I’m not sure when I began to notice MacCallum More Museum and Gardens in Chase City.

I had paid attention to bridal portraits I would see made there occasionally, but as many times as I had been in Chase City in my life, I had never been through the gates.

In 2018, I was living in the Shenandoah Valley and had a friend’s wedding coming up that I would be photographing. We planned to make her bridal portraits at MacCallum More.

I scouted the gardens in early spring and returned a couple of weeks later for the portraits.

That summer, I returned for another bridal session.

Since coming home to Southside in 2019, I’ve visited a few more times—for art exhibits and receptions, and sometimes just to walk through the gardens with a camera.

MacCallum More is one of those places that seems considerably bigger once you’re inside the gates.

Six acres of gardens sit tucked into Chase City, filled with old boxwoods, winding paths, fountains, sculpture, stonework and architectural pieces that seem to appear out of the greenery.

And then there’s the museum.

Part local history, part art, part collection of things you probably weren’t expecting to find there.

Since 2017, MacCallum More has also invited artists through those gates for an annual juried art show.

With the exception of 2020, when the show was suspended because of COVID, this is MacCallum More’s ninth juried art show.

Diana Thorpe, a member of the MacCallum More Board of Trustees and its volunteer Museum Curator, told me the show has grown each year, drawing artists from an increasingly wide region rather than simply from the immediate community.

This year, 38 artists entered.

Twenty-seven were selected to participate.

And that distinction—entered and selected—is important.

This isn’t an exhibit where paying an entry fee buys a spot on the wall. Artists pay a $10 non-refundable fee for each work submitted, and the juror decides which pieces become part of the exhibition.

Those entry fees go toward the upkeep of the museum and gardens. Cash prizes for the winning artists are donated.

The museum also chooses a different juror each year.

This year’s juror is Veronica Jackson, who holds an MA in Visual & Critical Studies from California College of the Arts in San Francisco and a BS in Architecture from the University of Virginia. An exhibiting artist herself, Jackson’s work has appeared at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts in New York and Verge Center for the Arts in Sacramento, among others. She now lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Central Virginia.

Diana explained something about the process that I think is worth remembering—particularly for anyone who makes something and then works up the nerve to put it in front of somebody else.

Acceptance is subjective.

A different juror brings a different eye each year, and the juror isn’t simply deciding which individual pieces are “good enough.”

They’re also building an exhibition.

As Diana put it:

“It doesn’t mean the work isn’t good; it may mean the work didn’t fit the exhibit that year.”

She encourages artists who weren’t selected to come to the reception anyway—to see what was chosen, compare it to their own work and, when possible, talk with the juror.

It can be part of growing as an artist.

I like that.

I’ve enjoyed being at previous receptions and shows and planned to be at this year’s reception with my camera anyway.

But this year will be a little different.

Because I finally entered.

Four photographs.

Ten dollars apiece and absolutely no idea what somebody else was going to think of them.

Monday, an email arrived.

Three of the four had been selected.

Still Waters.

Chase City Department.

Light Through What Remained.

I’m not going to show them to you here.

You’ll have to come to MacCallum More to see them.

And mine will be only three among an exhibition built from the work of 27 artists.

The opening reception will be Sunday, September 13, from 3–5 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

The museum will also be open, which is worth mentioning because Diana specifically said people who haven’t visited before may be surprised by the quality of its permanent exhibits.

At about 3:45 p.m., weather permitting, everyone will gather around the steps of the museum.

Veronica Jackson will announce the awards, beginning with honorable mentions and working toward first place.

I plan to be there.

With a camera, naturally.

Come on a Sunday afternoon.

Walk the gardens.

See some history—both local and from abroad.

See some art.

And some artists.

Find my three.

And smile for the camera.

Learn more about MacCallum More

See more from this collection

It’s not surprising to see a line waiting at Ethel’s Old Fashioned on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday when they’re open.

It’s been that way for more than 20 years.

But for the past couple of months, there hasn’t been a line.

Followers on Facebook have seen the images I’ve shared of Ethel’s over the years. In fact, the response to a winter scene—Ethel’s on a snowy day this year with a broken window—helped prompt me to create an outlet for the images I see and the stories I know.

All focused on Southside Virginia.

That became Southside Vignettes, a subscription-based newsletter published twice each week since February.

Today is issue 59.

Oddly enough—and completely unplanned—it also falls on my 59th birthday.

Ethel’s Is Open

I posted a cell-phone picture Friday from the end of the line, after the ribbon cutting and reopening.

