Used by the Virginia Farm Bureau.

For nearly a century, Farm Bureau has been a friend of the farm for all Virginians.

Visit our website at VAFB.com.

Hello everyone and welcome to Real Virginia, a show about Virginia agriculture and the people who produce the wonderful local products we enjoy.

Brought to you by the Virginia Farm Bureau.

Here's what's coming up on this week's show.

Blue catfish are eating oysters, crabs, and other marine life at an alarming pace.

Chef Tammy shows us how to use grains instead of lettuce for a delicious summer salad.

And we look at the creative solutions farm parents are finding for child care.

Virginia.

Welcome back to Real Virginia, everyone.

We're coming to you this week from Amory Seafood in Hampton, Virginia, one of many marinas where watermen head out to fish Virginia's waters.

But the blue catfish is eating up many of the crabs, oysters, and other seafood that Virginians have come to enjoy.

Catfishing begins in the early morning darkness on the Pomunke River in New Kent County for fishermen Chris Von Hott and Christopher Whitmire.

They get on the water at 3 a.m.

and work until midday, hoping to catch three to four thousand pounds of catfish before heading back to shore.

By daybreak, the fish are definitely still biting.

But these watermen and many others are concerned that the catfish are eating up the other species in these rivers that lead to the Chesapeake Bay, making those other fish, oysters, crabs, and clams more scarce.

I mean, from the crabber's point of point of view, it's drastically reduced the amount of crabs.

I mean, same with the shed, American shed, and the eels.

I mean, used to be plenty of eels in this river, and not so many anymore.

Wild blue catfish were stocked in the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay in the 1970s and 80s as a trophy fish for recreational fishermen.

Over the past 15 years, the blue catfish has thrived to the point that they've eaten into the population of many other species in Virginia waters.

I mean, they go all the way down to the Chesapeake Bay, down toward, you know, like Gloucester.

People have been catching them down there in Gill nets.

I know down in Buckaroe on Buckaroe Beach, they've been catching them on fishing poles.

Catfish are able to go into salt water, but they eventually need to be back in freshwater, such as the Pomunky River, which leads to the York River, which leads to the Chesapeake Bay.

The bay itself is an estuary where fresh water from the rivers mixes with salt water from the Atlantic Ocean.

We're kind of on the precipice of what I would say is a catastrophic event in our seafood economy because of the blue catfish.

They're literally consuming literally anything they can get into their mouth, and they're doing it very effectively.

So while it has become this massive ecological and socioeconomic concern, they also happen to taste really good.

And there lies the silver lining in the blue catfish problem.

They have more flavor than what most people think catfish taste like.

A lot of people receive the word catfish as being a bottom feeder.

It doesn't have that good sweet, firm white meat like the wild blue catfish does, and his perception that you got to get over that hurdle and put it in your mouth and try it.

It was a great product, white, firm, sweet meat, high in protein and low in fat.

Many Virginia restaurants also have started offering blue catfish on their menus.

Scrimpshack is one here from DC, down in North Carolina.

It's 13 to 15 of those, and they put it on as a seasonal item last year and this year.

And they have the same thing, just introducing it to the public and what it is and perceived it's just not catfish.

Despite the blue catfish's voracious appetite, not everyone believes they're bad for Virginia's seafood industry.

Boat companies, fuel companies, gear companies, distribution companies, trucking companies, packaging coming as food service, retail, and restaurants.

The inspection process for blue catfish moved from the Food and Drug Administration to the U.S.

Department of Agriculture.

And that has led to a shortage of processing facilities for these watermen to take the catfish that they catch.

Van Hotton and his crew are able to fish in the fresh waters of the Pomonkey River, but he would like to bring in more than just catfish.

American shed, American eel, your uh rockfish, strip and bass.

All those fish do come up here to spawn.

And, well, as soon as they have your little babies, I mean, you got your vacuum clean of going around eating them.

I mean, it needs to be removed out of here.

Because I mean, if it does start to take over at a certain point, this fish species can't survive.

Those who have studied the catfish problem believe the invasive species is here to stay.

Question is how best to manage them in order to maintain the ecologic diversity of the Chesapeake Bay and its rivers and tributaries.

Seafood lovers can do their part by ordering blue catfish at restaurants and buying them at local grocery stores.

On the Pomunky River in New Kent County, I'm Burke Moller for Rio Virginia.

Virginia ranks third in the nation in commercial seafood and is the number one seafood producer on the East Coast.

The old Dominion also ranks first for oysters and clams.

These and other marine life have become part of the blue catfish's diet.

And adult blue catfish have few natural predators.

A recent presentation by Virginia Tech said blue catfish can grow to more than 100 pounds with an average length between two and five feet.

They normally live for about 10 years and they will feed on almost anything they encounter.

Blue catfish now represent 75% of the biomass in the James, Rappahannock, and Gork Rivers.

I'm Ed Olsen with From the Ground Up.

Today we're going to be talking about drip irrigation and how it can save you some water as well as some time on your garden tasks.

Stay with us.

Every year, 500 people in the United States die in an all-trained vehicle related accident.

And another thousand people are seriously injured.

Sadly, many of those victims are children.

Number one tip for riding an ATV is definitely wearing a helmet.

You think about the opportunity to overturn an ATV.

Imagine your head the same density as a watermelon and how easy it would be to crack.

One of the biggest things that we always push for for anybody we train is always make sure that you have a good quality helmet for your ride.

This message brought to you by the Virginia Farm Bureau of Safety Advisory Committee.

Experts say drip irrigation is more efficient and better for your garden overall.

Ed Olson with Virginia Cooperative Extension has some tips for getting started from the ground up.

We're here today at the Falkier Education Farm with executive director Jim Hankins.

Jim, we're going to talk about irrigation today, and I see a lot of components on the table here.

Can you tell us what we're looking at and how we're going to use these?

This is a super garden kit, or most of the components from a garden kit.

There are wonderful companies, if you just look up irrigation supplies that sell the entire kit, everything you need except for the hose to go from your house out to your garden.

Irrigate, drip irrigation is really so much more efficient and so much better for your garden than taking a sprinkler out or taking a hose out.

Yes.

You know, it's really easy to use.

It's affordable.

Okay.

Um, and you know, you can get garden kits for a raised bed, for a string of flower puts or for acres.

Um, you know, it's made up primarily.

There will be a large feeder hose, which is where your garden hose will attach.

And then off of that feeder hose, there are 20, this particular garden kit made for 20 of them.

20 of these little connectors.

From the connector, it will go into the drip tape itself.

Okay.

This drip tape has a tiny little hole in it every eight inches.

This drip tape, instead of, you know, pennies per foot, it's like six feet per penny.

It is really, really inexpensive.

It's drip irrigation.

It comes up really slowly, just a little bit, also called trickle irrigation.

Um, and you know, it's going right at the base of your plant.

If you're using that sprinkler system, you're watering your walkways, you're watering your weeds, and you're adding a whole lot of disease pressure to your garden.

Okay.

Most of the tomato diseases in Virginia are called waterborne diseases.

So if you're wetting your plants down every day, that's an invitation for disease.

The other components here, um, this one comes with a filter.

If you're using well water, you may want to use that.

It's also a pressure reducer.

This operates on four to six pounds per square inch pressure.

Okay.

And you get a pressure gauge that you can connect right in there to let you know if you're pumping it up too much.

This one comes with all of these plugs for the ends of the drip tape.

You know, I'm doing hundreds and hundreds of rows every year.

I just tie a knot in the end.

It will leak a little bit, but it's a drip irrigation system.

It's okay.

Uh I try to make it easy.

It's affordable.

You should be able to do it yourself.

You know, you don't need any.

And compared to soaker hoses or something like that.

Soaker hoses are really expensive.

Yes.

They'll get clogged up, they'll go to bed, and the drip is easier to use.

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you for explaining all of this on the table here for us, but we're gonna actually go see it in action.

Absolutely.

Well, Jim, we're now here in your uh one of your hoop houses, uh, and we've got drip irrigation going on right in front of us.

Can you explain what we're seeing here?

This drip has been on for a couple hours this morning.

