Recently, friend and fellow Virginia writer, Joe Maddrey, suggested
that we should catch up after a long spell without seeing each other. This
sounded good to me, so we decided to meet somewhere between our respective
domiciles, which are several hours apart. He's become acquainted with another
Virginia writer, Michael Gray Baughan, who has a place out in the
sticks near Appomattox, so we settled on meeting at Mike's place for lunch.
And yesterday, that is what we did.
From here, it was about a two-hour drive, mostly on two-lane back roads, which
took me through the little towns of Gretna and Brookneal. On the geocaching
map, I saw a cache at a place called
Johnson's Mill
that looked interesting, so I took a short detour to go after it. And it was
cool. The hunt led me down a tiny road with a single-lane bridge (see photo
above) and into the woods, where I discovered an old stone dam. Happily, I
found the cache, which is pretty old, with no difficulty and in good
condition. This set the tone for the day, as the trip went swimmingly.
Mike's place (which is not his full-time home but his wife's family's
ancestral dwelling) is way the hell out in no-man's land, and while the GPS
map came in handy, the directions Joe sent me in advance were most useful.
There's a couple of hundred acres here, some of it farmland, but most of it
wooded. The house itself is well over a century old, and Mike has been busy
with a one-man restoration project — and, as far as I'm concerned, his
progress is phenomenal. He's put on a whole new roof, rebuilt the front
porch, constructed a few outbuildings (including a first-class outhouse)
with wood from trees he cut and made into lumber, refurbished the full
interior, and much more. If ever anyone defined "handy" to me, Mike is that
gentleman — and he is a most gracious host.
Not to mention he's a writer. Joe sent me his story collection, The Ana Log & Other Anomalies, which I've not read yet, but it's coming in the queue.
He gave us a detailed tour of the house and a portion of the grounds,
regaling us with tales of the place's history as well as many engaging
personal anecdotes. Since there aren't any dining establishments anywhere
nearby (and you can sure there's no Doordash or other food delivery), Joe
and I brought our own lunches (I picked up some chicken tenders in
Brookneal), and we sat outside at a lovely wooden table Mike had made by
hand. Then we sat, drank beers, and shot the shit for the better the part of
the afternoon.
A most excellent meeting of the minds, I'd say. I'd be hard-pressed to
imagine much better than than three scary writers together in a lovely,
remote location swapping stories. Silly me, though; I took plenty of photos
of the location, but none of us together. I reckon the three us will have to
meet up again sometime soon and have a regular author photo shoot.
I could cope with it.
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| Mike's home away from home out in the wilds of central Virginia |
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| One of the lovely views inside the house |
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| The only photo I took featuring Mike (left) and Joe (right) |
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| This is one of Mike's photos from a while back, but it's essentially the view we had while sitting and shooting shit |