The post spread quickly.

People had already been standing in line for a while. I had joined others there earlier, before the line started—people who had jumped in when Ethel’s was shut down over health and safety issues just as the busy season was beginning for the Yoli family.

Wayne Hoover.

Ray Kole.

John Vannoy.

And members of the community who supported the cause however they could, pledging time, labor, materials and money.

Financial donations poured in.

And everyone waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

Work inside.

Work outside.

Work underground.

Installations and inspections.

Interviews.

Wayne Covil, a well-known veteran journalist in the Richmond television market, came down with WTVR 6. He understands the importance of community—and the stories held within it.

Friday morning was filled with hugs and praise, love and community.

I also handed Larry money raised through print sales for Larry’s Lunch Box—a small discretionary fund he can use whenever a kid needs an ice cream cone, a cheeseburger or a little extra kindness through the window.

I found myself on both sides of a camera.

Hearing stories.

Hearing memories.

Hearing orders.

Hearing stomachs rumbling.

I went back to work at NAPA as the line continued to grow. Wayne and his photographer Cole Pearson headed over to Southside Virginia Community College to edit their footage and prepare the story for the evening news.

When I returned after work Friday, the line was still there.

I jumped into it to visit with a friend.

I wasn’t cutting in line for food, I swear.

Ethel’s re-opened Friday, which would have been my mom’s 92^nd birthday, and I would have waited for one.

The wait was more than an hour.

When I passed Ethel’s around 2 Saturday afternoon, the line stretched nearly to the road. When I stopped again around 5:30, it was about as long.

A friend had posted earlier that she waited 90 minutes.

After walking around, making photographs and talking with friends in line, I learned the wait was still about the same.

Some people were picking up orders for others, so the number of people standing there didn’t necessarily represent the volume of food passing through that window.

And I heard no one complain.

Those waiting visited with one another. Some were new acquaintances. Some were old friends.

All were waiting their turn with the Yoli family and the window of an old lunch wagon sitting quietly beside the road, surrounded by community, in Southside Virginia.

For a couple of months, there hadn’t been a line at Ethel’s.

This weekend, the line came back.

And it was a beautiful thing to see.

Community.

See Wayne Covil’s piece on the day here: Ethel's story on WTVR

And an album of images from Friday and Saturday here: Ethel's Re-opening album

See you in line.

Peace and grease.

Buggs Island—or Kerr Lake, as the ones south of us call it—has been here for a few generations.

Created in the early 1950s when the Roanoke River was dammed for flood control and hydroelectric power, the lake that followed has provided recreation and commerce ever since.

Most of the time I spent there when I was young involved bank fishing along some backwater or fishing around the dam. Occasionally, there would be a “lake day” at one of the swimming or camping areas scattered around the reservoir, many of them operated by the Army Corps of Engineers.

These days, I visit Clarksville to see friends or for photography work.

And I always promise myself that I’m going back one day just to photograph the town and the lake.

Sunday, at the prompting of some friends, I finally checked out a little of the lake after visiting.

There is a lot of shore right now.

At its normal level, Buggs Island covers roughly 50,000 acres. There are quite a few more acres showing now.

Swimming areas have a lot more beach.

Gangways stretch across dry ground looking for their docks.

Rocks and stumps are finally getting their chance to shine in glory.

The durn grass needs cutting.

I’ve always wanted to see and photograph the Salton Sea in California.

I hope our current pattern doesn’t save me the trip.

See the album from the day in Clarksville and at Rudds Creek here: Buggs Aug 23 2026

But there were more photographs than I could reasonably fit into the story.

So, an addendum.

I’ve put together the larger Drakes Branch album on my photography website, including photographs from this weekend and some earlier images that help show the town and the places we’ve been talking about.

If you read yesterday’s Vignette, consider this the visual companion to it.

And if you have connections to Drakes Branch—memories, names, corrections, or stories about the buildings and people in these photographs—I’d love to hear them. There are pieces of this story I’m still trying to put together.

View the Drakes Branch album here:
Downtown Drakes 2021 & 2026

Prints and digital images are also available directly through the gallery.

Sometimes the photographs tell parts of the story that the words can’t.

—Robby

When I was a lot younger, we would visit Drakes Branch and the surrounding area to see mom’s family.

I remember seeing Pettus’ Pontiac (I think), the Western Auto, and the NAPA.

I would later learn where the liquor store and the dance hall on the edge of town were.

Families get smaller and older, and visits were less often.

Factories close.

Stores close.

