Tag Archives: Change

Painted O’er

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History, despite its wrenching pain,
cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage,
need not be lived again.

—Maya Angelou (1928–2014), “On the Pulse of Morning”

Laughter broke the silence of the subterranean sanctuary just as Gary and I were approaching the garage elevator and saw the sign at the same time.

We couldn’t help ourselves.

The sign was anchored prominently on the wall to the right of the call button. Painted forest green, it was so glossy, even in the shadows, that it made the letters of the hotel’s former name seem more raised than they might have seemed otherwise. And the overlaid white lettering of the hotel’s new name seemed nearly an afterthought.

After our first burst of laughter, Gary and I both gasped:

“Oh. My God. Why’d they do that? Why didn’t they install brand new signage? This is just … painted o’er!”

We kept laughing as we took the elevator up to the spacious historic lobby. I recognized it at a glance. It was exactly the same as it had been when I attended meetings there a decade ago. And a year before that. And a year earlier.

We were in the midst of understated, old-world elegance. Muted olive-green velvet sofas and generous upholstered chairs gathered over richly patterned rugs, and dark-wood nested tables gave the seating areas a slightly clubby intimacy. Overhead, enormous brass chandeliers hung dramatically. The whole place felt gracious, traditional, and faintly grand—comfortable rather than showy, as though it had settled safely into its history.

Nothing had changed. Except the name.

And when it came to the parking garage, the signage hadn’t changed either. Not really. Its historic name—though painted o’er—overpowered the present.

I was still laughing quietly when we found our room and got settled in. I could not help but think about a similar scenario in Washington Irving’s “Rip Van Winkle.”

After sleeping for twenty years, Rip returns to find the quiet village inn gone, replaced by a shabby “Union Hotel”; the old shade tree has given way to a flagpole flying the unfamiliar stars and stripes. The world he knew has become a new nation.

But then Irving undercuts the transformation.

Rip looks at the tavern sign and recognizes the same ruby face of King George beneath the alterations. The red coat has simply been changed to blue and buff; the sceptre becomes a sword; a cocked hat is added; and “General Washington” is painted on top.

Painted o’er.

Surprisingly, this whole notion of a name change and what it means—or doesn’t—packed itself up and followed me as Gary and I drove back to our Shenandoah Valley home.

I started thinking about name changes outside literary landscapes. I started thinking about name changes in the real world.

I started thinking about Shenandoah County’s Stonewall Jackson High School. In 2020, following nationwide protests over the murder of George Floyd, the Shenandoah County School Board voted to rename it Mountain View High School, removing a name associated with the Confederacy.

Four years later, a newly elected school board voted to restore the name Stonewall Jackson High School. In August 2026, a federal judge ruled that restoring the Confederate names violated federal law and ordered the School Board to replace them. The board has appealed the ruling and is seeking to keep the names in place while that appeal proceeds.

For now, Stonewall Jackson High School is Stonewall Jackson High School once again.

Painted o’er. But in reverse.

The new name hadn’t been lettered over the old one. The old name had been lettered back over the new.

And that old name carried a history of its own. During the trial, a historian testified that when the school board first chose the name Stonewall Jackson, it did so in part to discourage Black students from seeking transfers into the newly opened high school.

That wasn’t a name chosen for its ring. That was a name chosen to keep a door closed.

And then I thought again about the hotel.

I had known it for decades as the Stonewall Jackson Hotel. Now, I had slept in Hotel 24 South.

I couldn’t help but wonder about its name change. What prompted it? Would it, too, return to what it had been before? Had the hotel simply painted o’er?

I had no idea. But I knew a little research might help me decide whether I had been laughing at or laughing with.

I found the answer, and it, too, took me back to 2020.

In the weeks following the murder of George Floyd, protesters began gathering outside the Stonewall Jackson Hotel, calling for the hotel to change its name and remove the enormous rooftop sign.

On June 16, the owners announced that they would do just that. They said they wanted to respect the history of the Shenandoah Valley while honoring all of its citizens and, with a new name, embrace “a future that enhances our values of equality and inclusiveness for everyone.”

Fine words. But words are easy.

The protesters knew that. They kept coming. They wanted to see the words followed by action.

In July, signs began coming down. In August, the hotel asked Staunton’s Historic Preservation Commission for permission to remove “Stonewall Jackson” from that enormous rooftop sign—the very sign I had seen more times than I can count. On September 1, the new name was announced.

Change took place. Real change.

Hotel 24 South.

The new name intrigued me, too. It wasn’t an attempt to invent a history for the place. Quite the opposite. The hotel stands at 24 South Market Street and opened in 1924. Its new name reached backward even as the hotel’s owners said they were looking forward.

