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BY JAMES P. GANNON
Rappahannock News
Contributing Writer
We have just passed through a moment in history j that prompts contemplation and cries out for fresh thinking and renewal. The arrival of the Year 2000 evokes thoughts of past and future, but especially of future.
We have left a century of profound change, only to enter one that is sure to bring even swifter change. In terms of our home ground, Rappahannock County, the | agrarian society that existed in the year 1900 is gone, i Important remnants and reminders of that society remain.
We still have farms around us, though few of us are farmers. We still have historic houses, public buildings and villages, and it is vitally important that we preserve them. We still have open spaces, thank God and good zoning laws, and we cherish them and must work ever harder to keep them.
But the economy and the culture that sustained these j things in the past is but a nostalgic memory. The commerce that once supported our local stores and businesses moved first to suburban malls, then to big-box superstores, and now is moving to j Nowhere, that is, the Internet. The culture of working where you live and living where you work drove away with the Age of the Commuter. Everything that supported small farms, small towns and small businesses in rural counties has collapsed, which is why places like Rappahannock County are vanishing from America.
Better than most places, Rappahannock County has been able to deflect and resist the forces of change. The county was blessed with some significant deprivations, we never got a railroad, we never got an Interstate Highway,
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