Storms come.

And that’s what happened on October 11 2018 when Tropical Storm Michael slammed Southside VA.

I was living in the Shenandoah Valley then, but don’t remember exactly where I was when the storm came. I had been in Arkansas earlier that week and had returned to VA to shoot a wedding in Charlottesville a couple of days after Michael. But I heard about the storm and the flooding that followed from family and saw it on the news.

Across the area, 4-8 inches of rain fell, with localized totals over 10 inches. One rain gauge in Charlotte County measured more than nine inches.

Drakes Branch got hammered.

Across the county, nearly 90% of the population was without power.

Downtown Drakes was flooded.

RT 47, Main Street, through town was closed.

The firehouse was flooded so severely that it was no longer habitable.

Floodwaters came and went, but the damage remained.

Businesses closed.

Futures unsure.

The water may have been measured in hours and inches; the aftermath is approaching eight years.

A new firehouse was built across the street from the old one.

FEMA subsequently revised the flood-hazard maps for Drakes Branch, with the new mapping taking effect in April 2020.

I took a camera for a walk in Drakes on a Saturday afternoon in April after work in 2021.

The town’s flood-mitigation project originally targeted nine downtown buildings for acquisition and demolition.

Getting from floodwater to demolition hasn’t been quick. Property acquisition. Environmental work. Federal requirements. Waiting.

But they’re finally reaching the end.

Once the demolition contractor gets the official go-ahead, the contract gives them seven working days to start and 90 working days to finish.

I pass through Drakes fairly often with work, but I took the camera for a walk Thursday evening last week before I headed to Charlotte Court House and the Public Hearing meeting for the proposed Tractor Supply coming to Keysville.

Another look. A closer look. Maybe a last look.

Read more

In December of 2018, I was living in the Shenandoah Valley, and I had the opportunity to just be a tagalong on a VA Department of Forestry excursion to the eastern edge of Southside Virginia, in Southampton County.

There was a longleaf pine restoration project happening there on Cheroenhaka (Nottoway) Tribe land, bringing the native tree back to the area using native Virginia seed sources, involving the Tribe, Virginia DCR, Virginia Department of Forestry, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and The Nature Conservancy.

In 2012, 20,000 seedlings were planted. And another 5,600 planted in 2017. 2019 would have another 64,000 in the ground. All as a part of Chief Walt “Red Hawk” Brown’s vision.

After arriving at the site just outside of Courtland, I found a couple of connections to Lunenburg. A member of the tribe had property just outside of Victoria, and the re-forester was from Rehoboth.

Slayton Forestry Services had been re-foresting land around Virginia for years. Randy Slayton was a farmer from the Rehoboth area who also re-planted land that had been timbered around the state.

Randy’s son Austin was there that day with a crew for Superior Forestry Service. I’d known Austin by name for years. His mom is from a farming family in Nutbush and was only a mile or two through the woods from our farm, and I’ve known her since childhood.

We chatted briefly about home and family as the crew packed up and headed into the field to plant.

I spent a few hours there watching conversations, workers, interviews. A blessing prayed over the land and seedlings.

Less than a year later, I was living back in Lunenburg and began to see the Slaytons a little more frequently. More so after going to work at NAPA.

Even before I moved back, I loved to ride the Rehoboth area with my camera. Being back gave me a lot more time to visit. I have had the opportunity to make quite a few images in the area, both landscapes and portraits, and many were made on or from Slayton farmland. Including benefit hunts for wounded hunters. There’s one in a couple of weeks.

Randy Slayton passed away late last week. Unexpectedly, just a couple of weeks after his family had received the news they’d prayed for: he was cancer-free.

Randy served. Quietly.

For 20 years, he represented Rehoboth on the Lunenburg County Board of Supervisors, seven of those as chairman. He served on boards and committees across the county and region, and represented his fellow farmers on the Lunenburg County Farm Bureau Board.

Randy's obituary can be read here

And he planted Southside Virginia.

In the forty-plus years of Slayton Forestry Services, tens and tens of thousands of acres were reforested with over 80 million seedlings.

80 million.

At typical planting densities, enough to cover more than half of Lunenburg County in pine trees.

More than half the county.

All from the quiet area of Rehoboth.

80 million trees.

And a simple man.

See you in the pines, Hangman.

This morning’s Southside Vignettes is a little different.

Two stories. Two towns. And neither one is quite finished yet.

In Keysville, work continues on Ethel’s, with a tentative reopening date getting closer.

And in Victoria last night, there was music.