I just walked by, raised the handle on the spigot.

Um, and you can see nothing is being sprayed out of the drip irrigation.

There's just a tiny amount of water.

If I come by and clean it, you can see that there's every eight inches just a tiny little flow of water, drip, drip, drip.

I'll leave it running for about three hours at a time, about every other day, and that really does, and that's inside this high tunnel where we don't get any rain.

Yeah.

That's plenty.

Okay.

And we can see here really um on the uh landscape fabric that the water is not really going very far away.

No, the landscape fabric I love it goes right down.

I like to say water is smart enough to know which way is down, and it goes right straight down.

And you know, this is just such a simple system.

And it works.

You can see these are happy peppers.

Yes, and as you mentioned earlier, um it keeps the moisture off the leaves, so we're not getting foliar diseases.

And here we can clearly see that there's nothing on the floors.

There's no spraying going on.

You're watering right at the base of the plant.

Well, thank you so much, Jim, for showing us around today and showing us this drip irrigation system.

For from the ground up, I'm Ed Olson.

For more information about drip irrigation, contact your local extension office and talk to the master gardener.

See you next time.

From the ground up is presented with the generous advice and assistance of Virginia Cooperative Extension.

Visit their website at ext.vt.edu.

Hi, I'm Chef Tammy Brawley from the Green Kitchen.

Coming up on Heart of the Home, a world of grain salad.

We hope you'll stay with us.

Farming is a rewarding way of life, but it can also be full of challenges.

If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text the agri stress helpline at 833-897-247.

It offers 24-7 access to professionals who can support someone in need.

Please make the call.

Because healthy farms depend on healthy farm families.

That's 833-897-2474.

Salads don't need lettuce or other greens.

Chef Tammy Brawley shows us how to make a great summer salad using grains from the heart of the home.

Hi, I'm Chef Tammy Brawley from the Green Kitchen, and welcome to Heart of the Home.

I'm going to show you guys a delicious summer salad that you can make.

Um, I love doing this to beat the heat.

Um, but it is a grain salad.

Um, you know, one of the things that uh is kind of a misnomer is people think salads need to be lettuces and things like that, but they really don't.

They can be grains.

And today we're actually using a red rice and an orzo, and we're gonna be adding a delicious dressing and vegetables to that.

Rices um do come into various colors.

The red and the black rices are wild rices.

They're gonna have a little bit more of a chewy texture to them, and adding them to an orzo is as absolutely fabulous.

Um, we are gonna make a nice little dressing to go with this.

I'm gonna use a little handstick blender, and we're going to add to our blender um about five tablespoons or so of olive oil.

And just put this in a little handstick blender.

And then to the olive oil, we're actually going to add some lemon zest and some lemon juice.

A very simple dressing.

I I love this.

It's so vibrant.

And just a little bit of sugar.

Salt and pepper.

Alright, I'm gonna put our little blender together here.

We're looking for a little emulsification, as it's called, and we're trying to get um an acid and an oil together, um, trying to have a sort of a forced marriage to a certain extent.

Check the consistency out.

Oh, it's beautiful.

So that can rest for a second.

And now um I have gone ahead and cooked the Orzo and the red rice.

Um, saw no really real reason to show you guys how to do that.

You've obviously cooked rice and orzo before.

We are gonna mix this up.

So we have a pasta and we have a rice in here.

I'm gonna just kind of mix that up together.

I'm gonna make a little bit more room for myself.

We let this cool after it's cooked, pretty important there.

Toss it with a little bit of olive oil so it doesn't really stick together.

And now to this mixture, we are going to add some beautiful green onions, some shredded carrot, um, some cucumber and some calamata olives.

Um, if you don't like either of those ingredients, you can certainly omit them.

I personally love them all.

And the olives do add a nice little salty balance.

Um, the recipe might say to chop the carrots, but why I I just believe why don't we just do shredded carrots?

Also gives it a little bit more of a texture.

We're gonna add all those vegetables together in the um salad.

Mix them up with a spoon here.

And it's not a lot of dressing that gets added, but you can certainly double that if you'd like.

Probably grown in your own garden there, which is great.

I have friends that are growing cucumbers coming out of their ears, and so we're getting cucumbers right and left.

It's great to have your own garden vegetables in your food.

All right, so now we're gonna come back with that dressing.

Lemon and olive oil and a little salt and pepper.

Very simple and very vibrant, delicious flavor.

Nice and stirred up.

Do want to taste for seasoning to see if we need to add any more salt and pepper to it.

And there you have it a delicious grain salad with those um garden vegetables you've got growing and that lemon olive oil dressing.

I'm Chef Tammy Brawley from the Green Kitchen.

Join us next time on Heart of the Home.

Recipes from the Heart of the Home can be found on the Virginia Farm Bureau website at VAFB.com slash recipes, as well as on Chef Tammy Brawley's website at Green Kitchen Richmond.com.

Thinking of growing your own herbs, start with parsley.

Plant in full sun, water well, and here in Virginia, if you're in hardiness A or 8B, you can start planting as early as March.

Parsley is a biennial.

It grows leaves in the first year and flowers in the second.

Flat leaf parsley packs bold flavor.

Curly parsley is great for garnishes.

While hamburg parsley has an earthy and herbal flavor, often described as tasting like celery.

When harvesting, cut with scissors to resist damaging the plant by pulling.

Soak in some cold water to keep the bugs at bay and enjoy your fresh Virginia ground parsley.

Child care can be difficult enough to find in many communities, but in rural areas, it can be extra challenging.

Elijah Griles has more.

Raising a family on a farm may sound like an easy escape from the demands of modern life.

But even though 95% of Virginia farms are family-owned, farm parenting is a challenge.

We visited the moms of Gathering Springs Farm to learn about their unique solutions and why it's all worth it.

When I decided that I wanted some kind of agrarian lifestyle, be that hobby farm, homestead, commercial operation.

One of the main driving factors for me was this idea that wow, what a great childhood for a child for a kid to grow up on a farm to understand how that food is grown, to have that very like intimate relationship with the whole process, like the wins and the losses of eating food grown where you live.

Connecting on a shared vision of being farm families.

Pamela Jones and Sarah Obahovich started gathering Springs Farm in 2018.

I was like, well, how about we start our own small operation on my land?

I think I emailed her.

It was very informal, very out of the blue.

Like, hey, what do you think about this?

And she emailed back within 15 minutes saying, I have no idea how this looks, but yes, let's do it.

On Pam's vision to homestead and having already purchased this land, she kind of, you know, after meeting me and and you know us becoming friends, um, she was like, I think I could actually make a farm happen here.

Do you want to do that with me?

So that's a very easy yes for someone who wants to do this but also doesn't have a land.

Seven years later, Jones and Obahovich raise eggs and small fruits and vegetables for customers at their on farm store, local farmers markets, and monthly subscriptions.

As their families and farm business grew, so did the need for creative child care solutions.

My son was born in early 2020.

Sarah's first son was born in August of 2020.

We didn't have child care that first year, and we just had one employee, and we just made it work.

Sometimes I'd be in the house and Sarah's son would be napping, and I would be keeping an eye on the monitor whilst looking after my son.

Sometimes I would be wearing him a lot of time I would be wearing him.

I think the thing that neither of us were fully aware of at the beginning was that every season looks different.

Because every phase of those first five or six years is so different.

You know, you have an immobile baby, that's great.

You stick them in a in a little pack and play and they can hang out.

The second that thing starts crawling, now you can't, right?

And so it's six months.

Yeah.

It's just been a constant moving target of the kind of child care we need and the way that we can be involved after that first season with kids.

We knew that not only did we need to bring child care into our team, but we could afford to because we were now two years into the business making money, and that was all just built into the business plan.

So they were part of the Gathering Springs farm team, paid as a member of staff.

That was something that was really important to us when we designed, like we kind of set up our business to create an environment that was conducive to parenting and working that didn't feel like you had to choose between the two.

Now, with kids ranging from five months to five years old, Jones and Obahovich have two child care staff.

Their integrated child care model inspired Ashley Van Pelt to join their farm team in early 2025.

I think that being a mom farmer and finding other mom farmers and building that network in that village is like the greatest gift in the world.