Then I discovered something else.

The enormous rooftop sign itself wasn’t original to the hotel. It had been added decades later, as downtown Staunton businesses worried that bypasses, Interstate 81, and development on the city’s outskirts would carry travelers—and their dollars—right past them.

Even Staunton’s preservation staff concluded that the sign was not historically significant to the architecture of the hotel. Old, yes. Familiar, certainly. But not an essential part of what made the building historic.

That stopped me. I had been thinking about all of this backward.

Changing the name hadn’t changed the hotel’s history. The history was still there. The building was still there. The grand lobby was still there. The olive-green sofas, the rugs, the dark wood, the enormous brass chandeliers—all of it had greeted Gary and me when we stepped off that elevator.

Stonewall Jackson was still there, too. Not on the roof. Not over the entrance. Not as the hotel’s name. But in its history.

And get this. Hotel 24 South doesn’t pretend it was never the Stonewall Jackson Hotel. Its own history still says that it was. What changed was not the past.

What changed was what the hotel chose to call itself in the present.

Maybe that was what I had missed when Gary and I stood in that parking garage laughing at that ridiculous-looking sign.

Those raised letters underneath the glossy forest-green paint suddenly looked different to me.

They weren’t necessarily evidence of something unsuccessfully hidden. Maybe they were evidence of something remembered.

There is a difference.

We cannot paint o’er the past and make it disappear. Nor should we. George III remains underneath George Washington. Stonewall Jackson remains part of the history of a grand old hotel in Staunton—and part of the history of a high school in Shenandoah County.

But remembering a name and continuing to bear it are not the same thing.

The hotel chose to remember. The school board chose to bear it again.

One lets the past show through. The other asks the past to speak for the present.

Was I laughing at that sign in the parking garage? Laughing with it? With it, I think.

Perhaps that old sign got it right after all. The old name is still there. You can see it if you look.

But over it, another name.

Painted o’er. This time, with good intent.

There It Stood

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“Past, present, future, all appeared
In harmony united…” (“Yarrow Revisited”)

—William Wordsworth (1770–1850). English Romantic poet who saw profound meaning in ordinary life, memory, nature, and place.

There it stood, heavy with decades of growth. Ten feet or so tall, even when arching gracefully under its own weight. Five feet or so wide, triumphant on the forest edge. Fargesia Jiuzhaigou. A shade-loving, cold-hardy bamboo that could manage ten below zero.

There it stood, sentinel over the koi—swimming the depths of the little pond—whose mirror-surface broke over and over again as water cascaded down the fall’s mossy stones.

There it stood, softening the massive sandstone rocks that gave the waterfall its heft and that teased the dwarfed hand-hewn, lattice-windowed granite lantern at the top.

There it stood, blocking the view from where we sometimes sat on the little patio facing the pond and everything that stood beyond where it stood on the other side.

There it stood, hugging the flagstone pathway beside it, and bringing into question the path itself and any destiny to which it might lead.

It had not always stood thus.

I remember when it arrived, black-bucketed, six scrawny canes spanning six inches.

I remember when I troweled out a hole beside the koi pond and planted it in the hope that over time its greenness would tower and soften the stone-edged waterfall, the bank down from the forest floor, and even the pathway leading to uncertainty.

I remember when it stood there, dwarfed by Quan Yin—the goddess of compassion, mercy, healing, and peace—standing tall on the ledge jutting over the water’s edge.

I remember when it stood there, intimidated by the jade chīshǒu—a Chinese dragon-head–spouting its melody against the pond’s splashings.

I remember it through all the seasons, through all the glorious and trembling growth spurts and even through all my timid prunings.

And I remember it exactly as it stood on the morning of the very day I came to know it could stand there no more.

“Gary, it’s got to go.”

“What?”

“The bamboo standing there.”

He looked at it, then at me, understandably as reluctant to nod agreement as I was hesitant to undo what had been there for so long.

Gary and I both knew what stood beyond the bamboo and beyond the pathway whose inward curve lay hidden by the outward arching clump.

He and I had spent weeks landscaping all that was unseen on the other side of the bamboo. We extended the dry-stacked rock wall. We pruned the rhododendrons. We mulched the sloping bank beneath and the ground behind, curving the edge and weedwhacking all the way to the woods behind.

We knew exactly how all those changes looked–once we walked our way past the bamboo. And we loved its open spaciousness.

But sitting there on the little patio by the koi pond where we sometimes sat, the bamboo seemed to wrap us—cocoon us—in the protective cloak of a well-established past.

