Port & Main Magazine Winter 2015

Port & Main

winter 2015 v. 6 issue 1

magazine

gnarly dude

fashion finds Style yourself with looks found in downtown harrisonburg

local skate park draws old and young skaters alike

city jams Explore the underground music culture of Harrisonburg

craft of the valley

The art of quilting resides in downtown museum

table of

Contents

8 10 14 16 18 21 24 28 33

perspectives graveyard cultural center artist quilt museum speakeasy underground bands skate park fashion PORT & MAIN 3

LETTER FROM THE r o t i d E Dear reader, You found us!

You may have noticed (no, you most certainly did notice) that we’re an online-only publication this round. Which for us, has been lots of fun.

We’ve been able to push the limits on content and bring you more in-depth, eclectic stories. This time around, we wanted to be able to separate ourselves from other campus publications and bring you the cool things we see in Harrisonburg and think you should know about.

With this first issue, we wanted to set the bar high and push ourselves to bring you the absolute best content we’re capable of.

It was our goal to cover a wide variety of arts and entertainment.

From a new speakeasy to an older skate park, as well as a look into the underground band scene of Harrisonburg, we think we’ve done just that.

This magazine has been quite the ride, and it’s only just begun.

We can’t wait to see what’s next.

Enjoy!

Lauren PORT & MAIN 5

staff page

LAUREN

holly

6 PORT & MAIN

kelsey

ashleigh

erin

port&main picks

downtown eats

LAUREN editor-in-chief

Cuban Burger is my favorite place to make my way to downtown when I’m craving one hell of a burger. My usual choice is the Buenos Dias because I’m a sucker for an egg on a burger. It satisfies my craving for breakfast and dinner food at the same time. But make sure you’re starving when you go because the portions are huge and so delicious that you won’t be able to stop until your plate is empty.

Ashleigh Copy editor There’s nothing better than rolling out of bed on a Saturday morning and heading to Mr. J’s Bagels and Deli. Serving both breakfast and lunch all day leaves the possibilities of what to order endless, although my favorite go-to will always be a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on an asiago bagel. With cheap prices and delicious options, there’s really no other choice.

KELSEY Graphics editor

When take-out Chinese food isn’t enough, I have to go to Beyond Restaurant & Lounge to get my Asian fusion fix. Beyond offers an array of foods for the picky eater or the foodie with a refined palate, serving fresh sushi, vegetarian dumplings, angry pasta (my personal favorite) and more. If nothing else, don’t miss out on the addicting edamame they serve with every meal.

Holly art director On a slow Sunday morning when all of my thoughts are reduced to the word “brunch,” I head down South Main Street to The Golden Pony to get my fix.

Aside from their perfectly spiced Bloody Marys, The Golden Pony offers unique breakfast food options that you won’t find anywhere else in Harrisonburg, including my personal favorite, the Sandwich de Desayuno.

Erin photo editor

When I’m feeling low and don’t know where to turn, El Charro is always there for me, whether it’s sipping on a succulent strawberry margarita or chowing down on some Arroz con Pollo. The never-ending chips and salsa just top it all off beautifully. El Charro leaves me grinning from ear to ear. ¡Tan delicioso!

PORT & MAIN 7

Should m be leg

yes RACHEL PETTY

yes BRIANA ELLISON

Now that some marijuana laws are changing in different parts of the country, the debate is a hot topic: should the good herb be legalized? If you ask me, the answer is yes.

To put it simply, I don’t see a downside to legalizing the drug. Not only have its economic effects been prevalent in Colorado, but the crime rates there have also plummeted.

Marijuana isn’t a lethal drug and would be even safer with market regulation. Legalizing the drug would hurt the drug cartels and eliminate dangerous situations people may put themselves in in order to obtain the drug currently.

Legalizing marijuana would also help with overcrowding in jails. Why are we spending millions of dollars to keep people who just wanted to get high in jail? Our nation’s capital

has decriminalized the drug, and for good reason. If the rest of the country were to follow suit, there would be fewer people in jail for nonviolent crimes.

The side effects of the drug are nothing to be alarmed about either. People are generally just more relaxed, open-minded and often times happier. Being under the influence of marijuana could lead to more intellectual conversations and a deeper curiosity about the world.

Sounds pretty awful, right? Why would we legalize a drug that could currently be laced and is draining money from our economy by keeping people in jail?

Let’s face it — we’re only hurting ourselves by keeping the drug on the illegal list. People are going to smoke either way, so we might as well boost our economy in the process. w

The 2012 presidential election saw the beginning of the marijuana legalization movement, when the state of Colorado voted to decriminalize the widely loved herb.

The legalization of marijuana is an issue that I’ve struggled with: I’m for legalization, but I’ve also been able to see why many people are against it.

I’m pro-legalization because I don’t necessarily see why it’s been criminalized in the first place. A majority of those who smoke marijuana aren’t participating in a criminal act.

Yes, federal mandates claim that smoking marijuana is a criminal act in itself, but I don’t agree with this. I think that this criminalization is severely misplaced.

Alcohol has greater negative effects than marijuana, which is why more people seem to turn toward the latter.

Additionally, many marijuana users are simply indulging in a habit or hobby. Marijuana itself isn’t addictive, and some people tend to use it simply as a “treat.” I believe it’s unjust

and immoral to criminalize the casual, nonharmful use of this substance by many in the population.

Legalization critics like to point to the health implications that come with smoking marijuana, but if marijuana is simply illegal and criminalized due to these effects, cigarettes should be as well.

But doing that would lead us down a circular path where we would have to criminalize every outside substance that could have possible negative health effects.

Essentially, the criminalization of marijuana was, and continues to be, exaggerated fearmongering.

We’ve known for centuries the astounding medical properties of marijuana, but the information has been shrouded by negative perceptions. In order for us to continue using marijuana in medicine — as it’s seen incredible breakthroughs in treating numerous diseases – we need to legalize it. Otherwise, we’ll continue to flounder our own growth as a nation. w

marijuana galized ? no Hayley moore

yes kevan hulligan

I’ll admit that the legalization of marijuana is always something I’ve been torn with. I’m fully in support of the drug’s medical uses and understand the economic prosperity that’s predicted to come with the legalization.

However, I find myself against legalization because it’s a drug that’s typically used for recreational use. This drug has been illegal for a number of years, so clearly there must be a reason why legislation still hasn’t voted to make it legal.

