Charlottesville Roots

Some of you know Charlottesville better than I do, some only vaguely and some not at all. So, I decided to do a post telling you what I’ve discovered during the time I've spent here. Upon reflection, I’ll need to do several posts. I’ve been mulling these things over for 25 years and even with stringent editing, there’s too much to say for just one.
A local friend told me recently “When Northerners come to Charlottesville they think they are in the South. When Southerners come, they think they are in the North.” A light bulb went off in my head. I'd finally found the answer to something I’d been vaguely puzzled by for years. Is Charlottesville really a southern town?
It is certainly proud of its southern history:
•of Jack Jouett, the Paul Revere of the South, who rode to warn Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia Legislature that the British were coming on June 3, 1781.
•of Mr Jefferson. His name and influence are everywhere though he never lived in Charlottesville itself.
•of James Madison and James Monroe, Mr Jefferson’s friends and fellow Virginia- born Presidents. They are remembered fondly, too, though not with the reverence given their elder.

City Hall

The Civil War is acknowledged here, although not trumpeted. The Daughters of the Confederacy had a prominent monument erected about a hundred years ago

and Lee Park, where black and white residents now eat their lunch on sunny days, was not named after Bruce.

Robert E. Lee surveys his park.

But where are the gentlefolk sipping iced tea on their front porches and reminiscing about what things were like “in granddaddy’s day”?
My circle of friends here includes people from, England, California, Minnesota, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Texas, Oregon, Iowa, Maryland and North Carolina. – at least the last two are in the South!
The Mayor moved to Charlottesville only 15 years ago. He was born in Virginia but northern Virginia (which is not Virginia at all to some). And, he graduated from High School in Germany and got his B.A. in Massachusetts before coming here.
One of the City Council members is a Sikh from India. A great guy but hardly a “Virginia gentleman”.
Many of my friends ( as well as the Mayor and City Councilman) have this in common – they arrived in Charlottesville as young adults. They raised families here -- and almost all of their kids moved away when they grew up, leaving their transplanted parents as proud Charlottesvillians. Charlottesvillians but not Virginians. People with the roots they had given themselves. Like me.