20 minute read
see YMCA
YMCA
Continued from pg. 1 ville.
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Pretty early in the month – probably within the fi rst week – they realized the competition wasn’t going to be there, so they decided to set individual challenges, which was a good thing considering how the month played out, said Tom Walton, team captain.
By the end of the month, the total Powhatan YMCA team score for September was 1.3 billion points, he said. The second place team in Canton, Ohio scored about 334 million points.
Tom, 71, being the fi erce competitor he is, had to come up with other ways to challenge himself and his fellow riders, fi ve of whom sat down to share their experiences with the Powhatan Today on Oct. 13. He pointed out that the bikes have 243 leaderboards where people can try to excel, so there are always plenty of ways to test themselves in new ways.
Tom, who competes along with his wife, Diane, challenged his precision by doing 162 rides in which his goal was to earn the exact same score – 372,780 points.
Tom said he scored that number and remembered the steps he took to achieve it. The dragons the riders are chasing in the interactive program move around, so it is not an easy feat to accomplish. Instead of trying to perfectly recreate that same ride, he fi gured out different mathematical combinations and moves that would get him to the same score. “There was a 40-year old guy who is new to dragon chasing in Ohio. He was trying his best to catch Diane and myself. I thought if he is looking at our scores, if I score the same thing a whole bunch of times in a row, he is not going to be able to do that because he doesn’t understand the game well enough,” Tom said proudly. “I did it 40 times in a row and then I messed up. So then I did it 80 times in a row.”
“He is psychotic,” Elmer deadpanned, gesturing to Tom, and the whole group busted out in knowing laughter.
However, Elmer will admit to being just as committed. Tom noted that Elmer been known to use salt and paper shakers, apples and oranges on his dining room table to recreate the different rides and fi gure out better strategies.
“There is always a better way. It never ends. It is not like I just memorize it and that’s what I do. I am constantly looking for a better way,” Elmer said.
“He is more obsessive than I am,” Tom said.
To which a few of the women reply, “I think it’s a toss-up.”
For her challenge, Tom suggested that Diane, 70, beat his individual score from September 2019, which at 435 million points was the second highest score ever attained in a month at the time. She surpassed it in September 2020. “Then he came up with the bright idea that between the two of us we should score 1 billion points,” she said, adding that meant achieving 75 million in three days between the two of them to reach their goal.
“No two people from the same facility had ever scored 1 billion points in one month. In fact, no two people, their total score, ever added up to 1 billion points,” Tom said. “I saw that we had a shot at it. We might not ever pass this way again.”
It is at this point that Elmer’s wife Chris, 74, and friend Linda Stokes, 65, of Powhatan, say that, unlike the other three, they have never ridden enough to reach 1 billion points. But in its own way, this also is said with a little bit of joking pride.
“We are not as obsessed with it as some people,” Linda said meaningfully.
Besides the monthly goals, Elmer said he was working on his annual stats to increase his leaderboard position on the power and speed categories.
The group points out that the YMCA was closed in April, when the fi rst bi-annual dragon chasing challenge was held. However, Elmer was visiting his sister, who had an Expresso machine, and he won the international dragon chasing challenge almost single-handedly for his team.
His wife, Chris, likes to focus more on the road riding Expresso courses over dragon chasing and did the Tour de France in three different stages.
Beyond scoring points, Elmer highlighted the continued health benefi ts for the couple of riding the bikes, in addition to the other exercise they do. Since he began riding six years ago, Elmer has lost 55 pounds and his wife has lost at least 60 pounds.
“Particularly during the lockdown period, one of the concerns is that because you are locked down in the house in front of the television and next to the refrigerator that you are going to be gaining weight. I am sure that if I hadn’t had the bike at my sister’s or at our house or once we got totally back in here that I would defi nitely have been gaining weight,” Elmer said.
Linda, who knew the Waltons from church and started dragon chasing at their invitation, said she really only chases dragon during the challenge months. The pandemic has brought her closer to the team because she enjoys the camaraderie and the fun of working with them on the challenges.
