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Season 33

Not even a pandemic could keep us away.  I'd be lying, though, if I didn't admit that we tried to postpone our arrival for as long as possible.  And due to international travel restrictions, we probably won't see Chris at all this summer.

Our first weekend was a doozy, even aside from that bird.  Take for example, the mostly empty harbor and boardwalks on Saturday at 8 p.m., the rush hour of the Pines social scene.  Typically dozens of people gather for the sunset.

More people partied on a docked boat (not this yacht) than at tea.

Wearing a mask on the boardwalk is de rigeur for the OK Boomer crowd.  Less so for the Millennial Speedo parade.

I took the beach route to the Grove.  Never have I ever seen a dead porpoise.  So sad.

A Grove house made clever use of old license plates.

The Belvedere never looked prettier.  Said one day tripping husband to his wife:  "What IS that?"  "Their church," she replied.

Boulders have been imported to keep climate change from swallowing bay front homes.  If it's good enough for The Breakers in Palm Beach, I guess it's good enough for the Grove!

Our Pines bubble includes Victor and Tommy who hung a protest banner from their home.  It retools an AIDS activist message from the 80s.

Silence = Death

George Floyd

There were a couple of demonstrations in support of Black Lives Matter, including one that raised nearly $30,000.  I paid tribute to Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd in my own way.

Still, this sign struck a nerve.  What was certainly true for my first 30 seasons in the Pines isn't anymore.  I counted 12 African Americans among less than a hundred people on the entire length of the beach one afternoon during the week when day trippers aren't as likely. Unscientific to be sure, but that's approximately the same percentage as is found in the general population.  Just sayin'.

The Pines has never been as diverse as it is now.  Whether or not it is diverse ENOUGH is another question, particularly when it comes to home ownership.

Pandemic or not, some aspects of the Pines remain unchanged.  Like the beauty of the newly replenished beach.  Let's hope that freshly planted dune grass takes root.

And the meals.  Keep in mind, these are the leftovers.

All too soon, it was time to go home again.

Randy isn't kidding around.  He had to take the LIRR back to the city.

Pretty But Stained

Murals like this one can't erase the stain of 2017's white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, which resulted in one woman's death and incontrovertible proof that our racist president can get away with anything.

The city, named for the wife of King George III, has been around longer than America and Virginia's history cannot be separated from our nation's original sin.  James Madison and Thomas Jefferson both owned slaves, and James Monroe proposed sending freed slaves back to Africa.

Even grandiflora magnolia can't camouflage the past or present.

The nearby Sprint Pavilion won't be seeing audiences anytime soon.  Virginia, led by a Democratic governor and physician who somehow managed to hold onto his job after a blackface scandal, is still under pandemic lockdown.

The Paramount theater cracks a pretty good pandemic joke.

Historic buildings, mostly turned into stores, line the downtown mall.

Have you ever seen a smaller carousel?

A public blackboard gives visitors an impotent way to embrace the Black Lives Matter movement.

Will national protests finally bring down this memorial to Robert E. Lee, just a few blocks away?  The city council voted to remove the statue three years ago, but romanticizers of the Confederacy took court action to keep honoring slavery and their Lost Cause.

No wonder some activists want to do more than write the names of murdered African Americans on a wall.

The Haven, founded by an UVA alum and a Hollywood director best known for movies starring Jim Carrey,  provides a day shelter for the homeless.

The McGuffy Art Center sends a positive message.

Let's hope good eatin' and drinkin' returns to this college town soon.  Students, too.

Waterbird sells canned cocktails made with American-grown,  potato vodka.

I asked this man if I could take his picture to add to my collection of bicycle photos.  He nodded, but didn't seem happy about it.

I probably should have just stuck with these.

We took a quick look at the University of Virginia campus.  That's Thomas Jefferson in front of the rotunda.  Covid 19 shut down Monticello so we couldn't tour the home where one of America's Founding Fathers impregnated Sally Hemmings, a woman he owned.