The Joys of Williamsburg (Va.)

The semiweekly newspaper is the Virginia Gazette, out Wednesdays and Saturdays. The back of each “Limelight” section includes a universally popular feature called The Last Word. It’s like a blog’s anonymous comment section but antecedent thereto. Typical posts concern unnamed restaurants with bad service, or pleas for drivers to be more careful, or such acute political commentary as: “I agree that President Obama should be impeached. I think the Senate and Congress ought to look into this.”

One has to love that use of “ought” to get a sense of why The Last Word is so great, and also so depressing and terrible. But then the section throws you a total curveball, like this one from today:

I’ve been taking regular walks along Duke of Gloucester Street for more than 20 years, but lately I can’t help but notice a growing problem—Pogo sticks. The other day when exiting Barnes & Noble with some friends, we were nearly trampled by a group of kids on Pogo sticks. They bounced past us just inches away without an apology or even looking back to see if we were okay. I might have been able to overlook this is it only happened once but these Pogo-sticking teens seem to be showing up more frequently. On several occasions, I’ve seen them following the carriages, using the droppings left by horses as some kind of obstacle course. And they seem to be spreading out to other areas. While walking out of the Williamsburg Library recently, a pair of teens was Pogo-sticking down the hand railing. I’m not one to deny others their fun, but this is getting out of hand. These teens could seriously hurt themselves, or others (emphasis added).

My dad argues it’s tongue-in-cheek, but I hope it’s not. I hope Pogo-sticking teens are rife throughout Colonial Williamsburg, totally F-ing shredding down handrails.

(Too bad it’s not twenty years ago, when we only had Pogo Balls to worry about.)pogoball

Today’s adventure was a trip to the Jamestown colony, which I’d heretofore known only as a popsicle-stick model my dad built in fourth grade for me to get a check-plus on. There’s all sorts of archaeological work going on at the site of the fort. We watched a guy scraping away at dirt. My dad looked down and found this nail.

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I think he’s still mad at me for saying we should turn it in. The archaeologist took a look and said, “I don’t think it’s seventeenth-century, but it is an artifact. Thanks.” Then he put it in his pocket. Was I in the wrong? Dad always wanted to be an archaeologist. Let the record show he now is.

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Murther! Seen inside a church erected inside the fort. This must not have applied with respect to the Chickahominy.

Of course, it wasn’t all joys. At least, not in the swampwater on the way to the parking lot.

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Someone call a feltidermist!

3 thoughts on “The Joys of Williamsburg (Va.)”

  1. If pogo sticks are outlawed, only criminals will have pogo sticks.

    City Council ought to look into this.

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