Chris Johnston stars as Crumpet in The American Shakespeare Center’s final run (for now) of The Santaland Diaries through December 26. Photo by Michael Bailey
Backstage at the American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, actor Chris Johnston pulls on a red turtleneck and green velvet knickers, a green velvet smock and red-and-white-striped stockings. He ties up a pair of Converse Chuck Taylors with jingle bells on the shoelaces and dons what he calls “a perky stocking cap decorated with spangles.”
He reads a few pages of text—lines he began rehearsing months ago, while he was walking his dog or holding his newborn daughter—to get the words in his mouth. And right before he goes on stage, Johnston reminds himself to just tell the story.
The story Johnston tells this holiday season isn’t one of Shakespeare’s, but one of a cynical, out-of-work slacker actor who takes a job working as an elf named Crumpet at a New York City Macy’s department store during the holidays.
As the star and sole character of The Santaland Diaries, the elf regales his captive audience with an insider’s view of Santaland: the interactions with other elves (some were extras on daytime soap operas), the various Santas and their lecherous and drunken habits, the angry, greedy and harried parents and all of the snot-nosed, sometimes stupid and sometimes smartass children.
The Santaland Diaries, an adaptation of essayist David Sedaris’ story about working as a Christmas elf, has been a pillar of the American Shakespeare Center’s holiday season every year since 2004, but Johnston will be the last actor to play Crumpet at the ASC, at least for a while.
“The time was right to make a change,” and the reasons were many, says ASC co-founder and artistic director Jim Warren. “I’ve been saying for years that I want us to stay ahead of the curve and figure out the right time to change our holiday season programming before ticket sales took a nose dive,” he says. “And, to be perfectly transparent, being denied the rights to perform Santaland with the all-star female actor who has played dozens of male Shakespeare characters—Allison Glenzer—helped me to decide that the time was now,” Warren says.
Warren has directed more than half a dozen actors in the role of Crumpet, and “each actor brought their own personality, their own take on the character and their own bag of tricks to the rehearsal process for us to create something special and different every year,” he says.
Johnston’s take on Crumpet has been in the works for nearly two decades. He saw a dress rehearsal of Santaland when he was in high school in Utah and thought it was “hilarious. I just thought it was really, really, really great.” Then, in 2006, during his first holiday season with the ASC, Johnston started playing the pre-show music for Santaland and has done so every year since.
After being around the character for so long, Johnston says finding something that he shares with the character on the page helped him bring Crumpet to life. He identifies with Crumpet’s ability to see—and subsequently reveal—the true nature of things. When a parent whispers to Crumpet, “We’d like a traditional Santa, if you know what I mean,” Crumpet leads the family to a Santa who is decidedly not white, exposing the quiet undercurrent of racism.
It’s not easy to be alone on stage for an hour and 10 minutes, Johnston says (Andrew Goldwasser and René Thornton Jr., who played Crumpet in 2013 and 2014, respectively, agree). Actors often rely on one another for cues, establishing a rhythm not just for lines, but for knowing when a scene is going well and when it needs to pick up a little. But in Santaland, the actor’s scene partner is the audience…and every night, the audience is different.
There’s no exiting the stage after a bad scene, regrouping and coming back on to nail the next scene. And Johnston knows quite well when a joke doesn’t land—he can see their faces. The ASC’s mission is to explore the English Renaissance stage and its practices, namely Shakespeare’s staging conditions of leaving the lights on the audience and thereby including them in the world of the play, Warren explains.
But really, Johnston says, he’s only alone on stage for the first 10 minutes, as he gets to know the crowd. After that, Johnston, his audience and Crumpet are all in it together.
“It’s a good challenge as an actor, and I like that,” he says. “I don’t want to get bored, and I don’t want to get complacent.”
By the end of the play, it’s Christmas Eve, and on that night, the Macy’s customers reveal the season’s worst evils, cranked up a notch. Crumpet has had it up to here with Santaland; he’s ready to snap.
“I loved every time the show would wind down to its final stanza…and that last Santa, a Santa who’s a bit different from the rest,” former Crumpet Goldwasser says. After more than an hour of sarcasm and cynicism, “suddenly there’s this heart, and this room full of people (myself included), who had spent the last hour laughing about how annoying this time of year can be, suddenly remember why it’s also the most wonderful time of the year.”
“I love doing that and being able to see what it does to a room,” Johnston says with wistfulness in his voice, glad for the house lights that afford him a full view of the audience as he’ll tell Crumpet’s story a few more times before the lights go down on ASC’s The Santaland Diaries.
Family Holiday tours Friday, December 16-Friday, December 23
Take a tour of the Frontier Culture Museum by lantern light and enjoy holiday traditions of the past. $8 kids, $15 adults, 6-8pm. Frontier Culture Museum, 1290 Richmond Rd., Staunton. Reservations required: (540) 332-7850.