Like I would sweat through every single piece of clothing that I owned.

I'll do it ten times a day if I could have that network and that that group of people.

Through their network, these three farm moms help each other balance nurturing their children and cultivating their farm.

I bring her and she sort of sits on my back and I'm significantly less productive.

And so I just sort of accepted that.

And um, and then at home, you know, every morning we get the chickens together, you know, we make our fresh eggs, and I sort of talk to her about it.

My daughter's like learning to crack eggs.

I just feel so lucky and blessed that I have a job that I can mold around parenting rather than the other way around, which I think is a lot of jobs where you get that six weeks of maternity leave.

Whereas here, parenting and work is is like this all day long.

You know, I'm grabbing my baby, I'm you know, running out to the field, it's it's incredibly integrated.

And when it does come together, it's worth every road bump and hiccup in between.

I feel so grateful that I get to just wander out into the field with my kids who are still in their pajamas, and you know, pick a pick a couple boxes of berries, they stuff themselves full of berries are covered in stains afterwards, and and then we we get to go about our day, and it just feels very natural.

It raises a certain kind of kid to have to have this level of connection to how food is grown.

For these farm moms, the fruit of their labor is not just measured in bushels or dollars, but in memories and experiences that they'll cherish for a lifetime.

For real Virginia, I'm Elijah Griles.

We're so glad you could join us to celebrate all the bounty Virginia has to offer from the kitchen to your home and garden to our beautiful wide open spaces.

We're proud to say that this is real Virginia.

For everyone from the Virginia Farm Bureau, thanks for watching.

Make it a great week.

We know that farmers don't always get a chance to hear from the folks who use their products in their homes and on their tables.

So we visited the State Fair of Virginia to get some thoughts from our fairgoers on what it is that you do and how it impacts their lives every day.

We've got probably the best farmers in the world right here in Virginia.

And we want to say thank you.

We know it's a tough job, uh, if it's not a whole lot of big muddy rollers.

Uh, but we want to thank you, and God bless all of you guys.

I'd be happy to turn around and tell that farmer male or female exactly how appreciative I am for all the hard work they do.

I can appreciate the ridiculous hours that they have to work and how they're out on the farm for what little return that they get.

And I want them to know, I'd like you to know with how appreciative I am and my family are for everything that we buy local that we try to do as best we possibly can, whether it's on the beef or whether it's on the vegetables and things that we have when we grow.

And I just want to from the bottom of my heart say thank you very much for all they do.

We have farmers in our family.

We appreciate what you do every day.

Uh for the milk, the the pork that we use, all the vegetables that we get, we thank you, and keep up the keep up what you do.

We're we're there for you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I want to say thank you for all that you do.

I know it's difficult and very tiring.

So thank you for having us to eat healthy, nutritious food.

God bless you.

We're thankful for our farmers for giving us all of our food, locally sourced, and taking care of this baby's tummy so you can grow really big.

Thank you so much for raising the cows so that I can have milk every day.

Thank you, farmers for giving me corn to eat.

We love farm table food and cows.

Thank you, farmers.

Thank you.

Farmers are role models to me because they work so hard to get their job done.

Their job never ends.

It's always at home or at a different location.

And they are probably the hardest workers in our country.

Thank you, farmers.

Thank you.

We appreciate everything you do.

Thank you for all that you do and all the foods that you give us.

Thank you, farmers for just the produce and so we can eat fresh and clean and um so we can stay healthy.

Today we're doing family favorites beef stew and turkey meatloaf.

I'm Sergeant First Class, Brad Turner, and welcome to the Grill Sergeant.

Woo!

From the Army's Quartermaster Center and School in Fort Lee, Virginia.

Are you ready for this?

Beautiful.

Featuring music by the Taste Buds.

It can't get more better.

Now serving up the best meals, military style.

Come on, give me some the grill sergeant.

Alright, good morning, good afternoon, and good evening.

Taste buds.

How you doing?

Wow!

Well, I tell you, you all just pump me up.

You pump me up.

You make me excited to do everything we're gonna do today.

And I notice a little addition to the scenery.

We'll play for food.

You are becoming more creative.

I thought I was the only one on the set allowed to be a ham, but it is truly truly uh I see that everybody's getting into the groove.

It's nice to see.

Because you're that good.

Alright.

Today we are doing beef stew, and we're doing uh a wonderful turkey loaf.

Uh same as the meatloaf, except where we're we're changing the basics a little bit today.

Right now, we're gonna show you how a lot of people kind of stir away from ground turkey because they say, well, it doesn't have enough flavor.

That all depends on what you put in it.

We have a great recipe that we're gonna share with you today.

Now, the first thing I'm gonna do is we're gonna go over just a few of the basics here.

We have this beautiful potatoes.

We have some onions, tomatoes, celery, more onion, you know, as Justin Wilson would say, oignon, and some carrots.

You know what I'm saying?

And all I'm gonna do here is I'm gonna take all this wonderful skin, and you know what?

I'm feeling like some music all day today.

I really am there, Taste buds.

Can I get a little, you know, bump ball?

That's what I'm talking about.

All right, everybody is your oh now.

You know, Stevie is all you know that music just makes my cooking better, that's all.

I'm gonna bring that back here.

Now, this is the peaceful part about cooking.

Just you and your ingredients getting ready in your mind, you're thinking about what you're about to do, what you're about to create, and all that great stuff.

You have all your equipment, you're about to embark on an adventure.

All right.

Taste buds, I tell you.

I'm doing this sweet potato here, and they're probably wondering what in the world this is gonna do.

For no other reason, other than I just love sweet potatoes, the sweetness, and everything else.

And since I had to put a potato in my stew, I decided, hey, why not do something I like?

Because if I'm gonna share my love as I share my food, it might as well truly reflect who I am.

Now, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have my wonderful assistant, Staff Sergeant Martina Warren, come on, and give me a hand while I move forward to the cutting board to start preparing these items.

How you good morning, how are you?

Good evening, good afternoon.

I'm doing fine.

Do the carrots for me.

Right over here.

I'm gonna retire her to that part, and I'm gonna simply move to the cutting board here.

This is not a fancy cut.

This is not a fancy cut at all.

This is a beef stew.

The pieces don't have to be perfect.

Then we're gonna retire them to some cool water.

If there was any dirt from the skin or anything like that, you put it in the water, it falls to the bottom.

All right.

Cutting basics.

Real simple.

In a second, I'm gonna show you how to.

You notice my hand is guiding the top of the knife, and I never bring it up too high, so I don't cut my hands.

This will also stop the potatoes from oxidizing and becoming brown.

We're beautiful here.

You know what?

Truly.

By you being tuned in, you are the sunshine of my life.

We're gonna put all this together and start putting this stew together and the and the beautiful turkey loaf.

When you come back, but until you do, just enjoy the exit.

Take me on out of here.

This time with water as hot as you can stand it.

You have 20 seconds with which scrub all microorganisms off of your hand.

Do you understand?

Yes, girl, Sergeant!

You understand?

Yes, girl, sorry, begin.

That is not scrubbing.

That is not scrubbing.

Scrub, scrub the hands.

If you need to, you need to use the brush.

Get up under those nails, those cuticles.

You need to scrub.

You're about to handle food right now in five.

Four.

Three, two, four.

Stop.

You are got this space trying.

Give her a drying towel.

You are now probably ready to handle food.

Yes, girl, Sergeant!

Move out, soldier.

Move out.

Welcome, welcome back to the grill sergeants.

Listen, we are still preparing, cutting, chopping, and all the rest of that stuff.

Right now, taste bus, keep it going.

We're gonna be doing some turkey loaf.

Can you feel that?

Can you feel that?

Okay.

Are you ready to start mixing?

Yes, I'm ready to start.

Have we washed?

Yes, we probably okay.

Now I'm gonna tell you water as warm as you can stand it.

Twenty seconds.

Scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub.

You've done that.

You're ready.

I'm ready.

You're sure?

Sure.

You're gonna mix in that bowl.

Yes, I'm mixing in this bowl.

Now this is a private bowl.

Small bowl.

