I thought that a kind of tender picture would be a good place to start. So......Fall is for taking your great grandson to the Yowell Park. Yep, I said great grandson! Here we have Alexander and his great grandson Nate. I thought that Alexander, like me, was a grandfather and though he is, he also is the great grandfather of this boy. Alexander was born in the Pepper and then went to Maryland for 35 years where he worked as an engineer and electrician and finally a trainer of race horses. He has retired from all of those things and moved back here. Now he uses some of his time with Nate. Pretty cool. Note that Nate, who is all boy, has a large goose feather in his hands and his great grandpop has a small one. These two are obviously close.
Fall is for flu shots. My wife Andrea needed a flu shot so when we were at Walmart she agreed to let me take a picture of her getting it. Now, to defend myself as a photographer, I carefully put the flu shot sign right between the two women. However, when the nurse started giving the shot, she covered it up with her arms. I didn't think that Andrea would want that flu shot twice so I just sort of rolled with it. The RN is Pamela Davis and she moved here in September. Previously she had lived in Delaware. It is nice to have her here.
In the fall the downtown area comes to life with decorations. Corn stalks and corn dolls proliferate on the sidewalks. Here are the decorations of Pepperberries and Frost's Cafe.
The pumpkin patch in front of K&M Lawn and Garden Equipment on the corner of Rte 29 and Ira Hoffman really brightens the area. The colors are brilliant!
Here are Kevin and Tanya who have lived here the past three years. They have got a mum and some pumpkins to take home to their two daughters. He works for Moen.
Hang on to your hat!!! This is Jim Cavi representing his Lakeside Caterers....and yup that is one whole roasted pig!! Actually he explained the process to me and it really is a "smoked" pig. He was selling pork sandwiches and other things near the pumpkins. Yummy! Oh! That is John Payne in the background.
What is the fall without beautiful leaves, pumpkins for carving and mums? I found Kim Carter and her son Alex among the mums at Meadows Farm. That's not really where I found them, but I did ask them to walk over to the mum area so I could take a more interesting picture. Who wants a picture of just mums? Not me.....especially for a blog called, "Faces of Culpeper." Kim is a 7th and 8th grade math teacher in Fauquier County although she resides here in the Pepper. She and Alex were great sports to let me photograph them. Nice picture, don't you think?
And speaking of mums.......I found the lovely Betsy Sexton in the street watering the mums for sale at Clarke's Hardware. Betsy like many others, is a recent addition to the Pepper. She moved here from Pennsylvania last February and.....she likes it here!
I have been planning on doing a blog on soccer and football moms and dads....so Saturday I headed over to the fields near Eastern View High Schools. Since we have had so much rain recently the officials had decided that the fields needed time to recover and cancelled all of the games for that day. That was a bummer because I had cleared the time to go spend an hour there. The parking lot was empty except for one truck and the owner was nearby working. I went over and met him. His name is Jonathon Jarvis and he owns JMJ Contracting. He was taking advantage of the down time on the fields to work on the multi purpose building. He is a native of Culpeper and seemed like a really good guy!
Sometimes I find something that is much better than what I was looking for. This is one of those cases. I had stopped to go into a restaurant to see if there was anything interesting going on there. Before I went in I noticed that there were a couple of places that I had not noticed before. The first one (and last one) was Croftburn Market. It is so very very cool. It features meat prepared on the premises like All-Natural Black Angus Beef and a variety of sausages and "Charcuterie." I had to look that last one up, but it is special and I have not run into it before. Be sure to Google it. A big plus is that the staff is so friendly and attractive....at least the women. I cannot speak for the men. This is a place you need to visit. They served me a slice of rum cake and it was beyond delicious. I need to stop this or the Culpeper Times will ask me to start reviewing restaurants. The staff from left to right is: Kelly Wilton who recently moved here from Holland. That is correct....Holland!; Then Heather Holliday who moved here from New York; Andrew Campbell, owner; and Doug Higgins who is a customer.
Sometimes an event that seems to be a problem can take an interesting turn and yield unexpected positive results. I underwent some pretty difficult eye surgery this summer that turned out well, but the one negative was that I had to give up my contacts and switch to glasses. The positive result turned out to be that I had the opportunity to make a whole bunch of new friends. I went to America's Best Contacts and Eyeglasses to buy my new glasses and met the friendliest and most fun group of women there! They all learned my name right away and my subsequent visits were like gatherings with old pals. Unfortunately I never got there when the entire staff was working and so a couple of my favorite people are omitted from this picture. I have to think of a way to make that up to them. Anyway.....if you have any needs in this area, America's Best is the place to go. It is located next to Blockbuster. This bevy from left to right includes: Danni, Ramilyn, LaTisha, Sandra and Brittany.
This young lady was a pleasant surprise. As you can see from her shirt, she is employed at Popeyes. Shamari Roddy came to the Pepper from Grand Rapids, Michigan to help her grandmother who was ill. With her bright clothes and all of the color around the restaurant, she just jumped out at me. She looks so good in that outfit and is so pretty that it seems to me that she could be the national spokesperson for Popeyes.
AND NOW FOR THE BIG FINISH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Be sure to watch for Rich Crowley's Snaphots of Culpeper weekly in the Culpeper Times.