Nonprofit Kiwanis Christmas tree sale Through December 21
For the 84th year, the Kiwanis Club of Charlottesville is holding its Christmas tree and wreath sale to raise funds for its service projects. 10am-7pm Saturday and Sunday, and 1- 7pm Monday-Friday, trees $30-105, depending on size, wreaths $25. Seminole Square Shopping Center, 200 Zan Rd. kiwaniscville.org
Food & Drink Market at Grelen holiday brunch
Saturday, December 17
Dine on a farm-fresh brunch from chef Matt Turner while keeping an eye out for Santa—pictures with Kris Kringle and his sleigh are free. $10-20, 11am-2pm. The Market at Grelen, 15091 Yager Rd., Somerset. themarketatgrelen.com
Health & Wellness Jingle Bell Relay Saturday, December 17
Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Central Blue Ridge hosts a festive relay run in which each participant runs a mile. $20-30, 9am. Sprint Pavilion, 700 E. Main St., DowntownMall. blueridgebigs.org/events/jingle-bell
Jim Duncan was involved in the sale of this house that made it onto the list of fake rentals on Craigslist.
Photo by Jim Duncan
For local writer Coy Barefoot, it was having his debit card refused December 7 and going home to discover his BB&T account balance was zero.
For Amy Paquette, it was a call from BB&T’s fraud department asking about an ATM withdrawal that she didn’t make while she was on a business trip in upstate New York December 8.
That’s how both locals discovered their debit cards had been skimmed and withdrawals made from ATMs in New York City.
Skimmers are electronic devices that can read and store credit or debit card information that thieves then use to make their own unauthorized withdrawals. The devices can be attached to gas pumps or other card readers, although some are so small they can be handheld and your info swiped when you give your card to a cashier or waiter.
“I have confirmed one has been found in the last few days in the Charlottesville area,” says Barefoot. “If there’s one, there’s likely more.” At least a dozen other people have chimed in on Barefoot’s Facebook post to say they’ve recently been skimmed as well.
He declines to say where the skimmer was found, and says Albemarle police told him there’s an ongoing investigation.
Paquette says it’s the second time in the past three months that her debit card info has been stolen. “The first time purchases had been made in Singapore and in the Netherlands,” she says. A phone call from BB&T told her a $1,100 withdrawal had overdrawn her account, and she says the bank was great about taking care of the overdraft.
The debit card is not one she uses frequently, and in the latest breach, six ATM withdrawals from different locations in New York took $1,000 plus ATM fees.
“I used to live in a big city for 15 years and never carried cash because too many friends had been robbed,” she says. “Now I live in a small town and we’ve got these thieves who can rob you without physical contact.”
“It’s horrible,” says Barefoot, who says he has to wait for the fraud withdrawals to post, then make a claim and wait two to five business days to be reimbursed.
Chips in cards are supposed to prevent this type of theft. “My chips always fail after two or three months and I have to order new cards,” he says. And most gas pumps and ATMs don’t use chips, he points out.
BB&T spokesperson David White says in an e-mailed statement that the bank uses “sophisticated layered fraud tools” to monitor accounts and encourages customers to watch their accounts and sign up for text or e-mail alerts.
Barefoot plans a change to prevent future skimming. “One word,” he says. “Cash.”
Skimming isn’t the only way thieves are conning locals out of their money.
The fake rental, a perennial in which a Craigslist ad offers cheap rent on houses taken from the MLS, and the faux landlord needs the rent mailed, is back. “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” says realtor Jim Duncan, who was recently involved in a sale in which the house ended up for rent on Craigslist at a discount rate.
“If someone wants you to mail them the money before sending keys, that’s a big red flag,” he says.
In another recent area scheme, a swindler pretending to be from the Albemarle Sheriff’s Office calls people and tells them they failed to report to jury duty, and must get prepaid credit cards to post a bond and give him the authorization number.
“A lot of people have been contacted,” says Chief Deputy Chan O’Bryant. She estimates the department has gotten four or five calls and two to three e-mails a day. Three local citizens have been bilked of $6,000, $2,500 and $1,000 respectively.
The sheriff’s department would never demand money over the phone, O’Bryant reminds.
Unlike those duped by the fake deputy and fake landlord, Barefoot and Paquette will get their money back.
“It’s a pain in the butt here at the holidays,” says Paquette.
Says Barefoot, “Hopefully Santa will still get here in time.”
Isaac Wilker (right) says driving one of eight Oscar Meyer Weinermobiles is franktastic! Photo: Jackson Landers
“Oh, look at that, it’s the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile!”
Two excited women race across the parking lot of Reid’s Supermarket on Preston Avenue yesterday and marvel at what appears to be an enormous hot dog on wheels—they immediately begin taking selfies.
Isaac Wilker is one of two recent college graduates who drives one of eight Wienermobiles around North America to spread goodwill and hot dogs. The title on his business card reads: “Hotdogger.”
“It’s been nothing but wonderful. Frankstasic,” Wilkerson says. “We’ll drive from one city to the next, that could be as much as a 16-hour drive. Usually Tuesday and Wednesday we’ll have off days. I think my favorite perk of being a hotdogger is that the Wienermobile is our personal vehicle as long as we don’t have scheduled events. …We saw the Shenandoah mountains yesterday.”
Lady Borgia, a local burlesque dancer and hairdresser at Moxie Hair Salon, walks up and peers through the door into the spacious interior.
“Oh, it’s really nice in there! I had to come see it,” Borgia says. “The Wienermobile is an icon.”