You need a grill sergeant bowl.

I'm gonna get you the bowl, the grill sergeant would use.

If I was doing meatloaf, grill sergeant bowl.

You see what I'm saying?

That's a bowl right there.

You see what I'm saying?

Alright, that's right.

That's feel artillery.

Now let me let me help you here.

If I was cooking for the D fat.

Well, you know, that's the whole thing.

You gotta have some fun, some personality, and that my personality's big.

So you know I want to make sure you put the bowl right there.

There you go.

No, you know, there we go.

You good?

We're wonderful.

Alright, she's gonna start the mixing process, and while she's doing that, I'm not doing anything special.

But what I am doing is getting the tomatoes ready.

Well, I'm gonna add my onions and celery.

You sure?

Yes, I'm sure.

You sure?

You're positive?

Positive.

I get that for you.

Go ahead.

You you continue to mix onion celery.

What else you need?

What else you need?

Let me get my other bowl.

What else you need?

You good?

My tomato paste.

Tomato juice.

Tomato juice.

We're gonna put some tomato juice.

Tomato juice, right?

Tomato juice.

Okay.

Woo!

There we go.

What else we need?

Worcestershire sauce.

There we go.

Alright, here we go.

And what else you?

I need my beef base.

Beef base.

Baf of the bees, beef of the base, base of the beef.

Got it?

Yes.

Don't say that three times.

Okay, and what else you got?

My egg.

Egg.

One aya.

If you are from Germany, it's an I one.

Hana Uno one.

Egg.

There you go.

Go ahead.

What else you got?

Breadcrumbs.

You don't want that?

That's my egg wash.

That's the wash.

Yes.

That's the wash.

Yes.

On the top.

Yes.

Beautiful.

I do my bread crumbs.

You sure you want bread crumbs now?

My bread crumb.

She wants the breadcrumbs.

Slowly add them.

I don't want them all at one.

Slowly add it.

Slowly add it.

Let me know when to speed up.

Speed up.

Oh, okay.

That's slow.

Uh got you.

No, I'm just kidding.

Come on, there you go.

I know what you meant.

They were just joking.

You know, you can't blame us for having too much fun, okay?

Now, why did I want her to make sure she washed her hands?

I wanted her to wash her hands because anything that's on her hands is gonna be in the meatloaf.

And though we're battle buddies, you know, and there's love here.

You understand what I'm saying?

I don't want a bacteria in my meatloaf.

You understand what I'm saying?

We want it clean.

You want to make that's good?

Yes, you're positive.

You can tell by the feel that it's done.

Yes.

Alright, what if I put too much of it in there?

It can dry it out.

Dry it out.

I don't want dry meatloaf now.

I'm gonna stop then because I don't want my meatloaf dry.

You good?

Yes, I'm good.

You sure?

Yes, I'm sure.

Now, what are you gonna do after you finish all this mixing and everything?

After I mix it, I'm gonna form it up and I'm gonna put an egg wash on it to seal it so it won't crack and then get it ready for the oven.

Okay, and then I'm gonna put it in the oven.

Yes, you're gonna make it.

And then what you're gonna do when I put it in the oven.

Just stand back and let it do what it do.

Beautiful.

And we're using ground turkey, so it's it's lower and fat.

Yes, it's healthier.

And it's a leaner meat.

It's a leaner meat.

You know what I'm saying?

So that we've thus removed the guilt factor.

You know, same size piece I usually eat.

Still, I'm doing good.

You see what I'm saying?

I'm still doing good.

Oh, yeah, this is beautiful.

All right, you you you ready to go ahead and put that in there?

Yeah.

I'll move the grilled sergeant bowl out of the way.

And we're gonna move this here in right there.

Simple pan, and I bet that fits perfectly in that pan, right?

Yes, perfectly.

You sure?

Very sure.

Probably because we practiced it, right?

Yeah.

And you'll know too.

What's going on?

All right, while she's finishing that up, I'm gonna move over here.

And what I'm gonna do over here, I'm going to season up.

All right, I'm gonna season up my flour.

I'm gonna put some garlic in the flour.

Basically, I'm about to put some ooh we and wow, just a little salt, black pepper, and garlic.

This is beautiful.

What I'm gonna do here, get it all mixed in together.

We got that.

That's beautiful.

I'm gonna get some olive oil started here in my pot.

Oh, and you're loving it.

I'm loving it.

Are you loving it over there?

Taste buzz?

All right, we're gonna turn that up.

Let that olive oil.

Now, by the time that olive oil gets hot, I need to do two things.

I need to put the meat in the flour.

And this is gonna be called dredging.

We're gonna dredge all this meat.

I'm gonna put it all in the flour.

Now, normally you would use gloves.

However, this is about to go underheat.

It's not going directly to anyone, so that means that I can just dredge it with my hands.

This is the fun part about cooking.

This is the part you want to try and get your kids to do.

All right, there you go.

Have them dredge it.

And a clean bowl right here because everything there, we don't want to go back in that same bowl.

We want to dredge it.

Get the excess flour off.

I'm gonna need some cover.

Start getting me covered while I move, taste buzz.

Oh, hey, you know, don't give me moving too quick, but I like that.

Oh, yeah.

See, that sounds like beef stew right there.

Uh-huh.

Garlic is the proof of love.

You can eat it and they can stand to be around you, then you are truly in love.

Welcome back.

Welcome back to the grill sergeant.

Listen, we're in the heat of battle right here.

I just want to recap everything we've done so far.

Right now, I'm chopping tomatoes.

But you've seen us mix the meatloaf, the turkey meatloaf.

You've seen us chop the vegetables and get everything prepared.

I don't know if you can hear the sound coming from that pot.

But we have the meat browning in the pot right there while I get these tomatoes taken care of, and I have one more to do.

Oh, yeah.

I never know how many tomatoes I'm gonna feel like in my beef stew.

But I love tomatoes.

All right, let's step over to the pot.

All right.

At this point, what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna add just a smidgen of olive oil.

First thing in, I'm gonna put in the onions.

Oh yeah.

I'm gonna take the rest of these onions.

If you don't have a lot of onions, you might have some problems.

This beef stew really is good with some onions.

Oh yeah, all in the pot.

Taste buzz.

Can you smell it?

Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

Let me get a nice couple of handfuls of celery.

Once I get all the celery and onions in, I'm gonna stir.

Gonna stir it all together.

Only thing you can do with the meatloaf is just let it do what it do.

Just sit in the oven and let it take its time.

Get all that working together.

I hope you can see inside this pot.

Because if you see what I see, you truly know the meaning of the word beautiful.

It's nothing but beauty in this pot, Tate Buzz.

Nothing but beauty in this pot.

I'm gonna take a little bit of this beef stock.

Add a little of this beef stock to it.

Oh yeah, that's what I'm talking about.

You cannot rush.

Sometimes you just cannot rush perfection.

You just need to let it take its time.

You know what I'm saying?

And this beef stew is mighty mighty perfect for me right now.

We're gonna do is we're gonna take our uh our garlic here.

We're just gonna give it a little press with the knife.

Just like that.

Just a little press with the knife.

Now, the only thing I've used on this board of vegetables.

No meat.

There we go.

Almost had a piece go A wall, but we caught it.

Here we go.

Give a nice little chop.

Oh, I'm feeling that.

That's beautiful right there.

And you know in my kitchen at all.

Uh-oh, I did have one go AWA.

We're gonna have to report it to the military police.

Here we go.

This is beautiful.

You know how I feel about garlic.

If you don't know, I'm gonna tell you.

Garlic is the proof of love.

You can eat it and they can stand to be around you, then you are truly in love.

I promise you that's the truth.

I promise you that's the truth.

I have to tell you.

Woo.

Oh, all of it right in the pot.

Right in the pot.

Oh some of this garlic re-enlisted, but I'm gonna put it all in there.

Beautiful.

Set this down here and stir.

We're gonna let this come back up to a nice simmer now that I have everything going.

I have all the chopped vegetables and everything in there.

All I'm gonna do now is wait before we before we break.

They need a little bit longer time to cook and put them in.

There we go.

And a little bail leaf.

Pop the top on, and we're gonna let that sit.