Marijuana is considered to be a gateway drug. If it becomes legal, people who have never tried the drug might, and try various other drugs as a result.

Just because marijuana may become legalized doesn’t mean that citizens won’t continue to use other forms of illegal drugs. It almost seems as though it would encourage drug use.

People who use marijuana for recreational use

have a number of reasons for their usage. They may enjoy the relaxed feeling that comes with it and the out of body experience. They may like the feeling of being high.

While these may seem like a great time, with any drug use, sometimes the user can lose control.

What would happen if someone lost control and committed a crime?

Yes, Colorado and Washington, D.C. seem to be succeeding with the legalization and decriminalization of the drug. But this may not always be the case. For all we know, someone may commit a gruesome crime under the effects of marijuana that may cause a national uproar.

As a result, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a call for it to be illegal once more. We should leave well enough alone and continue to let the drug be illegal. w

I’m actually surprised that the legalization of marijuana is still considered a controversial issue in contemporary American politics. When compared to issues like police brutality, income inequality, the lack of a living wage for many of our workers and the ability to price gouge necessary medication in order to profit from human misery, the legalization of marijuana is like a minnow in the sea.

However, this isn’t to say that I don’t care about the issue. For me, it just seems like common sense to legalize it.

From our earliest school days, we’re told about how drugs won’t only ruin our health, but ruin our entire lives. This may be true of some more harmful drugs, like cocaine or heroin, but for some reason, marijuana is always lumped in there as the odd man out. Heroin use can destroy parts of your brain and make you chemically dependent on using it every day. Marijuana, at best, will make you eat most of the stuff in your fridge and then put you to sleep. Seems to be an imbalance here.

Just look at some of the things we allow people

to ingest in the United States; cigarettes can give you life threatening cancers and, although I enjoy the occasional drink just as much as anyone else, alcohol can do some serious harm to your liver.

Yet, we allow these products to be sold and advertised on TV just like any other product.

What real substantial damage would happen if marijuana was just another product on the shelf?

Let’s take a look at the state of Colorado. They passed pot legalization a little over a year ago through a popular referendum. And how have they done so far? For starters, the drug crime rates actually fell in some places, and in other places it remained exactly the same as before.

How much did they manage to earn in 2014 alone? Fourty-four million dollars. They also expect to earn at least $125 million by the end of the year. If you want to talk about a great way to raise money for the state, here’s your answer.

In the end, all that’s happened is that people who would’ve smoked weed anyway are now able to enjoy their hobby without the fear of being jailed for it. That doesn’t sound too bad, does it? w

photos Holly Warfield

in memoriam The history of Harrisonburg lies beneath the graves in Woodbine Cemetery.

A

by Allison Perrone

t the Valley Heritage Museum in the heart of Rockingham County, there’s a two-by-five foot panorama looking down on Harrisonburg, Virginia, as nurse and resident Emma Lyons knew it in 1867. With intricate detail and rustic realism, it captures the somber peace of a Southern town still draining its wartime woes. In the very center just near the horizon, one square of green hill is speckled with distant white dabs. This is the early visage of Woodbine Cemetery, only a fraction of what it is today. The miniature graves Lyons painted into her scene are a bright white, new and proliferated by the local losses suffered in the Civil War. JMU students now make up half the city’s population at any given time and pass through in a matter of four years, give or take. The town’s rich history rests dormant beneath 10 PORT & MAIN

their feet, softly begging to be known. Students move into old-fashioned houses and see right past the floors that may be relics, the trees in their yards that are practically fossils.

They don’t spend their free time researching the origins of the town, and they certainly don’t spend Sunday afternoons strolling through the rows of the local graveyard — yet the name of almost any academic building or residence hall on their campus could be found on a slab of stone in Woodbine.

Downtown Harrisonburg stretches along Main Street, branching off into hundred-year old neighborhoods that house students, professors and locals alike. At the heart of one of these neighborhoods, Woodbine Cemetery sprawls up an imposing hill. It’s surrounded by two busy roads, Market and Reservoir, and two sleepier residential avenues, Ott and Bruce. David Ehrenpreis is a professor of art history at JMU who lives a block away from Woodbine on Franklin

There are two jmu presidents that are buried there, and we hope to get the others but we don’t know how that’s going to go.

Charlie Chenault, Secretary Treasurer of the Trustees of the Woodbine Cemetery Company Street. He walks his dog through Woodbine regularly, a use he knows the cemetery was inherently stylized for.

Ehrenpreis points this out in an image of Emma Lyons painting — in 1867, Woodbine grew on what used to be the outskirts of town, about a mile from Main Street heading east on Route 33. In the following century and a half, civilization flourished around it and inched closer to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Rural cemeteries were meant to provide space for more than their original function. The thought behind it is, as Ehrenpreis explains, beauty.

“This is where we will have these beautiful spaces to walk around and picnic in on Sundays,” Ehrenpreis says.

Picturesque landscapes were planned with aesthetic appeal in mind, utilizing the same sorts of architecture inspired by classical antiquity popular in building design at the time. It’s no coincidence that the several mausoleums in

Woodbine look like scaled-down models of the Parthenon.

Old cemeteries evoke the idea that this is where history came to die. But if you let them, the stones speak more than that. Everett Dulaney Ott, deceased 1976, will forever remind people that “The greatest use for life is to use it for something that will outlast it.” Robert Moffitt Newman, who lived from just 1918 to 1919, was reluctantly laid to rest with the words, “A fairer bud of promise never bloomed.”

Joseph White Latimer was injured at Gettysburg and died in Harrisonburg a short time later. He was only 19 but had eagerly and deservedly climbed ranks in his short career, hence his status as a small local legend nicknamed “The Boy Major.” His notable obelisk was “Erected by grateful hearts to the memory of one of the South’s most heroic young soldiers.”

The ladies of the Hardesty-Higgins House will light up PORT & MAIN 11

Woodbine Cemetery holds a vast history of Harrisonburg, including Civil War soldiers and some JMU presidents.

12 PORT & MAIN

when visitors appear. They love to push brochures and point out features on maps, sharing the bits of knowledge they’ve compiled about their hometown. One of the women, Carole Downey, says there was a man named Bobby Sullivan who was a dedicated local historian and a fountain of knowledge on sites like Woodbine.

