HENRY CLAY PEARSON

 Henry Clay Pearson

Private, Co. C - Mosby's Rangers - 43rd Battalion Virginia Cav.
Was known as one of Mosby's mountaineers, undertaker, dentist and whiskey maker for State of Virginia. Wounded in Action in Civil War. Helped build the Cool Springs Methodist Church in Fauq. Cool Springs Methodist Church had been used by Mosby's men to hold prisoners until they could be taken to the Richmond prison. Enl. 2/2/1864 for the war by William H. Chapman in Fauquier County. Present on Jan - Feb 1864 Muster Roll; Appears 4th qtr. 1864 Clothing Receipt Roll; Paroled 4/22/1865 at Winchester. Age 20, 5'11", light complex., light hair, grey eyes, Appears on 1898 roster of Confederate soldiers for Marshall District., Fauquier Co. Lived in Delaplane in 1895. Contractor living in Gainsville in 1909. Attended the 1895 reunion in Marshall. Died 1/5/1933. Buried: Cool Springs Methodist Church., Delaplane, Fauquier Co., VA.

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An article on Capital Airlines from The Evening Star Newspaper in the 1950's.

SAND SOUP

When we lived in South San Francisco, California Rod used to go dig clams at Linda Mar Beach in Pacifica.  They were actually cherry cockles that thrived in the sand and among the rocks on the coast.  The purpose was to make clam chowder or sand soup as Rod calls it.  You bring them home in a pail and set them in the garage and feed them cornmeal for a couple of days while the clams release all the sand that's inside them.  That way when you can make your chowder it won't be gritty.

I came home from work one day and didn't know Rod had been clam digging and walked into the house and went to the garage door and opened the door from the kitchen side.  What I saw was all these long necks sticking straight up over the top of the pail in the dark and Snap! they disappeared as soon as the light hit them.  Surprised the heck out of me!

When we make clam chowder we make it like making potato soup with cut up potatoes and cream and salt and pepper and onions and a little bacon and a little garlic for flavoring and of course clams.  The clams are steamed separately and added to the chowder base.  Delicious.

SNOW STORM Winter 1958

The winter of 1958 I was in 5th grade at Fairview School at Fairfax Station and living on Popes Head Road which was the first road on the right after you passed The Country Club of Fairfax heading towards Occoquan.  They were calling for a snow storm and Mom dressed my sister and I in the warmest school clothes we had which for me was a brown wool skirt and a sweater with bobby sox, we weren't a knee socks family and tights hadn't come in fashion yet.  I don't remember if it was snowing when the school bus picked us up but I watched the snow building up on the hedge outside the windows of my school room.  They finally closed Fairfax County schools and we boarded the school bus to go home. Our route home was through Fairfax Station, those kids walked to school, to drop off Jackie Lambert and the Posey twins down Fairfax Station Road which ends at Cholchester Road just up from the Bunny Man Bridge.  There was no great horror tale of the Bunny Man back then I'd never heard of him nor had my Mother who lived in Clifton while she was going to Fairfax High School.  I think the story originated in the 1970's.  That part of Colchester at that time wasn't paved it was still gravel and just as we turned right onto Colchester and pulled up the hill the bus slid off the road into a bank.  Some older boys on the bus got off and some started walking and some helped the driver and I don't know how they got us unstuck but they did.  When we finally started again we dropped off the kids in Vannoy Park at the corner of Colchester and Popes Head and headed down Popes Head.  My Mom had walked over to the bus stop in front of Nancy Dolingers and waited with Mrs. Dolinger and Debbie Lyons' mom, and Rilla Washington's Mom.  When we finally got there Mom and my little brother got on the school bus and rode the quarter mile to our house.

Here's more from later that day....My Dad worked for Capital Airlines at National Aiport and had a part time job at Mundy's Esso Station at the corner of Main and Payne Streets in the "Town of Fairfax".  Payne Street is what Rt. 123/Chain Bridge Road/Ox Road was called inside the town in those days and was named after the Payne Family who owned Hope Park Plantation on Popes Head Road in Colonial times.   Dad was working that evening when a soldier that was stationed at the Nike Site on Popes Head and was hitch hiking back to base stopped in. They must have closed the station early that night because I remember when my dad got home as I ordinarily would have been in bed. Anyway they took my Dad's green 1954 Chevy and drove down 123 to Popes Head and made it down as far as the bridge at Popes Head Creek but just could't make it over the one lane bridge and up the the hill. As a grownup I was always afraid of sliding into the pond that was on the other side of the bridge.  The soldier didn't have very far to walk from the bridge the first enrance to the Nike site was just over the top of the hill but Dad had a lot farther to go.  I'll never forget the kitchen door bursting open and my dad falling on the floor exhausted from trudging in knee deep snow from the bridge.  We still had power at this point but lost it over night and Dad cooked breakfast on the two cylinder camp stove we had for emergencies.  Heat for the house was from the fireplace in the living room.  The next day Dad, Mom, me, Linda, my little brother, and our boxer dog Mack (Mackie Boy I can't wait to see you again in heaven)  walked over the road to Kemp Mattingly's country store for bread and stuff and neighbors joined us on the way.  The store was there even into te 1980's and my daughter and her friends all called it "Popes Head Mall".  My parents were young as were the neighbors on the road and we a pretty merry group.  We walked in the tracks of cars that had been able to get over the road that morning.  My best memory from that snowstorm is laying on a rug in front of the fire and reading "The Boxcar Children".