The first Wienermobile was built in 1936 by Oscar Mayer’s nephew, Carl G. Mayer. A series of replacements have been custom-built and launched in the 80 years since. The current models feature V8 engines, a sausage that is wider than ever before and a horn that plays 21 different versions of the Oscar Mayer jingle.
All of the “hotdoggers” are recruited as college seniors for a one-year tour of duty.
“It’s a very competitive position,” Wilker says. “You definitely have to cut the mustard…they had more than 1,200 people apply for 12 spots.”
“We’ve done grand openings for grocery stores, we’ve done fairs, festivals and parades,” Wilker says. “People have invited us into their homes. We like to explore areas like small towns where people might not expect something like that. …It’s very much a positive thing. People definitely want to talk with you and speak with you when you’re doing this.”
The constant flow of passersby bears that out. Nobody walks past the Wienermobile without a closer look and usually a selfie.
Wilker and the other hotdoggers find themselves eating a lot of hot dogs in this line of work.
“I haven’t gotten tired of them yet,” Wilker says. “We were on a morning television program in Columbus, Georgia, a few weeks ago and I think I had six hot dogs before 11 in the morning. …I think I’ve heard about every sort of topping imaginable on top of a hot dog. We’ve had people say mayonnaise and ranch. Some people put guacamole on them…they put more guacamole than hot dog, really. They just slather it on.”
Borgia smiles and takes one last look at the Wienermobile, which was in town for the day. “I’m really glad I came to see this. Hotdiggitydog!”
Melissa Wender, Sue Frankel-Streit and Melissa Luce started a protest in front of West Main's George Rogers Clark statue to voice their support for Standing Rock and their opposition to building the Dakota Access Pipeline through the sacred reservation in North Dakota. Staff photo
In November, C-VILLE reported on locals who spent their Thanksgiving holiday protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock Reservation. The Army Corps of Engineers halted its construction weeks later, but some say the fight isn’t over.
Holding a sign that says, “STOP DAPL FOR GOOD,” Charlottesville resident Melissa Luce says Energy Transfer Partners—the company backing the pipeline—is currently in Washington, D.C., trying to reverse orders. And it’s well known that President-elect Donald Trump has already voiced his support for the project.
Hoping the halt in construction won’t take the “wind out of the sails of the protest,” she calls the decision more of a “symbolic victory” than anything.
Today she stood in front of West Main Street’s George Rogers Clark statue with protesters Sue Frankel-Streit and Melissa Wender—the latter of who will return to Bismarck, North Dakota, tomorrow to face both federal and municipal charges that were brought against her while at Standing Rock a few weeks prior.
“I have no doubts as to the cause,” Wender says, adding that she’s been advised by her public defense lawyer not to talk about her charges.
Though she left the Oceti Sakowin camp the day before protestors were blasted with water cannons, she says she experienced a different kind of violence: “The assertiveness of the riot cops is pretty intense. I sort of felt that my presence as a white 50-year-old unarmed lady would be a deterrent, but it really didn’t stop the pepper spray.”
Law enforcement sprayed Wender with mace though she was complying with their orders and slowly backing in the direction they were guiding her, she says.
Looking behind her at the Clark monument, she points out how the “conqueror of the northwest” rides valiantly on his horse while indigenous people cower in front and behind him.
“This statue is so shameful,” she says. “It’s very upsetting that this is the entrance to UVA.”
Clark, born in Albemarle County in 1752, was a military leader during the American Revolution, in which many Native Americans were killed. Clark is praised for his part in ending the war and awarding the Old Northwest to the United States.
Nodding to the Blue Ribbon Commission on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces’ recent decision to contextualize controversial memorials in town, she says she hopes another statue of similar size is erected beside Clark’s, one that she says will hopefully tell visitors, “Oh, by the way, we really don’t support genocide.”
The Downtown Mall will be Bank of America-less, but will have another steakhouse.
Staff photo
When Bank of America closes its branch doors downtown in February, it leaves a grand 1916 building in its wake that will house a steakhouse, according to building owner Hunter Craig.
And while he declined to identify the grilled meat purveyor, he did say it would be locally owned, not a national chain.
Also inhabiting 300 E. Main St., which began as Peoples Bank and during its 100-year history has morphed into Virginia National Bank, Sovran Bank and NationsBank before Bank of America, will be… another bank.
“Not Virginia National Bank,” specified Craig, who sits on the VNB board of directors.
Other as-yet-undisclosed tenants will lease office space in the building.
Last year, out of more than 70 nominations, C-VILLE presented readers with 14 of the area’s most eligible. This year, we won’t be quite as discriminating: Anyone who wants in gets in.
To nominate a great catch (or yourself—we’ll never tell)*:
E-mail the nominee’s name and e-mail address by Wednesday, December 28, to caite@c-ville.com. From there, we’ll send him or her a short Q&A, the answers to which will be published in our annual Love Issue on February 8, 2017.
*You might want to let the person know you’re nominating them. Or, if you’d rather they didn’t know, make sure you note that when you e-mail us and we’ll keep you anonymous!
A group of local teens traveled to Washington, D.C., a week after the election to lobby for refugees’ rights as part of Amnesty International. Courtesy photo
Elizabeth Valtierra was nervous.
