Where are we? (Part 4)

In Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this Cogito series about Richmond places and things, you readers have been really knowledgeable about the city.

So let’s make it a little harder this time.
   
Look at the picture of the Roman wearing a toga in the picture above.

Who is she?

Yes, she actually has a name. Don’t ask me how I know this bit of trivia. But I do.

If you, too, know (remember that Google can be your friend if you use the right search words), click on the word comments below and let me know.

(If you’re coming in during the middle of this exercise on how well you know Richmond, you can start from the beginning by clicking here.)

Going back to yesterday’s image and question, my nephew Mike got it right -- both times. The Bill’s Barbecue that had stood on that now-empty lot for decades is gone. The company shut down its operations in 2012. And Mike was right when he said the restaurant was called Virginia Barbecue before it became a Bill’s Barbecue.

I should point out that Mike and his wife spent some time in their kitchen creating their own version of Bill’s famous sauce. They worked backwards from the ingredients on the label of a bottle of the real thing. The label didn’t list proportions. But after much experimenting, Mike and Becky came up with a version so good that I can’t tell it from my memories of the real thing. They shared bottles of it with the family. I still have half a bottle in my fridge. I’m using it sparingly to make it last.

Thank you, Mike and Becky.

Where are we? (Part 3)

Jenny wins again in Cogito’s series asking readers to identify well-known Richmond places and buildings. She was the first to say that the Part 2 image was of the 124-foot tower of Boatwright Memorial Library at the University of Richmond.

She even included in her comment a link to a Web page with lots of info about the UR library, in which I and others in the family spent many hours studying for our undergraduate degrees.

Now, here’s an easy one for Part 3 of this fun exercise. And it’s a bit different. Clearly, in the image above, an empty lot is in the foreground. Here’s the question: What used to stand on that empty lot just a couple of years ago? It might not fit the standard definition of a landmark, but it certainly was one for more than a few generations.

(If you’re coming in during the middle of this exercise on how well you know Richmond, you can start from the beginning by clicking here.)

Where are we? (Part 2)

Congratulations go to Jenny for correctly identifying St. John’s Episcopal Church despite all of the scaffolding in yesterday’s photo. Walter followed close behind with the same correct answer.

St. John’s is Richmond’s oldest church, founded in 1741. In a speech Patrick Henry made to the Virginia Convention in 1775, he encouraged rebellion against King George III by proclaiming “Give me liberty or give me death!”

(I delivered Patrick Henry’s “liberty or death” speech as a 13-year-old -- complete with period costume -- center stage at what was then known as The Mosque. It was a citywide schools program, if I recall correctly. I forget what occasioned the production. My parents were inordinately proud of the fact that I got it right, with no stumbles. Lord knows I must have driven the family crazy with my declaiming in the weeks leading up to the performance.)

Today’s image (above) is one that disguises its subject by showing merely a portion of it.

Who’ll be the first to identify this Richmond landmark?

Where are we? (Part 1)

Okay, let’s shake things up a bit.

I’ve been losing some of my regular Cogito readers lately. And it’s my fault.

Back before Christmas, I had a kidney stone extracted the hard way. About a month or so later, I had the flu. I lost some of my old energy for a while. But now I’m back on track and determined to offer up enough fresh blog posts to get back into the swing of things. So let’s have some fun.

As a native Richmonder, I love the city. I love discovering places I’d never known about, and I love the city’s architecture, its history and the way Richmond continually changes and adapts. Living in Richmond is like rowing a boat: We’re moving forward, and we’re always looking back at where we’ve been.

So let’s see how good you are at recognizing the city.

The image above presents a landmark in a way you’ve perhaps never seen before. What is it? Where is it? (Click on the picture to see a larger image.)

If you think you know, click on the word comments below and offer your answer.

I’ll be posting images of places in and around Richmond every couple of days for a while.

There’s no prize. The fun will be in knowing and learning more about Richmond.


   

A dream deferred

For the better part of my junior year in high school, I looked forward eagerly to the annual Spanish class senior trip to Havana.

It never happened. Fidel Castro came swooping down from Cuba’s mountains and overthrew Fulgencio Battista and his government.

(I was always enamored of Battista’s first name: Full-HEN-see-oh. It rolls off the tongue so fluidly.)

The class ahead of me at Hermitage High School -- the class of 1959 -- was the last to make the trip, by train and boat, to visit a country where the populace spoke Spanish and the students could practice their own language skills.

A year later, when I was a high school senior, all trips to Cuba were off. Castro’s government effectively closed the island.

I had been seriously looking forward to going to Cuba. The trip would have been packed with new experiences. I had never ridden a train before. I had never been on a boat larger than a rowboat. I had never been out of the country. It was to be a trip full of new adventures. I was to be the first in my family to travel abroad.

I didn’t quite know what to expect. I had my fantasies -- based on what returning seniors had told us about their trips -- but there was nothing in my life at that point to base those speculations on. I so wanted to do and feel and live such an exotic experience. But it was not to be.

