You're Not Supposed to Get Caught!

I was standing in my parents’ driveway, talking with my dad about the mess of squirrels he shot for Peony (she has been wanting to try squirrel).  Dad had gone hunting on his and his brothers’ land in Caroline County, Virginia, land that is across the road from Fort AP Hill. 

Dad, reminiscing, said to me, “Those woods are real interesting,”

“What? At Caroline?” I replied, thinking he meant the old graves. 

“AP Hill.  My father owned land there, until the government took it.”

“Took it?” I asked.

“Well, they paid him for it, but, you know, not much.  They have about seventy thousand acres over there.”

“Seventy thousand acres?” I asked, amazed.

  “Yup.  There used to be a town, Brandywine, but I guess they took over that, too.  Used to be able to walk through the empty town, look at the old buildings.”

He paused, looking up at the leaves blowing on the wind.  “Me, Ronnie, Sonny, we used to sneak over there and find all kinds of neat stuff in the woods.  Used to be you’d find ammo belts with ammo still in them.  Knives, stuff like that.”

“Lost from training exercises?”  I asked.

He looked at me and nodded, “Yup.  They train ‘em there.  One time we found an old tank.  Tried to start it.”  He laughed.  

 “Sometimes we’d get caught, they’d take us back to the base, feed us, then call Daddy.”

“They fed you?!”  I repeated, amazed again.

“Yeah.  They’d call Daddy to come get us, and we didn’t want them to do that, but they did.  He’d come pick us up.  He’d be mad.  Cuss me up one side and down the other.  He’d say, ‘What are you doing?!  You’re not supposed to get caught!'”  Dad growled this last part in what I think of as Ornery PawPaw Voice. 

 “Yeah,” Dad said, “I think he was more mad because he had to come get us.   You sure couldn’t do all that today.  Nope.”

I chuckled, thinking.  'You’re not supposed to get caught.'   Most parents would say "You're not supposed to be there."  

Ah, PawPaw. 

So That's It

THIS BLOG MAY OR MAY NOT BE BASED ON TRUE STORIES.  I DUNNO.
ANY RESEMBLANCE TO PEOPLE ALIVE OR DEAD IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL.
STORIES MUST NOT BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY.
THEY ARE PURELY FOR FUN.
BECAUSE THESE STORIES MAY OR MAY NOT BE TRUE, NO ONE CAN BE HELD RESPONSIBLE.

Glass Bricks ~ 29 Diner

When I was a kid and would spend the night at Gramaw's house in the City of Fairfax, she would sometimes take me to the 29 Diner so she could enjoy some nighttime coffee and pie.  Gramaw chatted happily with the waitresses and me while the Jukebox played. 

On the occasions I went there with my dad, he'd point to the corner booth and tell me that's where he used to do his homework while Gramaw worked, waitressing and cooking, late at night, and he would fall asleep in the booth.


When I worked for my dad in the summer at John's Auto Repair, I was in the diner a few times a week, or if my friends and I were out late and hungry, we'd go in. 

Gramaw helped my PawPaw build the foundation for that diner.  The only story I remember her telling me is that she drove the dump truck with her twin babies in the front seat, using a blanket-filled box to create a nest for them.  It was around 1942--no car seat laws would be made for years.

My family has a lot of early history with the 29 Diner, but over the years, for me, anyway, the visits become fewer and fewer.

I prefer my memories of being there with Gramaw, her buying me a pack of gum from the random selection they had at the ancient cash register, the "Cash Only" sign, the jingling bell when you opened the door.  My favorite recollections are of the worn (marble?) table tops and those lovely glass bricks at either end of the diner, looking out the window onto Lee Highway, watching the present while relaxing in a piece of history.

The 29 Diner's Lost Twin

When PawPaw (D.T. Glascock, aka "Bill") originally ordered the 29 Diner, he ordered two--one for his property in the City of Fairfax and one for his land in Arcola.  After the first diner arrived, the company in Pennslyvania who sold it to him unwisely tried to raise the price on the second diner.


Now, I never knew my PawPaw very well, but I heard many tales over the years, and he was well known for his temper and supreme ability to hold a grudge (and in his later years he was also known for driving around very slowly in a station wagon packed with junk and a mean dog).  He never allowed anyone to take advantage of him or try to force him into doing something he had no inclination of doing.

