MonthJanuary 2015

This mini-post links to a post on Nostlgic Virginian's sister website, Byte Cellar, a vintage computing blog. It is included here becuase the post in question is significantly tied to happenings or locales in the state of Virginia.

LINK: It Was More Fun When Stores Had Arcade Games

Beethoven’s Inn — Oh, How I Miss Thee

beethovens_inn_sqFrom birth to present I’ve lived in Williamsburg exactly one summer and one full year.

The summer I speak of was in 1986 when my mother, father, and I moved from Dandy in York County to Kingspoint in Williamsburg. The morning after the move, my parents decided to get a divorce, and so that Williamsburg stay was limited to one summer. I was disappointed (on a few counts).

My second stint as a citizen of Williamsburg came after I graduated CNU and moved to an apartment there, where I lived while working for an engineering firm in Newport News. The year was 1996 — ten years later.

While I’ve spent a rather small percentage of my life as a Williamsburg resident, I’ve spent a great deal of time in Williamsburg. I love the colonial atmosphere and have enjoyed frequently visiting with my family, as both child and adult. I also had a habit of dating Williamsburg girls in my youth (and outside that, those I met in Williamsburg, at any rate). Ahh, the romance of Williamsburg…

Nowadays, most of my family’s visits are centered around the Great Wolf Lodge, which my daughter loves. But at each visit my mind wanders back — far back — to people and places that were truly special to me. One of them is the now defunct Beethoven’s Inn which was located on Merrimac Trail in Williamsburg.

Beethoven’s Inn was a special place. It was a New York-style deli that was opened by Jim Wesson on December 16, 1975, 205 years — to the day — after Beethoven’s birth.

Continue reading…

Yorktown’s 1977 Bicentennial Time Capsule Ceremony

Taylor and Warner at Bicentennial Ceremony

I grew up in an area of York County known as Dandy. It’s located just a few miles from historic Yorktown and its Revolutionary War battlefield and historic museums. My family spent a lot of time in Yorktown when I was young, and one of my earliest memories of Yorktown proper is the April 1977 burial of a time capsule on the grounds of the Yorktown Victory Center in celebration of the American Revolution Bicentennial.

1097103_10151597728728129_1204954903_oThe event took place on Friday, April 15th and was presided over by then-Governor Mills Godwin. Notably in attendance were then-Senator John Warner and his wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor. During the procession, the bullet-shaped time capsule was filled with a variety of items, including a letter written by Godwin to a future governor, a Bicentennial pen worn by Warner in his travels across the country during the Bicentennial year 1976, and a red bandana donated by Taylor used in her film Giant (filmed, in-part, in Virginia).

Continue reading…

Welcome to My New Blog!

blake_kite_yorktown_1975

Let me welcome you to Nostalgic Virginian, a blog that I conceived several years ago and has finally been born. For, you see, I happen to be a nostalgic Virginian.

This is a place where I look forward to openly sharing a few stand-out memories of people, places, and experiences that I formed over the years living all my life here in Virginia. It is my hope that a few geographically similar, like-minded people will find this blog and have their memories occasionally stirred by my accounts and, if so inspired, share their own thoughts and memories in the comments.

That’s what this blog is all about, in a nutshell. More details can be found in my About Page, for the intrigued.

This is going to be fun. Welcome and enjoy.

[ Photo is of me at age three or so (~1975), flying a kite in my front yard in Dandy (York County) where the York River meets The Bay ]

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