“We lost a lot of information when that man passed,” she says with a slight shake of the head. His death in 2013 left Downey bereft of a default source for the history of Woodbine. But she can tell you about one of the house’s namesakes – Isaac Hardesty.

As Harrisonburg’s first mayor, Hardesty sold the Woodbine Cemetery Company its first two and a half acres of land to begin the site in 1850. It’s a little endearing that this is the same size as the plot that was first deeded to public good by Mr. Thomas Harrison himself in 1779 to begin the city of Harrisonburg. Like the town, Woodbine grew over decades and decades, acquiring more space as populations grew and as more patriotic southerners continued to give their lives in the wars that would plague their generations.

Rosemarie Palmer works a quiet shift from 1 to 5 on Sunday afternoons and calls her welcome to visitors when they appear at the Hardesty-Higgins House’s front door. She’s a retired JMU professor of chemistry who now devotes her time to the local history of the town she moved to in 1985.

“They’re so romantic,” she says with a chuckle, scrolling through the online index of Woodbine interments, just grasping the use of the Ctrl+F function to find particular individuals. “You can tell who the early pioneers were because they’ve got the big stones.” It’s true — obelisks and the territorial, initial-bearing pegs in the ground mark the family plots of the Pauls, the Otts, the Newmans.

Everyone points toward Charlie Chenault when questions about Woodbine come up. Currently a paralegal for a law firm in town, he doubles as the cemetary’s secretary treasurer of the trustees. He can talk shop more than a historian can, and his love for the cemetery’s culture is just as strong.

“Four generations of my family are interred there,” he says. “I grew up with the cemetery. I’ve been to more funerals up there than I can count.”

Soft spoken but eager to share, he easily articulates his story of Woodbine as he’s surely told it many times. The literal history of Woodbine aside from the people it holds is the crates of meeting minutes Chenault has upstairs in his office – the acquisition of land, the expansion of grounds, losing money, gaining money, dedicating the Confederate Cemetery and building a community mausoleum.

“There are two JMU presidents that are buried there, and

we hope to get the others but I don’t know how that’s going to go,” he says with a smile that speaks for a genuine hope hidden in the joke.

As both a local native and an alumnus of JMU, Chenault values the deep-rooted tension spelled out in the cemetery’s history that often gets overlooked in the name of proclaiming university-promoted diversity.

“Woodbine is unquestionably a history of white Harrisonburg,” he says.

Just off of Market Street, a square plot of Woodbine radiates from a majestic obelisk designated in 1876 to be an exclusive monument and burial site for gallant Confederate soldiers who lost their lives in battle. Dale MacAllister, a historian at the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Heritage Center in the adjacent town of Dayton, keeps a file about two inches thick on Woodbine. It’s mainly copies of newspaper clippings and long lists of interments and their dates, many efforts to label all of the Confederates buried in this section. A great deal of them remain nameless and without legacy, having died in or near Harrisonburg after being brought into the hospital that had sprung up inside the girls’ school in town. Ten years after the end of the Civil War, the Ladies’ Memorial Association in Harrisonburg ensured that the area’s Confederates had a grave site that would not only honor them justly, but memorialize them.

Over 200 uniform marble markers fall in several rows squaring around the central monument. The obelisk bears inscriptions on all four sides of the base, one of which states the year it was erected: “1876. In memory of men who with their lives vindicated the principles of 1776.”

One of MacAllister’s copies, a page from the “Old Commonwealth” dating from 1882, shows a short blurb about one Confederate in Woodbine. It’s been customary in the Christian tradition for centuries to bury your dead facing east to meet the rising sun. Lieutenant S. Graeme Turnbull was having none of that and requested he be buried facing the South that he fought for – at least, this desire has been presumed.

“I guess he wanted the sun rising to his left,” MacAllister says with a laugh.

There are certain people who gravestones call out to.

“Read me,” they say. “Understand me.” They wonder about the strangers below – is there anyone who lives their life to the fullest simply so they won’t be one of the stones with an ignorable name but instead one that makes a macabre intellectual think? Walking over the plots of the great and the forgettable make you wonder about history or tolerance or perspective or art until you find yourself contemplating the future of your own legacy.

“There’s still room,” Palmer says of Woodbine, in good humor. “Five hundred dollars a plot!” w PORT & MAIN 13

keeping culture alive

photo Holly Warfield

stan maclin keeps the history of Harriet Tubman alive in Harrisonburg in the Harriet Tubman Cultural Center.

local man uses the Harriet Tubman cultural center as a vehicle for urban ministry and community outreach

A

by Wayne Epps jr.

set of stairs at the back of a small, brick office complex on North High Street lead you down to the hub of Stan Maclin’s mission.

The stairs dump you out to a door which opens to a hallway where, to the left, resides the main room of Maclin’s Harriet Tubman Cultural Center. The room is adorned with pieces such as a painting depicting Tubman’s work on the Underground Railroad, with escapees following her step, and a November 1968 issue of Life magazine, with a story on Tubman inside.

Even if Tubman never set foot in Harrisonburg, here is where Maclin works to keep some of her legacy — her journey on the Underground Railroad — alive today.

“That journey was to help get people to the sweet land of liberty,” Maclin says. “Well I do … the same thing, except 14 PORT & MAIN

that I just do it in a modern sense today. To help get people from A, B, C to X, Y, Z — where they want to go in life.”

Maclin opened the Harriet Tubman Cultural Center in March 2010. The center is a vehicle for what he’s working toward in the community. He went to Eastern Mennonite Seminary and looked into doing something new with urban ministry and community outreach. Tubman is a symbol for that.

“She was always thinking about people, and that’s what’s wrong with us as a people,” Maclin says. “We sometimes forget what we come from and we stop helping people, you should never stop that.”

While maintaining his center, Maclin has worked to become involved in multiple organizations around the Harrisonburg community. He’s on the board of On the

Road Collaborative, which aims to help children with their education; is the vice president of the Northeast Neighborhood Association, which works toward the upkeep of the community; and is a chapter leader for Virginia Organizing, which challenges injustice. And that’s not even all of it.

“I’m practically connected with most everything, I’m plugged in,” Maclin says.

Maclin also pushed for the renaming of Cantrell Avenue to Martin Luther King Jr. Way two years ago. The proposal was approved by the Harrisonburg City Council in August 2013.