One good thing about family favorites is when you're getting ready.

They invite the entire family.

You want a dish that not just stretches.

In the last few moments, I want to show you something.

We're gonna do some rice.

On high.

One cup of rice, two cups of water.

Bring it to a boil.

Soon as the water starts to boil, we'll pop the we're gonna keep the lid on.

The water starts to boil, turn it off, let it sit.

Perfect rice every time.

One cup of rice, two cups of water.

It's a one-to-two ratio.

One to two ratio, and we're gonna bring them on back.

Take them on out.

Take them on out.

Oh, yeah.

See how all that's married up.

One big happy family.

That's why I call it a family favor.

Oh yeah.

We are having some fun in here today.

Listen, let's listen.

At this point, remember I told you when the rice is doing this right here, when it's bubbling, when it's doing all this great stuff in the pot.

You give it a quick stir.

Turn it off, leave the lid.

That's it.

Turn it off, leave the lid.

It's gonna once it gets done, it's gonna soak up all the water all by its lonesome.

And when it gets finished, it's gonna be absolutely perfect rice.

You won't have to worry about it.

So we leave that alone.

Now, in this, you see the beautiful steam and everything in this beef stew that we've started.

And I say started because beef stew, this is gonna take a little bit longer than 30 minutes.

So we're just showing you the whole process to get to all the greatness on the end.

Now, what I'm gonna do right now, I'm gonna add in my tomatoes that are chopped up.

Oh yeah.

Drain the water off these potatoes.

Once we get all the water drained off the potatoes, bring them over here, get them started.

Right like that.

Oh yeah.

Then always stir, get everything in there.

See how all that's married up?

One big happy family.

That's why I call it a family favorite.

All these different beautiful, beautiful things.

The sweet potato, the regular potatoes, the bay leaves, everything is doing something to make this absolutely incredible.

Okay, everything is doing its job.

Even the flour that we put on the beef earlier is gonna have a thickening effect.

It's going to thicken it up.

Everything is gonna do, but you know what?

What we do, I'm gonna do this just for the sake so you know that you have to do this.

We have to put a little ooh, a little wee, and a whole lot of wow, some salt, black pepper, and garlic.

Now, once we get that in the pot, that's my initial seasoning.

Okay, that's my initial seasoning.

All that's left right now is just to let it.

We're gonna bring it back up.

Once we do that, then we'll bring it down to a simmer and we just let it simmer until it's done.

Okay, and the jewel of it is we just serve it over some beautiful white rice.

And if you follow me over here, we'll show you what everything's supposed to look like when it's done for you.

Now, the taste bud I'm going with today.

Okay, will it be taste bud number one?

Taste bud number two.

Will he be taste butt number three?

Will it be taste butt number four?

The taste bud of choice today is taste bud number one.

Yay!

All right, yeah, you have won the right to taste some food today.

We're gonna go ahead and open up the beef stew here.

See how everything comes together.

Oh, goodness.

I'm gonna give him a little rice on his plate.

Is that all right?

Taste button number one.

You sure?

Okay.

Oh, goodness.

Is that all right?

I will give you your choice of quick bread.

Will it be the cornbread or the buttermilk biscuits?

I know that's just an overkill.

It really is an overkill, but I'm gonna tell you.

Who cares?

You need to enjoy it.

Cornbread, he's going with the cornbread, and we're gonna throw a little Caribbean flare.

Uh our Puerto Rican brothers and sisters say you need a little plantain in your life.

You see what I'm saying?

And that's it.

Everybody else start playing something for them.

You've been watching the Grill Sergeants, and we've had an absolutely wonderful time.

I'm gonna share this food and share some love with Taste Bud Number One.

You see what I'm saying?

Oh, that's beautiful.

Oh, yeah, all you need is the baseline on that song.

Go ahead there, Mr.

Keyboard.

He's gonna enjoy this.

Share your love.

Share your food.

And everybody come back next time.

All right, we're gonna have a great time cooking up some great food.

See you next time on the Grill Sargon.

Each year worldwide, over a quarter of a million of pedestrians are killed in traffic.

Millions of pedestrians are maimed or injured.

Join us for the next half hour as we look for solutions on perils for pedestrians.

On this episode, we travel to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where an old bridge is closed to pedestrians.

We talked with the superintendent of the Vicksburg Bridge Commission of Warren County.

Then we learn about Friends of the Vicksburg Bridge.

Finally, we meet a community health advocate who wants people to walk on the bridge.

Stay tuned.

We're in Vicksburg, Mississippi, talking with Herman Smith.

What's your connection with this bridge behind us?

I'm the uh superintendent of the Vicksburg Bridge Commission of Warren County.

Warren County is the owner, and we are enabled with maintaining it and running it.

What's the history of this bridge?

Well, in 1926, a guy named Harry Bovet came up with the idea.

He wanted to put up a highway bridge, at least to get car traffic over, and then at some point he decided to put railroad traffic as well.

Because there used to be a very large ferry system just north of the bridge where it is now that ferried uh train cars back and forth.

And then uh there was another ferry for automobiles at the time.

So he came up with the idea and started getting federal legislation to get it approved through the U.S.

Department of Interior.

And uh looks like he succeeded.

He did.

Uh in 1928, he let out uh uh contract, let out the biz and got the contract uh with a engineering firm.

They designed it and uh started 1928 building it in 1930, April, last week of April 1930, they opened up the bridge to highway traffic, uh automobiles, and in the first week of May, rail traffic started flowing across it.

Um that was a long time ago.

Uh seems uh there isn't auto traffic on it anymore.

What happened?

Well, uh he he started having issues with the there's a fault line right up above to the east of the pier two, which is where we are now.

Uh the fault line started moving, pier started moving, so within just a few years he was in bankruptcy.

And uh then in 1947, Warren County bought it out of bankruptcy and established the Vicksburg Bridge Commission, and uh it's it ran under tolls until it was paid for in 1969, and uh highway traffic stayed on in 1973.

The Interstate 20 bridge opened up, and so mostly just local traffic is all that used it after that point.

And in 1998, it closed for some repairs to the road deck on the Louisiana side, and uh after that the uh Louisiana Department of Transportation didn't want to allow traffic on or off the bridge on the Louisiana side, so it stayed closed and has been closed ever since to public traffic.

And if you aren't gonna let automobiles over it, what else could you do with that?

Well, the uh pedestrian we've had um a special events policy in place since uh 1999, 2000 that allows special events, runs, bicycle events, walks across the bridge.

Uh we've had we average uh at least six every year, uh, especially starting in September and October and November when it cools off because out here during the summertime it's sometimes unbearable.

Uh so uh there has been a push in recent years to establish a pedestrian pathway, pedestrian and bicycle pathway, and that's ongoing right now and and getting a lot closer as it was uh beforehand.

We finally got the supervisors with the county had issued the bridge commission a um notice to try to do whatever's possible to open it up.

So one of the first things the bridge commission did uh along with the county's uh attorney is uh contact the state attorney general and get an opinion as to the funds and opening up the bridge, whose authority it could be done under and uh different things like that.

So uh the push right now is to open it up as a pedestrian pathway and bicycles.

Is that sort of uh a little different than uh the bridge commission would have seen its mission when it was first formed many decades ago that uh they'd be running a pedestrian bicycle path?

Uh yeah, that obviously wasn't uh established in the time, even though it's been in the original uh wording in the original contracts uh that uh pedestrians were an expected thing, bicycles were probably as well.

But uh the course you never think a bridge is ever gonna close for any reason.

And uh, but anyway, after the interstate bridge opened up, it wasn't anything that big heavy trucks, our road deck is only 18 feet wide, so it has two nine-foot lanes.

Uh in 1930, a Model T is about four and a half feet wide, so that was plenty of room for those.

They never anticipated things like 18-wheelers or cars and trucks growing to eight feet, eight and a half feet.

Uh so it makes it difficult to pass, and when they were having 18-wheelers on the bridge when it got to that point, uh, they would literally have to slow down, pull the mirrors in to keep from getting knocked off.

Uh but the the mission of the commission has always been to maintain the the bridge and its properties.

