The week’s top stories
-Many drivers have experienced running out of gas, but Caroline resident Phyllis Wilson said when she did so last week — and called her son for help — he ended up with a county sheriff’s deputy pointing a gun at him. Wilson told her story to Taft Coghill Jr.
-It came near the end of a meeting that lasted longer than nine hours, but the Stafford County Board of Supervisors last week enacted what are believed to be the strictest data center regulations in Virginia. Developers probably weren’t pleased, but a data center watchdog group sure was.
-Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg came to Fredericksburg last week to rally local Democrats in the push toward the Nov. 4 election. The former presidential candidate fired up volunteers before they headed out for door-to-door campaigning.
-Gov. Glenn Youngkin came to Spotsylvania County on Friday, and he talked to reporters about the political news of the day. But mainly he was in the area to help dedicate a new mental health crisis receiving center. The region no longer will be a mental health ‘desert,’ he said.
-We’re used to historic preservationists in the Fredericksburg area, but you might call Mike Meyer an art preservationist. Kathy Knotts details Meyer’s work and offers a look into the gallery he and his wife run on Caroline Street. The story is in Free Time, our weekly arts and entertainment newsletter.
Go figures (numbers in the news)
More than 2,000 — Number of people who attended the recent “No Kings 2.0” rally in Fredericksburg, one of a worldwide series of protests held to demonstrate against the actions of the Trump administration.
Scenes from the sideline
PHOTOS: Courtland edges Caroline in Battlefield District action
What they’re saying
“I never put my hands on anyone,” –Monica Gary, Stafford County supervisor. She was arrested recently and charged with assault and battery of a family member, but she says she hasn’t harmed anybody.
Pressing on (a look at the week ahead)
-Stafford’s Planning Commission on Wednesday will hold a public hearing on the proposal to build a Buc-ee’s in the central part of the county. Buc-ee’s is popular in other parts of the country, but some Stafford residents are adamantly against the convenience-store chain’s project.
From the editor’s desk
There is one criticism that can never be lodged in good faith against the City of Fredericksburg: that it lacks adequate Halloween activities for school-aged children.
Ask me how I know this.
Around 4:30 p.m. Friday, I found myself arranging a green blanket atop plushies in the back of our Subaru Outback. This was the backdrop to the “butterfly forest” theme we’d chosen for the City Schools’ “Trunk or Treat.” After merely participating last year, our family elected to be one of the “trunks” for this year’s division-wide event, which was held in a side parking lot at James Monroe High School.
Molasses, a realistic-looking cat purchased from Possum-bilities, keeps guard over the columnist’s trunk.
It proved a not-insignificant investment, both financially and from a time standpoint; over the course of two and a half hours, we went through about eight large bags of candy. Food trucks (including Shawarma Rama, which I finally got to try), competing light displays and music gave street festival vibes, and, of course, the kids and their costumes stole the show.
We left around 8 p.m., with my daughter (also a butterfly) asking if she could fall asleep on the ride home (we live three blocks away).
It required Advil, not to mention a certain degree of masochism, to get out the door by 10 a.m. Saturday for the second saccharine occasion of the weekend: Treats on the Streets.
For two hours, downtown businesses on both sides of Caroline Street are subjected to a steady stream of children and families navigating a queue that makes the DMV appear as a tempting model of efficiency. Those of us parents who’d been at “Trunk or Treat” hours earlier acknowledged one another in passing with solemn nods, like members of a secret, sleep-deprived fraternal organization.
We had the good fortune to link with one of my daughter’s best friends from school for the hour-plus we worked the circuit. Their bond proved symbiotic: she helped him overcome an idiosyncratic fear of fairies (of which we encountered plenty), and he helped her stay on task and overcome the compulsion to stop and ask every stranger: “What grade do you think I’m in?”
Snark aside, there are certain things you just do when you have kids.
And, if it ends up raining a cantaros on Halloween, who cares? We’ve already done the damn thing twice.
-Joey LoMonaco