Maclin, 61, grew up during the civil rights movement and considers King the main influencer of his adult life, which is something he carries with him in his daily work.

“What I’m really doing is building a beloved community,” Maclin says. “Dr. King talked about that. That’s what we’re doing.”

In addition, one of the major yearly events Maclin is involved in is People’s Day, which is centered around Martin Luther King Jr. Day and will be this Jan. 18.

Another major event for Maclin is the Harriet Tubman Cultural Celebration, every March 10. The date was designated as Harriet Tubman Day by President George H.W. Bush in 1990 because of Tubman’s death on March 10, 1913.

Back at the Harriet Tubman Cultural Center, Maclin says his favorite initiative is his cultural learning tour. The tours can either be a half day or a full day, and are based on the former neighborhood of Newtown, which was established by ex-slaves in 1865 in an area northeast of Harrisonburg.

In 1892, Harrisonburg annexed the area into the city.

“We just tell them about the history so when they come down to that area, they’ll know the significance of that area,” Maclin says. “ It’s a historical area, and it gives them a greater appreciation for it.”

Maclin’s influence has also extended to Africa, where he’s frequented in the past. His time there taught him about the bond of family.

“In Africa, it’s about the family,” Maclin says. “In Africa, what’s it about? The village. The village has the chief. The chief, they have the village council, the elders and they take care of the village.”

With all that he’s involved in, Maclin can’t do it all. And that’s where he leans on that concept of family. His family runs the local business Commonwealth Cleaning Company LLC. The business, spearheaded by Maclin’s wife, Diana, helps to provide the funding to keep the Harriet Tubman Cultural Center open and allow Maclin to focus on his work in the community.

“One of the important things is that, to me, I try to display

the characteristics of Harriet Tubman and helping people as a devoted leader and commitment as a wife, a mother and a businesswoman for the family,” Diana says.

Commonwealth Cleaning Company also uses some of the space at the office on North High Street for meetings.

The location is fairly new for Maclin. His center’s original location was on the sixth floor of the downtown low-rise at 2 South Main St. But, last October, he closed that up and found his current spot, which doesn’t facilitate walk-ins.

“To me, I think this is even better,” Maclin says. “Because it’s more intimate. I’m more focused down here now because it’s by appointment only.”

Settled in his new spot, the next major project on Maclin’s agenda is a joint program with Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

According to the proposal, the aim is to “train and mentor 10 to 12 young community leaders in peacebuilding, justice building and community building.” It’ll target those ages 18 to 30 from the Harrisonburg community, aims to highlight reflect the diversity of the city and “will seek to develop young leaders who will make positive change in the city.”

“It’s about developing ... peacemakers,” Maclin says.

“Peacemakers who work to promote peace and get to know neighborhood groups and empower additional peacemakers.”

Perhaps it’s opportunities like these that’ll spawn the next crop of community activists. The spirit of it all seems to boil back down to Tubman.

“I love Harriet Tubman because … she didn’t have a lot of the opportunities that we had,” Maclin says. “But that didn’t stop her. She still kept on doing things.” w

stroke by stroke Student artist found his passion for painting by doodling on assignments in first grade. Encouraged by his uncle’s love for his art, Julious Figuroa is now studying fine arts.

BY mike dolzer photo loren probish

T

he endless expanses of the galaxy, planes soaring through the sky, portraits of everyday people and detailed drawings of eyes all decorate what was once a blank canvas. The canvas is the backside of a quiz, the artist is a first grader just doodling to pass the time.

For many, crafting masterpieces on the back of sheets may seem like a fun thing to do when avoiding the actual assignment, but for one JMU student, it was the starting point of his love of art.

“Even in my notebooks you could always find a drawing in it,” Julious Figueroa, a senior fine arts major, says. “I didn’t know it was necessarily art ...

It just progressed from there.”

Some of his earlier art still taunts him, reminding him of those days when the extent of his work was scribbling on the backs of worksheets.

“My mom hung up and framed my first drawing from first grade,” Figueroa says. “It’s in my hometown in my kitchen, and every day if I were to go there, I would eat and look at it and be like, ‘Oh, it’s so bad.’ At the same time, it’s cool because you get to look back.”

Aside from his mom, his artwork had another devoted fan: Joe, his 94-year-old uncle.

“He saw me drawing and then gave me a painting kit and I used it,” Figueroa says. “That’s when I really started to get into it.”

Uncle Joe loved his nephew’s painting so much that he even asked for Figueroa to paint him something as his dying request.

Whoever looks at [my art] and whatever interpretation they get from it is fine with me.

Julious Figueroa, artist Tragically, the painting never made it to him.

Joseph Salta passed away on April 3, 2015.

“I finished the painting around 5 a.m. and my mom called at 6 a.m. to say, ‘Your uncle passed,’” Figueroa says. “I didn’t get to give the painting to him.”

His uncle’s passing ignited an artistic fire in Figueroa, pushing him even further into art.

“He loved art,” Figueroa says. “It was the most significant time when I started painting.”

Figueroa has developed a personalized process centered around tranquility. He puts his headphones in, gets water and a brush, and just sees what happens stroke by stroke. He describes his current style as a mixture of free-hand and surrealist.

“Whoever looks at [my art] and whatever interpretation they get from it is fine with me,” Figueroa says. “I just go with the flow.”

This style can be seen in his current work-inprogress; a pilot surrounded by a trippy mixture of red, orange and green, accented with softer hues of violet, sky blue and brown.

These colors were deliberately chosen since they aren’t commonly seen in depictions of pilots, which make the painting stand out as surrealist.

Figueroa says his respect for pilots is why he chose one as his subject.

“I’ve always admired pilots in the Air Force or even test pilots, they just go through a lot of s--, excuse my French, and they’re inspirational,” Figueroa says.

Figueroa has been experimenting with metalworks as of late, and has even taken a class where he was taught the basics of cutting, sawing, connecting and welding.

One of the finals in the class was to make a ring.

He decided to be bold and do a mock-up of one of his favorite superheroes, the Green Lantern.

“A simple way to make a ring is to get a copper wire and connect the two [ends],” Figueroa says.

“My anxious butt was like, ‘Let’s make this weird box shape thing that’s super beyond my level,’ and I messed up like nine times but I still did it. It fits on like a glove.”

