part III of a critical thinking “lecture series” for the Botetourt county library system, the far-out and fascinating form the framework of our discussions.
Yeah, I had slides and did a presentation about the distances of space, the Drake Equation, the Fermi Paradox, contrasted that with some eyewitness accounts, etc…
But the heart of the event was the discussion.
Do you think AI will help our search for ET?
When you say “alien”, what about beyond the “little green man” idea, into something unrecognizable?
I saw the strangest thing in the sky once.
Are those real colors in that photo of the Trifid nebula?
We talked and pondered, and wondered and imagined. …But, ALIENS.
The joy of kicking a big idea around on a rainy evening with new friends is exhilarating. One of my new pals there concurred. “The discussions are everything. Who wants just a lecture.”
We all said goodbye, and I climbed back up Purgatory, and along the Blue Ridge Parkway. What a “commute.” I love it here.
Hey Porter!
Rural Salons
A buddy, in passing, expressed surprise. “You’re brave if you’d talk to the locals about aliens.”
I was genuinely confused, mildly off-put (I don’t live in Buchanan, but Rustburg is similar enough), and should have asked a follow up. Instead I offered what happened.
“Well…they all showed up. I didn’t drop in on them.”
The confusion quickly turned to elation, and the arrival of a new idea.
I’ve had a foot in “both camps.” Growing up in the land of snobby coastal elites (yet never “good enough” to fully join their ranks), I used to view cities as the hub for ideas.
Moving to the country, I’m learning about farming (but still have many dues to pay). The lush hayfields aren’t a bounty. They’re a desert, a stifling homogeny of fescue, suitable for only one thing, and that’s feeding livestock. Apparently nothing else eats it, quail can’t nest in it, and the deer graze for the occasional plant that fights through the grass.
That was my experience of the orthodoxy of the city’s ideas. It seems like it must be vibrant, but without diversity of viewpoint, room for obvious questions and lively discussion, it becomes a desert disguised as an emerald oasis of progress, tilting dangerously towards ruin.
We’re eyeing down a long winter.
Maybe these rural “salons”, in the Parisian sense, are about to become a thing…A place where the curious gather, share, and discuss the big stuff as the rain falls on main street, the floor creaks under enthusiastic shoes, and the Corners watch in their multitude. You can count me in.
Thanks for a marvelous evening of marveling, Buchanan.
Treasures from Earth
I’m off to the mountains again to tell stories and hike over mossy rocks and hopefully see the summer Milky Way. Before I hit the road for Appalachia, have a piano concerto from 1868, man.
-Josh