The Writer Behind an Extraordinary Play

 

The popular “The Four Freshmen,” which sold out three times in Cluster Springs last month, was written and directed by a Halifax County native. The one-act play recalls the historic sit-in at a Greensboro, N.C., lunch counter in 1960.

“As a 4 or 5-year old living in Nathalie I recall listening to news reports of sit-ins at lunch counters and boycotts of public facilities,” says Diann Crews, the writer and director.. “At the time, I thought the protesters were being mean and disrespectful for breaking the law.”

 

As an African-American herself, “I vividly remember Jim Crow Laws as a child. I recall standing at the end of a lunch counter with my parents or a sibling to order food at Newberry’s and Roses five and dime stores, using the “Colored” restroom in Leggett’s Department Store and attending the Halifax County Fair on Thursdays, the only day we attended.” 

 

Times have changed, due in part because of the sit-ins and boycotts that led to the desegregation of lunch counters across the United States, including many southern states.

 

Crews sat down to write this play at the end of 2019 to commemorate the upcoming 60^th anniversary of the bold efforts of four freshmen: David Richmond, Ezell Blair, Jr., Joseph McNeil, and Franklin McCain, students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College, (known today as A&T University.) The play was performed for a high school audience near her current residence in Prince William County Virginia in 2020 with an all-high school cast. 

 

“I wanted to write the play from the perspective of an 18- or 19- year-old male, full of energy, believing that you can conquer the world, living in the most powerful nation on the planet, and yet experiencing the public treatment of a second class citizen,” she says.

 

Without the backing of any theater company, she asked young men in the area practically at random if they could take one of the lead roles. Others she found through word of mouth and eventually enlisted Ronald Lipscomb, Maquis Berkley, Kennedy Miller and David Pyles. Unfortunately, no encore show is planned now because they can’t find a common date to perform again. I didn’t know much about the sit-in and found the play informative and the acting quite good.

 

The 15 actors in the short, one-act play were predominantly African-American of varying complexions except for a white waitress played by Kathy Fraley. T­­he varying complexions of African-Americans allowed Crews to cast them in white roles, as it was extremely difficult for her to recruit whites.  

 

For years, Crews wrote plays intended for church audiences, but then she penned “A House Divided: The Desegregation of Schools,” based on the 1967 case of Betts v. County School Board of Halifax County, Virginia. The setting is a school board meeting, opened to the public, to discuss the highly contested topic of school desegregation.  The play, which was held at the Meadville Center on Chatham Road in 2017, drew an extremely large audience.  I would sure like to see this.

 

She took the play of “The Four Freshmen” to the TJM Community Center board, which readily approved the idea. “We thought it would be educational,” says Dale Miller, who owns the center’s building. “We thought it would benefit a lot of people who are not familiar with the story.” Miller purchased the former Cluster Springs Elementary School building from the county in 2019. “I decided to turn it into a community center to give back to the community,” says the retired corrections lieutenant, who is from Virgilina.  Proceeds from the show were divided by the center and the L.E. Coleman African American Museum.

 

Miller and others had fixed up the building and have hosted a seniors lunch with bingo and guest speakers once a month. There is also an exercise room and space for special events and the nicely finished auditorium.

.

 

 

 

Warning Signs of Trouble Ahead

 

When a conversation starts this way, look out! It means trouble.

 

--“Have a seat.”

--"We have been friends for a long time….”

--"With all due respect….”

--"We are happy to announce…”

--"Just sayin’.”

--“You know, I promised to be faithful…”

 

--“I just want what is best for you.”

--"I have a new and exciting opportunity for you.”

--"Don’t take this personally.”

--"I love you, but…”

--"If I offend you, I apologize in advance.”
--“This will be better for both of us…”

--"We need to have a talk.”

 

--“Don’t get all worked up! He is just a friend.”

--"Excuse me, but…”

--"I never told you this…”

--“Sir, may I see your driver’s license and car registration?”

--"I know I can be blunt.”

--"It’s a win-win.”

 

--"Don’t worry, but…”

--"In my humble and honest opinion…”

--“Our financial forecasts may have been a trifle optimistic.”

--"I hate to bother you…”.

--"I know that you are already hard-pressed for money…”

--"I hate to sound negative but….”

 

--“You know that intersection without any stop signs?

--"I can only blame myself.”

--"This has no strings attached.”

--“I told you I would never do this….”

--“You have always been a prized and valued customer.”

--“Do you have an attorney?”