As for Uncle Joe’s painting, it now serves as a colorful tribute to the man who inspired Figueroa to pursue art.

“My uncle loved golfing, and I wasn’t a big fan of it but I told him, ‘Yeah, I love golf too,’” Figueroa says.

Appropriately, the focal point of the painting is an abstract golfer. On the golfer’s leaf-green cap, you can make out the words ‘New York,’ an homage to his uncle’s roots.

The golfer stands on top of a swirly blue planet hitting a stroke, with pink mist and other celestial bodies illustrated against the backdrop of a deepblack galaxy.

To Figueroa, this represents the limitless possibilities of where his uncle might be now.

“Wherever he is, I hope he’s still golfing.” w

PORT & MAIN 17

threads of history Housed in Harrisonburg, the Virginia Quilt Museum draws people from near and far to admire the handiwork of quilting.

W

BY caroline alkire

The museum offers a gift shop to fund the exhibits.

18 PORT & MAIN

ell, I just got this new phone,” Josephine Millett says. “But I only leave it on when I’m expecting a call.”

The phone flashes to life, and Millett pulls up the photo album. Various pictures of quilts, fabrics and her husband flash by as she quickly scrolls deeper into her album to find the picture she’s looking for.

“This is it, my favorite one; the Grandmother’s Flower Garden.”

A bright, intricate quilt with green, pink, blue and purple flower-like circles lay across a four-poster bed. The quilt pictured echoes the pattern of a similar quilt made from Indian cottons that hang tapestry-style on the wall directly behind Millett, 78, who’s sitting on a bench in the middle of the Virginia Quilt Museum’s most recent exhibit, donated

by Jinny Beyer.

Built in 1865, the Warren-Sipe House — as it was known before becoming the VQM — was home to Col. Edward T.H. Warren and a Virginia delegate, George E. Sipe. The home was also used as a Civil War hospital, the original office of Harrisonburg Fire and Rescue, a center for the Department of Parks and Recreation Center, a temporary Harrisonburg Court House and headquarters for the Harrisonburg Rockingham Historical Society. Finally, in 1995, the WarrenSipe house became the Virginia Quilt Museum.

In August, the VQM celebrated its 20th anniversary. While many of the volunteers invested in the museum have come and gone, a small handful of loyal quilters have stayed with the museum from its beginnings; Millett is one of them.

She’s been coming to the VQM religiously, on the second Thursday of every month, for 17 years.

Millett never thought she would become so immersed in the culture of quilting. From the time she began sewing her own clothes at age 13 to the day her Raffle Quilt for the Virginia Quilt Museum raised $5,000, her journey with quilting has kept her focused and inspired throughout retirement.

Her name is engraved on a plaque at the top of the stairs at the VQM because of a generous donation, allowing her to become part of the 1856 Society and the Shenandoah Valley Quilter’s Guild, the Top of Virginia Quilting Guild and the Applique Society, Millett spends large portions of her days holed up in her sunny sewing room working on quilts. She also teaches applique, a template-free sewing technique used to create ornate designs, at various other quilting

photos mark owen PORT & MAIN 19

guilds in Virginia. It was, however, at one of her own quilt guild meetings that she signed up to volunteer at the VQM, thanks to her longtime friend and fellow quilter, Kathleen Ackerson.

In 1994, Ackerson wandered into Millett’s sewing gift shop — an old schoolhouse Millett and her husband had bought and transformed into a gift shop when they moved to the Shenandoah Valley in 1991 — looking for advice. This was the pair’s first meeting, and on that day, their unexpected friendship began.

Millett’s well-developed quilting skills impressed Ackerson, and in an attempt to learn more about quilting, they both started taking classes together and soon formed an inseparable bond.

Ackerson accompanies Millett to the VQM every second Thursday of the month; usually driving the pair in her Volkswagen Passat. And it was Ackerson who urged Millett to get on the board at the VQM once she decided to step down from her own board position. Millett was soon running the VQM gift shop and continues to raise money for the museum, which she tucks into envelopes that she proudly brings in once a month.

“Jo,” Ackerson’s endearing nickname for Millett, rolls easily off her tongue, “has done wonders for the retail of the VQM’s gift shop. She’s highly respected for her quilting skills, as well as her business retail skills.”

Millett works the gift shop cash register with ease, quick 20 PORT & MAIN

to offer Ackerson aid around the exhibit if need be. As she converses with a couple of Georgian quilters visiting the museum, her hands move across the fabric of the project she brought to work on while manning the shop.

“My favorite part about working in the museum is talking to visitors and learning about the projects they’re working on, all the while sharing my own quilting stories,” Millett said.

Millett’s quilting experiences expand outside of the museum, and through her own personal endeavors, she’s touched the hearts of many humans and even animals.

When a friend of Millett’s was diagnosed with cancer, she quickly sent her a brightly colored lap quilt to keep her warm during chemotherapy treatments. Millett attended the same friend’s memorial service sometime later, and was surprised to find out her friend’s dog wouldn’t leave the quilt.

“The dog was grieving, too, and the quilt still had my friend’s scent on it,” remembers Millett. “It was one of the most tender experiences I’ve had with my quilting.”

Her honors and experiences in the world of quilting run deep. She’s had the special task of making two quilts for the VQM to be raffled off annually to raise money for the museum, and she stands proudly as the Valley’s champion of the 20 Dollars for 20 Years fundraising campaign. Her quilts hang on the walls of the birthing ward at the local hospital, and she donates her lap quilts to the Winchester Hospital for chemotherapy and hospice patients. She reaches out to neighbors and friends, and shows her support in a heartfelt and personal manner: handmade quilts.

“Quilting is what brought me and Josephine together,” says Ackerson. “I never expected to find such a kindred spirit so close to home, but Jo is as big as life. She’s a truly great person to be around.” w

The virginia quilt museum, located at 301 South Main St., holds and displays a permanent collection of 300 quilts.

PHOTOS CHELSEA GloWAcKI & SAM TAYLOR

the ’20s are back a downtown restaurant aims to bring back the style of the 1920s by opening a speakeasy.

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BY Anna peck

he original Ice House in Harrisonburg, Virginia, built in 1934, was just that: an icehouse.