So this Sunday’s issue is a little of both—an update for those who haven’t been following Ethel’s progress on Facebook, and a first look at an evening in Victoria that I suspect will lead to a few more stories.

News on Ethel’s

I mentioned Ethel’s on Facebook yesterday, but I know not everybody who reads Southside Vignettes follows along over there.

So here’s where things stand.

Larry dropped by Napa Tuesday morning looking for something and told me they were working on Ethel’s that day. I couldn’t get by while Ray and John were there, but I stopped and talked with Larry on the way home.

The next morning, I checked again on my way to work and caught some of the action.

Larry, Ray and John were going at it with Ethel.

Ethel’s is an early-1970s model that hasn’t moved in more than twenty years. It has sags. Nothing is square.

It’s a slow go.

But it’s a go.

Wayne Hoover, who has spearheaded this, updated Friday that a reopening is tentatively scheduled for August 28 at 11 a.m., pending an inspection and the final preparations that still have to be made.

We’re a lot closer than we have been.

I’ve put together a larger album of what I saw Wednesday:

Ethel's August Update

Blues in Victoria

And then there was last night.

The Town of Victoria hosted a “Back to School Community Bash” featuring the Bobby BlackHat Band, a touring artist on the Virginia Commission for the Arts roster.

The Central of Lunenburg jazz/blues ensemble, led by Maurice Ellis, was there, too.

I was there with a camera.

Read more

A few weeks ago, I photographed the Power Wrestling Resurgence event at Kenbridge’s July Jubilee.

I love watching the crowds at any event I’m at.

During one of the matches in Kenbridge, one of the little girls ringside was very displeased with one of the wrestlers.

And she showed it by throwing her flip-flops at him.

A few times.

She was pretty good with them, too, and made me wonder where she had trained.

After the show, the wrestler, known as TSA, and I laughed about it. He told me a story about being jabbed in the back with a knitting needle by an old lady in West Virginia when the action spilled outside the ring.

Some people take wrestling very seriously.

Almost personally.

When I found out that PWR would be part of a wrestling event with the Bruiser Wrestling Federation on the Longwood campus, I knew I had to be there.

Bigger venue.

Bigger names.

Bigger crowd.

And if nothing else, I wanted to photograph the crowd.

I spent the first couple of hours walking around the Joan Perry Brock Center for the first time—walking, watching the Light, and getting some behind-the-scenes material.

The crowd began moving in a couple of hours before bell time.

Familiar faces.

New friends.

Fans.

FANS.

It was interesting—and special—to walk between the back and the front and watch the energies build.

The wrestlers.

The crowd.

Everyone at the JPBC keeping things moving.

Then bell time.

And people doing what they love.

Professional wrestlers working the crowd.

The crowd working the wrestlers.

Little kids.

Big kids.

Old kids.

For a couple of hours, I spent my time ringside, worrying about shutter speed and framing the movement.

Turning toward the crowd gave me a break.

And a lot of laughs.

It was an eight-hour event for me, with an image count over 2,800.

Lots of action shots.

Some even usable.

And lots of crowd shots.

Watching the crowd during the action and in between.

Spinning the camera around whenever I heard a “Hey, Batman!”

Kids of all ages taunting.

And being taunted.

All in fun.

Mostly.

No flip-flops.

No knitting needles.

There are lots more pics to come, but you can see a few of the crowd shots here: Crowd views at JPBC

Mr. Berkley had a farm store, The Country Store maybe, if I remember correctly—at the bottom of the hill in Victoria, on the corner of 6^th and Main.

I remember going in with my dad when I was very young. It was a cinder block building that seemed cool and dark, full of whatever we needed to keep the farm going, I guess.

Bins of nails, bolts and hardware. Fencing. Feed. Shadows full of this and that.

There was an ice cream chest at the top of a couple of steps. I always hoped for banana popsicles if we opened it, and most times there were some.

There was a stand-up Pepsi box, with a glass framed door that opened to access the glass bottles inside beside the chest.

My dad and Mr. Berkley would handle whatever business they needed to, and I would wander many times.

David Hawks had an auto repair shop next door, attached to the farm store.

My older brother Buck worked there some.

I don’t remember the last time I was in Mr. Berkley’s store. And I don’t remember when the fire happened.

But there was a fire.

Years later, a new business, Data Care Computer Sales and Service, was built and opened there on the site and remains today.

David had moved down the street into a new shop years before.

Life moves on.