 

Mdoan96@yahoo.com

 

Dusting Off Our Legacy

At an Ash Wednesday service years ago. the sweet, caring pastor, always so full of compliments, said as she put ashes on my forehead, "For you are dust and to dust you shall return.” What? How rude! I thought I was important!

 

Sometimes we become so full of ourselves that we miss the big picture: We are just a few of billions of people who will all be gone someday and be replaced by billions more.

 

The many articles I have written over time will have been long forgotten—unless I got sued, which never happened. Don’t we have any impact? I never thought of my father’s legacy as a part-tie opera singer, but he seems to have passed on a love of singing, which I didn’t acquire until long after he was gone.

 

What about my own legacy? I like to think two of my grandchildren, age 6 and 7, will remember me for a long time, and that is my form of immortality. After living next door for two years, the family moved to Blacksburg just a month ago. They called recently and said they missed me.

 

Once or twice a year, I see 14-year-old grandson of Pickett and her first husband, who does call me "Grandpa Mike." Living in California, he was often a difficult child, brilliant but antisocial We weren't close, but I appreciated it when he and two of his brothers went to see me singing as the Baker's father in "Into the Woods" here in South Boston. I didn't think the show registered, and he may have fallen asleep.

 

Then five years later, last May, we were sent a video of him and his classmates. He was performing in "Into the Woods." He had a solo as Jack in the Beanstalk, singing "Giants in the Sky." He sounded great.

 

Maybe we will all be dust, but that made me feel pretty good.

 

Mdoan96@yahoo.com

 

Rock Fest--Our Guests' Reaction

I feel like I went to the Blue Ridge Rock Festival. Oh, I didn’t have to wait in long lines, sit in the rain or endure 14 straight hours of loud hard rock music. If you manage a bed & breakfast, you don’t have to go anywhere: it all comes to you.

 

For over six months we had been fully booked for the big weekend Sept. 7-11, with 40,000 fans expected. In fact, we opened a new handicapped-accessible suite in a separate building just as the festival opened.

 

Guests told me stories about their experiences, both good and bad. The stage and venue were well-managed. There were no traffic problems—police must have done a great job. People were friendly. If a child was lost or somebody was hurt, they would just stop the show until it was resolved.

 

But the lines to get a bus from the parking lots ranged from 1 1/2 to 3  hours. People who camped avoided this but still had to wait to get in the venue. Garbage cans and toilet paper were scarce.

 

Music, though, was described as fabulous. There were so many bands. Melissa Griegel posted multiple videos of Alice Cooper, the famed rocker from eons ago, who is still running around on stage at age 74. I am not a heavy metal fan, but I did enjoy his act. I do remember his “School’s Out for Summer.”

 

Everyone seemed to love “Apocalyptica, a Finnish band of cellos playing heavy metal music. Now that must be a first! Also popular:  Day Seekers, which played its music acoustically when the power went out briefly. Among other favorites: Black Veil Brides, Motionless in White and Memphis May Fire.

 

One of my favorite guests was 26-year-old Izabela Hart of Salem, VA., who is blind and in a wheelchair. She has been going to rock festivals since she was 10, often accompanied by her mother and grandmother. The family credits Jonathan Slye and others with the festival for getting people with disabilities to the site as smoothly as possible.

 

Hart is quite well known on the music circuit, and bands often send her music to evaluate before they perform it. At one concert, a musician singled her out and the audience sang Happy Birthday to her. “So many people wanted to greet her, it took us 45 minutes to get to our van,” said her grandmother, Sherry Smith.

 

Over all, everyone thought the concert was a lot better handled than the tumultuous one last year in Pittsylvania County. Still, the long waits for shuttle buses and at the venue entrance need to be resolved.

 

Photo Izabela Hart with Randy Gluck.

 

Too Much Info--But a Happy Ending

 

As a journalist, I am a big booster of free information. But….

 

Within hours of having a tumor removed from under my right ear in July, I was startled to see the lab results show up quickly on the patient portal. “Follicular lymphoma,” were the key words.

 

What the hell does that mean? I turned to my medical expert: Google. “A slow-growing cancer.” OMG. I’m a dead man!

 

I had an appointment days later with the ear, nose & throat surgeon, who did a great job but doesn’t deal much with cancer. “I just know it is the slowest growing kind,” he said.

 

A PET Scan was done at Duke University Cancer Center several weeks later to see if the cancer had spread further in my body.  Results came back online within minutes:  Most of the body was clear, but a lymph node in the intestines “may represent additional sites of lymphoma. Recommend comparison to prior PET/CT imaging,” the report said.

 

Oh, no! Better work on my obituary! Chemotherapy here I come!

