The History of Base Ball in Loudoun County, Virginia

Baseball was very popular in Loudoun.  According to local author, Jack Barrett, the first known reference is an 1869 newspaper reporting that the Leesburg Tuscaroras played the Hamilton Magnolias in Hamilton.  The Potomac Baseball Club formed in Leesburg in 1877, and the Loudoun County League was established with six teams in 1920.

If you would like to know more about the history of Base Ball in Loudoun County, Jack Barrett has written a thoroughly researched and detailed book called “A History of Loudoun County Baseball 1869 – 1987”.

Yesterday, Saturday May 21, Waterford, VA recognized the Civil War Sesquicentennial.  Made me proud to be a resident of Waterford,  not because of the Civil War but because we actually participated in a very honorable recognition of “keeping history alive”.  Apparently the house in which we live housed a family deeply divided on the Civil War.  The wife was a Confederate and the husband a Union sympathiser.  Their seven or so children were divided as well and their sons had to be kept seperated in order to keep them from killing each other.  Our house is actually two houses which were joined in the ’50′s.  Apparently, the husband and wife resided in each of the two houses with their respective children.  This is quite amazing, I had no idea.  In fact, I was inside working on my photos of the day when I heard voices, went outside and there was our local historian, John Souder giving a talk in front of our house about Asa Brown and his wife who once inhabited this house.

You’ll have to come to the Waterford Fair to find out more about this very interesting family history.  I always knew we had ghosts, but now I know why.  Am happy to say our family is much calmer and if you come on Saturday of the Fair please join us for a glass of wine in the garden. The cavalry in my back yard Miss Nickens   At ease!

I just returned from a fantastic trip/tour of Guatemala which included Antigua, Lake Atitlan and Tikal.  This was a Biotrek trip put together by Sunny Reynolds of Warrenton, VA.  We stayed in wonderful hotels, ate great food, had very informed and interesting guides and also had time off to process all we had seen and done.  I would go back to Guatemala in one second.  What a lovely, interesting, colorful, friendly country.

45% of the population consists of indigenous Mayan Indians.  Guatemala has a very, very rich history which includes erupting volcanos, earthquakes, a forty year civil war, The Spanisharrival in the fifteenth century.  There are some great restaurants in Antigua.  There is also a lot of symbolism in the colors worn by the Mayans and in the churches.  We also went to some wonderful markets.  And, make sure to watch out for the colorful chicken buses, their drivers are known as Kamakazis for their very aggresive driving.  These buses actually pass other cars on curves and hills.  They have a fellow hanging out the door waving at the other drivers to move.  And the other drivers do move.  Many people are killed each year.

Street scene in Antigua

Sample textile in a market

Chicken Bus

Meet my good friend and neighbor Bev.  She is an artist.  Her canvas is her home.  Every time I see her she has changed her house.  She redecorates with objects she finds like a discarded bench, or the louvered doors on her washer dryer which she repainted and placed on her porch.

Her grandchildren’s artwork, finds from Pier I, leaves from palm trees, pages out of magazines, all these common objects find a new life with Bev.  Her home looks as though it is out of a magazine until you start quizzing her and realize where her art collection came from.

Bev is also a great model for me.  Here she is on her back porch with some of her treasures.