A few weeks ago, in Keysville where I work, we began to hear rumors about a corporate chain farm supply store looking to move into the area. Near the roundabout at Hwy 15 and Rt 360.

The rumors were confirmed this week when Charlotte County released information on the Tractor Supply Conditional Use Public Hearing scheduled for August 20, 2026.

It has a lot of people talking.

Both in favor and against.

I stopped by the roundabout Thursday evening after work to make a few photos.

A Facebook post I made later with the images started some conversations, with comments going both ways.

Conversations at Napa have been the same.

I live in Lunenburg but work in Charlotte County.

I have family and friends there.

I’m not against Tractor Supply. I like them just fine where they are. In a few places.

I’ve lived in places where it took twenty minutes to get to the store five miles away. I’m perfectly happy spending twenty minutes driving twenty miles here.

I understand why the “asphalt refugees,” as I call them, flock here. There is something valuable about living in a place where twenty miles can still mean twenty minutes—more or less.

That doesn’t mean Southside doesn’t need growth. We do.

We need grocery options.
We need places to eat.
We need retail.
We need jobs.
We need businesses that give young people another reason to stay.

But growth and improvement aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Read more

More than ten years ago, I was in Richmond reviewing one of my portfolios with a photography mentor.

We talked about the kind of work I wanted to make.

Environmental portraiture.

People in their own surroundings. Not studio portraits. Not carefully posed. Just people where life happens.

There was only one problem.

People.

I was barely comfortable photographing rocks and clouds.

I still haven’t done as much of that portrait work as I’d hoped. But looking back, I think Southside Vignettes has become an offshoot of that idea.

People.

Places.

Things.

The everyday life of Southside Virginia.

Sports photography is another unexpected branch of that same tree.

I’ve spent the past couple of years trying to learn it. Rocks and clouds don’t change direction at full speed, so there’s been a learning curve, but I’m finally beginning to understand the rhythm of it.

The math and magic in photography.

And it’s fun.

I had a great time on the sidelines with the Chargers last fall, catching Friday night football whenever work allowed. I photographed the action, but I also found myself watching the people.

The parents.

The grandparents.

The little brothers and sisters along the fence.

The teammates waiting their turn.

I also remember growing up and seeing photographs from Charger games and other school sports in the local newspaper. That was the big outlet then—even if you had to wait until next week to see them.

One thing I’ve realized while photographing local sports is that not everyone can be there.

Some parents are working.

Some grandparents can’t make the trip anymore.

Some families don’t have transportation.

Sometimes life simply gets in the way.

For some kids, one season is all they’ll ever play.

Sometimes one game.

Those moments deserve to be remembered too.

Football photographs in the local paper seemed scarce last year.

So whenever I can find my way to a sideline, baseline, or bleacher, I try to photograph as much as I can.

Not just the winning touchdown.

The determination.

The disappointment.

The celebration.

The quiet moments between plays.

Monday evening I stopped by Charger Field to test a little equipment I didn’t have last season and to see who I might be watching this fall.

Summer is slipping away.

Lunenburg County students head back to school tomorrow—nearly a month earlier than we used to.

It seems like the last school year just ended.

While I was downloading the practice pictures, I realized I had finished editing the final Charger baseball and soccer games from last spring...

...but never shared them.

Time has a way of getting ahead of us.

Pictures help us catch up.

Fractions of a second.

Moments most of us never see.

Or remember.

See the CHS vs Poquoson baseball game gallery from May 28 2026 here : CHS baseball

CHS vs Amelia soccer match from June 2 2026 gallery here: CHS soccer

Friday evening in a small town—or two.

I had to drop off parts in Kenbridge after work, and luckily I remembered there was a Food Truck Rodeo at the Farmers Market.

Dinner solved.

Archer’s BBQ, an old favorite, was there along with a few others. It changes from month to month.

Old friends catching up after a work week.

First-timers following something they’d heard about.

Families and neighbors sharing mealtimes.

I visited for a while, grabbed my barbecue, and headed toward home.

On the way, I remembered the Rotary Club was sponsoring Skate Night at the Victoria Community Center, so I stopped in there too.

The monthly skate night is open to the public and draws a crowd every time.

The old building needs some help and the nights benefit the center.

It’s a little different than when I was young.

There are more lights, for one thing.

Kids on skates.

Parents and grandparents lined along the wall.

Teenagers laughing.

Little ones learning to balance.

Learning to let go.

Learning to stop.

Older ones remembering when.

The places were different.

The reasons weren’t.

We still need places to gather.

We spend a lot of time worrying about what our small towns have lost.