 

A friend who is a doctor calmed me down. “They’ll probably just tell you to come back in a few months and see if it has gotten any worse,” she said.

 

Which is exactly what happened. The oncologist said my past medical records show that the lymphoma has probably been there for many years and hasn’t gotten any worse. Come back in four months to look under your ear and in another year for a full scan. Go home, don’t worry about it

.

I asked him why I got medical records before he ever saw them. A 2021 law makes health care providers give patients access to health information without delay, even if the doctor has not looked at it yet. It is not clear to me, though, if they have to post everything to everybody right away. There is an option to opt out of receiving health records, and you can choose not to look at them. But how can you not?

 

 Many doctors don’t like getting anxious calls from patients who have just seen their records.

 

“You should write about it,” my doctor said.

 

So I did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making Things Right at School Reunions

Class reunions can be nail-biting experiences. Apparently the 50th high school reunion is a time for making amends. At mine, as soon as dinner was over, a woman walked up to me.

“Hi. Do you remember the time you sat down after the Pledge of Allegiance in the first grade and you crashed to the floor instead of finding your chair?”

“Yes,” I said. “It still hurts,” I lied.

“Well, I pulled the chair out from under you.”

“Really? Why?”

“I don’t know,” she said and left.

I guess that was an apology, though she didn’t say so.
We didn’t stay long afterward because my wife didn’t know anybody. A few days later, I got a phone message from probably the most popular guy in high school. I was puzzled because I barely knew him at all and didn’t mix in his circle.

I called him back. “I want to apologize for beating up on you in the 12th grade,” he said. Huh? I barely remembered. Well, yes, he and another guy in physics class bet each other on whether they could make this shy, reserved student mad.

While the teacher wasn’t looking, they slapped me on the back of the head. The guy who bet on making me mad won. Of course, the teacher raised hell. But I soon forgot about it, writing it off as a prank by stupid kids, which it was.

For apologizing, I guess Mr. Popular felt better about himself, but I didn’t really like it. I didn’t recall being a victim of bullying in school but now felt like one.

Then came my 50th college reunion at the University of California at Berkeley, an enormous university, which was a great place to learn about journalism in the 1960s but not that good for making friends. I knew no one at the quite small reunion. Not a soul!

Then I compared high schools with one stranger. When I told him I went to El Cerrito High, he said, “Oh, so did my wife. I’ll have you talk to her.” She walked up and I didn’t recognize her, but she told me her name. Amazed, I said, “Wow. I took you to the senior prom!”

“No, you didn’t,” she said. “I went with the man who is now my husband.”

“Yes, you did,” I insisted. “How could I forget that!”
Then she said, “Oh, that must have been in my junior year. I went with my husband in my senior year.”

Her husband had been listening. Suddenly, the two left and had a heated conversation away from the crowd. Were they already a couple when I dated her?

He was furious because she never told him about me. I was steaming because she didn’t even remember me.

I skipped the next reunion.

Our Electrifying Car Experiences

 

• A published Aug. 25, 2022 in the South Boston (VA) News & Record
• By Mike Doan
  

You don’t see many Teslas in Halifax County. “What do you like about it?” I get asked at the Food Lion parking lot in South Boston. “Is it really cheaper than using gasoline?” I’m asked at a church gathering.

We bought a Nissan Leaf electric car first after Tesla installed chargers at no cost to our bed & breakfast because there were so few chargers in the area. Let’s get an electric car too, we decided. They’ll definitely reduce our carbon footprint and save on gas, too.

The Leaf was a great start, but it could only run about 110 miles on a charge. Twice we ran out of fuel when we got lost on a trip. Once it was at a gas station, quite embarrassing! A tow truck had to rescue us. And when there were fewer than 10 miles left on a charge, the car’s speaker system would start screaming at us and we would go into a panic until we found a charger. 

We’ve had better luck for our longer trips with our Tesla 3 (Standard Range +), which can go up to 220 miles on a charge, though long range Teslas can go 315 miles. The car cost us about $40,000 in 2022, about the average price for a new car. (Next year buyers can get a $7,500 tax credit). We can plug it in at home and when traveling recharge it at a supercharger, which can fill it up in half an hour for $15 to $20. That’s about 5-10 cents a mile when away from home, compared to about 15 cents for a gasoline vehicle. However, if you plug the car in to a socket at home, you’ll save more.

