Essays
Robbie Kocher: Of Fathers and Their Sons
It’s odd to walk along the commercial strips in Bellevue now. Whether you’re strolling down MacArthur Avenue or making your way along Bellevue Avenue, there’s something missing. That familiar face, the recognizable gait. An ever-ready smile. A quick, and sometimes sardonic, quip. You would see him in the mornings at Stir Crazy, in the late afternoons and early evenings at Dot’s Back Inn or Northside Grille, and almost any other time of day or night at Once Upon a Vine. He seemed to be everywhere, every week day. A presence we had all come to love. And now he is gone. Left us much too soon. He was just 48 years old.
By Charles McGuigan 08.2024
A View from the Top No Longer Available
For roughly five decades Richmonders had enjoyed free and open access to the City Hall Observation Deck, one of our beautiful city’s great public amenities and a testament to the simple civic appeal that a local government can create with minimal investment.
By Daniel Payne 07.2024
Nick Sharp: A Human Singularity
Nicholas Andrew Sharp passed away last month, leaving behind fourteen children, twenty-five grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and Linda, his loving wife of fifty-five years. He also left behind the rest of us, who either knew him personally, or knew of his existence through acts of humanity that echoed from him through those he touched.
By Charles McGuigan 05.2024
Santa Claus Was Not White, He Was a Person of Color
Emboldened by a president who was endorsed by white supremacists (the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, among others), chowderheads, back in December of 2016, on around the feast day of Saint Nicholas, commenced a racist firestorm on social media and even tried to shut down that nightmarish entity of Minnesota origin—the Mall of America.
By Charles McGuigan 12.2020
Bending the Arc with $25 Million for Historic Justice Initiatives
Virginia is bending the arc of the moral universe toward justice thanks to a new budget item proposal from Governor Ralph Northam
On December 11, the Governor Northam announced a proposed budget that will include nearly $25 million to transform historic sites and advance historic justice efforts.
Monument Avenue Soon To Be “A Road Less Traveler”
When the monuments began to come down last month, they were like bowling pins, falling in slow motion. A massive ball of outrage, molded from centuries of racism and inequity, struck the pocket perfectly—no spare; just a resounding, if protracted, strike.
By Charles McGuigan 07.2020
A.P. Hill: The Last Man Standing
When my son Charles attended Linwood Holton Elementary School, it always struck me as odd that his Black classmates, every single day, had to look at a statue to a man who fought to preserve the enslavement of Black people.
By Charles McGuigan 07.2020
Searching for Stonewall Jackson
In his book, “Searching for Stonewall Jackson: A Quest for Legacy in a Divided America”, Ben examines, in fairly minute detail, just about every facet of this enigmatic, and tight-lipped wizard of warfare, a man of glaring contradictions.
By Charles McGuigan 01.2020