Resurrected in 2014, the new Ice House, located at 125 West Bruce St. and 217 South Liberty St., has been adding to the cool factor of Downtown with a new retail store, coffee shop, jewelry store and even a yoga studio. Now, a new addition is set to take Harrisonburg residents back to another time period.

Pure Eats, an eatery known for its delicious doughnuts and burgers, is expanding into a different foray: the speakeasy.

A speakeasy is a bar, mainly started by members of organized crime, where patrons were able to get their illegal alcohol fix during the Prohibition era. Between the 1920s and early 1930s, speakeasies were the cool place to be and a not so well-kept secret. They were called a “speakeasy” because guests were encouraged to be quiet while inside in

order to hide from suspicious police.

When the Prohibition era died down, so did the amount of speakeasies. Considering alcohol is no longer banned in any of the 50 states, speakeasies (if you can find them) are now seen as a retro bar.

It’s “fun, it’s cool, it’s unique, it’s different than your average bar,” Ashley Barnes, general manager of Pure Eats, says. “The atmosphere is nice if you want to have a cocktail and just relax.”

The origin of the name, Pure & Easy, is pretty simple. It’s a mixture of the restaurant’s name and the word speakeasy.

While Pure & Easy will be right next door to Pure Eats, partakers won’t have to worry about walking in the restaurant to get in — there’s a side door that’ll take you into the lounge. It can’t be missed because it’s right by one of the original Ice House doors.

Since it’s scheduled to open in late fall, construction is PORT & MAIN 21

still going on in the newest downtown hotspot. The room, behind all the construction equipment and wood, is small, but quaint. The walls are covered with old and exposed brick from the original icehouse, with one accent wall, the color of which is yet to be decided.

Looking up, there’s a blackout ceiling, which adds to the chic and sophisticated mood Pure & Easy is trying to convey. There are plans to have small tables throughout the room, but guests will mainly sit on the bench connected to the wall that wraps around the room. The benched seating allows guests to talk easily and get to know one other.

Behind the small bar, there’ll only be one bartender and an actual hole in the wall that connects to the restaurant.

Instead of having servers, guests can order food that’ll come 22 PORT & MAIN

right out of that hole into the bartender’s hands and into the stomachs of the guests. Barnes says that while they haven’t gotten the furniture yet, she hopes that it’ll have a real, vintage feel and help create a cozy atmosphere.

As for the food and drinks, it’ll be similar to Pure Eats, which thrives on helping local industries. They use lean beef and chicken that comes from Lexington, Charlottesville and the Shenandoah Valley, and they get the vegetables and fruits from the farmers market across the street. These ingredients will stay the same, but the menu will have a classier twist. While they only serve beer on the Pure Eats side, there will be liquor and wine served at the speakeasy.

“We want to have specialty drinks and we want to use local products,” Barnes says. “I used to bartend a few years

ago and I loved making drinks.”

Alex Moore, a senior integrated science and technology major, is going to be one of the bartenders.

“I’m excited because I think it will be one of the few places where you can get a traditional cocktail that is unique from the other bars downtown,” Moore says.

They’re planning on taking full advantage of the farmers market for that.

Moore can’t wait to “let my creative juices flow,” and experiment with different things. He doesn’t consider himself a bartender, but a mixologist. He says that he looks at making drinks from a cooking perspective.

“Say they have raspberries; we can make a Raspberry Mojito, or they’ve got cherries or whatever,” Barnes says.

“We want to include all that stuff in our food, but also in our drinks.”

Barnes believes that it’ll be a place for downtowners to drink, eat and relax after work or class. She jokes that it will be like “the male version of a spa.”

“Hopefully it will be a draw for more people to come downtown ... especially the Ice House,” Barnes says. “The Ice House is brand new and the word is still getting out about it.”

Tim Brady, co-founder of Pale Fire Brewery and a neighbor of Pure & Easy, has been a resident of Harrisonburg since 1998. In almost 20 years, Brady has seen downtown grow significantly.

Pure & Easy “will be a fantastic addition,” Brady says.

“You can already see that Pure Eats has done a wonderful job, and it will just be another reason for people to come to the Ice House.”

Barnes hopes that people will be excited about the speakeasy and will come downtown for it specifically. She thinks that there’s already a hype surrounding it and that many people will hear about it through word of mouth.

“We want people to love coming here and we want them to come back,” she says.

When Pure & Easy graces Harrisonburg with its presence is still to be determined, but look for it to be opened Tuesday through Saturday after 5 p.m. As for how to get in? That’s still a secret, so keep your bellies and ears open. w

pure eats is aiming to bring back the 1920s by opening a speakeasy-like bar downtown.

Alex Moore (pictured above) will bartend the speakeasy after its opening this fall.

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photos daniel stein

basement bands Harrisonburg’s underground music scene gives bands a platform to play for supportive crowds

BY EMMY FREEDMAN 24 PORT & MAIN

B

en Birchfield picks up a wooden instrument that resembles a long, wooden flute. It has blue carvings on the sides and it makes a low, hollow sound when the senior sociology major blows into it. “I’ve recently added a didgeridoo to my repertoire,” he says.

Birchfield is a solo artist who’s been performing at house parties in the area for several years and, like many other musicians in and around the JMU community, he finds Harrisonburg the perfect place to hone his skills and meet other musicians and music lovers.

“Harrisonburg is a good place to suck,” he says. “You can get out there, find shows to do and gauge if you’re on to something based on the reaction that you get. It’s basically a low-pressure, no-strings-attached way of getting involved and seeing if it’s something you want to pursue.”

A good place to play is exactly what the five-piece band Caulfield is counting on. Guitarist Troy Gamboa says the indie rock band is just starting out and ready to see if it has a sound people will respond to.

“We want to record a few EPs and play some shows,” the junior integrated science and technology major says. “If it takes us somewhere, it does; if it doesn’t, then we have some cool songs to listen to.”

The first test for the band, which gets its musical ideas from a diverse lot that includes The Beatles and the Canadian indie rocker Mac Demarco, was on Friday, Sept. 25 at a house party on South Main Street.

particularly with all the house parties going on.

“We’ve played [a lot of] house shows,” says Eric Sites, a senior management major who plays guitar for a band called Madly Backwards. The band plays rock with the grit of blues, the energy of funk and the sonic experimentation of psychedelia.

Sites points to JMU as a great meeting place for musicians to find others who share musical interests.