That's what we're designated to do, and that's what we have been doing.

Uh, if a part becomes part of it, then that would be just an addition to not as much being done anymore, but we still have repairs on the bridge and the railroad at the same time.

So uh that's just one of the things that the commission's done ever since it's been in existence is maintained the bridge and the properties.

Now, what's uh what's the relation between the commission that owns the bridge and you know the railroad that runs trains over it?

Well, the the railroad is a leasey.

They uh lease the rights to run across it, which is on the railroad portion of the bridge, which is separate of the highway, uh, and that's their designation, that portion of the bridge.

Now they're uh tasked with maintaining the tracks, but the bridge commission actually owns the tracks and the timbers and everything because they seek out um when it's time for make the repairs, they contact the commission and tell us what they want done and submit an invoice uh and the expected repairs and what it cost, and the commission approves it after that fact, and then uh when the repairs done, we pay back the railroad.

So the railroad tracks, grading, timbers, everything that's over there still is owned by the bridge commission.

And uh as uh having a railroad on the bridge complicated, having uh pedestrians' bikes on the bridge?

Absolutely.

Yeah, the railroad uh doesn't want any uh full-time people out here at all because they it's a safety issue to them, and it's an understandable position uh in certain cases.

Uh things can be put into place to protect people, keep people from getting to the railroad and railroad stuff getting towards people, uh, but they they're fighting it pretty hard.

So they're definitely opposed to it.

What do you see as uh the future?

Uh you know, you've been seems like you've been getting almost everybody on board.

Uh but uh what do you anticipate uh we all just tourists to Vicksburg can just walk across the river anytime?

Yeah.

It's time-wise, uh that's kind of up in the air.

That's gonna all be affected by the railroad and their stance, uh, how far they were willing to carry their stance, uh, how much we have to deal with them on that.

Uh don't know if it'll ever have to go to court, and if it does, you know, we don't know how long it'll be in court.

But uh we know that they're opposed to it, and they've made many letters and statements opposing it, so uh it's just a matter of how long it will take to get them one way or the other to agree to it.

Are there any examples of places where trains and pedestrians, bicyclists do share a bridge?

Uh there are quite a few of them across the United States, uh, mostly in the northwest and the northeast.

There's UP, Union Pacific Railroad has several bridges like that, and there's a bridge in Memphis called the Herahan Bridge that uh opened up about two years ago, I believe, uh, that runs two sets of tracks in the middle and has a road deck on either side of the bridge, and that's probably the latest greatest one anyway.

Uh I can't remember what they call it a great Great River crossing or something like that in Memphis, but uh very uh newest example of that, and Union Pacific uh welcomed it.

So that's we wish that could happen here, but doesn't look like it right now anyway.

We're talking with Buddy Dees, who's with Friends of the Vicksburg Bridge.

What is Friends of the Vicksburg Bridge?

John Friends of the Vicksburg Bridge is an informal citizen action group to promote the opening of the Vicksburg Bridge here right along Interstate 20, where Vicksburg connects over to Louisiana to open that up for correctivational purposes.

Since uh 1998, the road decking that we're standing on now, the actual road decking has been unutilized.

No cars, no trucks has been closed to traffic, and right beside you and over your shoulders, the viewers can see is a railroad track that is part of this bridge.

The entire bridge is owned by Warren County in Mississippi.

There are 82 counties, and Warren County is unique.

It actually owns this bridge constructed in 1930, all the way across the Mississippi to the Louisiana side.

And the Board of Supervisors is governed by five individuals.

A board of supervisors has five people on it.

And the Board of Supervisors by law has delegated the maintenance of this bridge, the painting and repairs and all that of this bridge to a five-member bridge commission.

Vicksburg Bridge Commission is another five individuals.

So the bridge commission maintains the bridge, allows access to it with veto power residing with the Warren County Board of Supervisors.

And where we are at this point is the Warren County Board of Supervisors in June of 2018 passed a resolution directing the five-member bridge commission to take whatever steps the bridge commission deems necessary to open this road deck that we're standing on for recreational use by bicyclists and by pedestrians.

The bridge, of course, is entirely owned by Warren County, which includes the railroad tracks.

The railroad tracks are owned by Warren County and leased under a 1928 lease to the railroad.

So the county maintains the railroad tracks, and since you know 1930, the railroad trains have continued to go back and forth across these tracks that are leased from the county.

And since 1998, so about 20 years, uh the road decking has stood uh unutilized except for special events about uh six times a year.

They'll have bicyclists crossing over the bridge for cancer benefits.

They have bras across the river where they literally put up bras across the span for breast cancer.

Uh they'll have wheelchairs and people coming out.

We have a United Way fundraiser here coming up in in just uh earlier this month, uh well later this month in September of 2018.

The United Way is having a saparai here where people walk and stroll on the bridge, and those are special events that the bridge commission authorizes.

But now the bridge commission has been directed to see about opening this uh 365 days a year during daylight hours to pedestrians and bicyclists.

And of course, the bridge would need to be retrofitted with a screen, much like the Harahan Bridge has a screen in Memphis, Tennessee to separate the pedestrians from the railroad.

The railroad would continue to operate concurrently with pedestrians and people uh enjoying this for recreational purposes.

So that's what the Friends of the Vicksburg Bridge hopes to see, and we were very glad that the Warren County Board of Supervisors directed the bridge commission to take steps to open up the bridge for recreational use.

This road decking is nine feet wide of just concrete that's sitting here unutilized, and the footprint of uh, you know, people with sneakers coming across here or bicycles would be a very light footprint on the bridge in terms of maintenance, certainly a lot less than the vehicles that formerly came across this bridge.

So uh it's a great asset.

It's a tremendous vista, as John can see, looking across the Mississippi River, and we have the Vicksburg Military Park here, and our thought is that Park Service could be out here in the middle of the bridge, pointing out to the right, the high bluffs of the city of Vicksburg, where Ulysses Grant laid siege to the city of Vicksburg, and the City of Vicksburg surrendered on July 4, 1863.

And Grant laid siege to Vicksburg on three sides, the fourth side being the river, and uh boats could not go up and down the Mississippi River because the Confederate forces on top of the bluffs would be shooting at those boats.

And as Abraham Lincoln said, Vicksburg is a Gibraltar of the Confederacy.

Once it's the key, once we have that key in our pocket, we can divide the Confederacy in half with the Mississippi River, and uh so there are tableaus and pictures that can be put up along the bridge where you can see from the bridge and look back at the fortifications that are still present.

There are cannons, the Vicksburg National Military Park is a huge park, similar to Gettysburg.

Those cannons and all those cannon locations would be visible from the bridge at one glance as you look into the bluffs to the right, which is the east side of the Mississippi.

So there are historical tour stories to be told.

There's health and fitness walking trails that be can be connected uh on either side of the bridge on the Mississippi side and on the Louisiana side.

So John, we see this as a wonderful vista, a wonderful venue just waiting to be opened.

It's sitting here, the concrete is here, it's open.

People all the time tourists as you came out here.

I'm sure you saw tourists wanting to get on the bridge.

And there's a sign up currently it says no pedestrians.

The bridge is literally locked off now due to some safety concerns that we think can be addressed with the screening and so forth.

The bridge could be retrofitted to accommodate uh pedestrians.

All of us have kids and grandkids, and we want it to be safe.

Certainly we want to.

So that's where we are at this moment in September of 2018.

Okay.

Have a good case for why the bridge would be great that pedestrians on it for exercise, for history, for everything else.

You know, as an advocacy group, you must be delighted that the owner of the bridge has agreed that this is a good idea.

What's holding things up?

And frankly, John, you've been all over the country.

Uh, we're glad to have you here in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

John had seen many bridges opened up with pedestrians and rail use concurrently going on side by side, and uh you've seen more of that than probably anybody in the country personally, and I'm so glad you're here in Vicksburg.

A specific answer to your question, right now, the bridge commission is in the process of setting up dialogue with uh the railroad that uh that crosses the bridge.

It's called Meridian Speedway LLC, a limited liability company, Meridian Speedway, uh, using some Kansas City Southern trains.

So dialogue is going to be set up with the railroad.