Like many across the nation, the Charlottesville High School senior spent election night with her family, gathered around a television in the living room. As the earliest states were called for Donald Trump, her family made jokes and tried to laugh it off. They thought Hillary Clinton would pull ahead, as the polls had predicted—she had to. But as the night wore on and state after state went to Trump, the mood grew somber.
“When they announced the president-elect, we were shocked, disappointed,” Valtierra says. “We’re Mexican. We look Mexican. We were scared we might encounter people who might be bold.”
It didn’t take long for Valtierra’s fear to materialize. On November 11, just a few days after the election, she went to the McDonald’s on Pantops with her mother and younger siblings and cousins. It was a Friday, and the family was enjoying time together after a tense week.
Elizabeth Valtierra. Photo by Jackson Smith
The conversation turned to politics, as every conversation in the aftermath of the election seemed to. Valtierra’s young cousins began badmouthing Trump, repeating things they had heard adults say at home. Suddenly, Valtierra and her mother became aware that a nearby group of men was listening.
The women grew tense as the men fanned out, blocking each exit to the restaurant while staring the family down. One man stood directly behind the family’s table, which was out of sight of the restaurant’s employees. Afraid to leave or separate, the two women called Valtierra’s father to pick them up.
“We were pretty shocked,” Valtierra says. “Charlottesville is generally a safe city. You don’t encounter many racist people or intimidating people.” After the incident, her mother bought her pepper spray.
Atiqullah Mohammed Nasim went to sleep before the election results were announced. He hoped he would awake to find that the country had elected Clinton, but instead he woke to a text from a friend at 3am: “Bro, Trump won.”
Nasim’s father fled the war in Afghanistan in 2009. It took two long years for the rest of the family to join him in the United States, and longer still to adjust to life in a new country. Nasim’s schooling was interrupted by the war, and he arrived in the U.S. unable to speak English. In the beginning, he remembers morning bus rides to Charlottesville High School, when some students would mock his name. Though he never felt his safety was threatened, the taunts were emotionally taxing.
“If you can’t speak the language, how are you going to go and complain?” says Nasim, who graduated from CHS in 2016 and is now a student at Piedmont Virginia Community College. “I had friends who would say, ‘What can we do? This isn’t our country. We have to go with the flow until we know the language.’ Well, we are also part of this country now.”
Nasim found the suggestion of a Muslim registry, which first surfaced as a comment by a member of the president-elect’s transition team, alarming. He finds solace in the Quran’s teachings on nonviolence and finds a certain irony in threats to investigate mosques.
“The beauty of our religion is that we welcome people inside,” says Nasim. “We are not making bombs—we’re praying, and when we pray, we are all one race. Short, tall, disabled, all races—we are together.”
Atiqullah Mohammed Nasim. Photo by Eze Amos
Nasim says he is more concerned than ever about how Trump’s comments toward women could affect his sisters, who are 6 and 8 years old. “It’s going to be challenging for [my sisters] to wear hijab,” he says. Like Valtierra, he worries that his sisters will face harassment from Trump supporters emboldened by their win.
Valtierra and Nasim are linked not only by their experiences, but through youth lobbying efforts after the election, led locally by Kibiriti Majuto, a relentlessly energetic senior at Charlottesville High School whose family arrived in the U.S. from the Democratic Republic of the Congo as refugees in 2011. In the weeks leading up to the election, Majuto devoted several hours to phone banking for the Clinton campaign.
“I was in grief,” Majuto says of the election result. “I wanted to turn back time; I could not believe it.” Although Majuto is 18, he will not be able to vote until he acquires citizenship in two years. Like Nasim, Majuto and his family are Muslim.
A week after the election, Majuto, Valtierra, Nasim and a few other students boarded a northbound Amtrak to Washington, D.C., where they joined forces with high school and college students from up and down the East Coast. On behalf of Amnesty International, they urged legislators to enact laws that would prevent discrimination against refugees. Through the years, bills supporting refugees have surfaced, gained support, failed to pass and surfaced again; on any given day, lobbyists from the International Rescue Committee and similar groups are on Capitol Hill tracking legislation concerning refugees.
Majuto, who is president of the Amnesty International Club at CHS, had first heard of the trip during a webinar for the group’s Virginia coordinators and members. He connected with Sam Steed, a William & Mary student currently serving as a legislative coordinator for Amnesty International, and asked if he could bring a group of students from Charlottesville along.
Valtierra says that Majuto didn’t ask her to come, per se. “He just told me, ‘Hey, you’re going to come with me,’” she says. “I wasn’t really sure what I was getting myself into.” Nasim heard about the trip through another friend and was intrigued by the possibility of meeting Senator Bernie Sanders. (They did not end up meeting the senator.)
After the election, Nasim felt defeated and questioned whether he would follow through with the trip, but he had already booked his ticket. “Kibiriti is very passionate,” says Nasim, whose worldview skews toward pragmatism. He says that Majuto believes one person can change the world, but “if Gandhi was by himself, he would have ended up dying.”