What would it feel like, sitting there without the bamboo?

What would it look like sitting there, without the bamboo but with all that lay behind it and beyond it, exposed and in full view?

“Maybe just prune it back a little?”

“I don’t know. I’ll see once I get started.”

My mind was made up, I thought, and early morning proved it. I set about the task with fierce resolve. Before long, my legs could not be seen beneath the cut canes that surrounded me.

Each time I carried a load to the Gladiator, the bamboo lowered itself closer and closer to the ground. Lower. Less. Nothing.

And in the moment of my final return to where it once stood, the landscape opened before me alive with unexpected potential.

I could see the first stone wall I built there, toppled in part from time and winter’s heavings but still secure in its footing.

I could see the pond’s block foundation stretched over with liner.

I could see tubing snaking its way up out of the pond, up the bank, behind boulders, and into the base of the waterfall.

I could see all the inner workings of a past that had served well but that had, at the same time, outgrown the landscape it was built to enhance.

I could see what needed to be done.

I kept what remained strong. The footing. The block foundation. The boulders too massive to yield to whim. I pulled away what had failed, reset what had shifted, and rebuilt the old wall stone by stone.

The work moved quickly now. Four long slabs of flagstone reached out over the pond, parallel to one another but each at its own height. The exposed tubing disappeared behind stone. Two copper cranes stepped onto the lower ledges. Quan Yin and the granite lantern, no longer dwarfed, took their places in the open landscape.

Then the water ran again. It slipped over mossy stones, fell into the pond, and broke the mirror surface just as it always had. The waterfall was not new, but now I could see its sound.

More than that, I could see where a rich and aged past met a shiny and reimagined present.

I was confident that time’s inevitable patina would marry both.

Standing near where the bamboo once stood, Gary and I could see through the garden now, through it all. All the way through. Clearly.

There it stood.

Always an After

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No “after” has ever failed to come.
—Brent L. Kendrick

And did they know that darkness would fall upon the land and that stars and moon would shine and day would break come morrow?

And did they know that day would become darkness again?

And did they know that clouds would one day cover the sun and rain would fall and the sun would shine again?

And did they know cold and drawing together for warmth?

And did they know hunger, that first emptiness within?

And did they know the first fullness that followed?

And did they know thirst and the sweetness of water?

And did they know weariness and sleep and waking?

And did they know pain?

And did they know fear?

And did they know safety?

And did they know loneliness before they moaned its name?

And did they know the comfort of another body near?

And did they know the wonder of touch?

And did they know desire before they knew what it wanted?

And did they know the heat of flesh against flesh, the urgency of bodies discovering what bodies could do?

And did they know afterward the quiet of lying together?

And did they know love?

And did they know that love would make one human being need another?

And did they know anger and the turning away?

And did they know the silence between them?

And did they know the reaching back?

And did they know laughter?

And did they know tears?

And did they know joy?

And did they know sorrow?

And did they know the swelling of a belly and the waiting?

And did they know the first cry of new life?

And did they know the astonishment of seeing themselves somehow continued in another?

And did they know youth?

And did they know age?

And did they know health and illness and the watching through the long night?

And did they know that sometimes morning would bring healing?

And did they know that sometimes it would not?

And did they know death?

That first stillness.

That first body that would not awaken.

That first calling of a name that brought no answer.

And did they know what to do with the body?

And did they know what to do with themselves?

And did they know that darkness would fall upon the land that night just as it had fallen before?

And did they know that stars and moon would shine?

And did they know that day would break come morrow?

And did they awaken hungry?

And did they eat?

And did they walk again upon the earth?

And did they ever believe–even once–in all their knowings, that there would always be an after.

To Mend or Not to Mend, that Is the Question | Poor Brentford Has His Notions

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“Some things serve us best by finishing well.”
— Poor Brentford Lee (b. 1947. Advisor on matters requiring both thread and judgment. Maintains that things well used are best released with gratitude.)

Poor thing. It was just hanging there in the closet.

My favorite purple linen shirt. It was freshly ironed, as it always is, because Gary cares and continues faithfully to press it into presentability even though we both know the collar has grown thin, the threads worn nearly bare, the fabric softened beyond persuasion by years of loyal service at the neckline.

It hangs. Right beside the better ones, right beside the best ones. It still looks handsome at a distance. The color holds its dignity. The linen remembers its authority.

But up close, the collar tells the truth.

There I stood, looking at it, wondering whether I might wear it out in public one more time.

“Dare I?”

I suspected not.