Friday evening reminded me to notice what they still have.

Just another Friday night in a small town—or two.

See the full gallery from Friday evening here: Friday Night Two Towns

A few weeks ago, I shared some memories of Saturday afternoons and “rasslin’,” along with photographs from a wrestling event in Kenbridge a couple of years ago.

A few days later, I found myself back in Kenbridge for July Jubilee.

High noon. July. Full sun.

The wrestlers from Power Wrestling Resurgence were flying and crashing, beating and banging on each other...and occasionally ducking flip-flops.

Sometimes it’s hard to miss people doing what they love.

Some things never really change.

Good guys and bad guys.

Dirty rotten scoundrels.

Dirty deeds.

Working the crowd. Watching your back.

Some things are done for the love of money.

Some are done simply for the love of it.

That’s PWR.

Men and women giving up their Saturdays because they love entertaining a crowd. In some families, it’s a tradition passed from one generation to the next.

Small-town wrestling shows where the crowd boos the villains, cheers the heroes, little boys size up really grown men and little girls aren’t afraid to throw a flip-flop or two—a couple of times--at a bad guy.

Power Wrestling Resurgence returns this Saturday night, joining the Bruiser Wrestling Federation at the Joan Perry Brock Center on the Longwood University campus. The card includes appearances by WWE talent, along with a tag team championship match between The Faculty and The Stunners—two teams I photographed the last time they wrestled in Kenbridge.

Saturday night rasslin’.

Some traditions are worth keeping alive.

See the full album from the Kenbridge July Jubilee PWR card here:

PWR @ July Jubilee

See you in Farmville!

Peace and grease

Growing up in tobacco, we were taught early the value of hard work. And that every leaf was money.

We raised the plants.
We gave them everything they needed.
We tended them almost like family.

And hoped for the best.

Early mornings before the sun got high and hot.

Long-handled hoes chopping weeds and grass. Tending the plants closely.

A few acres of it.

Then came the back-breaking work.

Pulling.

Housing and curing.

Caring for every leaf as gently as we could.

In the mornings the tobacco was tender.
By afternoon it had toughened some.
Even then, we handled it carefully.

We had to.

Every leaf was money.

I heard about some storm damage Monday morning just outside of Kenbridge.

It was a friend’s crop that I had photographed in the greenhouse months ago. I had plans to photograph it in stages this season. But so far, life has had other plans.

Most the tobacco I first saw on Plank Road looked good—really good. Then, turning on Laurel Branch and coming up to the old bulk barns, it still looked good.

Further down Laurel though, the fields were catastrophic.

Acres and acres shredded by rain and hail.

Leaves lying in the rows that had been underwater.

And water still standing in places.

Hours after the assault.

Stalks standing stripped.

Every missing leaf was money.

Hope, hard work and income lay in the mud.

If you’ve spent much time around tobacco and know what “scalded” tobacco smells like, that’s what the fields smelled like Monday evening.

Further up the road, varying wind damage.

And a little further, barely touched.

Weather.

All the hard work in the world is no match for weather.

The family will salvage what they can, standing back up the plants that were blown over.

Hoping for survival.

It’s a gamble farmers take every year.

The family will salvage what they can.
Standing the blown plants back up.
Hoping they’ll survive.

Insurance helps.

But not everything has a dollar value.

Ryan Parrish kept it in perspective.

“At least no one was hurt.”

See the album from Monday evening here Parrish tobacco hail damage

I’ll probably always think of 1807 Main Street in Victoria as Keeton’s.

The building, constructed in 1925, housed Keeton’s Jewelers when I was growing up, and that’s what it will always be in my mind. I mostly remember Mr. and Mrs. Johns from the occasional trips we’d make there.

Somewhere along the way—when I wasn’t paying attention—the jewelry store closed, and Aylor Guns & Ammo moved in for a few years.

Since then, that storefront has quietly found its way into my photographs.

National Day of the Cowboy.

Christmas parades.

Storms.

Ordinary days on Main Street.

Just down the block, Victoria Drug Co. served the community for 75 years before closing in August 2025. Many customers made a smooth transition to Smith’s Pharmacy in Kenbridge, but Victoria lost something that had long been part of daily life.

There’s new life stirring on Main Street.

Something’s brewing.

Soon, 1807 Main Street—Keeton’s—will become the home of Southern Dominion Health System’s new community pharmacy.

And there is paper covering the door and windows at the old drug store on the corner.

You can’t fight if you can’t eat.