As the group entered the Capitol Building, Valtierra’s heart pounded. The Charlottesville students were among the youngest people in attendance; other campus Amnesty International groups had arrived from the University of Mary Washington, University of Maryland and campuses as far away as Massachusetts.
The Charlottesville students were paired with students from Washington and Lee University, and Majuto, Valtierra and Nasim instantly connected with the older activists. Energized by a common passion for human rights, they met with a series of legislators, at times sharing personal stories to illuminate their message.
Of the legislators the group met with, most were receptive and friendly. However, all three students were quick to recall one woman in particular. Majuto had shared stories about his experiences as a refugee in South Africa when the conversation began to unravel.
“Some of the stories were very horrible and graphic,” Valtierra says. “He [Majuto] was beat up to the point where he had to be at the hospital for three days. The woman had the nerve to say, ‘Are you sure?’”
Prior to the trip, the students had prepared by studying materials Amnesty International provided. “They taught me to be calm,” Nasim says. “We learned how to talk to people [while] lobbying and how to control our emotions.”
Both Nasim and Valtierra also kept Michelle Obama’s advice from the Democratic National Convention in mind: “When they go low, we go high.”
Over the course of the day, Majuto noticed patterns at the Capitol Building. He saw far more men than women, and also noticed that many of the people of color were working food service or janitorial jobs.
But, ultimately, Majuto came away troubled by the legislators’ notion of compromise. Throughout the day, he heard variations of a certain phrase—that two sides should agree to disagree and respect one another.
“What do they do when they disagree based on ideology?” asks Majuto. “It left me wondering where other party members or constituents go from here.”
Kibiriti Majuto. Photo by Jackson Smith
On the day after the presidential election, neither Valtierra nor Majuto felt up to attending school in the morning. When they arrived at CHS in time for their afternoon classes, the campus was quiet. In Charlottesville, 80 percent of voters cast ballots for Clinton. CHS Principal Dr. Eric Irizarry characterized the mood at the school as shocked and disappointed, though he points out that the CHS community also includes students and staff who were pleased by the outcome.
Near the end of the school day, guidance counselors sent a note to all faculty and students. “On a day when many in our school are feeling a bit lost, perhaps wondering what comes next and how we’re going to respond, your counselors, your teachers, your administrators, and all the adults at Charlottesville High School who are about you want you to know something,” the note said. “You are not alone. Whatever comes next, we’ll face it together and we’ll do so with respect, mutual appreciation, and kindness.” The note went on to acknowledge CHS’ diversity and encourage students to talk to guidance counselors.
Valtierra found the note comforting. “I felt like, ‘Yeah! That’s my school,’” she says. Irizarry reports that an above-average number of students sought out counselors in the weeks following the election.
And as teachers guided classroom discussions, a student response to the election began to take shape. In a class called Becoming Global Citizens, Valtierra and Majuto helped design a project with the goal of creating a message to unify the CHS community. While searching online for examples to build from, Majuto came across a project from a school in Alexandria that featured posters that presented different identities. Soon, they got to work creating their own posters acknowledging differences represented by CHS students. Each poster began with the phrase “We are” followed by a broad range of identities.
The decision to use “we” rather than “I” came in reaction to the class’s observation that students unintentionally tend to segregate themselves—Latino students sitting together at lunch, or white students clustering together. There are more than 400 students in CHS’ English as a Second Language program, and they collectively represent 34 different languages, including Spanish, Nepali, Arabic and Swahili, the top four languages spoken.
“We are diverse, and we are proud of it,” Valtierra says. “Our identities are on the same level.”
Irizarry found the project to be constructive. “My sense is that the poster campaign went a long way towards shifting the mood of the school,” he says. “Though individually we may be white, black, immigrant, Christian, Muslim, disabled or more, we are all unified, together, proud, American, Black Knights.”
The response was in keeping with a core value CHS tries to instill in its students: That getting involved in the community and driving positive change are worthy goals. In a statement to C-VILLE, a spokesperson for Charlottesville City Schools clarified that although CHS does not encourage students toward any particular political affiliation or political goals, teachers and administrators hope to give students the tools to “develop the research, critical thinking, problem-solving and rhetorical skills to propose and advocate for improvements in our world.”
Beyond CHS, the larger Charlottesville community has shown support for refugees like Majuto, Nasim and their families. After the election, the International Rescue Committee received a flood of donations and volunteer applications. Seventy first-time applicants completed volunteer forms online in the first three weeks after the election, compared with 25 applications in October.
In addition to new volunteer applications, the IRC has seen an uptick in donations. Often, the amounts are small—between $10 and $25—but recently the surge in donations came ahead of the IRC’s annual appeal letter.
IRC Executive Director Harriet Kuhr says the outpouring of support has been remarkable. “We’ve been seeing it here, but it’s been happening in other cities as well,” she says. The total number of volunteers is already greater than the number of newly resettled refugees in Charlottesville.
Until the Trump administration is in place, the IRC can only watch and wait with the rest of the country. “We’ve been reassuring people that they’re here legally and they have protections,” Kuhr says. “They just need to do everything to keep themselves in legal status and do all the things they’re supposed to do with immigration. Anyone who is here on legal status has rights.”
