Here we have the month of January in the new year of 2025! The Bride and I will soon celebrate another birth anniversary, the Bride this month and I four months hence. She will become 66 and I will turn over the clock to 84. So both of us are senior citizens in the truest sense of the words.
The best advantage of being a senior is that we were both qualified for the purchase of a home in the 55+ senior citizen communities and we took advantage of that opportunity almost a year ago when we purchased a very nice home in Williamsburg, VA in the Colonial Heritage Community. Great comfortable homes, golf course, activities galore, a Clubhouse with a fine dining restaurant, a casual dining pub with great food, and two swimming pools. What’s not to like? Like a lot of senior citizens, we are very happy with the close proximity of health care facilities, including two close-by hospitals. While the Old Curmudgeon is not ambulatory enough to truly take advantage of many of these very nice facilities, it is really nice to know that they are there for the Bride and hopefully ever so often for this old guy.
As one who is a great fan of history, especially our nation’s history, I love being in this area, there are historical sites everywhere one might look, From the restored area of Jamestown (1607) to Hampton (1610), Williamsburg itself, and of course Yorktown where our nation gained it’s freedom with the Surrender of Cornwallis to George Washington. The Bride and I plan on revisiting the historical sites in this area, (all within an hour’s or less by car), as often as we can. Of course we have to be judicious in our visits, considering the inability of the Old Curmudgeon to be ambulatory. However, many of these sites can be covered by car, or rental cart, and of course in some, by tour bus.
We hope to be able to start visitations of the local sites once winter has departed. At my advanced age, the old body temperature doesn’t do well with cold temps. The old curmudgeon also is planning a set of road trips about our area, from the upper Eastern Shore to the Carolina Barrier Islands and I will be posting some of these online as I can, perhaps even a travel oriented book? Oh will wonders never cease!
The one good outlook I have for 2025 is that this is the final year of governance by Glenn Youngkin. Hopefully when election day rolls around for a new administration the great folks in the Old Dominion will recall that their vote for the Carlyle Vulture Capitalist executive Glenn Youngkin was not a good thing for Virginia and Virginians. It is my hope, that when the election ballots are counted this year, that we as a state will have regained a measure of logic and intelligence to ensure that our new administration is far more interested in the actual benefits for the Old Dominion citizenry rather than the corporatocracy and right wing political party. This current one certainly didn’t!
But enough about politics, the current state of that activity leaves one with the urge to upchuck.
In addition to the many historical locations, the Virginia Tidewater area is also home to many military establishments, army posts, air force bases, naval ports, and of course the home to the largest Naval Base in Norfolk and of the original NASA facility located in Hampton. Many of these facilities offer tours or museums at times and if available, are certainly worth the visit. Being a Vietnam veteran, I so enjoy the opportunity of visiting any of the military sights that come available. Though being rather ambulatory impacted, these visits are rare now, I do take advantage whenever I am able.
However, if there are actually any readers of this blog out there, I would encourage a visit to my home area and take advantage of any of these tours. Especially the Fortress Monroe, which until the stupidity of the Congress and their BRAC abomination, was the oldest continuous military post in the United States. BRAC closed Fort Monroe as a military base but thankfully the President was able to declare the Fortress a National Monument, thus saving a wonderful site for visitors for times to come. The fort is surrounded by a moat (only one that this old guy has ever known), inside the fortress, is the cell where Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States was incarcerated following the end of the Civil War.
Nearby to the Fortress lies the former Chamberlin Hotel (now repurposed as a senior citizens home). This once gracious hotel served tea in the afternoons for guests and they were able to look at the waters of the Hampton Roads.
So, in this new year, potentially fraught with dire consequences from our misbegotten election in November last, it might be well worth a visit to Virginia’s Tidewater area to view the beginning of our nation, and our military historical sites.
So, to get back on track, the Bride and I are grateful to the good fates that have given us the opportunity to reach these advanced ages and celebrate these anniversary dates. We both look forward hopefully to enjoying more time to come together.
Therefore, ONWARD!
Musings of a Geriatric Curmudgeon 