Harrisonburg, Virginia is “the Friendly City.” We were there this weekend mainly because Bob has a painting in a show there (see http://www.bobcantor.com/ for details). We drove in on Route 33 (where we’ve been told you can get HALF your kicks), and ended up stopped at the intersection that faces the courthouse square. They were having an event there that involved people in 1850’s costumes. Man, did they look hot. I saw one of the presenters from a distance, and said , “Bob, that’s Sandy!” And indeed it was her with her daughter Lucy, performing in a storytelling session. We found a parking space, walked to the square, and sat among the small but attentive audience, which included her husband, Steve.

It’s always great to know someone in town that can give you tips on what to do and where to go. Steve gave us two great ones which made the weekend so much more interesting for us. First, we asked where we could get some ice cream to eat on this hot and humid day. He recommended Kline’s Dairy Bar, which not only had fabulous home made soft-serve ice cream, but had some great neon for me to photograph. While we were there, the skies opened up, and we had some much needed relief from the heat.

The other tip Steve gave us came about because we were talking about music, and we mentioned that we were both playing ukulele a lot these days. He told us that the owner of the Guitar and Amp Center had an awesome collection of ukuleles on display, and when we got there, we knew Steve was not kidding. He even had two bass ukuleles made by Gibson. The owner also answered a question I had about my 1927 Martin ukulele, and gave me the good news that the instrument I have is indeed all original. He even had one on display, so I could see for myself. I took a lot of photos, the best of which can be found on my Flickr site (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tackyjulie/).

I’ll post more about my weekend in Harrisonburg later. In the meantime, enjoy the photos!

My last post uncharacteristically serious, so I feel like I have to balance it with something upbeat and funny. My favorite wacky sculptor, Mark Cline, is at it again. According to the News-Virginian, he’s erected statues of Batman and Spiderman on the town courthouse of Lexington, Virginia. They will only be there for a week, and then he’ll take them down. Even better news is his plan to create a work called Hannibal in the Blue Ridge with life-sized elephants, to be up in time for October’s Fall Foliage Festival in Waynesboro.

I have a fascination for places that come about because someone didn’t follow the conventional way of doing things; those one-of-a-kind places to eat, to play, to dream. Places that are not a product of a corporate state of mind, but that grow from an individual’s vision and passion. Amusement parks with simple attractions that allow kids to enjoy their imaginations; places where people gather to dance, laugh, and be friends; roadside diners with quirky signs outside, and humor and good food inside: these are all places that I have come to treasure for whatever time they are there to enjoy.

The Enchanted Forest was a storybook amusement park which opened in 1955 where you could wander through, and see characters from nursery rhymes and other whimsical stories. As a small child, a day trip to the Enchanted Forest with my family was one of my fondest memories. The park was owned by a single family, and as the founding generation aged, there was no one to take on the work of running the park. The land, with the attractions still on it (The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, The Three Little Pigs’ Houses, Willie the Whale, Cinderella’s Castle) was sold to a shopping center developer in 1989, who put a fence around these lovely memories and let them rot. However, in 2005, many of the Enchanted Forest buildings and figures were moved to Clark’s Elioak Farm not too far away from their original location, where they can be enjoyed by present and future generations of small children.

The Clog Palace was the place to go in the 1980s and 1990s in the Washington, D.C. area for listening to and dancing to Appalachian old-time string band music. There was a lot of eating, drinking, and socializing, too, as I recall. It was held in a few places over the years, but is most known for its time at Captain White’s Oyster Bar on Georgia Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland. I’ve recently begun a project called the Clog Palace Memories Project to gather stories, photographs, newspaper articles, and any audio or video files that may exist recording the music, dance, and fun we had there. Even though the Clog Palace doesn’t exist any more, and in fact was held in several places over the years, strong bonds of friendship and community were created there and live to this day.

Planet Wayside was a quirky little diner that a friend told me I ought to check out, because she knew I liked tacky yet ironic things. She couldn’t have been more right about it. I visited it for the first time in late 2001, when the whole world seemed to be falling apart, and I desperately needed a diversion from the stress. Everything about the place, from the roadside sign with its bizarre messages (“Children named after fish eat free”), to the decor (a caricature of Madeline Albright, who sometimes visited), to the demeanor of the owner (deadpan humor that could be misconstrued as rudeness if you weren’t in on the joke) appealed to my goofy sense of humor. Sadly, the owner’s wife died in 2003, and despite his best efforts, he was unable to continue running the restaurant. It wasn’t that he didn’t have enough customers. The day he re-opened the restaurant after his wife’s death, people started pouring in to see their old friend, and the local fire department called in an order for a half a dozen sandwiches in the first fifteen minutes. Planet Wayside was razed in 2006, and now a new restaurant stands in its place.

It’s sad when a places like these are lost, but it’s part of the natural order of things. What makes these places charming is also what makes them vulnerable. They are usually the result of one person’s vision and inspiration, and only they have the energy and interest in pursuing them. When the time comes that the visionary is too burned out, or out of money, or too sick to keep things going, the dream comes to an end. Unless someone else is willing to step in with their own vision, energy, and money to maintain them, these places often fade away in time. Sometimes the right thing to do is let them go; other times it’s not. Whatever the case may be, think about the places and people in your lives that make life fun, and treasure them while you have them. You just never know what tomorrow will bring.