Majuto, Valtierra and Nasim all say the trip to D.C. was energizing. They acknowledge that the movement to persuade people across the United States to embrace refugees and immigrants must operate in a time frame longer than a single election cycle or a president’s term.
Valtierra says the trip left her with a tangle of emotions, from exhilaration to discouragement to anger. “This was a life-changing experience,” she says. “I want to work behind the scenes and get involved.”
At one point during the day in Washington, Nasim said to Majuto, “‘Dude, imagine our dads seeing us [here]. They would be so proud of us.’”
Nasim, who is completing his general education courses at PVCC, plans to pursue a career in law. He hopes to follow in the footsteps of his father, who worked in the government in Afghanistan, and his uncle, a general in the Afghan National Army. After spending a day with students from Washington and Lee, he has his eye on the school as a possible place to transfer to pursue a juris doctor degree. Overall, he hopes to expand other people’s notion of what a refugee can achieve.
“I have to work hard, study more,” Nasim says. “My voice does matter.”
As for Majuto, the election result failed to shake his enthusiasm for analyzing politics. In addition to his classes and extracurricular activities, Majuto, who is CHS’ senior class president, has continued to devour post-election news from The Nation, MSNBC, NPR, Blavity and more. Although he doesn’t have any single political hero, he is enamored with the provocative ideas of political activists ranging from Karl Marx to Nelson Mandela.
“How am I going to deal with this when I one day maybe run for Congress?” asks Majuto. “How are we as a nation going to compromise for the common good?”
Even if Majuto doesn’t run for office, he plans to seek ways to create positive change. He’s troubled by the state of the American education system in particular. “The death of any superpower is the ignorance of the people if they aren’t well educated,” he says. “That’s what I worry about.” Women’s rights and improving the lives of the incarcerated as they re-enter society—particularly securing them the right to vote—are also issues frequently on his mind.
Majuto’s enthusiasm is infectious, his optimism seemingly unshakable. He thinks of elected officials as true public servants who should have to answer to the will of the people. When it comes to the president-elect, Majuto urges everyone to keep one thing in mind: “He works for us,” Majuto says. “We don’t work for him.”
Are you tired of the hustle and bustle of city life?Maybe you don’t like the traffic or the anonymity of living in a subdivision where you barely know your neighbors?Perhaps you love exploring local history, or appreciate sharing our area’s beautiful scenery with out-of-town visitors, or maybe what excites you is visiting local wineries, sampling their wares and bringing friends and family to join the fun.If so consider Orange County where all of these many facets of a quiet life are available in one place, and where your dollars buy more home and land than closer in, and—thanks also to lower county taxes— you have more money to spend on things you love.
By 1734 enough early settlers had chosen Orange County as their home to make it a separate, legal entity named for England’s William, Prince of Orange.Later it was home to two Presidents, Zachary Taylor and James Madison whose home, Montpelier, is a major attraction today for bothtourists and history buffs. Orange County was also the site of the Battle of the Wilderness where Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E Lee engaged each other for the first time.Today Civil War enthusiasts can view significant events from that battle, which are accessible via hiking trails.
Residents of a modern Orange County continue to enjoy a place that is still primarily agricultural and known for being one of Virginia’s top grape producers.At the same time, job seekers will find a number of major employers there including cabinet component manufacturer, American Woodmark,defense contractor Aerojet, book publisher MPS, and Walmart, to name just a few.In addition, Green Applications, a textile printing and distribution company is in process of setting up shop in Gordonsville and expected to employ 300+ workers.
Orange County residents often discover it first as tourists, drawn to the quaint shops, a variety of excellent local restaurants and wine tastings at local vineyards.History lovers come for guided tours through Montpelier, the home of James and Dolley Madison, and the site ofthe popular Montpelier Races where both horses and Jack Russell terriers compete every first weekend of November.
Some of the same tourists attracted by Orange County’s amenities decide to stay permanently buying a house or estate and breathing a sigh of relief as they let go of urban stress and settle into their quiet country lifestyle. Local agents report an improving market, and one where favorable prices and continuing low interest rates combine to make for an excellent time to buy, and where everyone is welcome, from first-timers commuting to Charlottesville for jobs, to horse lovers looking for a country property that suits their favorite animals.
Orange County’s Real Estate Market While Orange County’s real estate market suffered during our recent recession, local agents agree it is definitely coming back to life; a feeling confirmed by the online real estate service, Trulia, that reports a 23 percent increase in Orange County’s year over year median home prices at the end of November, 2016.In addition, sellers benefitted from a decrease in the number of days on the market compared to last year at this time.
Cathy Marco with Cowan Realty explained that the current Orange County market is “much more active than in the past,”although not as much as other places in the region.Home values there are also rising, just not as fast as elsewhere.Marco added that starter homes, defined as those priced under $200,000, “move quickly.” Even some large estates are selling but that is a “tougher market,” she said.
Pat Crabtree with Montague, Miller & Co. said the market is “getting there,” but it’s not yet what she would characterize as “bustling.” She believes her area was hit harder by the recession, and as a result, is taking longer to come back. She did, however, express concern about the low number of listings available for sale, and she has even experienced some instances of multiple offers, although that is not the norm yet.While this may be frustrating for buyers and their agents, it is a sign that well-priced properties are moving.
