Duck-In Memories
VIRGINIA BEACH – Keeping the memory alive of my grandparents and uncle’s restaurant, Duck-In, continues to be lots of fun. The restaurant, founded in 1952, was located on Route 60 at the entrance to...
View ArticleA Place, a Campus, an Institution of Excellence
Why is it that you go to some places, and things seem right, and others seem wrong. You go into a restaurant, and look around, and things seem wrong. A smell, scary folk at bar, absent staff. And yet...
View ArticleThe History of the Southgate Lohman Map of Eastern Virginia
VIRGINIA BEACH – The recent edition of Virginia Living magazine includes a feature on the history of the Southgate Lohman map of Tidewater, Virginia that resided at my family restaurant, Duck-In. The...
View ArticleCIA Declassifies a Norfolk, Virginia Garden Dedication
NORFOLK – Recently, the Central Intelligence Agency declassified a school garden re-dedication from 1979 in Norfolk, Virginia, as part of many hundreds of other documents. I happened upon this 1979...
View ArticleTell Me What Is Right; Persistent Negative Views Hurt Cities
When locals are negative about the economic future of their own towns, watch out. The negative stories and “memes” that are told over and over again take on the veneer of truth, and then begin to...
View ArticleRadio Orange, Time Travel, and Great Radio
ORANGE – Back in the early 1980s, I went to boarding school in the Virginia country. As typical of so many 14-year-olds, I did not appreciate so many things that now I understand to be great. One such...
View ArticleThe Useful Rural Economics of Dr. Wilson Gee of UVA
My father’s discussions of life at the University of Virginia in the mid 1950s often involved parties and social life, and the overall scene, from William Faulkner to periodic visits by Louis Armstrong...
View ArticleWilliamsburg’s 150 Years of Fighting Off Fenced off Streets
WILLIAMSBURG – Colonial Williamsburg is at it again with the notion that somehow it can cordon off a public street, charge admission, and make people pay for what belongs to the nation as a whole. This...
View ArticleSingapore’s Raffles, Another Once Threatened Lee Statue
SINGAPORE – If a body politic is looking at how to move a struggling city from poverty to riches in a short time, Singapore is the model. When Singapore was founded after independence from Britain in...
View ArticleLiving History at Virginia’s Mattaponi Church
KING AND QUEEN COUNTY – Mattaponi Church hardly looks like the typical rural historic Southern Baptist church. The cruciform-shaped church, with a glazed-blue Flemish bond brickwork pattern, is instead...
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