When the Pennsylvania diner dealer tried to raise the price on the second diner, PawPaw declined in his fiery manner.  Trying to backtrack, they offered him the original price, and finally less than the originally agreed price, but it was too late.

Thus, the second diner planned for Arcola never happened.


The Glascock Family has always owned the 29 Diner and its land.  It remains in the family to this day.

Lucky

The first time my dad met Joseph Lucky Gribble, he was fighting some garbage men near the Burger King by my Gramaw’s house in Fairfax. It was the 1960s.  Dad and Lucky were fast friends.
My most vivid memory of Lucky is him standing perfectly still for hours, cigarette smoldering between his fingers, his eyes staring out the plate glass window of my dad’s VW repair shop in Fairfax.
I’ve never seen anyone stand so completely still for so long.
For a while Lucky slept in a loft at my dad’s shop, and for years had a plywood shack on the grassy corner by Montgomery Ward in Fairfax, near where Burlington Coat Factory is now.  Sometimes he would disappear for days, then return, like nothing had happened.  He rode a yellow Harley and drank endless cups of black coffee while smoking cigarette after cigarette.
Sometimes I would work for Dad at his shop in the summers.  When I’d get to work, I’d ask where Lucky was, and Dad’s answers would range from “He’s in a mood today,” to “Sleeping in a car,” to “In the bay, working on a car,” to “I don’t know.  He disappeared again.”
I always accepted Lucky for what he was.  In a bad mood?  Don’t talk to him.  In a good mood?  Brief but interesting conversations, an extremely intelligent man with deep brown eyes that would dart this way and that, like he was expecting something to sneak up on him and hit him with a length of pipe.  His eyes would meet mine for a tiny moment then flit away.
One day at the shop, Dad put Lucky and me to work stripping a VW for parts.  Lucky asked me about my life, expressing a genuine interest.  We had slow conversation most of the day while removing everything we could from the Beetle, his cigarette smoke burning my eyes when it wafted my way.  I was fifteen.
Every once in a while, Lucky would bring me little gifts or send things home for me with Dad.  Usually it was Harley stuff, and I appreciated the thought behind it.  In return I made for him his favorite:  Gingerbread.  These past few years, when Dad and I would visit him, Lucky would give me Bluegrass CDs, their cases thick with dirt.
One day it occurred to me that while this was normal behavior for Lucky, this was not normal behavior.  So I asked.
“Dad, what’s wrong with Lucky?”
“That’s what too many drugs will do to you, Angie.”
My mom always said of Lucky, “He used to be so good-looking, all the girls just loved him.  Really intelligent, too.”
At another time, wondering what would leave a person standing and staring for hours, cigarette smoldering down to the butt, I asked my Dad, “What kind of drugs did Lucky do, Dad?”
“PCP.”
Shit.
After being evicted from his squatter’s shack when they built the shopping center where Burlington Coat Factory is, Lucky disappeared for a while.  I would ask Dad about him, how he was doing, and sometimes there would be a sighting (7-11 off Jermantown Road, mostly).  Occasionally he would help Dad with things like putting new roofing on a building (While they were working, Dad rolled off the roof and landed in the bushes.  Lucky laughed until they realized Dad’s wrist was broken).  Eventually he moved into a house in the woods off Braddock Road and Dad would visit him there.  It was a ramshackle little house and he parked his yellow Harley in his living room, choosing more often to drive the old blue and white Chevy truck my dad sold him for a little bit of nothing.
One day Lucky appeared at my parents’ house, while I was visiting them, to help Dad with something.  I hadn’t seen him in years.  He looked older but the same, except for a few missing teeth.  He was lanky and tall, deeply tanned, black hair combed back, and his brown, bloodshot eyes nervously darted around, still anticipating that length of pipe.  I hugged him and he smelled as he always did:  Unwashed and smoky.  By this time I had Peony; she was still a baby.  I proudly showed her to him.  He wouldn’t look at her because he said he was afraid if he did, he would “make her retarded.”  I told him it would be okay, but he was too uncomfortable and I let it go.
Over the years, my Dad would go by Lucky’s home, where ever he was living at the time, and bring him clothes and food and visit with him.  Lucky’s shack on the corner of Jermantown Road, my dad told me, was insulated with clothes hanging on all the walls.  A small woodstove helped keep him warm.  A couple times after he moved into the house in the woods off Braddock, I went with Dad to visit him, but you never knew when Lucky would be there.  He was sort of a nomad, most certainly a loner.
I once told Dad how my friends said if there was an apocalypse, they were all going to find him because he’s so handy with, well, just about everything.  Dad said, “Shoot, I’ll be with Lucky.  He can live anywhere and survive anything.”
Lucky was a strange bird for sure, but there was something gentle and almost otherworldly about him.  He had a temper I’d only heard about, never saw.  And while he had no connection to anyone or anything, he had great respect for my Dad, and despite some of the choices Lucky made in his life, my Dad respected him and cared about him.  When no one else was there, my Dad was, and he didn’t pass judgment.
Every time after we’d go visit Lucky, I’d think, I really wish we would do that more often.  The last time I saw him was when I was pregnant with Cedar, winter of 2010.  Dad, Peony, and I stopped by with gift bags full of homemade gingerbread and coffee.  Lucky had moved his living space to the basement of the old house in the woods.  He had a wood stove in the corner and it was warm, cozy, and smoky.  He gave us bottled root beer to drink and when we left, he sent Bluegrass CDs with us.
As we were leaving, I hugged Lucky goodbye and wished him a Merry Christmas.  I sent a few things to him once after that, when I knew Dad was going to go by his place:  an O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack, food, cash.  The other times we stopped by together, he wasn’t there.  Always a mystery, that Lucky.
Always a mystery.