About the market, Melissa (Missy) Garrison with Montague Miller & Co. added that “things are picking up some.”She urges anyone who is ready to move to get into the market now while interest rates are still low.“Now is the time to buy,” she said.
Why Buyers Choose Orange County The small town atmosphere in communities like Gordonsville and the town of Orange as well as a more laid-back pace of life are big parts of why Orange is so popular.Of course beautiful scenery and easy access to the amenities of Charlottesville and other surrounding towns make a move to Orange even more enticing.
Tired of fighting traffic whenever you go out?Jack Samuels with Jack Samuels Realty said it is the
“peaceful, easy feeling,”that brings people to Orange County along with the sense of community that comes from the fact that“people all know each other.” He added that “life is a lot easier here,” in reference to his leisurely drive to work where he confronts only one stop light and virtually no traffic.
Crabtree compared the town of Orange—where she has her office— to Mayberry RFD.She loves the small town feel and the fact that people know each other and look out for their neighbors.Community gathering places likethe park and the farmer’s market on Main Street just add to this ambiance.Of course home owners who want more privacy and an even more rural experience can choose a home on acreage or a farm with fenced pastures and gorgeous mountain views.
Justin Wiley with Frank Hardy, Inc. called Orange County “a great place to live,” alluding to its natural beauty and the impressive views available there. Although he didn’t grow up there—he moved to Orange some years ago—he has nevertheless seen a lot change in his time, but says “it still feels like it used to.”
Home buyers who want assurance that the land around them will remain undeveloped and retain its rural character will be pleased to learn that Orange has quite a few conservation easements in place Wiley said.Buyers who want to take advantage of these easements should look for an agent that is familiar with them and can assist them to find acreage that meets their requirements.
Garrison, a life-long resident of Orange County, said that part of the appeal for her is that she “doesn’t want to live in hustle and bustle.”When she looks out over her ten acres she sees “deer and not cars.This is where I find peace,”she added.
Some other benefits of Orange include its easy access to shopping and other amenities in town,and its location to the north, which takes the stress out of getting to the main airports. The location is also attractive to two-career couples where one works in Charlottesville, the other in Richmond, Fredericksburg or Culpeper.
Historic Orange County Buyers who want to own a piece of history should talk to their agent about options in Orange County.A region in the county called Somerset—often described as “the jewel of Orange County” and compared to the English countryside— is a good place to look.
Some well-known examples of Orange County historic properties include Frascati, built in the early 1800s for Philip Barbour, an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.The Exchange Hotel Civil War Museum in Gordonsville is another famous building that once served weary train travelers before it became a hospital treating soldiers from both sides of the Civil War, and, eventually, a museum. Yet another Orange County landmark is Mayhurst, an estate built by James Madison’s great nephew where, during the Civil War, Confederate troops camped on the lawn.Today it is a luxurious Bed and Breakfast.
Buyers Love Orange County Many parts of Orange are in easy commuting distance of Charlottesville, and for people living in the Gordonsville part of the county, Richmond is also an easy drive down the interstate.This means buyers—including first-timers—who long for the quiet ofcountry life can find a home in Orange County and still enjoy a reasonable and scenic commute to work.
The agents who work with first-time buyers say affordable properties, some on an acre or two, are available and urge them to call their lender about getting pre-qualified so they can start their home search, keeping in mind that these are the properties that move the fastest.
Orange County’s employers bring people to the area when they transfer them to a local facility, and often the new hires want to live near where they work, knowing that the amenities they appreciate are a short drive away.Garrison recently worked with a family—recently relocated from Ohio for a corporate job—that found a nearby home they love in the mid-$300,000 range.
The area also attracts telecommuters who work remotely.One of Garrison’s buyers is able to work from home and recently relocated his family— including a new baby—from Texas. She learned on meeting him that he was also returning home, and in fact had originally met Garrison when they were both students at Orange County’s high school.A big plus for him—and most other people who move there—was the availability ofhigh-speed internet.In fact, Garrison said, “it’s the main thing buyers ask for.”
Orange is also popular with retirees who like the slower pace of life, access to cultural and shopping amenities in town, and the close proximity of world-class medical care.Many also enjoy Orange County’s home prices, especially if they are moving from high-priced markets like those in Northern Virginia. Often they pass through the area first as tourists sampling wine at local vineyards or watching the Montpelier races while staying in a nearby B & B.“People are always passing through,” Samuels said, “and when they see what Orange has to offer, often, they decide to stay.”
Still another type of Orange County buyer is the person looking for more property so they can participate in the fast-growing trend towards farming or agro-tourism, Wiley explained. Examples are wineries, pick your own pumpkins farms and vegetable growing for distribution to restaurants that want to source local produce.
Of course horse farms are also big in this area.Wiley, a horse owner, has served on the board of the Montpelier Races that he described as the largest event in the county, exceeding fifteen thousand visitors a year.Crabtree called the Montpelier Races “Orange County’s homecoming,”adding that they attract visitors from all over.
Something for Everyone If you yearn for the slower pace of rural life, but don’t want to give up shopping at your favorite stores or attending concerts and other cultural events, ask your REALTOR® about Orange County.You’ll find most everything you need there, and the rest is just a short drive away.
