Strawberry Hill and Camptown

Brooks Smith in Essays

Essayist Brooks Smith, rediscovering Richmond's sports history, tells about two distinctively different horse races.

Monroe: A Decent Man

Thea Marshall in Essays

Commentator Thea Marshall celebrates the  252nd birthday of Northern Neck native son, James Monroe. Monroe, the last of our early presidents to have been born in Virginia, was both popular and underrated, and his two terms have become known for idealism and integrty.

Baseball

Brooks Smith in Essays

Major League Baseball will begin soon, and Richmond will be getting a new Minor League team this year. Richmond has a long history of baseball tradition.

How Richmond Missed a Chance to be an Amateur Sports Mecca

Brooks Smith in Essays

Brooks Smith recalls an ill-fated effort to bring a world Olympic festival to Richmond.

The Lighthouse-inspired U.U.F.R.

Thea Marshall in Essays

Commentator Thea Marshall has explored the oldest church on the Northern Neck. In this Neck Tale, Thea talks about one of the Neck’s newest, the lighthouse-inspired home of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Rappahannock. It’s the only home for UU’s in all of the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula.

Oyster Wars

Thea Marshall in Essays

Commentator Thea Marshall remembers the first time she looked at an open oyster and was expected to eat that strange bi-valve. It had to be great, otherwise, why were wars fought over it?

‘Jewel’ of the Neck

Thea Marshall in Essays

Many Northern neckers believe that the 1,300 acres, which make up Westmoreland State Park, are the jewels of the Neck. From the height of its Horsehead Cliffs – some 115 feet above sea level – to the beaches below, folks search for million-year-old fossils.

Henry Fleete: Northern Neck Adventurer

Thea Marshall in Essays

Commentator Thea Marshall catches up with an early Northern Neck adventurer, the first of the Neck's fleet of Fleetes, Henry Fleete.

The All-American Tendency to “Take a Chance”

Thea Marshall in Essays

Commentator Thea Marshall looks at the all-American tendency to “take a chance,” to take a risk, to gamble.

Remembering Christmas on the Northern Neck

Thea Marshall in Essays

As bills for last months gifts come rolling in, Commentator Thea Marshall looks back at Christmas past, and Christmas bills present...and longs for the good old days of "Barter"....and the time in our Colonial past, when holiday gift giving was a time of small gifts of sweets and such to one's children ...one's servants...but never to one's equals...