So what do we like? The acceleration is amazing. The ride is smooth and quiet. You can warm up the car in winter from home with a app. Your phone controls the door locks. The sound system is awesome. Pedestrians walking in front of us set off an alarm. You can follow another car in heavy traffic and the car will slow down and speed up automatically. Voice commands can tell the A/C to ramp up or the GPS to take you home. There’s the “dog mode,” which can keep the A/C on if you briefly leave the dog in the car and tells concerned onlookers on the screen not to worry! Other automakers are starting to catch up with these innovations.

Then there is an auto-pilot feature that keeps the car from moving out of its lane. I don’t use it because it tends to make me sleepy!  If we had spent more on the ‘full self driving option’, we could have gotten it to stop at stoplights and pick us up in a parking lot.

There is virtually no maintenance required—except for rotating the tires and filling the wiper fluid. The car doesn’t become outdated because features are updated regularly via wi-fi signals sent by the manufacturer.

The big screen on the dashboard can be confusing. The first time my wife Pickett drove the car, it rained and she couldn’t figure out how to start the windshield wipers, which did not turn on when they are supposed to when the window gets wet.

Perhaps the most fun moment came when a local friend asked if his 12-year-old nephew could interview me for a class paper he was writing about Teslas. I let the boy ride with me, and he was totally awestruck by everything about it. Afterward, he wrote me a thank-you note, indicating it was one of the high points of his young life. Awww!

 

 

 

Who Needs an Office? Newcomers Love it Here

 

Look for more people from urban areas to move to Halifax County, where folks are friendly, traffic is light and housing is inexpensive. Guests at Oak Grove Bed & Breakfast who are seeking property say they can work from home and don’t have to commute long distances to work in crowded offices.

 

One couple threw a dart at a map and somehow ended up in Cluster Springs. “We wanted to get out of Miami and live a simpler lifestyle,” says Alejandra Martinez. “So we took a road trip, got a realtor and the rest is history!” She and husband Francisco and son Frankie stayed at the B&B before settling on a house a half mile from us.. “What I love is the freedom we have,” she says.. “We can practically start work at any time and end any time.” Our son is home schooled and he has the same freedom.” Francisco is an engineer who designs solar panels for a company in the West. She works as a virtual administrative assistant under  CEOs from Texas, New Jersey, Arizona and India.  She blended in fast and sang at Constitution Square just before the July 4 fireworks.

 

Ray Weiss and Susan Black moved from northern Virginia to Halifax in 2020 during the pandemic. “We don't have to worry about going back into an office and we are very happy about that,” Weiss says. “We started volunteering at the Prizery this year because we would go to events there and thought it would be fun to help out. We love it here in Halifax and at the Prizery

 

Keith Washo came to Halifax from the Raleigh, mainly because he fell in love with Chelsey Garrett, who manages the Edward Jones office in Halifax. But he could also move because his tech job with Adaptive Sound Technologies allowed him to work remotely. As a musician, he also found “Halifax County a quiet, peaceful setting for writing and composing.” Since arriving, he has offered soccer camps via the YMCA and music shows and a song-writing class at The Prizery.

 

Brittny Valdes calls her move to Halifax County “a match made in heaven.” A native of the Miami area, she worked with her friend Mark Anthony to paint a mural in the Halifax Farmers Market. Soon she landed her current job as box office manager for The Prizery and occasionally freelances for the News & Record. “This community has accepted and supported me since day one,” she says. “I It’s changed my life and made it better.”

 

Two of our other guests who found a home here were Loretta and Bertram Cuffley, who moved from Stamford, Conn.  in 2013. “We were searching for an old house between Southern Virginia and North Carolina for early retirement,” she says. “Aside from the low cost of housing and taxes, people were welcoming, and the Prizery was a bonus. The proximity to major cities was also an attraction. We love it here.”

 

Scotty Felton, realtor at Long & Foster, reports, “Since covid, some people have come here because of the ability to work from home.  The only challenges right now are a shortage of available homes and inability to get Internet in some areas. That could change with new efforts to extend Wi-Fi coverage in rural areas.

 

Persistence Pays Off for Diva

 

 

News of Kelly Glyptis’ starring role in London brings back wonderful memories of my six seasons as a local in Prizery Summer Theater musicals.

 

Long before she landed her treasured role as Carlotta in Phantom of the Opera, on Aug. 1, she had been a mainstay in The Prizery’s summer stock productions from 2016 to 2018 while not on tour with opera companies.

 

Her director, Chris Jones, told me: “I first met Kelly when the Virginia Opera came to The Prizery. After the performance, I took the company to Bistro 1888 for a late dinner! We bonded immediately and went on and on about our Summer Theater. Kelly was impressed. So when I called and offered her a job she immediately said yes!”