Lucky and Ang at High School Graduation Party, June 1991

 "Joseph Lucky Gribble, 64, of Fairfax, died on Saturday, March 24, 2012, in Fairfax.
He was born on November 9, 1947, a son of the late Franklin Silvester Gribble and Elsie Gray King Gribble. He was also preceded in death by a brother, Robert Harvey Gribble. Mr. Gribble is survived by a sister, Margaret Octavia Horseman of Ellicott City, Maryland; and a brother, Tennis Silvester Gribble. Funeral services will be held 2 p.m. Thursday, March 29, 2012, at Preddy Funeral Home Chapel in Madison."

A Photo from Glascock Farm 30s or 40s

Great Uncle Jimmy & Cow

Philomont

When my dad was a kid, he would spend many summer days working on the family's farm.  Here is his Uncle Jimmy and a cow.  Moo.

Dead Guy in the Back Seat

Gramaw would often tell me this story when we were wandering the Shenandoah Mountains, usually on our way to get spring water...

"Bill and I were out driving around when we noticed that a power line was down on that dirt road over there," she told me, gesturing to the woods beside Route 55.  "So we went over to look, and there was a man in the road, just laying in the road.  I stayed in the car and Bill got out to check on him.  He had been electrocuted by the downed power line.  Bill said we couldn't just leave him there, that we'd have to take him into town.  'Please Bill,' I said, 'Can't we just go back and call the police?'  But Bill wouldn't leave him, so we put the dead man in the backseat of our car and drove back into town.  The man was just sitting back there, dead, and I was afraid I would turn around and his eyes would be open, looking at me.  Anyway, we took him into town."

Happy Birthday Gramaw!

 Happy Birthday, Gramaw!  We miss your beautiful face, sparkling personality, sweet smile, and infectious chuckle.

Ouch!

It's always an adventure when I hang out with my dad.  This time, I wasn't actually with him when the adventure began, but I did go with him to get stitched up later.
My husband, Dad, Uncle Jimmy, Cousin JP, and a few of their friends had been up at Uncle Jimmy's hunting cabin for a couple nights when, in the early morning,  I got a text from my husband, Matt:
 "Do you have any Steristrips?"
My reply was:  "No but I can get some.  You or ?  Dad usually uses duct tape."
Matt called shortly thereafter telling me not to worry---it wasn't as bad as he thought.  What really happened is Dad discovered that I knew he had a cut and didn't want me to worry. 
Around eleven o’clock that morning, Mom, Aunt Carolyn, and I drove up the long, narrow, and winding road to the hunting cabin.  We arrived in the cool, crisp late morning, and all the guys were packing up and almost ready to head back to civilization.  Dad was standing with Mom telling her what happened.  I walked up in mid-conversation and caught "Jimmy and I just got it to stop bleeding," "peeling potatoes," and "in the dark."  His middle finger on his right hand was duct taped, so I didn’t ask to see it, but knew if it took hours to get it to stop bleeding, he probably needed stitches.  I was trying not to plague him with questions and concerns, though. 
Later, when we returned to Nannie's, Mom requested that Dad show us the cut.
He and mom pulled off the duct tape and two of the three band aids before I interrupted with "Ick!  Leave it alone!  It's starting to bleed again!"