Now, today, 55 years later, it looks like it might just be possible after all for Americans to take a trip to Cuba in the not too distant future.

That travel experience I never had as a 16-year-old kid was probably the spark in coming years behind my desire to know what it was like to visit and even live in other countries, a longing that grew and matured by the time I was in my early 20s. Since then, I have been to London and Amsterdam dozens of times. I have lived in Germany and traveled extensively in Italy, Spain, France, Belgium, Luxembourg and The Netherlands. I have visited most of the Caribbean islands and enjoyed the foods and colors and wonders of crowded Caracas.

It’s been quite an experience, one I never expected to have and would not trade for all the tea in China.

But I still haven’t been to Cuba.

Now, it’s a possibility. Would I book a trip tomorrow if it were possible?

I don’t know. I am 72 and travel isn’t as easy and breezy as it once was. I can still do it, but travel has become more and more of a pain in the tuccus since 2001.

Cuba, however, would complete the circle. It would be the journey that never was.

What color is your new car?

I forged ahead from 1999 to 2015 last week.

For the first time in 16 years, I bought a new car. Brand new. It had a total of 32 miles on it, most of that from other car shoppers who had taken it for a test drive.

“Don’t you just love it?” the salesman asked me.

“No.” was my response, and he looked crestfallen. “I like it, but I don’t love it. I love my cat. I love my family. I like the car.”

I have never been one of those guys who truly believe that a car says something about themselves. It’s a means of transportation, nothing more. It’ll get me from Point A to Point B. And with any luck, it’ll do that safely and reliably for many years. I don’t much care if it makes me look cool or manly. I just want it to get me safely there and back.

I did my due diligence, learning as much as I could about safety and reliability in new cars. ABS? Check. Stability control? Check. A real spare tire? Check. And so on. Consumer Reports was my main guideline. I used Internet research and discussion lists to learn more. Comfortable to drive? Check. Good sound system? Check. Enough trunk room? Check.

Then I made my choice. I negotiated well, and I met my price point. I am satisfied that I got the best car I could at a price that was good.

The whole process, from starting my research to writing a check at the dealership, took about five weeks -- research occupying the vast majority of that time.

What surprised me most was the first question -- without fail -- when I told friends I had bought a new car. “What color?” each one asked.

Color wasn’t even on my radar.

It could have been plaid for all I care.

But silver is nice.

And the interior smells really good, too.

LLAP

I watched the debut of the Star Trek series on NBC in 1966 in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Why was I in Wichita Falls, Texas? I was at Sheppard AFB for training on my way to becoming an operating-room medic. After long days of classroom instruction and mock operations, the Airman’s Club at Sheppard was a big draw for most of us.

Those of us who gathered around the color TV in the Airman’s Club on September 8, 1966, were immediately drawn to Star Trek. We were accustomed to a diet of movies and TV about space exploration that consisted of programs like the poorly animated Clutch Cargo series or the ridiculously childish Lost in Space.

Star Trek took deep space stories to a whole new level: plausible, literate sci-fi television.

(Did you know that the series was almost called Wagon Train to the Stars? No kidding.)

We liked Captain Kirk, Lieutenant Uhura, Dr. “Bones” McCoy and engineer Montgomery Scott. But it was Mr. Spock that most intrigued us.

He was implacably and resolutely logical.

Spock was the human-alien First Officer on the Starship Enterprise. He had pointy ears and hailed from a planet known as Vulcan. He could probe others’ minds and efficiently and quietly disable humans with a squeeze on the shoulder.

Spock defined cool in 1966.

Leonard Nimoy played Spock for all three seasons of the show. Nimoy died Friday at the age of 83.

Star Trek gave us much more than three years of entertainment. I believe the series gave those of us who were coming of age in 1966 permission to object to what our governments were doing. As the war in Vietnam was ramping up, it reinforced our desire to speak up and protest.

It was all summed up in the prime directive for the 23rd-century guiding principles of the United Federation of Planets: Starfleet personnel are prohibited from interfering with the internal development of lesser alien civilizations.

The emphasis of the prime directive, which was first specifically introduced in a 1967 episode titled The Return of the Archons, reminded Starfleet personnel that it was particularly dangerous to use their superior technology to impose their own values or ideals on undeveloped civilizations.

The appeal of the series to young adults of the time, I think, was that it dealt with vexing problems in deep space in mature and compassionate ways that reflected the ideals we wished our present-day world might adopt. It buffered Captain Kirk’s occasional tendency towards aggression and value-imposition with Spock’s absolute logic.

“We could do that here on Earth,” our young minds concluded.
   
Now, we mark the passing of an icon of our youth.

The best tribute possible to Leonard Nimoy I think -- at least from my 21st-century perspective -- was offered, appropriately, by astronaut Terry Virts, who is right now circling Earth on the International Space Station. He tweeted the image you see above. 

If you’re a fan of the series, you know what it means.