 

In one production with her, I particularly remember her marvelous rendition of “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” in Carousel. One advantage of being in those shows is getting to hear something like that in performance and rehearsal about 20 times.

 

In “Into the Woods,” her song “Last Midnight,” as the witch, was a cue for me to get on stage as the Mysterious Man for my duet “No More,” with the Baker.

 

Kelly wasn’t just a singer and actress. She was licensed as a fight choreographer, though she sure didn’t look like a fighter!  Once she was assigned to help me tumble down a flight of stairs and land on top of Jack in the Beanstalk without getting hurt. After a few tries, I got really grumpy and told her to forget it. I mean, I was 75 years old! The last thing I wanted to do was fall down the stairs! She took it gracefully.

 

There were so many other memories: Katie Holland’s parents showing up at every performance in which she danced. Evan and Lydia Snead blossoming on stage. Jacob Waid’s magnificent “Bring Him Home” solo in Les Miserables, and two Prizery actors, Fergie L. Philippe and Tyler McKenzie, joining Hamilton on Broadway.

 

At The Prizery’s request, I pursued a story about Glyptis’s new role, though I was scooped by the News & Record’s wonderful article by Victoria Thompson! Though five hours away, Glyptis was quite responsive to my inquires over iMessenger, even answering a few questions between acts.

 

What impressed me most was her persistence with her craft. Though Summer Theater may not have advanced her opera career, her six musicals certainly gave her experience in a fairly new field for her. She wasn’t afraid to break loose and try her hand on another continent. In London, she had a great deal of success before joining the theater company of Andrew Lloyd Webber, probably the greatest living musical theater composer.

And in her role as a precocious prima donna, she got to be an opera singer—just what she set out to do in the first place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Moveable Feast for Hungry Dogs

 

 

If you ride bikes on the Halifax County roads, you might encounter nasty dogs. I have a few dogs of my own that wouldn’t mind scaring the daylights out of cyclists for fun, but they are too far from the road.

 

Most dogs are harmless, but what do you do when a ferocious, chasing mutt looks like it wants to put bite marks on your pants? Personally, I use a spray called “Halt” if they get too close. (As long as I don’t spray myself.) I kept it in my pocket until a boxer on Old Cluster Springs Road took a chunk out of my right leg about 10 years ago. He was quarantined for a few days and then was out on the road yapping at bikers like before. I avoided that road for years.

 

I asked other bike riders what they do about dogs. Walter Hampton, who has since moved to Front Royal, uses an electronic gadget that harmlessly jolts threatening dogs as they approach. Ray Weiss of Halifax takes his water bottle and squirts or dumps it on the dog, and I have seen it work. Bob Plapp of South Boston simply boasts, “I outrun them!”

 

Otherwise, I find the county a great place to ride, but I do it only in good light and on roads with little traffic. There are so few riders, you can set records. According to the ride tracking app Strava, I am a “local legend” for having made the “Stokes Creek Climb to Old Cluster” more than anyone in the last 90 days. Wow. I don’t even know where that is, but it sure isn’t steep.

 

I guess one group that thinks it is steep is the Hampton Roads Bicycle Club, which came to our B&B to experience the lightly traveled roads about 20 years ago. Mostly they sat around the fireplace. While it was raining lightly, many of them complained that it was too hilly here. What? Well, maybe compared to Hampton Roads! Those who actually rode ended at Breezy Oaks Farm Bed & Breakfast, where everyone stopped for a massage and decided to quit for the day.

 

I started riding here at age 57, when one of our guests invited me to go with him on our dirt trails. Who, me? Well, why not? I had already been riding an exercise bicycle, which uses the same muscles. I couldn’t keep up with him, but I was sold! Afterward, I commuted to work by bike for years in Washington, turning the worst two hours of the day into the two best.  It wasn’t all perfect. I collided with another bicyclist in front of the Treasury building and was hospitalized briefly with a concussion. I was rescued by the Secret Service! I must be important!

 

In the Cluster Springs area, I like riding on Link-Puryear Road, Old Cluster Springs Road, German Creek Road and Cherry Hill Church Road. I used to go on some great rides into North Carolina, particularly on Bethel Hill Road.

 

The biggest advance for biking around here has been the Tobacco Heritage Trail, which was expanded from 2 ½ miles to 4 miles a couple of years ago. That round trip is usually enough for me. It is well maintained and popular among our guests as well. It’s encouraging to see children on bikes, a good sign for the future.

And , with leashes required, you (probably) don’t have to worry about getting bitten by a dog.