Celeste Smucker is a writer, blogger and author who lives near Charlottesville.
If it’s Orange County history you want, Frank Walker’s your man. First a dairy farmer and then a lawyer, Walker joined the Orange County Historical Society in 1984, where he served as president, secretary and tour guide after he “woke up to exactly how much was around.” Or you might talk to Long Island native Ann Miller, a research historian, who came to Virginia as a teenager and became“very, very fascinated with Orange County because there are a huge numbers of stories there.” Also happy to help would be Jayne Blair, a self-described “Civil War nut” from Texas who calls the Society and its extensive archive her “playroom.”
Walker, Miller and Blair are among a handful of dedicated individuals—amateurs in the original sense of the word (“ones who love”)—who have built the Society into the terrific resource it is today for anyone eager to learn about County history and culture. Present day Orange County, Virginia that is—not so much Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, West Virginia, the southern parts of Michigan and Wisconsin, and the western part of Pennsylvania, all territory which was once included.Although it’s just 17 by 37 miles today, the County extended as far as the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River, “the utmost limits of Virginia,” when it was established by the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1734.
What is now County land was originally occupied by the Ontponea, part of the Siouan-speaking Manahoac tribe. British Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood, charged with overseeing the Virginia Colony, settled 12 German immigrant families—42 people in all—on the banks of the Rapidan River in what is now the eastern portion of the County in 1714. “The first significant patent of land in what would become Orange County was awarded in 1722 by King George I to Colonel James Taylor II,” Walker says. “It was an 8,500 acre tract, and most of the Town of Orange lies within its boundaries. One of Colonel Taylor’s direct descendants is living on a portion of that land today.”
These are only a few of the surprising facts to be gleaned from the Society’s reference library comprising over 2,000 volumes and more than 1,300 files. Did you know, for example, that it’s named for a prince of the House of Orange-Nassau who was married to a daughter of George II? That gold was mined here off and on from 1826 to 1937?
Essentially a research and educational organization dedicated to preserving and disseminating information on the history of the County and its related land, buildings, people, and events, the Society was incorporated in 1965 and currently numbers more than 200 dues-paying members. For the past three years, it’s been scanning and digitizing surname and historical property files. Ten months of the year, it holds monthly meetings. Its monthly newsletter “The Record,”publicizes members’ research, and its published books include Walker’s 2004 volume, Remembering: A History of Orange County, Virginia. “I am in awe,” Walker says, “of all the work that people do in and around the Society.”
Former executive director Ann Miller joined in the late 1970s. A transportation historian in her professional life, Miller extols the County’s “excellent records, fascinating buildings, cultural landscapes, and social and transportation history,” calling it “a very multi-faceted place as far as history goes.”
Her 1988 book Antebellum Orange was intended to expand upon a Society pamphlet on old County houses and buildings. She thought it would take her six months to write. In fact she spent nine-and-a-half years, researching deed and tax records, photographing pre-Civil War homes, public buildings and historic sites, and looking at the County “from an architectural and social history standpoint.”
Another Society publication, Pat Sullivan’s No Matter What Befalls Me:Virginia Families At War And Peace, benefitted from what Miller calls “box under the bed syndrome,” in which old family photos and papers, all but forgotten, are fortuitously retained upon the keeper’s death. The book’s essays span generations, telling tales, often in the first person, of early settlers, Civil War soldiers and their families on the home front,free blacks, and migrants from the North. “He has all these people very well documented,” Miller says.
Miller calls Texas native Jayne Blair, a Commonwealth resident since 1999, “a wonderful example of what someone with an interest can do.” That includes documenting the Civil War battle at Orange Courthouse (now the town of Orange) and the encampment of McGowan’s Brigade at Montpelier, and identifying the origins and death sites of the 139 men on the town’s Confederate Monument—“everything I can get my hands on,” says Blair, who is now working on Revolutionary War history as well.
There is much to see, and for the incurably curious, much to do. “I was really tied to the land for the first 40-some years of my life,” Walker says, “and I began the wake up to exactly how much was around me. I literally saw the earthworks of the Civil War battlefield and recognized them for the first time for what they were. You think of all the people and the tremendous struggle, and then you begin to read and you read about James Madison, Alexander Spotswood—phenomenal persons. You realize how many people lived all around you and what they have been doing on this land, and you begin to get a sense of these people. The first evidence we have is a Clovis spear point that was picked up on a farm near Somerset dating to 10,000 B.C. The Paleos were here!”
Nowadays Walker loves to engender that same awakening in fellow County residents. “People do not get interested in history until they get into their 40s,” he says. “Until then, they’re sure that they’re making history and that no one has ever done anything like what they have done. By the time they hit 40, they begin to realize that who they are and what they’re doing has been determined to a great extent by the people who went before them. At that point they want to know who in the heck they are and why they’ve been doing it.”
When they do, the Society stands ready to help. “Please come to our programs,” Walker says. “Come by and pick up a copy of our newsletter. We are open from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. on non-holiday weekdays. If you come in the morning, we’re locked up. That doesn’t mean we don’t like you—just that we’re open from 1 to 5 p.m.”