Uh the railroad has some safety concerns.

They understandably want it to be safe for pedestrians because they're moving freight on a train, by the way, that is limited to only 10 miles an hour going across the bridge, which is very helpful.

That train's moving at a very slow rate.

And the railroad rightfully has some safety concerns about making it very safe for pedestrians.

The railroad doesn't want to have some issue or some problem.

Uh the tracks are set up so it derailment is highly unlikely.

Uh, there's some double tracks there.

I don't know the technical name for it.

Plus, they slow down to 10 miles an hour.

And as I alluded to earlier, uh, some heavy, heavy industrial screening that's been done, uh, especially if, for instance, on the Harrahan Bridge in Memphis, Tennessee.

And John, I know you've been there, and that's on the subject of another video that you've got.

Some heavy screening is right over our shoulder, would screen off or separate the railroad on the one side and the pedestrians on the other.

So obviously, some retrofitting of the bridge would need to be done.

And uh the railroad, frankly, has voiced some safety concerns.

They've written letters to the local newspaper saying they think it would be somewhat dangerous that they have some concerns.

So our idea is to, when I say our, I'm saying the Friends of the Vicksburg Bridge, coupled with uh the members of the bridge commission.

Uh our idea is to sit down with representatives of the railroad, get their input about what kind of safety measures could be put in place that uh that the railroad recommends.

We entirely want to take the railroad's recommendations and then see about getting cost studies done.

We've had some studies, the cost of retrofitting the bridge, putting the screens up, whatever netting and so forth, whatever additional barriers to accommodate pedestrians and bicyclists.

So the next step is to try to accommodate the very legitimate safety concerns that the railroad does have, and we're we're really pushing for that.

Uh, we we have people all the time that want to come down this walkway and cross over the bridge.

It's uh 1.6 miles from gate to gate.

So a round trip from Mississippi to Louisiana is 3.2 miles, which is a wonderful walk.

And people could be free to walk part of that way or all the way, and we envision having maybe some park benches out here, uh bicycle path.

Uh, Memphis, I think, is nine or ten feet, and we have the luxury of 18 feet of concrete here, so we could have paths for bicycles and separate paths for uh pedestrians, and then uh an actual path for uh golf carts for the elderly uh or uh emergency traffic for any ambulances or anything like that.

So we've got 18 feet of concrete, uh, and we're looking forward to hopefully opening that up for recreational use, meaning bicycles and and uh walkers and runners uh is what we envision.

We're talking with Linda Fondren, who's uh community health advocate.

What is a community health advocate do?

Well, we work to improve the quality of life uh for the community by uh pursuing sustainable opportunities for physical activity and also to educate the community about proper nutrition.

How did you get started in that?

Oh, well, that's a long story.

Uh I'll make it short though.

You know, it's a personal issue because I had a family member, my sister actually, who passed away at a very young age, and um she wished she had lived her life better, and she was at a very unhealthy weight.

And about six months after she passed away, I opened up a gym called Shake Up Sisters for women like her who wanted to do better, but did not know how.

So that led me on a crusade.

I think little did she know that her death would lead me on this crusade to help the community.

Because when we check out what's going on in our state and what's going on in our community, we find that the obesity rates are very high.

And one happens to be our perception and our emotions.

It is race, it is discrimination, it is safety.

So many of these things need to be addressed in order for us to put physical activity at the top of our list.

Right now, it is at the bottom of people's list of what's important for them.

But it's really a matter of life and death, though.

Yes, it is.

However, you know, it's like that definition of health is a very broad definition, and some people think that uh health just simply means not being sick.

And so people don't consider themselves to be sick, they're not feeling any symptoms, so therefore they don't feel a need to get to it right away.

And that's what's wrong.

That perception is wrong.

So we really need to educate the people a lot more about let's say health literacy and what it all means.

It's a very broad definition, and it's really about the ability to have choices, uh the ability to find meaning in life and to continue to grow.

And in order to do that, we need to be physically fit and eat, uh, eat healthier.

Where does walking fit into all that?

Oh, walking.

Uh, I am wearing a shirt that says Shape Up Vicksburg, get healthy walking club.

So a while back ago, I issued this challenge to the community to lose weight.

It was really about raising awareness about getting more physical activity.

When I did that, I found out the easiest way to get people to get up and move was to introduce a walking club.

A walking club helps people become more social.

It helps people get outdoors, they're with their friends.

They start discussing, you know, their issues, their children, and what they can do.

So people began to see like-minded people, and that makes them more in tune to say, hey, I'm not alone.

So people will come out and join the walks, and some people have met their best friends, and they come back again and again.

So it's that social element and that walking club, it helps that.

And so on the back of the shirts, they're like branded.

It says walking is cheap, life is priceless.

And to show you how important that is with this brand, because they wear them all the time throughout the community.

You know, a t-shirt you just don't throw away.

Well, this fellow that was in Walmart, one of the ladies had that shirt on.

He said to her, you know what, ma'am, life is priceless.

My wife has cancer.

So you see, it's about raising us that awareness and prompting actions, and these t-shirts are like a brand.

The other part of it is we sponsor races, 5K races.

We got one coming up that's called Over the River Run.

The T-shirt is like your ticket to get into those races.

There are many people that cannot afford to get into those races.

There's many people that want to maybe walk across this bridge.

However, they can't get out there on the bridge.

Well, if you're in that race, you're able to go out and take a stroll, whether it's 10 minutes, uh, whether it's one mile, and you can come right back.

But at least you got to do something as opposed to nothing.

So where does this bridge fit into getting people in Vicksburg to walk more?

This bridge is like a psychological boost for our community.

To be able to walk out across the Mississippi River, are you kidding?

This bridge is, I mean, battles took place on that water.

Not only that, I think we have Memphis this way, New Orleans that way.

Just to get out and look at this beautiful scenery and watch the traffic up and down.

It's a matter of getting outdoors.

Not only is this a psychological boost for our area, but as you know, it is definitely economic development.

So when we do that, we're bringing tourists to our community.

So therefore, we're able to generate revenues that can help us with some of the health issues we face.

Maybe that can help us put more walking trails around existing neighborhood parks.

We have 16 of them here.

And a lot of them, if you put walking trails around those parks in that neighborhood, it can make um adults feel safe about bringing their children outside.

Maybe it would help light one of those parks.

Well, they will feel safe going outside with their children again, maybe at nighttime.

So opening this bridge has many benefits, and economic development is a big one, tourism is a big one, but more important, a psychological boost for our community, raising up that civic pride.

Visit us on the internet at WWW.pedestrians.org.

Hi, my name is Howard White.

I graduated from Kickatan High School in the year 1969.

Right now I'm the vice president of the Jordan brand and Nike Inc.

And the days at Kickertan were some of the most rememorable days of my life.

You know, I actually came to Kikatan for the first time when I was in the eighth grade.

Some friends had came by my house and they said they let you play basketball down at the high school.

And we rode our bikes down to the high school and we walked into this gymnasium, and there were no people there.

Lo and behold, as we got ready to leave, there were three coaches at the other end, three men, and we didn't know who they were.

And they asked us, would we like to play a game?

And we did.

And they beat us to death.

And when we were leaving, I stopped to get some water, and this gentleman walked up and introduced itself, and he said, How are you, son?

My name is Jim Hathaway.

I'm the coach at Kickertan High School.

I said, Hi, my name is Howard White.

He said, Have you ever heard of the big old Oscar Roberts?

Which in today's world is asking somebody, have you ever heard of Michael Jordan or LeBron James?

And I said, Yes.

He said, if you listen to everything I tell you, you could be just like the big O.

I couldn't play basketball, but this man taught me over time the game of basketball.

I ended up that year transferring to Sims for my ninth grade year.

Did not know that I would be only one of three blacks in the entire school.

But I got to play basketball for the first time.

And because of maybe one of the most important things ever in my life, I walked down the street when I was about 10 years old, and one of our neighbors, Mr.

Lee, was walking down with my mother and I.

Hi, Miss Leo, how are you today?

And I was throwing rocks at the stop sign.

And when we got by, and she said, you let that be the last time in your life you ever walked by someone and not open your mouth to speak.

