* d a z z l e p a n t s

“It’s Manville” said Steve.

For the last number of years I have heard my Dad relay the stories of Goat Hill, the notorious piece of property owned by his buddy Steve. Goat Hill is located in Orange County. Orange County , Virginia - pretty much the polar opposite of the famous O.C. located in California.

As we drove up to the farm with the dogs we passed Wendel’s, a small unmarked convenience store. “Oh, looks like Steve is still there finishing up breakfast” my Dad said as we drove by. Later I asked him if it is a restaurant or a convenience store and my Dad’s reply was, “Are you the law?” I chuckled recalling an earlier reference to Wendel’s as the place where Steve frequently dines with the County Sheriff. Wendel’s apparently does not have a restaurant license, but the Missus still will cook up bacon and eggs for the locals. It’s a very hush-hush operation, but apparently there is a Thursday morning banjo and fiddle breakfast jamboree and is secretly endorsed by the Sheriff.

We rounded the corner and my Dad stopped at the Exxon station to buy real Southern style chickn’ biscuits for our breakfast. Sadly, we would not be dining at Wendel’s.

As we pulled up to the farm all of the dogs were wagging their tails and we turned the corner on to Steve’s property. They were excited to be at Goat Hill and also excited about the tradition of getting to split one of the chicken biscuits.

Manville, as Steve refers to it, is a piece of land surrounded by farms including the goat/cow/sheep/chicken/turkey farm next door owned by a guy named Ben. Ben apparently does some sort of internet business and had high speed access wiring brought into the area. Ben did this so he could own the land to keep all of his assorted animals like pets. Originally there were just goats but Ben had been expanding his animal menagerie and now even owns some Scottish Highland Cows.

Steve found the land and first went to work building the auxiliary building that contains 8 garages for his car collection and it also houses the car workshop and the Amateur (or ham) Radio operations center. The ham radio portion is my dad’s tie into goat hill. I still don’t understand why they call it “ham” radio. Nonetheless, Steve is completely fascinating to me. I would like to tell you what Steve does for a living because it seems completely fascinating, but I would have to kill you. (Really, for the first time in my life I can use that phrase and mean it.)

This is the same man who owns a winged Corvette that is too powerful for him to drive.

Nonetheless, Steve and his wife have money and he chooses to spend some of it.

My dad and I ate our sandwiches in the ham radio part of the Manville building and then walked the perimeter of the property as the dogs ran along in front of us. We went by the old abandoned farm building and I did not notice that my camera switched into a weird mode that made some of my pictured exceptionally blown out. Later my Dad referred to a ghost as a joke but I’m not so sure…

We walked up close by Ben’s farm but most of the animals were in a far off pasture where we could not see them. Apparently Shelby has been transfixed by the Rastafarian cows and the turkeys on a few of the earlier visits to Goat Hill. As a beagle she adores the farm and all of its smells.

We walked back into the Manville compound and Steve had returned from Wendel’s. He told us a story about the 4 wheeling ATV punk who kept coming on to his property and how he had a conversation with the Sherriff at Wendel’s about the problem. He told us about having to tag all of his perimeter trees with a silver paint slash that apparently marks the boundaries for ATV and hunting individuals.

Steve took me on a tour of his garage and gave me his forest green MG as a Christmas Present. “You haul it out of here and it’s yours. Merry Christmas” said Steve. However much I would covet the little convertible, car restoration is a little beyond my abilities aside from living in an apartment and having to place to store the car. Alas, the little green MG stayed in Steve’s garage.

Aside from getting to know my Dad a little better, I spent a few hours completely removed from my world. A few years I would have been horrified at the thought of hanging out with the hickville country set, but now I think being exposed to simplicity is pretty awesome. As I sit now in my city apartment listening to Bob Dylan and Jonny Cash duets I can’t help but think that my next trip will involve stopping in at Wendel’s for the Thursday morning breakfast banjo and fiddle jamboree. I realize that the more I step outside of my world, the more I learn about what is really important in life. Like goats. Goats are important.