Everyone agreed he needed stitches and someone pointed out that a cut like that could be taped up but would drive him crazy since it was on his right hand and he was always busy-busy-busy and it would take longer to heal without stitches. 
Mom put some fresh bandaids on, causing dad to break his silence with a pained chuckle, "Ouch!  Jimmy's gentler than you are!"  Dad and I re-wrapped his finger with the duct tape then he disappeared upstairs without a word. 
We sat around discussing Dad's need for stitches and his stubbornness.
He came downstairs after five minutes and said, "I don't need to take a shower before I go, do I?"
"No!" We chorused.  He had been at the cabin for a few days but had changed clothes so he no longer smelled of man-cave and fried food.
I asked if I could go with him to the hospital.  I was antsy and needed to get out of the house.

In the closet-sized waiting room, duct tape on finger

Dad and I drove the narrow road to the teeny, tiny hospital where he was seen quickly.

“So how did this happen?” The doctor asked after inspecting Dad’s finger.

“Well, I was getting ready to peel potatoes before everyone got up.  I was cleaning the knife, but I had it turned the wrong way…”

She gave him two shots at the base of his middle finger, a digital block.  “Now this is the only time you can flip me off,” she smiled at him and covered the rest of his hand with a blue cloth.  After a few minutes she started cleaning the cut.  Dad winced and jumped, then just gritted his teeth and got very still.  “Can you feel that?” I asked. 

“Yeah I can feel it,” he responded. 

I looked at the doctor who said, “Well, you will feel some pressure….”  To which Dad replied, “I can feel that stuff burning,” and gestured to the antiseptic.

Apparently the doctor figured it was nothing, because she continued to clean and swipe at the cut with the brown antiseptic-drenched gauze while dad made ouch faces, which consisted of him gritting his teeth and grimacing.

The doctor then got out her suture kit and poked the needle into his skin at the top and side of the cut.  “Now, I can definitely feel that,” Dad announced.  “In fact, the only part that’s numb is the bottom of my finger.” 

This made her pause.  “It’s just numb down there?"  She asked, pointing to the base of his finger.

“Yeah,” Dad replied.

“Well, in like, less than ten percent of patients the digital block doesn’t work.”

“It just feels like a bee sting, go ahead and finish.  I’ll be alright.” Dad directed.  “A white-faced hornet sting,” he amended.

“Soooo,” I asked, “How many stitches do you think he’ll need?”   

The doctor leaned over and inspected the cut again, her long wavy dark hair falling forward, and said, “Probably about ten.”

“So ten bee stings Dad.  That’s a lot of stings.”

The doc said, “No, it’s going to get worse as I go.  I’ll do a local anesthetic.”  She started gathering supplies during which time Dad could resist no more and pushed down the blue cloth so he could have a good look at his finger, which had been slowly looking worse the longer we were there. 

“Aaah!  That’s my sterile area!”  The doctor cried.  “Now I have to sterilize again.”  She plucked the blue cloth from Dad’s hand with forceps and threw it away, covered his hand with a paper sheet, the middle finger sticking out, and started slopping the antiseptic on with the gauze again.  She then injected inside the cut and area around it to numb it up.

Finally, Dad’s finger was numb and she stitched him up as they chatted about horses and deer.  Dad kept leaning over to see what she was doing.  He started to lift his left hand to move the paper down to get a better look.  I grabbed his hand and said, “No touching!”  The thoughtful nurse who was in and out pushed the paper down so he didn’t have to crane his neck to watch his finger get stitched.  

Dad ended up with eight stitches and stern instructions on how to care for it.

Two hours later, we were back at Nannie’s.

             

Beating the System

Johnny, Palm Springs 1965

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After breakfast at Silver Diner, Dad and I waited for Matt to get the car while Nana took Po to the bathroom. I don’t know how it came up, but as we sat on the bench in front of the restaurant he began a story…


“One year license plates would be black with white lettering, and the next they’d be white with black lettering.