 

MEMORIAL DAY 2015

 Mama passed away in October 1998 and was buried at the National Cemetery at Quantico, Virginia.  On a summer day Daddy and I went down to visit her and he got upset that there was no lush green grass over her grave or anywhere in her sector.  Mama is buried in the last section on the left if you drive in and do the loop around the cemetery.  We saw some men digging a grave not far from us and Daddy called them over and they called their supervisor who was in charge of the grounds.  He was a very nice respectful person who explained that irrigation had not yet been plumbed into this section so the growing of grass was subject to rainfall and God's will.  He told us he was also incharge of the grounds in a very old military cemetery in Alexandria and to my mind's eye I believe he was referencing Revolutionary War era.  He also explaned to me out of Daddy's earshot that unlike the "six feet under" you always think about burials there was actually only eighteen inches above you.  I'm glad Dad didn't hear that or that would have upset him, too.  The grounds keeper managed to satisfy Daddy and I was happy for that.  Robin and I visited Mama later that year and there was a beautiful patch of thick green grass over just her grave and the rest of the area looked the same as it did when I had visited with Dad.  I thought that was so remarkable that the groundskeeper had done that.   I always thought even though we never discussed it that Dad was upset because he knew he'd be joining Mom soon enough.  Daddy passed in February 2009 and was buried with Mama.  I always wished they had been buried in the cemetery on Main Street in Fairfax City where all of my relatives on Mom's side of the family are buried.  I feel better knowing that they aren't down there at Quantico all alone now.  Daddy's younger brother Lawrence (Uncle Boo) and Aunt Audrey are buried at Quantico now as is Mama's baby brother my Uncle Carroll Simpson and Mama's first cousin Jannelle and her husband Frank Pennington.  Daddy's sister my Aunt Annabelle and Uncle Bill Vredenburg are buried at the National Cemetery at Culpepper, Virginia.  Thank you to all my relatives who served this country in wartime and peacetime and to all the women who waited for them and loved them.  Memorial Day 2015.

I REMEMBER AQUA NET

It was August 1961 just before my freshman year at Fairfax High School, Fairfax, VA which was a suburb of Washington DC.  My good friend Kathy Lamb called and invited me to go on the Buddy Dean Show, a teen dance show in Baltimore, MD similar to American Bandstand in Philadelphia and The Milt Grant Show in Washington, DC.  Kathy's dad was a  record promoter for Decca Records and got us tickets for the Buddy Dean Show.  This is the show that film producer John Waters, who grew up in Baltimore, based his film Hairspray on.

Kathy's date was Billy Hawke and my date was Danny Snider and we were all great friends.   All but Billy had been going to my neighborhood's Ardmore Teen Club Saturday night teen dances for two years.  Kathy and Danny and I were teen dance show pros having been on The Milt Grant Show with our teen club the fall of 1959.  

Kathy had very short dark curly hair and I had a long pony tail with a pompadour of bangs a la Connie Stevens as Cricket on the Hawaiian Eye tv show.  We both wore broomstick skirts which were gathered skirts with a thick black belt around the waist and white shirts with the collar turned up and rolled sleeves.  Danny and Billy wore what we would now call chinos and white shirts and thin ties with their collars turned up, too.  I can't remember our shoes but we girls because we were "dressed up" probably had on black flats (otherwise it would be tennis shoes with turned up bobby sox) and the guys wore regular guy shoes with white socks.  White socks!

The show was fun and we two couples were in the spotlight dance!

Okay, I guess you understand that Kathy and I, 14-15 years old, were the country bumpkins from the little town of Fairfax, VA. in the big city of Baltimore, MD.  Even Washington, DC was still just a little southern town then.  The kids that were regulars on this dance show were very sophisticated compared to us.  Although Jackie Kennedy had been first lady for a year and wore a bouffant hairdo this was the first time we'd seen hair teased and pouffed to gigantic proportons.  The one girl that sticks in my mind now for over fifty years was tall and very thin, dark haired, and wore a pencil thin black skirt and a black sweater tucked at the waist, again, with a big thick black belt.  Her hair was enormous.  ENORMOUS.  Teased to a height and a width I would never, ever be able to achieve and held with  hairspray.......Aqua Net!

Looks like Kathy is dancing on air!

That fall BIG HAIR came to my little town.  By the next spring even I had cut my pony tail and teased a little and highlighted with a homemade mixture of one part ammonia to two parts peroxide (or was it the other way around!)  In another year the bouffant was out and the flip was in.  A year from that long straight hair was in and curly hair was being ironed straight on our Mother's ironing boards.  As a history of hair in the 1960's I may as well finish by saying long straight or curly unprocessed Hippy Hair finished the decade....and this is without even mentioning what the Beatles did for men or what the Afro did for everyone.
 

Rod.....1983

"Saturday Night In The City Of The Dead"

In front of the Great Pyramid he stands
Passing the time of day with the camel ride guy.
When the camel ride guy's shift is over
He pulls off his galabiya,
Which covers a three piece suit,
Hops in his Mercedes and drives away.

Inside the Great Pyramid he lies down in a
Sarcophagus shell and his brother snaps his picture.

He sees a statue of an oracle
And her half smile, he says, reminds him of me.

Sailing down the Nile from Aswan, which is sailing north,
He looks off the back of the boat and the men of the crew
Are clustered in a circle smoking from a hookah.
The smell is rich and pungent and familiar.

There are drapings hung all around the top deck
Of the boat so you're not a target for snipers on the bank.

They tell you don't drink the water but the French Girl
Buys lemonade from a vendor and ends up being
Transported by chopper to a hospital ...deathly ill.

The waitress in the Mena House Hotel was beautiful
With cinnamon skin and crystal clear blue eyes.

Six weeks after he was there a bomb 
Blew up a portion of the Mena House.
It survives.