Peanut Festival Part II and Miscellaneous Pictures of Emporia

The Peanut Festival Parade begins at the High School and finishes across the Meherrin River.

A few  Swedish tourists

(on the left)

Local celebrants enjoying the parade

Brief interruption of parade. Volunteer Ambulance service rushes conservative husband to local hospital when he found his wife watching not the parade but MSNBC!

No senators or famous actors but you could find some big brass

 

Along the way, our new Farmer's Market.

  

Could not come but sent his friends.

All aboard to New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and the Peanut Festival in Emporia?  Not yet but maybe the train will stop again........someday.

Emporia Peanut Festival Pt 1

New Orleans has its Mardi Gras, New York City is the place to go on New Year's Eve, and Emporia is completes the big three with its Peanut Festival.  People from as far as Skippers and Jarratt crowd into town for the festivities.  Where else can you see the Greenville County High School Band perform?  Not Paris or Rome!

I have included a few shots representative of this year's Peanut Festival.  If you missed it, next year should be just as memorable!

I hope I'll see a tractor or two while risking my life picking up penny candy off the street thrown from the floats! 

Volunteer farmer/police force.  Due to budget cuts, Greenville County has authorized farmers to patrol backroads.  Several conditions:  no firearms or pursuit of speeders.  

Cheerleaders                                                                             Greensville High School Band

Minority recruitment for the Band and Cheerleader squad very successful!

A Tour of Emporia Part I

Emporia is a city of churches.  I am a 'visiting member' of Main Street Methodist Church.  I think this is intended to mean that my real church home is some distance away preventing me from regular attendance.  My take on it is that I am exempt from the treaded tithe or regular attendance.

I am presently on a voluntary leave of absence pending spiritual revelation.

Earlier in my religious life in Emporia our family had been members of the First Presbyterian Church.  I sang in the choir and attended the adult Sunday School Class.  In the Presbyterian Church the first prayer in the service is a kind of confessional, attesting to the fact (said in unison) that we are poor, pitiful sinners, no better than a pile of poop.  By the end of the service, however, all was well, especially after Communion when, if contrite, all is forgiven and we are free to sin again.

During the occasion lull in an exciting service I wondered why God, in all his glory, would create such a dysfunctional being, especially if we are made in His image.

Christ Church

So, we left and went back to the Episcopal Church in the country side (Grace) after first attending Christ Church. Unfortunately, the congregants, led by the reverential and truly godly Colin Cooper, decided the Episcopal Church wayward and voted to join the Anglican Church.  The straw was the recognition by the New Hampshire Episcopalians that a gay guy was a good guy able to lead them and did not need to renounce is sexuality.  We can silently sanction a war but not recognize some one's different orientation.

This led us to the Methodists who, like AB Negative, will not reject anyone in need of spiritual succor.

Monumental

Other fine churches include Monumental Methodist, a beautiful sanctuary with more columns than members and First Baptist Church with a fine new parking lot created at the expense of the old parsonage with a slate roof and, on the other side, the Safelle House with a wonderful wrap around porch.




First Baptist

 The houses were replaced with Informational Signs.      Speaking of information signs, Emporia, per capita, has more road signs than anywhere in Virginia.  The local folk are proud of the town heritage, all of which is included in the Emporia Historical Museum, additional parking available alongside for buses and tour groups. When finished, tourists are free to eat across the street at Logan's, a local eatery with rockers along the front.                    

                          

Something about Emporia, Virginia: Emigrant Perspective

Emporia Virginia is a pleasant pee stop for New Yorkers and Floridians speeding through southern Virginia.  There are about five thousand souls, half white and half black - although, of course, no one is counting heads.

We have a small Mexican population attracted to Emporia by rental rates based on height.  And, of course, manual labor which is, ironically, the name of the leading Mexican worker in town.

Emporia has a long history dating back to the 17th century and it is the site of several small squirmishes and a hanging or two as recently as the early 1900's.  This lenghty history is housed in a small brick building opened on alternate Wednesdays.  Hmm.

This blog is going to be an effort to keep all of you updated on the many happenings here including our prestigious Pork Festival, Peanut Festival, and Kudzu Carnival.  Of course, currently, Jeffrey Dahmer has more followers than this blog.

We will also post Real Estate offerings and highlight a church a week and visit the most prominent industry in town:  hair and beauty salons.  We have, in fact, as many people in Emporia proportionally with hair as New York City!

Hope someone reads this!  Next blog:  The existential dilemma of blogs with no followers