New Years Eve in Fincastle

Fincastle has an interesting way of ringing in the new year.  Actually, they do "ring" in the new year!

There are four churches and the courthouse with bell towers that ring the village.  Folks go up in each of the towers and as the new year approaches, they ring the bell in each tower one by one every 12 seconds or so.  It goes in the same order until the stroke of midnight when the bell on the courthouse rings out the old year.

This year the ring pattern will be:
2    two rings
0    ten rings
1    one ring
10  ten rings

Then they will play taps and ring in the new year:
2    two rings
0    ten rings
1    one ring
1    one ring

The crowd usually gets a little antsy during this and doesn't pay proper attention to the details.

Next a guy fires off a shotgun and all the bells at all the places ring for 15 minutes or so.  sometimes there are fireworks as well, just a couple of blasts to bring in the new year.  This all happens a block from the sheriffs office so the pyrotecnics need to be discreet or hit and run.

Beverages people carry to the corner are ignored for the most part by the local constabulary, I've never seen anyone arrested at the event.

Latest Sign Alert for Fincastle!

Post about the new signs warning us about a sign in Fincastle.

http://shitthatpissesmeoff-huckleberry.blogspot.com/2010/12/signs-that-inform-you-about-signs.html

Fincastle Christmas Parade, how did it turn out?

The parade was greeted by a nice snowfall this year.  Not enough to effect the events but enough to make it look great and get everyone in the Christmas Spirit.

Interestingly enough, the Grand Marshall of the Parade was Voldemort...wait I mean Mayor Critzer, who has more than a passing resemblance to the evil one both in appearance and demeanor.  I guess the barrel has been completely scraped!

The parade got stuck at the return to Main St. per my prediction.  The delay seemed to last longer than usual but was eventually worked out.  There was a Jeep Club and Corvette Club in the parade as well as the usual groups.

We had libations, food, and good fellowship while we watched and joked and talked with the participants.

A good time was had by all.

Fincastle Christmas Parade, the real story.

Fincastle Virginia will have their annual Christmas parade on Saturday December 4th at 2pm.  The line up is at 1pm at Breckenridge Elementary School.  If you are running late to the lineup, you need to come in the back way from Springwood or the back road to the middle school or you will not be able to get to Breckenridge.

The Parade traditionally consists of lots of fire trucks, ambulances and church floats.   There are also some cute kids groups that march or have floats, look for the Fincastle Preschool float...it will be the one with the parents completely surrounding it to the point that you can't really see the kids.  It happens every year, kind of funny, guess we did it a couple of years ourselves, long ago.

The parade comes into town from the school turns on Main St. then turns onto Church St.  From there it proceeds up to Academy St. and over to Roanoke St. where it heads back to main.  Every year, when it heads back down main, it meets the tail end of the parade at Church St.  The parade then stops until someone figures out it's stuck and walks backwards down the route telling all the participants to close ranks until the parade can continue.  Not too sure why no one else seems to remember this year to year to attempt to fix the problem.

One other thing to watch for is every couple of years a new entry with a tractor trailer will fail to make the turn from Main to Church St.  There is a strategically located telephone pole that has seen damages ranging from rubs to complete removal.  A bonus to watching in that area is that you get to see the parade twice!  The judges traditionally sit in front of the old Baptist Church, now a residence.

There are usually some folks selling hot chocolate and so forth along the parade route and this year Charades Nostalgia Grill is supposed to open for the parade.

Afterwards, Santa shows up at the school to take orders from the local children.

Historic Halloween Haunted House in Fincastle!

Remember the haunted houses we used to do in the old Oldsmobile garage, now Ed Bordett's Art Studio, back in the 90's?  Does anyone have any pictures?  We were too busy setting it up and running the thing to take any.  We used to have several different areas in the room and some outside.  I remember Pete was a revolutionary or civil war guy with a live rifle.  We also had a running chain saw with no chain. 

Comment if you have pictures or remember.

What's going on in Fincastle for the holidays?

The Botetourt Chamber of Commerce sent out their weekly email of events going on and the Town of Buchanan had a list of items stretching into the new year.  Christmas Parade, lights, new years events, and even a Christmas tree burning on Jan. 6th.  Doesn't Fincastle do these sort of things?  Perhaps we may have an actual use for our town planner, letting us know what is going on in town!  Don't we have a parade, Lights, New Years bell ringing?  Perhaps we should let people know what is going on.  Or is it just for the elite town residents?  Perhaps the town is not a member of the chamber...they would most likely post the events anyway.

Christmas lights are on in Fincastle!