“They didn’t tell you this, but the goal for dragon chasing month is to get 2 million points for the month for an individual. They all do that in 30 seconds. For somebody like me that is not good at it, I ended up getting 2 million points in less than a week,” she said. “Every time I would get to a certain point, I would say let me see if I can reach this goal. I ended up getting 25 million for the month, which was
PHOTO BY LAURA McFARLAND
Powhatan YMCA Expresso team captain Tom Walton demonstrates how the interactive bike gets riders to chase dragons to earn points. Team member Elmer Watts holds up one of the team’s many trophies.
a personal best for me.”
Making connections
The competitiveness is defi nitely prominent in this conversation, but so too is the camaraderie. The fi ve people present genuinely seem to enjoy each other’s company and that of other YMCA members who compete alongside them.
In fact, if they had one complaint, it’s that they miss their fellow competitors. The number of people they get to see and interact with in the gym has dropped dramatically because of COVID-19, as has happened everywhere. The bonus of rarely having to wait for a bike pales next to not getting to see their friends and neighbors.
The most riders the YMCA has ever had riding as part of an Expresso challenge was 132 different people, Tom said. Last month, he fi gures 25 to 30 people rode.
“I think all of us enjoy the Y at least partially because of interaction with people. We are all retired and it is good for us to interact with people. With less people coming, obviously that is a little bit of a bummer. There are some friends we used to see here all the time and they don’t come,” Tom said. “As hard as it may be for some of the people in this room to believe, I would rather see more interaction and more people than win a challenge. We’ve got a room full of trophies where we won challenges in the past.”
Even the rivalry they have with other teams is based in mutual respect and good will. Not long after the pandemic started, a member of the Metz team reached out and sent a sweet email to Tom wishing them well and urging to be careful, knowing many of the Powhatan riders were at a higher risk because of their ages, Diane said.
After what the world has been through in the last eight months, it is important to have some facsimile of normalcy, Tom said. While that is not the same for everyone, for him, having his daily routine, in which riding the Expresso machines features prominently, is vital.
“Powhatan is known all over the Expresso world as the team that knows how to chase dragons. Such as it is, that is our reputation,” Tom said. “To see Powhatan back in fi rst place and seeing some of our riders accomplish some things, to me that is kind of like normalcy. It is the way it ought to be.”
CALENDAR
Continued from pg. 2 Stew Sale. The stew will be ready at noon. It is $8 per quart. Pre-order at the fire station or by contacting 804-657-8331 or fundraising@pvfd1.org. You can also pre-order via the station’s Facebook page.
Cumberland County will be holding a one day only Tire Collection Day for Cumberland County residents. No more than 100 tires per person will be accepted. (Proof of Residency is required). The event will be held from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Cumberland Community Center, 1874 Anderson Highway (Route 60 West) in Cumberland. Passenger tires will be accepted on or off the rim. No other tires will be accepted on the rim. Citizens must have an accurate count of tires they bring. For more information, call Stephany S. Johnson at 804-492-9267. Powhatan AA meets at 8 p.m. every Saturday at Manakin Episcopal Church on Huguenot Trail.
Monday, Oct. 26
A Powhatan Hope Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meeting will be held from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. every Monday at PCC Church, 4480 Anderson Highway, Powhatan, Room 102. It is an open discussion meeting. Wheelchair accessible
Tuesday, Oct. 27
The new Bridge of Reason AA meeting is held at 7 p.m. every Tuesday at Powhatan Mennonite Church, 3549 Old Buckingham Road, Powhatan. It is an open, decision and literature meeting for Powhatan, Goochland, and Cumberland counties.
AA meets at 8 p.m. every Tuesday at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church on Huguenot Trail.
CRIME
Continued from pg. 2 • One female was charged on Oct. 11 with possession of marijuana (M). • One male was charged on Oct. 11 with driving a motor vehicle while intoxicated (M). • One male was charged on Oct. 12 with obstructing free passage of another (M).
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What are your plans for Halloween 2020? E-mail answers to editor@powhatantoday.com or share them on the Powhatan Today’s Facebook page.
October 21, 2020
Page 7A
Make special memories but do it responsibly
By Laura McFarland
Editor
In the spring, when the news of events being canceled because of the growing COVID-19 crisis started happening, it was hugely disappointing, but also understandable.
On the one side, as I watched one organization, nonprofi t, and business after another cancel some of our most entertaining annual traditions, it was a blow both personally and professionally.