Once, the state trooper came right to the house to take the tags off my car. Like the one in the garage at the beach…that one was ’63, but I painted ’64 right over it and it looked pretty good. I did such a good job, it fooled the police. They didn’t look too close though.

The ticket you got, when it was the one where you knew you would lose your license, that was when you went right to DMV, say you misplaced your license, and they’d give you a duplicate. After you went to court and they took your original license, you had the duplicate. They didn’t have computers back then.

Sonny [one of his friends] lost his license until he was 21 in Virginia, so he went to West Virginia and got one there and lost that. He was always racing and speeding.

My brother Frankie, he used to pull into the coffee shop all the cops used to go to [in Fairfax City] and he’d smoke his tires in the parking lot then race off.”

Frankie

Tommy, Dad's twin, in Japan.

Clever Lady

When I was a kid and Gramaw would take me to the mountains, I always enjoyed the trip up there almost as much as being there.  She would tell me stories of her childhood, about my dad and uncles, and my PawPaw (these such stories generally ended in PawPaw cussing somebody).  We would drive country roads to get there and avoid Route 66, though it was faster that way. 
One hot, sunny day I noticed Gramaw, who was wearing a t-shirt, also had a long shirt sleeve on her left arm, which was resting on the window well as she steered the car with her right hand. It was just the sleeve cut off another shirt.
"Gramaw, why do you have a sleeve on your arm?"
"To keep it from getting hot and sunburned," she replied. 

"Oh," I replied thoughtfully.  And thinking back, I can never remember her applying sunscreen or bug spray, instead, she had these little inventions to keep those pesky things away.

29 Diner

I just found a good picture of the diner and an accurate description of its history (I've put a link to the right).  Yay!
I am surprised that Gramaw didn't take any pictures of the diner when they were building the foundation and placing the diner.  I can't find a single pic in all of her albums.
She told me when they were building the foundation, her twin baby boys rode in the front seat of the dump truck she drove.
My gramaw kicked arse!

Copperheads!

Wow, it's been a while.  Dad has gotten all shy on me and wants me to wait "until he kicks off" to put his stories out there.  My clever husband has suggested I collect stories from other people in the meantime, which I think is an excellent idea.
If you want your story (or one that's not necessarily yours, but has been passed down or whatever) here, it must meet a few (very few) criteria:  It should be a story about something you probably couldn't get away with nowadays, and well, that's it.
Also, you can be anonymous.  I love making up aliases.
Anyway, that's it--oh, no, wait, also it can just be a story (or memory!) about old Virginia as my husband puts it.  Back in the day, as it were.  People love those, especially since so much has changed so quickly.
So there:  Something you couldn't get away with today and something about how it used to be around here (Fairfax, Chantilly, Reston, Herndon, Vienna, etc.).

So here is my story (more of a memory, really) of my Gramaw and the Copperhead War.  Okay, it wasn't a war but lots of skirmishes throughout her life.  This memory was brought about by the recent news of the rise in copperhead snakes in Fairfax County.

When she was alive, Gramaw spent a lot of time in the mountains (I expect she's there all the time now), and she stayed in an ancient house that she had decorated with the hundreds of greeting cards and postcards she'd received over the years, along with various clippings and bits that made her chuckle or reminded her of her loved ones.  She would stay in that big scary (at night) house all by herself, and mind you, this was a lady who was afraid of the dark.  She wasn't afraid of anything but the dark. 
And here I will get sidetracked a bit to tell you why she was afraid of the dark, because it wasn't something she was just born with, but something she learned.  Soon after Gramaw was born in 1912, her mother died, leaving her father with several kids (5 or 6).  After a few years, he found he couldn't care for the children, so he sent them off to foster homes.  In one of these foster homes that my Gramaw was in, the punishment of misbehavior was to be locked in a dark closet.  The other kids would scratch on the closet door and generally terrify her.  This was how she learned to be afraid of the dark.
She wouldn't let her fear of the dark keep her from doing things, she just armed herself with a big flashlight and an even bigger gun.  My Gramaw was a tough chick, but as sweet as the delicious chocolate fudge she made.