Summers in Southside Virginia can be oppressive. July 1781 was no exception. Contemporary accounts describe blistering heat and dry conditions—the kind of weather that turns a wooden mill into tinder.

On July 9, 1781, General Cornwallis sent Banastre Tarleton and a raiding party into Southside Virginia. The mission was simple: destroy anything that could help the Patriot cause.

Tarleton moved westward from Surry County through Dinwiddie, burned a large public granary in Amelia County, destroyed Worsham in Prince Edward County, and continued to their ultimate target—an arsenal in Bedford County.

The rebels were a step ahead. Tarleton arrived to an empty arsenal.

They rested a couple of days at the foothills of the Blue Ridge, raiding for provisions and fresh horses.

Tarleton’s return to Cornwallis took a detour when he learned of a trap awaiting him in Amelia. He turned further south, riding through Charlotte and Lunenburg Counties, raiding smokehouses and burning cropland.

Reverend James Craig wasn’t simply a country preacher. He was the Anglican minister of Cumberland Parish, a businessman, mill owner and community leader.

Craig purchased property just south of the modern town of Kenbridge in 1775 and built a complex that included a fulling and grist mill, grain storehouse, cloth-finishing shop, and blacksmith’s shop.

Despite his commitment to the Church of England, Craig was a supporter of the Revolution. And so was his mill complex, which served as a supply depot for the Patriot cause.

That made him—and his mill—a target for Tarleton when he detoured his raid through Southside and Lunenburg County.

On July 23, 1781, Tarleton’s troops swept into Craig’s mill complex. They looted what they could use, slaughtered livestock, burned crops, and even forced the good reverend to butcher his own hogs to feed the British soldiers.

It was hot and dry. The mill, and everything else in the complex burned easily.

Craig had sunk barrels of flour in the mill pond, a measure against fire and raids.

You can’t fight if you can’t eat.

Tarleton and his troops quickly moved on, returning to the Suffolk area the next day. They completed 400 miles in 15 days, in brutal Virginia summer heat and humidity. He would later note “The stores destroyed, either of a public or private nature, were not in quantity or value equivalent to the damage sustained in the skirmishes on the route, and the loss of men and horses by the excessive heat of the climate.”

Two hundred forty-five years later, I wanted to see what remained.

I first visited Flat Rock a few months ago when the Lunenburg County Historical Society featured an Open House with owner and host Bagley Reid.

Last week I returned to the property, with my friend Preacher Byrd (SSVI issue 4), and our guide and property neighbor Pete.

Three grown kids exploring history on a summer afternoon.

Looking for Reverend Craig’s old place.

And we found it.

A millstone.

Heavy timbers.

Stones cut with grooves and notches.

Stacked rock walls.

Pieces of a place that refused to disappear completely.

We found pieces and thought about how things were probably built. Like all 40+ year old boys do.

Imagined where the blacksmith shop might be.

Walked through the millpond.

By then, the creek had settled into the stillness of another brutally hot summer evening.

Made hopeful plans to return in the fall.

Tarleton was gone by the next day.

James Craig stayed.

He rebuilt his life, remained active in his church, and lived to see both American independence and the birth of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Virginia.

James Craig spent much of his life feeding people.

Sometimes their souls.

Sometimes their bodies.

In the summer of 1781, both mattered.

You can’t fight if you can’t eat.

Yesterday’s Southside Vignettes took us back inside Lunenburg Junior High.

In my rush to publish, I forgot to include the photo gallery that goes with the story.

If you’d like to walk those halls with me, you can find the photographs here:

https://www.rjbattephotography.com/lcjhs

Thank you for reading.

Peace and grease

I saw some pictures of my old primary school, Lunenburg Primary, posted online this week.

They made me think about the school that used to stand next door.

I knew it as Lunenburg Junior High.

It was where I spent seventh and eighth grades in the early 1980s.

A year or so before it was demolished, I slipped inside one quiet Sunday morning to see what was left.

The building had already lived several lives before I ever walked its halls. Education on the site stretched back to about 1920, when the African American community established the Lunenburg Training School. Rosenwald funding helped it grow. In 1949 the county built the brick school that became Lunenburg High School, and after desegregation in 1969 it became Lunenburg Junior High—the school I knew.

I don’t make it a habit of trespassing, usually. I know a lot of people, especially photographers, that would rather beg forgiveness than ask permission.

I try to be respectful, but sometimes, things just have to happen.

I wanted to go back and visit---see what was left of the school. So on a Sunday morning in February, I waited until I thought everyone would be in church and I slipped in through the old gymnatorium.

