Up north in New England, in a particularly crowded neighborhood, you will often see one of these signs. “Thickly Settled”. It translates to “Slow down. Look out for kids on bikes. Watch for a driveway around that next bend in the road.” Etc. Etc. Don’t expect to breeze through at freeway speed. There are a lot of humans in a small space here.
When we moved here to VA, I didn’t expect to see any of these signs. So many fields and farms, stretching out in all directions. But then I began to notice something. When meeting someone new, I would often open the conversation with, “Do you live in Warrenton?” At least I knew where that was. The usual response was “No”. It was something more like this:
“Oh, we’re from Bealeton. It’s just down the road off South 15. Not much there anymore; the general store closed down quite some back.”
“My Grandpappy bought his farm in Rappahannock County in the 1930’s, up towards the mountains. I’ve lived in the same house all my life. Raised my kids on that land.”
“We’re from Opal, just south of town. Just a gas station and a few houses now.”
And so it went. After hearing a long list of unfamiliar names, I tracked down an official Virginia state map and laid it flat on the dining room table. “This will solve the problem,” I assumed.
Wrong! My hopes were dashed by what vaguely resembled a bowl of pasta. A state jam packed with a spidery web of roads, leading to ciities and towns everywhere. Thickly settled, and not just around DC. Why?
Well, it’s been here awhile. My great times 5 grandfather, Peter Rucker, came to Virginia sometime in the late 1600’s. That’s closing in on 400 years ago. You can see the Rucker “plantation” just an hour south of us in the town of Ruckersville. So many settlers came here and found it to their liking. It’s understandable – it is beautiful here, even in November.
But how to remember all these new names? One at a time, I guess. So we will drive to Casanova, Sperryville, and Catlett, in time, and figure it all out.