Back to the copperheads!  She once told me a story of how a copperhead bit her dog on the leg and the skin turned all black and sore.  The dog survived.
So whenever Gramaw would be out in the woods for a long time, she would take her big ol' pistol, her nitroglycerin tablets for her heart, and her snake bite kit.  I don't recall ever encountering snakes on our walks, but I do remember driving down the dirt road and seeing a snake in the middle.  Gramaw gunned the engine and ran that coppehead over.  Then she backed up and ran him over again.  Once more, just for good measure, she ran him over, then got out to check that he was dead.  This is the only time I'd ever seen her be ruthless.  Usually she was saving creatures, including black snakes.  She couldn't stand for animals to be hurt.
But copperheads (and water moccasins) were a threat to her family and her pets.
I miss her!

 Gramaw & Baby Po 2006




PS forgive any mistakes, Po is requiring my attention and I'm short on time.

Here's One from Tommy!

When they were around 11 or 12 years old, dad and Uncle Tommy were down in Caroline County during hunting season with their dad, my PawPaw.  Some of the boys’ friends were also with them when someone, but they didn’t know who, shot a deer on their property.  PawPaw told Tommy and his friends to go drag the deer back over to them.  Tommy said they were dragging the deer by its antlers back toward the road when these strange men came running up yelling, “Hey!  That’s our deer!”  Tommy and his friends dropped the deer and took off running toward the road.  Meanwhile, my dad came out of the woods on the other side of the road and saw Tommy come tearing out of the woods.  PawPaw drove up and threw open the car door and told Tommy to get in and lock the doors, which Tommy did.  PawPaw was standing by the car with the door open, holding his double barrel shotgun by his side.  The men ran up yelling that they were gonna drag that kid out of the car and beat his ass to teach him a lesson.  PawPaw said, “You’re not laying a hand on that boy,” as he raised his gun.  The men kept walking forward shouting threats.  Tommy stayed put in the back seat as his daddy had told him to do.  PawPaw said to the men in an ‘I dare you’ tone, “Take one more step forward,” when they did, PawPaw clicked the safety off the gun.  Tommy said that was the loudest noise he’d ever heard in his life, when his daddy clicked the safety off that gun.  "I’m half Indian," growled PawPaw, "and if you take one more step, I’ll shoot you dead where you stand."  The men stopped.  At this point, the Game Warden and several State Police had come rolling in from both ends of the highway.  Tommy didn’t hear this part, but dad says the State Policemen were saying, “Mr. Glascock, please put the gun down.”

Finally, PawPaw put the gun down and the men went off with a few cops while PawPaw talked to another cop.  “What would you have done if it was your son?” PawPaw asked the cop.  “Mr. Glascock,” he replied, “I would have done the same thing.”

PawPaw told his boys that if those men had taken another step, he would have ended up in prison.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Today is my dad's & his brother Tommy's birthday.  They of course could not care less, but we wish them a happy day anyway!

Johnny, 29 Palms

Tommy,  Japan

This Was All Dairy Farms/The Road Just Ended at Fairfax Circle

Amidst all the new homes, businesses, and roads, it's hard to believe that once upon a time it was all just fields and dairy farms around here.
I remember when the populated part of Fairfax seemed to end at Greenbriar Shopping Center:  there was a Gino's Chicken that stands out in my mind (along with a grocery store and such) and not much after that besides the neighborhood of Brookfield, which was where we lived when I was a kid (and wasn't there a Dart Drug in that shopping center?).
My dad and I were driving to Herndon the other day to have an early birthday breakfast with his twin brother Tommy and my cousin, Scotty (unbeknownst to both twins), and on the way there, as we drove along Fairfax County Parkway toward Herndon, Dad gestured around him from the passenger seat and said, "This all just used to be dairy farms."
What prompted him to say this was that I was presenting my argument as to why he should keep letting me put his stories here, and part of that argument was that many people are curious about what it used to be like and look like around here.  I mean, nowadays, could anyone get away with taking gas from an airport under construction without getting chucked in jail and fined, instead of just some clever soul switching signs on the tank to teach people a lesson?  (See "Free Gas!")  It's fun to hear about stuff he and his friends would get away with.  I enjoy hearing his stories, as do my husband and friends.  Dad is also a good storyteller.  Anyway, he got all shy on me and said to "wait until he kicked off" to put all his stories and pictures here ("You have a lot of pictures of me there ...why don't you put some of ... Peony?" he suggested).
Anyway, we'll see what happens.  At least he will still tell me stories.  I just may not be able to share them here for a long time!