There are events I attend every year for the Powhatan Today – fundraisers, special holidays, and festivals – that I genuinely love covering for our community. For this writer, the late spring is usually an immensely diffi cult time to juggle as far as schedules go because everybody is so happy to have some decent weather (hopefully) that the events come all at once. But it also is a pretty entertaining time seeing the community celebrating what makes Powhatan unique in so many different ways.
On the fl ip side, here was this huge, unknown health problem that posed the highest risk to some of our most vulnerable citizens. Like most people, I severely curtailed my in-person activity. Even if I thought the risk to myself may not be huge, the idea of being a carrier and somehow transmitting the virus to someone else who would be seriously affected was untenable.
It may seem trivial to talk about social and entertainment events in the face of all we have lost. The economy has been devastated, people have lost their lives, people have lost their jobs, schools have been closed, families have been kept apart, and so much more. It would take a very long, depressing list to enumerate all of the ways COVID-19 has made life suck.
At the same time, our social gatherings and annual traditions are often what gives us a signifi cant sense of place, community, belonging, and even purpose that makes some of the more mundane and diffi cult parts of life more bearable.
As 2020 marched on, the act of sacrifi cing so much of what we love and what makes us feel like a community has continued. We hoped if we complied with restrictions early, we might be able to save some things in the summer, fall, and winter, and we have. Some smaller events, and even some larger events with good social distancing practices in place, have happened.
The Powhatan Freedom Festival, for instance, was a wonderful success, drawing huge crowds in and around the Powhatan County Fairgrounds to enjoy a fantastic July 4 celebration fi reworks show.
While not technically a festival, as far as annual traditions go, Powhatan High School will always deserve a huge round of applause for pulling off fi ve back-to-back graduation ceremonies on July 25 to honor as many Class of 2020 graduates as possible.
More recently, the county took advantage of a crisp early autumn night to host a movie night under the stars on Oct. 9, showing “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” to a crowd of almost 150 people spread out across the Powhatan Rescue Squad grounds. It was such a fun, simple offering, but, for a brief amount of time, it provided a sense of normalcy that is hard to fi nd these days.
Now we are on the precipice of three consecutive holiday seasons that are all about coming together to celebrate friends, family, and community. And we are faced with huge questions about how we should handle these seasons.
Some choices are going to be made for us. Festivals, holiday meals, and more that have been happening for years are likely to be canceled. If we refuse to subscribe to the notion that Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, and other cultural and religious traditions people celebrate are just canceled in 2020, how do we commemorate them in safe but meaningful ways?
When we recently asked readers how they planned to mark Halloween, we heard a few traditional options, including trick or treating in a neighborhood or attending one of the smaller Halloween haunted trails being offered in the county. There also were a few innovations, such as an at-home candy scavenger hunt and delivering treats to neighbors ding-dong-ditch style.
Choosing what is best not only for the safety and well-being of your family but your community will be up to every individual to decide – as it should be. It’s a huge question, and, to be honest, I don’t think there is one right answer.
The only thing I would hope to see is that as people go about making these special memories, they constantly remind themselves and others to be as safe and responsible as possible. Wanting to get back some feeling of normalcy is not wrong, but neither is taking some commonsense steps to help keep Powhatan safe.
Laura McFarland may be reached at Lmcfarland@powhatantoday.com.
Son’s strength continually inspires his father
By Jim Ridolphi
Contributing Columnist
Rarely a day of the year passes without some sort of special designation, but wedged in between National Lefthanders Day and National Poodle Day is something called National Sons Day.
I’m sure all of those newly-designated holidays are richly appreciated by some and largely ignored by others. Truth is, many of them would go unnoticed without the over-amplifi ed effect of social media.
But, national sons and daughters days seem appropriate to me, and I joined thousands of other proud parents in posting messages and displaying favorite photos. It’s a joy seeing the pride and devotion expressed in those thoughts and leaves no confusion regarding how much a son or daughter means to a parent, or the many others whose lives are enriched through their interaction.
I found myself paying special attention to Sons Day this year. As many of you know, my son Jack is a special gift, an inspiration to those who know and love him.
I posted old photos of Jack celebrating Coach to Cure with his Goochland football teammates. The images showed players walking with Jack, escorting him to the pregame coin toss and including him in post-game ceremonies.