“We all met in music industry classes,” he says, and now that they’re a band, they can leverage each other’s strengths.

“I’ll bring a song on acoustic guitar with just chords and lyrics to the group to turn into a full band arrangement.

Nick and Jamie have much more music theory knowledge than I do so they help me out on getting it to make sense to the rest of the world.”

Among other venues, the band has played at The Artful

everyone is here for a good time, so it’s always awesome energy Eric Sites, guitarist for madly backwards “We’re excited,” says Cole Roberts, the band’s other guitarist and a junior biology major. “We’ve all played live before, but this is the first one ever for us as this band.”

Other members include junior math and computer science major and bassist Nathan Johnson, and junior psychology major and drummer Jonny Weiss.

What makes the area such a good incubator of bands, says local musicians, is the opportunity to work with all the other musicians at the university and to get lots of practice playing live at the many venues in and around Harrisonburg,

The educational aspect of a college town gives musicians the

opportunity to practice their skills in real-life show situations.

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Dodger, where it’s been the venue’s Whiskey Wednesday artist.

Sites says he likes the way the big variety of bands in the area helps shape everyone’s sound.

“In the past, we’ve played with members of Too Indecent, Illiterate Light, Out on the Weekend, Strong Water and the Dawn Drapes,” he says.

Victoria Earther, a cellist with the folk band Strong Water, credits the local venues for giving bands like hers a place to build their skill.

“Clementine is probably where we play the most,” the senior writing, rhetoric and technical communication major says.

“We played Little Gems Music Festival, and we’ve done Madipalooza,” says her bandmate Greg Brennan, the singer and guitarist. Brennan graduated in the spring with a degree in geology but he’s stayed in town to take advantage of all

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the places there are for them to play.

The next show for the band, which sounds a little like Mumford & Sons and the Lumineers, is at the Golden Pony on North Main Street, but Brennan says they also have ambitions to grow beyond Harrisonburg once they have some recorded music to showcase. That could be pretty soon, because they’ve started a crowd funding initiative on Indiegogo to get money for a recording session.

“We want to record this album and start playing in Richmond, Northern Virginia, you know, all over Virginia,” he says.

Harrisonburg’s college-town atmosphere is also a big help on the rehearsal side of being a musician, because students are less likely to be up in arms if they hear a band practicing nearby — although for the indie-rock band Caulfield, it doesn’t hurt that their practice space at Foxhill Townhomes on Devon Lane is at the end of the complex.

“We live right next to the model home,” says Gamboa.

“And there’s no one in the apartment next to that one, either.”

Birchfield, the solo artist, says a lot of the people who come out to see him are his friends, but it’s also through them that he’s been able to grow his audience.

“If I have a show and send out invites, I know I’ll get a full room,” he says. “Through word-of-mouth, I know people are familiar with me.”

Sites of Madly Backwards says the most fun part about playing around Harrisonburg is all the students who come out.

“Everyone is there for a good time, so it’s always an awesome energy,” he says.

And it was by being out in the community that the six members of Strong Water found each other and formed a band.

“We’d meet on Friday nights and just have some drinks and hang out and play music together,” Brennan says. “We had to get used to each other for a while because everything was so new.”

“Jenny grew up Mennonite and was in the hymn tradition,” junior marketing major Evan Hunsberger, the band’s percussionist, says. “I was this small city urban kid who grew up listening to mainstream Christian music.

Victoria’s been all over the place. And Greg wanted to do rock originally.”

Yet they were able to find a sound that blends together the unique contribution of each, a good metaphor for Harrisonburg and its rich musical tradition.

“It’s funny that with all of our different backgrounds we all can come together and play this music,” Carrier says. w

the underground scene in Harrisonburg provides a platform for

new bands to find its own sound. Shows are generally held in basements of houses that students or their friends rent or own in Harrisonburg.

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photos james allen

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Skating culture small but intricate, Harrisonburg’s underground skater community is something many of its members have grown up with.

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BY robyn smith

abriel Reynolds has been skating since he was two years old. Now that he’s eight, he’s gotten all the mechanics down pat. His favorite move is going down hills.

“It’s like a moving machine that you can stand up on,” Reynolds says.

His mother, Lisa Reynolds, bought him his first skateboard at a yard sale. She skated when she was his age, too.

“I loved it because I got to go so fast,” Lisa says. “We did it on the road and we used to go really, really fast and I loved that adrenaline rush.”

At Westover Skate Park, it’s fairly crowded for a Thursday afternoon. There are many children, a handful of JMU students, a few adults and one four-year-old chocolate lab named Brooklyn. Everyone except for Brooklyn is wearing

a helmet, following one of the few rules the park has.

Westover has ramps, rails and bars for skaters to jump on, slide over and ride down. Within a 30-minute period, there’s not a single person on a board who hasn’t stumbled to the ground at least once. One man, an honors student at JMU, yells out every time he fails to “land” a move.

“You’re not really doing this for anyone, you’re just doing this for yourself,” Pat Landess, a junior integrated science and technology major who grew up in the surfand-skate culture of Virginia Beach, says. “I definitely fall a lot, but that’s the point of it. That’s how you learn not to do it. You learn from falling really hard.”

His best tricks are backside 180s and frontside shove its, which are both when a skater flips directions mid-motion.

He claims he’s not very good at flat ground tricks.

Landess is also one of the few older people in the PORT & MAIN 29

park who cheers on the children. One adolescent boy successfully lands a trick, and Landess gives him a high five.

“I think it’s cool how everyone can connect over skateboarding,” Landess says. “As a little kid, when you’re skateboarding, it’s just so much fun. It’s the best thing ever. So just seeing kids try things and them pushing themselves pushes you to keep skating.”

He and Will Esswein, a junior psychology major, come to the park a few times a week when the weather’s nice, but they prefer street skating.

“This is more of just a warm-up place,” Landess says. “I like to jump down hand rails and gaps and stairs and all that stuff.”

After meeting at Resident Advisor training last summer, Landess and Esswein began to skate around Harrisonburg together.

“It was the first day of RA training and I saw his shoes were ripped … and I was like, ‘Do you skate?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, do you?’ Instantly friends,” Landess says.

