I Doze but Never Close: Notes from Bedford County

By Ben Martin

The 1960s was a dynamic period in our nation’s history, and it was felt in several counties of Virginia as waters from the Roanoke and Blackwater rivers merged at Smith Mountain Gap in the early part of the decade to form what we now know as Smith Mountain Lake. This work is a reflection of life prior to Bedford County becoming a tourist destination, with some stories that happen now that Bedford County is a tourist town.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 21, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664186194

Ben Martin

You’ll read why my granddaddy Martin would have been an eBay wizard; what I discovered about my father at his last high school reunion; when Touchstone Pictures used Moneta for a few scenes of, “What About Bob”; and why my father feared the frightening yet lovable Dr. Sam, and so much more. So take a lazy afternoon and read this book. You’ll discover why I love my hometown so much.

Book preview

I Doze

But Never

Close

Notes from Bedford County

Ben Martin

Copyright © 2021 by Ben Martin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including

photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

NKJV

Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James

Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission.

All rights reserved.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/20/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

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DEDICA

TION

. . . to see those men whom God has placed above kings and ministers by giving them a mission to fulfill, rather than a position to occupy.

Alexandre Dumas

These are magnanimous words but fatherhood is noble business. My father, a farmer, never read The Count of Monte Cristo, but he loved to read and to learn and he encouraged me to do the same.

I spoke with my father every day by phone during the last three years of his life. He always ended each conversation by saying, I love you more than yesterday, but less than tomorrow.

My father was not a rugged man, but he had the strength and courage to say what so many rough-hewn men dare to think. Each time he said I love you, he heaped diamonds, pearls and rubies into the treasure chest of my heart, and I am a rich man because of him.

Therefore, I dedicate this book to Harold Martin, a man who fulfilled a duty that some great men shirk. Nevertheless, the most honorable achievement for any man entrusted with the care of a child is the one in which my father excelled: fatherhood.

Contents

Foreword

Chapter 1    A Hollywood Movie Set

Chapter 2    A Man Of The Land

Chapter 3    A View From The Porch

Chapter 4    Loving Your Neighbor

Chapter 5    A Kindred Spirit

Chapter 6    A Country Christmas

Chapter 7    A Crack of the Whip

Chapter 8    Good Eats

Chapter 9    The Forewarned Man

Chapter 10    Next...If You’re Sick!

Chapter 11    Brotherly Love

Chapter 12    I Doze But Never Close

Chapter 13    Saturday Night Fights

Chapter 14    Dad’s Last Chew

Chapter 15    A Genie in an Old Pop Bottle

Chapter 16    My Father the Furnace Fighter

Chapter 17    A Successful Voyage

Chapter 18    Home, Sweet Home

Endnotes

Foreword

There is much good sleep in an old story.

German Proverb

My father’s favorite book, which he read eight times, was Gone with the Wind. ¹ Wistful by nature, a lover of history, he, like me, would have loved to have a window through which he could look back to the past, particularly his own past. He spoke often and lovingly about the days of his youth, and I loved to listen to him.

During the last summers of his life, my father would sit often in a 1950s-era green metal lawn chair in his front yard on White House Road in Moneta. He would watch in awe as hundreds of cars a day would speed down a road that he recalled was once covered with gravel.

I never thought I would live to see a day when there wouldn’t be a single mule in this community, he once said from his perch, gesturing to the horse-drawn plow that still sits to this day under one of the willow trees. ² Just like that civilization of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara, my father’s way of life was gone with the wind; the Moneta that he remembered as a farming community had been slowly but steadily swept away and engulfed by the larger Smith Mountain Lake community. ³ Even the little hamlet of Moneta was all boarded up by the time he died, resembling a ghost town in a Hollywood Western. ⁴

We are a resort town now, a store owner casually remarked to me during a conversation in early 2006.

My father told me much about the days when mules did the work of tractors and a trip to Bedford was a special treat. A raconteur with a dry sense of humor, he also had an uncanny ability to mimic some of the more comical characters in the community and even when I was a teenager, when I was sure that I was much smarter than he, I found his stories and reminisces both interesting and funny.

After my mother died in 1996 at the age of 56 from heart disease, my father’s own heart condition seemed to worsen quickly, so I began to write down on paper every funny story, joke, word of wisdom, wistful remark and farm fact that he ever told me. I gave him a cassette recorder to use when he felt inspired to share a story, and some of his remarks, now digitally preserved, appear in this work in italics.

For several years after his death, I sifted through musty briefcases, desks, dresser drawers and other nooks and crannies and discovered to be true what I had long suspected: my father was a packrat. However, the photos, receipts, advertisements and other bits of memorabilia speak volumes of both my father and his times.

I hope subsequent generations will not forget that Moneta was once a farming community. Though this hamlet has been transformed into one of Virginia’s premier vacation destinations and a resort town, many people who call it home now do not remember the graveled country roads and soft drinks in glass bottles bought from general stores. Surely they know little, if anything, of Dr. Sam Rucker and the small tool shed-size building where he treated patients like me as late as the 1970s. For them, I share some memories of another day. For them, I say, Come and look through my window for a while.

Someday, few people will remember that Downtown Moneta was known once as the area of the village at the closed rail crossing, while Uptown Moneta was further along State Route 122, past the library and post office, near what was the Shop Rite Grocery Store. This town had a bona fide country doctor, milk plant, post office, snack bar, train station and several general stores. So, here is my contribution, in words and pictures, to my hometown’s past, a past that should not be forgotten while we are enjoying the bounty of the present.

Dear Dad, you have no idea how interesting the tales have been!

CHAPTER 1

A Hollywood Movie Set

"Fame is a bee.

It has a song

It has a sting.

Ah, too, it has a wing"

Emily Dickenson

Even Tinseltown couldn’t save my hometown.

In the early 1990s, Touchstone Pictures filmed a portion of the movie, "What About