October 27, 2026- Hana is very cognizant of changes in her schedule, and she wants to adjust accordingly. I’m not sure how she does this, but today, after I mentioned that she was to be taken to a hospital for a blood draw, in the afternoon, she finished her lunch, then walked with me to the stroller and wanted to take her second walk of the day, two hours earlier than usual.
That we did, meeting a family that had put together an imaginative Halloween display, in their front yard. The mother and teenaged daughter explained all the figures, with Hana paying close attention. She doesn’t always take well to strangers, but as she realized this was their yard, she smiled and even chuckled at their description of Sally, the girl from “Nightmare Before Christmas”. They mentioned that they had a Jack Skellington figure also, but it was damaged by wind.
Hana went with her parents to the blood draw, which was not as hard for her as previously. She wore her coloured bandage proudly, raising her arm, as she does when she wants me to notice something. The soreness on her arm made her moody, but dinner and a bath set everything right.
HANA’S NOTE- I am always thinking about stuff. I’m glad that Papa was willing to take me for my afternoon walk early.
EXPANDING CIRCLES: Virginia- The Old Dominion was my home for fourteen months, in 1969-71. I was stationed at Fort Myer, and served as mail clerk for those living and working in TriService Barracks, a facility housing Army, Navy and Air Force members working in the Pentagon, or in other parts of the base. I came to know Arlington, and other parts of the Metro DC area, fairly well.
I have visited other parts of Virginia about 14 times. Penny, Aram and I made several visits to the Shenandoah region, sometimes visiting two friends of hers in Charlottesville, and other times going on short hikes in the national park. Aram and I stayed in Roanoke on a drive back from New Jersey, in late 2000. I have visited both sides of the state, on several subsequent journeys. Extended family live in Alexandria, in the Richmond area and in Virginia Beach.
The turf: Like other southeastern states,Virginia is mountainous in the west (Appalachian and Blue Ridge). Along with Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia, the Commonwealth has a significant portion of the Appalachian Trail running through it. Virginia’s Piedmont takes up the central portion of the state, and a Coastal Plain covers the east, including Virginia’s portion of the Delmarva Peninsula-the Eastern Shore of Chesapeake Bay. Virginia is drained by the Potomac, James, Shenandoah and Roanoke Rivers, along with their tributaries.
First Nations- Virginia is the ancestral home of the Chickahominy, Monacan, Pamunkey, Nansemond, Rappahannock,Upper Mattaponi, Cheroenhaka (Nottoway), Mataponi, and Patowomeck peoples. Seven Federal and eleven State-recognized communities are maintained by these Nations, around the Commonwealth.
Virginia’s First Nations alternately welcomed and struggled with the Spanish, in the late 16th Century, then with the British, in the 17th Century. In addition, the Powhatan had clashed with neighbouring nations, before being driven back by the Monacan, at Natural Bridge, sometime in the Eleventh Century. By the time the English settled Jamestown, in 1807, the Powhatan had built a Confederacy, of some 30 Algonquian-speaking tribes, ruling a 100 x 100 mile area from northeast North Carolina to the middle of what is now Delaware and eastern Maryland.
It was with this Confederacy that the English first negotiated, then fought three wars (1613-14, 1622 and 1644-46). Wars of conquest were still wage by the Seneca and Cherokee, in western Virginia, in the late 17th Century. This led to the English making treaties with the Iroquois Confederacy and the Cherokee as well.
Clashes with the Shawnee, including Pontiac’s War (1763-66) and Dunmore’s War (1774), and a resumption of fighting with the Cherokee (1776-94) roiled the Appalachian and Piedmont regions, even as Americans were fighting the British, further east and south.
In the mid-Twentieth Century, a campaign by a segregationist named Walter Plecker disrupted the lives of Virginia’s indigenous people, causing many to leave the state.After Plecker’s departure, in 1946, and with the passage of Civil Rights legislation at the Federal level, First Nations people in Virginia began to reclaim their sovereignty and their lands, resulting in the communities that exist today.
Where I feel most at home- Arlington, Alexandria, Chincoteague, Virginia Beach, Harrisonburg, Charlottesville, Dublin, Edinburg, Winchester, Marion.
Where I feel most at peace- Chincoteague, Harrisonburg, Dublin
NEXT: West Virginia
