had changed was the wide variety of activities available

had changed was the wide variety of activities available to RCHS students, especially all the sports for girls.

I recall that after my sophomore year, girls basketball was dropped because the school moved into a new athletic district which did not have it. Some of the players ended up as cheerleaders, the only sports-related option left. Now they have volleyball, track, softball, etc., as well as basketball. We can of course thank Title IX for that and the women’s movement. I hope some day to see a RCHS grad playing for Debbie Ryan on a national championship Virginia team.

Living in Charlottesville, I think of my reconciliation with things Rappahannock as my journey “North Towards Home,” taken from the book with the same title by Mississippi’s Willie Morris, another work that I credit greatly with starting me thinking about roots and origins in my own life.

I learned that I could be white, Southern, rural, and like a lot of the culture. I grew up with the music, the food, the caring for place and the past, and yet rejected the negatives. One can reject racism and sexism, homophobia, violence and fundamentalism, anti-intellectualism in general, and still not feel a stranger in one’s own land.

I feel now that I have reached the point best summed up in the words of feminist singer/songwriter and Lynchburg native, Meg Christian. In a song aptly entitled “Southern Home” she wrote the lines “embrace what I’ve loved, and turn over the rest.” That is what I hope for Mr. Ralls, for all of us, that we will reach toward a healing, a reconciliation.

Once I thought that Rappahannock County would be a part of my life that I would put behind me forever, never see again. Instead, it remains a part of me, a place I love, and wish only the best for.

It has many lovely good things, and no bad things that cannot be found anywhere else in America. To preserve the good, and work for the social change that will eliminate the bad, remains as our goal.