Still, the idea would not entirely leave me. Gary has shown more than once that he knows his way around a needle. I have seen evidence of his skill. A careful stitch here, a thoughtful repair there. Nothing dramatic. Simply competent and reliable.

I couldn’t help but wonder:

“Could Gary save my collar? Could he perform one more act of restoration that would allow me to parade around in public in my old faithful shirt?”

I stood there longer than any sensible person should reasonably devote to a worn piece of linen, quietly debating whether dignity required retirement or reinforcement.

And that was when Poor Brentford arrived.

He did not offer advice immediately. Poor Brentford rarely rushes. He prefers to ask me questions that seem innocent until I attempt to answer them.

“Are you quite certain,” he asked mildly, “that this is a path you wish to explore?”

I did not answer because I knew what direction he was about to take.

Poor Brentford’s memory is longer than I care to admit, even when it comes to fabric.

“Don’t you recall other occasions,” he continued, “when well-intended mending produced unintended outcomes?”

He did not need to specify.

I knew. But I chose to give him that blank stare that always works for me when I feign innocence.

“Remember your sister’s dress?”

Of course, I did. Judy needed something special for an important high school occasion. She had a lovely white dress–a hand-me-down from an older sister. Elegant, well made, perfectly respectable. But what teenage lady wants to wear a dress that has made its public debut already?

“Surely you remember the persuasive talk your resourceful mother gave her?”

“‘Judy,’ she whimpered with soft confidence, “I can transform that dress into something so stunning it will look brand new. A packet of Rit dye is all I need. Pink will be breathtaking on you.'”

Poor Brentford need not have refreshed my memory further. I remembered all.

My mother prepared the dye, immersed the dress, and waited the appointed time.

Judy and I walked out into the back yard with my mother as she hung the dress on the clothesline.

“Oh, Judy. It’s stunning!”

Judy looked, not terribly convinced, even less so when she walked around to inspect the back of the dress.

“Mama! Look! The back doesn’t match. It’s a much deeper pink.”

She was right. The front embraced a gentle pink, while the back pursued a darker vision of the same dream.

Judy was crying. I was laughing. And Poor Brentford? He had the nerve to offer encouragement.

“Listen here, girl. Two shades of pink simply mean twice the fashion. People admire originality.”

They did not. But Poor Brentford was not to be undone. To this day I can still hear him applauding my mother’s sincerity all the while admitting that a new dress was what the day—and Judy’s event—needed.

“Stop pining away over your purple shirt,” he ordered as I continued to stand and stare. “Sometimes, some things are best left alone. Have you forgotten Audrey’s sewing machine?”

How could I not remember. My sister had talked about it often.

As a newlywed, she was proud of her sewing skills but lacked the mechanical companion she believed her talents deserved. Rather than come right out and ask for a sewing machine, she mentioned casually that if she had one, she could mend his tattered garments while frugally extending their wearability.

Poor Brentford understood her plight and reminded her:

“A sewing machine is never an extravagance. It is an investment in continuity.”

And so it was. Repairs followed. Patches appeared. Shirts and trousers acquired energetic embellishments that coworkers described—not entirely unfairly—as reminiscent of a coat of many colors.

But the decisive test came when a funeral required that Audrey shorten Bobby’s dress pants. She took careful measurements and made her sewing machine sing. She was certain that she had completed the alteration with seamstress precision. When her husband tried on the trousers, one side was several inches shorter than the other.

Poor Brentford, never inclined toward alarm, regarded the matter calmly.

“Length,” he observed, “is sometimes a matter of perspective.”

Audrey made every effort to restore balance. She even added fabric at the bottom, but she could not hide the seam that was required to extend the length. Her husband never made it to the funeral, but he never forgot the trousers that he never wore.

By resurrecting these two historical family moments, I knew what Poor Brentford was doing. He was reminding me of the disappointment I would face if I insisted on saving what time had already altered.

“Well-intended mending,” he whispered gently, “does not always restore what we hope it will restore.”

We stood there together, looking at the collar Gary had pressed with such quiet care.

“Surely you’re not thinking that the collar could be reversed?”

It was as if he had read my mind.

“Don’t even go there,” he continued. “Allow the shirt to go down dignified.”

Poor Brentford has always understood something I am still learning. Mending is not always accomplished with needle and thread. The dress was altered beyond harmony. The trousers were improved beyond wearability. The collar had been laundered into truth, its edge now softened to the point of surrender.

“Some things serve us best by finishing well.”

Poor Brentford said nothing more. He did not need to. He has always known that mending takes many forms.

We mend by stitching.
We mend by adapting.
We mend by honoring.
We mend by remembering.

But, sometimes, we mend best by releasing.