The photos had a poignant impact on me as I recalled a time in Jack’s life when things weren’t as diffi cult, and how special those days of mobility were.
Muscular dystrophy has since robbed Jack of that freedom that most of us thankfully take for granted, and his life has become a countless array of challenges and obstacles with the everyday tasks of life becoming more diffi cult … but never overwhelming.
As the years of a cruel disease have continued to diminish and destroy, the part of Jack that makes him special has only increased. It’s the Jack who provides all who surround him with a sense of joy and love that only gets stronger as his muscles get weaker.
It’s his appreciation of life itself that offers constant inspiration to those lucky enough to surround and love him, and Sons Day gave me the opportunity to recognize just how much I appreciate my son each and every day.
Jack’s optimism and unbelievable courage is a constant reminder to my family of the importance of making every moment count and reminds us that wasted time on negative aspects of life simply isn’t worth the time.
On the worst of my days when nothing seems to go right, I often stop and think of Jack and how he approaches a day full of challenges with a subtle determination. When something seems too diffi cult or time-consuming, one thought of Jack eliminates my anxiety.
When those photos posted on a social network, I must admit seeing Jack taking those steps brought a tear to my eye. It didn’t last long when I quickly realized it was not the way Jack would want me to celebrate.
So, I did what everyone else who is lucky enough to have a wonderful son does on a day that celebrates those gifts. I sat and thumbed through old photos and thanked my lucky stars for a gift that arrived in my life 16 years ago … and changed it forever.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Director of elections is a huge asset to county
Dear Editor,
I am writing to address the recent controversy involving the Powhatan County Board of Elections. I am specifi cally referring to the direct mailing error recently reported by the Powhatan Today. I realize that this error, although unintentional, caused much concern and angst among my fellow citizens of Powhatan. However, I would like to remind people how lucky we are as a county to have Karen Alexander as our Director of Elections.
Ms. Alexander is a talented, hard-working individual who, time and time again, goes far beyond what can reasonably be expected of her. For example, recently Ms. Alexander received a call from an elderly citizen of Powhatan who wished to register to vote. The problem was this person had no internet and no transportation. Ms. Alexander took it upon herself to drive to this women’s house and personally ensure she was registered. This goes beyond good customer service, and can only be described as a Herculean effort and dedication to duty.
In what is probably the most contentious election of modern times, in the middle of a pandemic, Ms. Alexander and her staff of two have done an incredible job. The drive-through early voting pavilion Ms. Alexander set up is a testament to this fact. Voting in this manner is quick, easy, effi cient and, above all, safe. If it wasn’t for Ms. Alexander’s hard work this could have been a disaster instead of an unqualifi ed success.
In closing, I would like to say that yes, an error was made but it was an error that was made despite Ms. Alexander’s incredible efforts not because of them. Secondly, it’s an error that can be remedied with no lasting impact. So maybe everyone should sit back, take a breath and remember that “to err is human to forgive divine.”
Rob Cerullo
Powhatan County
PAPRIKA
Continued from pg. 4 Another word of caution: use a facial mask and protective gloves. The vapor emitted from the grinding peppers can be very strong.
After all the dehydrated peppers have been ground, I divide the paprika powder into smaller, gift-size jars, and quickly seal them.
There you have it! Making your own paprika really IS easy. Okay….. Admittedly not everyone wants to make paprika. You might be more interested in drying chili peppers or in creating your own signature blend of chili powder. The process is the same as in growing and preparing paprika.
Buy local
High humidity is a major growing issue. In winter – as we all generally do – I sometimes order plant seed varieties ill-suited for our climate. Varieties ordered from on-line may do well in California, Texas or even Colorado – just not here in Central Virginia.
Ask yourself, too, how much sun exposure your garden site receives.
“All the (peppers) we list are ones we’ve trialed here on our own farm,” says Ken Bezilla of Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in Mineral (www.SouthernExposure. com). “If you don’t have full sun for your garden, the later maturing varieties may not do as well,” he cautioned. “So you might want to keep to earlier maturing varieties.”
For more assistance, consult your local Cooperative Extension offi ce (Goochland 804-598-5841; Powhatan 804-598-5640; or Amelia 804-561-3224).
Virginia McCown is a master gardener living in Central Virginia along with her garden and assorted creatures both great and small.
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