Catfish & Moonshine In Narrows, Virginia

We’re spending a few weeks up near Lake Michigan right now. Yes, we’ve got several pots on the stove at the moment, some of which are leading up to the impending change I mentioned earlier for the Island Family, and we’re just trying to keep everything from boiling over. So things are a bit complicated at the moment, but I’ll keep you posted as the events unfold. If I get a chance, I’m going over to the big lake, as they often call it here, and I’ll show you a glimpse or two. Bear with me here though, as I have found myself unexpectedly without regular Internet access and expectedly with one car for the family to share.

Initially, when we left Carolina we had planned to drive straight through in one day. However, a rest stop in Virginia, which required us to separate by gender, resulted in the male units of the family hatching a plan to stay a night in the mountains. So I drove, and LCB worked some magic on his cell and procured us a place for the night at a B&B inn in Narrows, Virginia.

On the winding road from the highway to Narrows, my sons began concocting an itinerary for our stay there. Despite the fact that we had not planned this stop and therefore had not packed appropriately, I was informed that we would be canoeing and hiking in short order. This, I assumed, would be quickly replaced with a relaxing, home-cooked meal in a quiet restaurant once we got there and found out it was too late to organize complex and strenuous activities like canoeing.

Oh, how wrong I was. We got to the inn, where the owner was just pulling out of the drive in his red pick-up truck. Within five minutes, we were checked in, and Mr. Allen (the owner) was calling his brother to see if we could borrow his canoe. Turns out, we could.

I love that. We fall out of the sky, and this gentleman, with one phone call, offers us his brother’s canoe. No lengthy registration forms, no waivers, no hourly fees. Just, here’s a canoe. God bless small-town America.

Have you ever met someone, a kindred spirit of sorts, who’s just the right combination of interesting and down-to-earth to make it feel like you could sit chatting all day, even if you just met? That’s Mr. Allen.

Anyway, after a short period of confusion where we tried to verify that we were not taking the wrong canoe, and thus potentially adding a short stint of incarceration to our stay, my husband confirmed that we had the correct canoe and next thing I know, he’s carrying the canoe down those steps you see, into the river.

Conveniently, we had the small people’s life jackets in the van, so we popped those on and hopped in the canoe. And there we were, all five of us, floating down the New River in a canoe. The water was so clear, and warmer than I expected. There were a couple other boats on the river, but other than that, it was relatively calm. We (we being my husband, as there was only one paddle) paddled upriver first a ways, and then floated back with the current.

After returning the canoe, we hiked around a bit by a spot a couple different locals had recommended, down by another section of the river. We weren’t dressed to swim, but that didn’t stop the small people from playing by the edge of the water.

At dinner afterward, as I sat enjoying our home-cooked meal, I had a view of the downtown area. All of the shops seemed to be situated on two main streets that formed a T shape. Sadly, many of them seemed empty now. When I spoke with Mr. Allen the next morning, he said at one time, people had to walk on the streets because the sidewalks were so crowded. Not so anymore, although I’m not sure of all the factors that contributed to this. It may have been due to additional highways built years ago that bypass Narrows, or perhaps to a decline in local industries. This was just my thing, however: the town was in fact lovely, with its mix of solitude and ghosts of the past. I was thrilled. After dinner, we strolled the streets for a few minutes, imagining the bustle of its heyday.

The next morning, we headed out to breakfast across the street at a delightful place called the Blue Moon Café. As we were crossing the street, Mr. Allen came out to greet us.

“I was wondering when you folks would be up,” he said, grinning.

As his affiliations extended to the café as well, he spent quite some time trying to shove food down us (all very good, by the way), and then we sat back to talk. He had been working for some time restoring his inn, the MacArthur Inn, that dates back to 1940. It was no small task, I’m sure, for a man who has several pots on the stove himself.

He took great pleasure, you could tell, in introducing us to a man playing a guitar at the table next to us, a man who turned out to be a retired paleontologist who had discovered the remains of a 37-foot alligator while vacationing there in the 90s. He liked it so much, he’s now there permanently. He went on to describe various digs and fossils found over the course of his career, many of which are now on display in places like the Field Museum in Chicago, just to name one.

Most the time the paleontologist sat talking about his finds, Mr. Allen sat next to us, turning the ends of his mustache, the proverbial twinkle in his eye. And then, at one point, he leaned over and said with a grin and a chuckle, “And here you thought all we ever talked about around here was catfish and moonshine.”

Indeed.

I would have liked to have stayed another night, because everyone was so friendly, and they were starting carriage rides later on that day. Frankly, I could have spent most of the day hiking those mountains. It’s beautiful, really, the way the river winds through the mountains, everything laced with trees. But, to paraphrase a Frost poem, we had miles go and promises to keep. We lingered for a while, enjoying the last of our coffee before hitting the road. I made a mental note to try to return for more talk of catfish and moonshine, if our itinerary for the drive home allows it.

Before we left, he asked us to remember them in Narrows.

He didn’t need to ask.