DT "Bill" Glascock, Who Did Whatever He Damn Pleased

My PawPaw was the old guy in the 1980s who had the station wagon full of stuff and would frequent the Greenbriar McDonald's and Shell Station.  Once a girl told me they (students at Chantilly High) called him the dog man.  He did always have a dog with him.  My best friend Anita didn't believe me when, after stopping at the Shell or McD's after school, we passed him in his packed-full-of-stuff car and I said, that's my PawPaw!  I had to have my mom confirm for Anita that he was indeed my grandfather and even then she eyed me suspiciously.
My Gramaw said that PawPaw could be talking about the weather and sound like he was cussin' you.  I love it.  Because he did have a fondness for cussin', God bless him.  I have inherited this fondness but must repress it.  So sad.
When PawPaw was a young man in the 20s and 30s throughout the depression and prohibition, he would sell his moonshine to a few lucky customers.
This is how it worked:
You gave him the money at one location, perhaps one of his stores or gas stations, I'm not sure, then he told you where to find the moonshine, which was hidden in a creek just over his property line so he couldn't get busted.
He never liked being told what to do and he didn't like asking people for anything, so when he wanted to fly planes, he built himself an airfield.
He used to run a tavern in what is the old Stone House at Manassas, VA.
That's all I've got for now! Bed time!

Roadblock!

One night me, Ronnie Hall, an’ Wayne J. were riding around the back roads of Centreville. An’ I think Wayne wanted to go by and see this girl he liked. So we were out in front of her house and Ronnie tooted on the horn an’ of course she didn’t come out an’ then this Fairfax County Cruiser come up behind us. And Ronnie decided to take off. Ronnie took off an’ wouldn’t stop for the County Man. Ronnie got so far ahead you could look back across the fields an’ see the cruiser’s headlights. Ronnie said, “We’re too far ahead, we’re gonna have to stop an’ give him a chance to catch up to us.” He had the headlights turned off an’ we were going so fast on the back roads that the white fences just blurred by an’ that’s how Ronnie was following the road.

We took off again when the cruiser got close, an’ when we got to Route 50 we wanted to go West to get across the county line, but we were in a hurry because the police was catchin’ up an’ we got confused, an’ went East an’ they had the road blocked. A bunch of policemen opened our doors an’ had guns pointed at us. They took us to the Fairfax County Jail in the town of Fairfax an’ when they took us in Wayne walked right out the door an’ disappeared. Ronnie, they put him in a cell because he was driving, and me they put in a holding cell and my father came and got me.

Free Gas!

When Dulles Airport was being built in the late 50s and early 60s, my dad and his friends would watch people drag race at night on the runways (dad preferred to do his drag racing at Fairfax Circle).  After a while they realized that there was plenty of gas to be had in the 300-500 gallon tanks that were left there during construction.  Soon, everyone around Dulles was sneaking onto the budding airport to get some free gas.  According to my dad, “You could fill your tank up quicker than at a filling station.”


One night after his friend Ronnie filled his car, a black 1957 two-door hardtop Ford with a 312 engine, full of free Dulles gas, something went wrong.  The souped up Ford blew black smoke all the way from Dulles to the Sunoco Station at Fairfax Circle next to Tops Drive-in.

“They got wise to us an' switched the diesel an' gas labels on the tanks.”  Dad says, “Ronnie drained the tank an' filled it up with gasoline, but we still had to overhaul the engine.”

Old Man Pratt and the Cornfield

As told by Johnny Glascock...







One day me an' Ronnie Hall went deer hunting in Caroline County an’ when it got dark we decided to go to old man Pratt's farm an’ spotlight some deer.

So we're drivin’ through old man Pratt's cornfield an' some headlights come up behind us. We take off an’ get farther an' farther ahead an’ Ronnie says, "We'd better slow down and let this poor fella catch up!" So we slow down and see it’s Mister Pratt behind us. We take off again, then get too far ahead an’ Ronnie slows down again an’ lets old man Pratt get right up on his bumper, then takes off. Ronnie lets him catch up again an’ this time Mister Pratt pulls up behind us an’ gets out of the truck and starts to walk up to the car, an' Ronnie takes off again, laughing. Mister Pratt gets back in his truck an' comes after us again. Ronnie gets way ahead of him again an’ we do this for a while until we get bored then go back to the highway an’ take off back toward Fairfax.

Old man Pratt never did catch us.


(updated 3/22/10)