Рита Браун: Tail Gait

Elocution, the third of the Lutheran cats, sauntered into the kitchen but was prudent enough not to meow.

“Sorry to curse,” apologized Warren Chiles, a parishioner and the caterer.

The Reverend laughed. “I do it all the time. My hope is that the Good Lord has bigger fish to fry than a pastor who cusses.”

“I think he does.” Warren nodded. “Dinner’s ready.”

“Good. I’m starved. Bet everyone else is too.”

The Reverend Jones returned to the living room and rounded up his guests. They filed into the dining room, which was painted a flattering deep ivory. A small chandelier from 1804 cast soft light on the table. An embroidered tablecloth covered many a scratch—not from the cats, of course.

As pork roast was served and wine poured, outside the windows the sunset’s last golden rays turned deep salmon, then exploded in fire.

Harry called their attention to it. “Look at that sunset.”

The others paused to turn around.

Trudy, originally from Michigan, stared at the fireworks. “I never tire of the beauty of this place.”

“I remember beautiful sunsets over Tampa Bay when I was a kid, but there’s something about watching the mountains turn colors with the sunset, then twilight,” Nelson remarked.

“It makes me wonder who else is watching this and where?” Sandra wondered. “Is it this beautiful right now in Asheville, North Carolina, or up in the Hudson River Valley?”

“Or who watched this valley’s gorgeous sunsets back in 1820?” Marshall mused. Like Nelson and Paul, Marshall had studied history under Professor McConnell when they’d played football for the University of Virginia back in 1959.

The dinner conversation covered sunsets and sunrises, moonrises, and whether it was better to live on the water or by the mountains. These were gentle conversations among people who had known one another for decades. After dinner, they repaired to the living room. The Reverend Jones started a fire in the fireplace. The three cats—now full—quickly plopped in front of it.

The last frost was usually about mid-April, but last year, there had been frosts into early May. You never knew. Frosts or not, the daffodils were up already, redbuds swelled but had not yet opened. It was early spring in the Appalachians, a magical time.

“When is your next class reunion?” Ginger asked Nelson.

“I don’t know, but I know the team will get together in Richmond at the end of the month. We used to get together at Wintergreen,” the dentist said, referring to a skiing community west of Charlottesville, “but it’s gotten to the point where some of us can’t climb those steep stairs.”

“Goes so fast,” murmured Harry, who, though much younger than the University of Virginia men, couldn’t believe how time flew.

Miranda, in her seventies, smiled. “Everyone says that. Ever notice?”

“People have been complaining about time since Pericles’s Athens.” Ginger laughed. “Before, even. I chalk it up to the human condition.”

“Which reminds me, the human condition. How is your research going on your book?” asked Nelson.

Trudy interjected with good humor, “If the book doesn’t kill him, I might.”

Ginger put his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Honey, I’ve been a trial for decades, what’s one more?”

“Decade or trial?” she shot back.

They laughed, then he answered. “The writing is slow because I fall in love with my research. Always have. I think I have visited every church built before, during, and immediately after the Revolutionary War, including this one. I’ve read the rolls of parishioners, visited the graves, noted those who were soldiers or sailors during the War, those who were prisoners of war at The Barracks just down the road from here. They all feel like people I know. I’ve read their property purchases, lawsuits, if any. In short, the detritus of everyday life. Well, Trudy has heard this so many times, but sometimes I feel they are reaching back.”

“That’s why you were and are such a good teacher. You brought them to life.” Nelson paid Ginger the ultimate compliment.

“Indeed,” said the Reverend Jones. “I’ve never had the good fortune to attend Ginger’s classes, but I’ve read his books. I’m a bit of a history buff too, which you know, but I blunder about. I’ve always been interested in how the various faiths took root in this new land and, given the distances people had to travel for spiritual comfort, I often wonder about, say, a Catholic priest comforting a dying Quaker because he was the closest to the suffering man.” The Reverend Jones was an original thinker.

“I never thought of that,” Harry said.

“Me neither.” Susan leaned forward. “So many people, so many different ways of worshipping, thinking.”

“Smartest thing we ever did, separation of church and state, and we can thank Madison for drawing up those Articles for Virginia when we were a colony.” Ginger’s tone brooked no interference, but then the rest agreed on this issue.

“Who was your best student?” Miranda asked him.

Nelson quickly laughed. “Not me.”

“You made good grades. History wasn’t your passion, not like Marshall and Paul here.”

“Because of you, I studied on my own. Eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century gardens,” said Paul, the 1959 team’s right halfback. “Freedom gardens, as some were termed. But then, I always knew I’d take over Dad’s landscaping company. It made sense.”

“Helps me.” Marshall smiled.

Joyce beamed, always ready to praise her driven husband, a defensive lineman from those same days. “You must see what Marshall and Paul are doing at Continental Estates.”

“Now, honey, they don’t want to hear about that,” Marshall drawled.

The Reverend Jones encouraged Marshall and Paul. “Of course we do.”

“As you know, for the last fifty years I’ve created developments that preserve land, sometimes even reconstructing the original dwellings. I really got the idea in Ginger’s classes. He showed me how to track ownership so I could be accurate, so I could build houses of the time but with all our conveniences.”

“And if possible, I landscape them as they would have been done in, say, 1790,” Paul chimed in.

“Don’t you receive state and federal tax credits?” Fair asked.

“I do, Paul doesn’t. But as the developer, I do. The paperwork is overwhelming, and of course both Paul and I must go before the Albemarle County Planning Commission.”

Paul jumped in. “Not just with historical planning, but also with environmental studies and now even wildlife habitats. Sometimes the paperwork, the prequalifications, take over a year.”

“Public hearings too.” Marshall nodded.

“Well, the tax credits are worth it,” Ned said, and he would know.

Marshall agreed. “Since 2000, Reese Builders have received sixteen million dollars in state and federal tax credits.” He held up his hands. “And I promise you, half of that goes toward the studies, the artist’s renderings, the soil tests.”

Joyce added, “And if there were just one misstep, you can bet Marshall would be vilified in the newspaper, smacked with lawsuits. It’s absurd.”

Harry said, “It’s certainly overkill, but then most developers are probably not as careful as Marshall.”

Marshall replied, “Most are. There’s a rotten apple in any barrel, but you’d be surprised at how most people in this business want a good name.” He smiled at Ginger. “We got off the track. You were telling us about your book.”

With a small brandy snifter in his hand, Ginger chuckled. “The people who fled to Nova Scotia or back to England during Revolutionary times have been swept under the rug but they also helped create this country. Many lived over on Twenty South, the main road to Scottsville. And, of course, a few lived right here in what is now Crozet.” He sipped, then continued. “Over decades, I’ve tracked these men and their wives through Oxford and Cambridge. A young assistant will call me tomorrow with the latest findings. As there is a five-hour time difference, it won’t be long after that until tee time!”