Esswein began skating when he was in high school. He would practice for hours alone at a park or in the streets of his hometown, Vienna, Virginia, perfecting tricks and getting to know the skating culture. Now that he’s at JMU, he’s immersed in Harrisonburg’s skating community.

“At the end of the day, every skater has each other’s back,” Esswein says. “Being open-minded is a big part of the culture, especially being here where it’s not necessarily the popular thing to do. We understand people who also

like other things that may not be as popular.”

Esswein skates three to four times a week, depending on the weather and how much work he has to do. Skating is an outlet for his stress.

“Any time I’m feeling sad or stressed out about something, I can come skate and it helps me get my mind off of things,” Esswein says. “Even if it’s not a good day for me, skating wise — like, I’m not landing everything — it’s still a good day just because I got to skate.”

Within the skating culture, some focus on music, while others focus on art. The art on the bottom of every deck, the wooden part of the board, is huge within the world of skating, according to Esswein. Esswein’s deck, made by a French company called Magenta, has a map of a French city.

Two people work at Westover, enforcing the helmet rule and keeping everyone safe. Jon Keopangna, a JMU ’14 alumnus who grew up in Harrisonburg, and Jesse Hammer, a 25-year-old who owns Wonder, a skate shop downtown on Water Street.

“When JMU’s back in town, there’s a good amount of people who come and check out the skate park,” Keopangna, who has worked there for a little over a year, says. “We have usual students who come out and skate regularly, but other than that it’s just people who come and go. Then there are the people who were raised here who come out and skate all the time.”

Keopangna began skating about six or seven years ago.

He’s seen the recent growth in Harrisonburg’s skate

Wonder, located on Water Street, sells various

skateboarding accessories and necessities, including boards, skate shoes and apparel.

Half of the shop also sells vintage records and music equipment.

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culture, claiming it has “anything and everything.”

“Some people say it’s art, some people say it’s a passion,” Keopangna says. “I don’t know. It’s something I do, I guess.”

Back at Wonder, a one-room store next to a popular bottle shop, the space is split between boards, skate shoes, a few T-shirt racks and shelves upon shelves of vintage records and musical equipment. Sixty-six decks — the wooden platforms of each board — line two walls; this is the shop’s entire deck inventory on display.

On the floor beneath the boards, there’s a small stack of chipped, worn-out decks. According to Taven Wilson, a sales associate at Wonder, these are free to anyone interested — customers who come in to buy new decks leave their old ones behind, and this is Wonder’s way of recycling. Wilson says children are the most frequent customers of the free, used decks.

“It’s interesting,” Wilson, the lead guitarist for local band The James Badfellows, says. “I mostly deal with the music side for it. There’s a lot of random stuff coming through, a lot of funny characters selling random records and music equipment. You meet a lot of interesting people. We’re kind of like a pawn shop, in a way, except we’re usually a lot fairer.”

Wilson, a 29-year-old who grew up in Harrisonburg, doesn’t skate as often as he used to. He claims his body can’t handle it anymore, but that doing any skating now makes him feel nostalgic.

He sees the local skating community as rather small, like a counterculture.

“This isn’t a big city … you kind of had to have a creative

the westover skate park offers local skaters a

place to safely skate, rather than finding obstacles in the city, such as handrails on stairs.

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eye for finding things that were skateable. You had to be a little more creative with the way that you were skating.

It’s rougher around here, with the way things are built.

The streets are rougher than in a big city.”

Saturday, Oct. 10, was the seventh annual Skatan Worshippers. A DJ played what could best be described as modern boogie through loud speakers that still didn’t drown out the sound of wheels gliding and smashing against wood and asphalt. Here, the only ones who wore helmets were children, and even then, a Spider-Man helmet remained unbuckled.

Local artists put together a gallery at Brothers Brewing on N. Main Street, and from noon to 7 p.m., skaters came to an improvised park in the brewery’s back lot.

In the gallery, there are painted boards and skaterthemed prints and paintings. One pen-ink drawing of Bart Simpson hangs in the left corner, and many prints have sayings like “Skate till death.” A handful of pieces are by Lynda Bostrom, a local graphic designer studying to get her Master of Fine Arts degree at JMU. Landess is in the park, along with many other young men and a handful of families. From 1 to 2 p.m., the only female seen with a board is a child, skating with her dad.

The rest of the park is dominated by men with boards and women watching from the sidelines.

Hammer, who has owned Wonder for almost three years, is also there, supporting the event and bonding with Harrisonburg’s fellow skaters.

“I’ve been really involved with the skating culture since I was really young, and so it just kind of worked out for me to take over,” Hammer says. “Skateboarding has been

Joe Keopanga is the owner of Wonder, a local skate and music shop.

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around forever. It brings a lot of people together who probably wouldn’t even hang out. Everyone kind of just looks after each other and gets really into it.”

Last year for his global studies practicum, Landess helped build a school in the Dominican Republic, and continues to ensure its sustainability this year.

Esswein wants to become a counselor for elementary and middle school-aged children because he believes that those with mental illnesses should get treatment as soon as possible.

some people say it’s an art, some people say it’s a passion. jon keopanga, owner of wonder And then there’s Reynolds, whose mom bought him a board for his eighth birthday, but watches like a hawk the entire time he’s at the park.

“I think that sometimes, people get caught up in the negative side of things,” Esswein says. “There’s the people who get caught up in drugs and alcohol or whatever and they lose sight of why they started in the first place, but I think overall it’s a really positive culture … You come here and people of all skill levels and ages are welcome.” w

fashion finds Photos by erin Williams Situated between The Golden Pony and Bluetique in downtown Harrisonburg is a little glass door with a unicorn adorned on its front. Whatever Vintage boutique is a trendy vintage thrift store with finds for men and women alike.

Take a jump back in time and explore the past with clothes once thrown aside.

SPECIAL THANKS to Richie Bozek and

Kendall Lawrence for modeling our fall looks, and to Whatever Vintage for letting us photograph their vintage finds.

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Thank you Contributing writers Rachel Petty Briana Ellison Hayley Moore Kevan Hulligan Wayne Epps Jr. Mike Dolzer Emmy Freedman Robyn Smith Anna Peck allison perrone caroline alkire

Contributing photographers Loren probish mark owen chelsea glowacki sam taylor daniiel stein james allen

front and back cover photo erin williams

want to get involved? email portandmainmag@gmail.com

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Find more online at portandmain.com.

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