Heard the bucket truck and laughing kids riding around turning on the Christmas lights in Fincastle Friday night.  It brought back memories of when we used to do that with the kids riding up in the bucket truck with us and throwing the occasional bad bulb at a stray dog.  The bulb would pop and the dog would run off looking perplexed.  Always makes the town look better with the cheerful lights up and shining brightly.

New Town Planner for Town of Fincastle, Why?

The Botetourt View is reporting on the new town planner for Fincastle.  The town residents are paying for this individual but he states his goals as meeting with the county board of supervisors and working with Historic Fincastle to see what the town needs. I am sure that none of the board of supervisors or the tourism head from the county live in Fincastle.  Looking at the HFI site, I only recognize three of the listed board members as living in Fincastle, one other has deep roots but doesn't actually live in town.  The Chair appears to not be a town resident or a recent one is she is a resident.

Clearly, a town manager should have the best interest of those who pay his salary as his goal, regardless of the reasons those who hired him had to bring him to the job. 

There are two reasons the town is what it is today.

First, the town has traditionally resisted change.  The railroad wanted to locate here and the town fathers said no.  Several colleges tried to locate here...no as well.  When I moved here 20 years ago I was gung ho to change everything, after a couple of years we figured out that it was really fine the way it was.

Secondly, the town has always let folks do what they want as long as they don't impact the rights of others.  We have no review boards telling us what color we can paint our houses or if we can put siding on or put up a fence.  If we want to have a home business, that's fine as well. 

Actually I would argue that is one of the reasons Fincastle is the way it is today. Historically almost everyone had some sort of business in the home or lived in their place of business.  There are those currently in power that would like to change Fincastle into some sort of suburban subdivision, they want their section of town to strictly controlled to be only residential, single family residential in fact.  Even new subdivisions in all areas are realizing that places you live need to be mixed use...especially a small town. We need to purchase services locally and trade with our neighbors.

Finally, the town needs to focus on activities that bring the people of the town together, not tears them apart.  Secret letter writing campaigns focused on a select group, are not conducive of good neighbor relations.  If you want a position of responsibility in the town, say so, have and open an honest debate on the issues, not a secret petition or secret letter.

Let's all keep an eye on the new regime to make sure we don't see increases in taxes and costs like when Mayor Critzer raised the building permit fee for Fincastle from $15 to $300 when he first took office.  The funny thing is that the county does the work and you have to pay them as well!

Christmas Lights going up.

Various members of the Fincastle Town Council were seen putting up the Christmas Lights with some help from the phone company. Notable in his absense was Mayor Critzer. Of course, when he did show up back in the good old days, he would just hang around, talk and distract those actually doing the work, so they probably were better off with out him.

Good work to those who helped! Thanks for your contribution to the town.

How's the outsourcing of water and sewer working out in Fincastle Virginia?

The Town of Fincastle Virginia has outsourced the water and sewer system for several years.  The only example I have of how it's working, is when I noticed that there was water coming out of my meter box a couple of weeks ago.  I called the town office and was told that I needed to call the water authority in Roanoke.  Then I was told there was someone at the plant who could come by and check it out.  45 minutes later, no one had shown up so I called the water authority.  They had trouble figuring out where my address was, I guess because Fincastle is so big and complicated, but they finally seemed to understand.  When I headed out of town I saw a water authority truck in front of the old Baptist church, so I stopped and related my story. They said they would look at it.

I went to town and several hours later I was on the way back and my cell phone rang. It was the technician from the water authority, who was at my house.  He informed me the leak was on my side so I would have to take care of it.  I asked him to wait for me as I was only 5 minutes out, and he did.  When I arrived we determined that there was no water in the box when he got there and then found an old o ring on the ground so I said that the other guys must have fixed it.

He was disturbed that there were other guys involved.  I guess the local guys aren't supposed to fix things, we are supposed to have someone drive up from Roanoke. Anyway, he wanted to know where else they were working so I guess the town will pay twice for the two repairs that day.  Doesn't seem like the most efficient way to me!

A couple of months ago during another problem, one of the technicians said they were not allowed to do any work unless they spoke to Mayor Critzer. I asked how that worked when he was working and they said not so good!  Sometimes it takes hours to get hold of him.  Another example of government waste and mismanagement.

Who won the Fincastle Virginia Town Council election?

The election for Fincastle's ruling body was fraught with drama again as drama queen Scott Critzer attempted another stealth campaign to get back on the council or be mayor. I would tell you which, but he wrote one of secret letters to his list of minions that I am apparently not a member of! Pretty happy about that actually. The grapevine reports that he did not get the votes as Mary Bess Smith was also running a write-in campaign as well and may have diluted the effect of his ministrations.  Maybe the townspeople are starting to realize that talk does not equal action and that it's better to elect those who are completely open and honest about their intentions.