I could still hear the sneaker squeaks on the old hardwood floor.

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Don’t stop for a cheeseburger.

If you’ve been through Lunenburg Courthouse in the past week or so, you’ve probably noticed the white step van parked in front of the post office.

It’s not a food truck.

It’s a temporary post office while the real one is being renovated.

My cousin Ronnie and a partner bought the old Corner Grocery building a while back. The post office is in one end of it and has been there as long as I can remember. Now, the whole place is getting a new lease on life.

I mostly remember it from when Roosie Williams owned the store.

Ronnie and his family lived a mile or so behind it. His mother is my first cousin, so we’d often stop there on the way to visit. During hunting season, we’d stop if we were hunting with the Holders.

Years ago, if you drove by, chances are you’d find somebody sitting out front, watching the world go by.

Maybe a Seamster.

A Holder.

An Irby.

Or the old Buchanan couple.

Some of them are gone now.

The store has been closed for a long time.

But not the building.

A couple of weeks ago, while I was photographing the July 4 celebration across the road at the courthouse, I made a picture of the old store and sent it to Ronnie’s wife.

She told me about the renovations and explained why a post office was suddenly operating out of a white step van.

I’d driven by a couple of times, telling myself, I’ll stop next time.

So I finally did.

Even gutted, there wasn’t much room. Three grown men and a camera left about enough space to say hey, swap a few stories and laugh. Not much room for pictures.

Then Ronnie showed me something.

A cell shot of a picture he’d found renovating the old store..

His mom standing beside the gas pumps in front of Corner Grocery.

Around 1986 or 1987.

The family was getting ready to leave for Georgia to visit their oldest son, Alan, who was serving in the military.

Forty years later, the pumps are gone.

The groceries are gone.

The building is still serving the community.

Soon the renovations will be finished.

The step van will roll away.

The mail will move back inside.

But if you happen through Lunenburg Courthouse before then...

Keep driving into town.

Don’t stop for a cheeseburger.

I remember reading somewhere over the years a comparison between the towns of Victoria and Kenbridge here in Lunenburg County. Victoria was built by the railroad and carried itself a little quieter, a little more conservatively. Kenbridge grew as a tobacco market town, a place where commerce meant gathering, and gathering often meant putting on a show.

The writer even claimed the folks in Victoria preferred an earlier supper followed by a drink on the front porch. In Kenbridge, it was drinks first and supper later.

Whether that’s history or just good local storytelling, I don’t know.

Yesterday, Kenbridge did little to argue the point.

I had to work in Keysville that morning and couldn’t get away until after ten. By the time I reached Kenbridge, the parade had just ended.

I could see the flashing lights of the last fire truck disappearing up the street as people began drifting away from the sidewalks.

Almost.

Ahead, I spotted children playing in a yard, reached for the camera, and forgot all about missing the parade. Before I ever reached the park, I’d already stopped to make a handful of photographs.

The reason I’d come was wrestling.

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For more than a decade, tensions had grown between Great Britain and its thirteen American colonies over taxation, representation and the right to govern themselves. By the summer of 1776, protest had become war, and on July 4, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence.

Lunenburg County had already been around thirty years that July 4th.

Two hundred fifty years later, we gathered at the old red-clay brick courthouse to celebrate the country’s semi-quincentennial.

The celebration was organized by the Lunenburg County Historical Society in cooperation with the local chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution and Colonial Dames 17th Century.

A car show.

Veterans.

Re-enactors.

Public officials.

Clergy and a choir.

Children.

Descendants.

June Bee’s ice cream and Tin Can Coffee.

History lovers.

Neighbors.

Families.

And then the heat came.

That Southside Virginia July heat.

The smothering, oppressive kind.

All that still happened, but the program part of it moved inside.

Upstairs, the courtroom filled.

Singing.

Praise.

Speeches.

History.

Families.

Roots.

Futures.

Then back into the heat.

Some ran for ice cream.

Many had already scattered.

Some stayed.

Family photos.

History lessons.

During his welcome inside, my childhood friend and current mayor of Victoria, Allen Smith, mentioned being a kid in Victoria during the 200-year celebration.

There were a lot of us there.

Or so it seemed to a kid.

A few of those kids on the street in Victoria in 1976 were in the courthouse fifty years later.

I think I remember Joe Keeton and his mules.

Or maybe that was Carlyle Hurt.

I don’t remember it being as hot.

See the full album of the day here:

250th at Lunenburg Courthouse