That year at Sims, I was voted the most popular boy in school.

So up and down the halls of Kikatan High.

And that power has the ability to lift people way beyond anything that they may dream is possible.

When I got to Kickertan, yes, I did play basketball.

Yes, I did become an all-American.

But the most important thing, I was voted the senior class president.

And from there, I went to the University of Maryland.

And I got hurt again.

I got hurt my senior year in high school.

I got hurt my senior year of college.

And most people think they were setbacks.

But actually, they were the things that let me use the other skill sets.

And we forget that there's another side.

And then the reason you go to school, the reason you go to college, yeah, you meet tons of people.

You might play a great game.

You might get an education in the education is key.

Because that's something that they will never be able to take from you.

Yeah, I've had the operations and the knees gone.

So that may have halted my basketball.

But actually, the academics in education allow me to rise.

And that is what I want every young person to realize and utilize that talent within that brain to be more than they can dream.

I came back six years ago when they named the court, the Howard White court.

And from that time, there has been each year after the Howard White Classic.

So if I can be what some might call the shining star, all they must remember is that there are billions and billions of stars in the galaxy.

And if I can be that, then they can be the sun and the moon.

So Hampton, Kick Atan.

Thank you for allowing me to be one of yours.

And I hope, and I truly tremendously hope that I've only made you proud of the UK.

Hi, my name's Corinne Clinch, and I graduated from Buse High School in 2010.

Now I'm co-founder and CEO of my own startup company, Vorus Inc.

Rorace Inc.

is a for-profit startup that uses new nanotechnology and user-centered design to make incredibly simple water filters.

Right now we're developing them for disaster relief in developing countries, but they're also going to use gradual recreation in the military.

My company just recently won South by Southwest and Collision Conference.

It's really brought a lot of exciting interest from investors and uh other startups to what we've been doing.

I went to Carnegie Mellon University for both biomedical engineering and civil engineering.

Um but I was originally going actually for electrical computer engineering because of the experience I had with first robotics at Phoebus High School.

I really enjoyed uh the end mechanism design uh and the getting into the coding and sort of the background of engineering.

Um the only reason I didn't stick with that is I wanted uh a job that was more involved with humans, so I prefer the engineering server more focused on people.

Toy Carpenter, Mr.

Carpenter uh did a great job instilling in us that there's no reason for excuses.

You need to learn for yourself, not for me.

Um that was a really important uh lesson.

It was really cool to see a teacher really supporting us being our own managers.

Um I got really involved in my summers and internships that involved a lot of international development work.

So I started working in Ghana, also in South Africa, I want purification research, and we brought those back to a student-led project at CMU.

Uh, I found a really great team to start working with.

It's actually my co-founder of the company.

Um, and based on progress in that student project, a couple investors reached out and said, you know, what you're building as a project really could be a company.

Um at first we were very lighthearted about it.

It was sort of this, well, why not?

We still have to finish our degrees, why not start a company?

Um, but of course now it's become very, very serious and meaningful to us as a full-time everyday job.

Um, the advice I actually gave in my validatorian speech was to ask and seek and knock and make the most out of your experience.

Uh, no matter what it is that you're passionate about, you can find some way to uh learn more about it and involve your coursework with it.

Um, you know, if it's sports, then find a way for your stats class to become relevant to your interests and your passions.

Um that really makes it way easier to learn.

Uh teachers respond well to it, and uh it makes transitioning to the real world of work much easier.

Uh teachers respond well to it and and uh it makes transitioning to the real world of work much easier, hi my name is Christina Parrish.

I'm the program director at Girls Inc.

of the Washington DC metropolitan area, and I am a 2004 Phoebus High School graduate.

Um, at Girls Inc., we hope to inspire all girls to be strong, smart, and bold, so they become women who are healthy, educated, and independent.

And I basically run all the programs that do that for our organization.

There are a number of reasons that I'm really proud to be a part of the legacy of Phoebus High School and Hampton City schools.

One of those is just seeing what my classmates and other alum from Phoebus are doing now.

We have teachers, we have people that are getting doctorates, we have people in the financial industry.

We're just all over the place doing amazing work, so it makes me really proud to be a part of that group.

Um, I also am really proud of the way um my class and all the students that were at Phoebus when I was there, how they were it was like a family.

So I'm really proud to be from a place where you can come from different backgrounds and different neighborhoods, but still come together and be one family.

So today I work with a diverse group of people.

Um I work with young people, I work with their parents, I work with the community, I work with schools, I work with the government, I work with private industry, all kinds of different groups come together to support the girls and the programs that we do at Girls Inc.

of DC.

Um, so being from a place, Hampton Roads, um going to Phoebus, which pulled a lot of people together from different backgrounds.

I feel that it prepared me by allowing me to have that experience early on.

As a 14-year-old, I was meeting people from all over the city, um, doing amazing different things and from with different kinds of families.

And so coming up here and working for this organization, I was able to use that experience of just being comfortable with everyone and really learning how to connect with people beyond um immediate difference.

Um, that really helped me to do what I'm doing now to be successful at it.

Hampton City Schools, there's a lot to offer there.

There's so much in all the schools.

I mean, Phoebus, of course, I'm very um I'm very much a supporter of Phoebus because I went there, but I think you know, I have friends from all over Bethlehem Kikata and Hampton, and um everyone's doing great, and everyone's doing you know well, and was I think that being from an area where the school system really supports you and encourages you to try new things and to be a part of a lot of different kinds of clubs and organizations, um, that's really what made people successful and still connected today.

Hey!

Going out like that?

Yeah, why?

Well, what would the neighbors think?

I see you!

Come look at Mr.

Feather!

Look what I have.

Mr.

Bird remembers!

Fox Fox Bird!

We're just playing!

We're just praying trying to get you at it, yes!

Even still.

You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent.

There are thousands of teens in foster care who don't need perfection, they need you.

No, we're having dinner so you don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent.

There are thousands of children in foster care who will take you just as you are.

All right.

Give me a spot.

You know my motto, safety first.

Animal control.

To be safe.

I got this.

It's a new model.

You don't have to be perfect to be a perfect parent.

There are thousands of teens in foster care who don't need perfection.

They need you.

Come on, come on.

I know two seconds.

There were thousands of children in Far Stuck T O we'll take you just as you are.

Hello and welcome to Round Robin.

I'm your host, Robin McCormick with the City of Hampton.

And today we are going to do one of our business focuses on a relatively new company that you probably have never heard of.

It is Advanced Aircraft Company, and the owner is here with us today, Bill Fredericks.

Welcome, Bill.

Thank you.

Good morning.

And this is gonna be way over my head, but you're good at explaining things so that even somebody like me can understand it.

Advanced aircraft company does what exactly?

So we are a drone manufacturer.

So if I were to use an analogy, Boeing makes airliners, American Airlines flies airliners.

So we're gonna be like Boeing, we're gonna manufacture the aircraft and we're gonna sell them to the drone operators, and they buy an aircraft, they fly the aircraft, and then they sell data to the end user.

But you're not just the manufacturer based on somebody else's specifications.

Correct.

You are just ourselves.

And how did this come about?

Tell me your story.

Yeah, so a little bit of my background.

So I grew up in Massachusetts.

I went to college at Purdue University in Indiana, and while I was at Purdue, I did a co-op program with NASA Lineley.

So I'd spend one semester at Purdue working on my aeronautical engineering degree, another semester here at NASA Langley and rotating back and forth.

And uh eight months before I graduated, they said, hey Bill, do you want a full-time job?

And I was like, that sounds great.

One catch, two weeks, take it or leave it.

So I didn't get a chance to do any job hunting.

Oh.

And so I was like, well, burden hands were two in the bush.

It is, isn't it?

That's a company thing for a college senior year.

Right.

And um I worked at NASA for a few years, and actually um uh this was now coming up to 2007 time frame when the war in Iraq wasn't going so well, and I decided I didn't want to be 40 years old and say sat in my cubicle the whole time.

So I joined the Marine Corps.

I was an artillery officer and deployed to Afghanistan in 2010 and 2011 and went back to reserve status doing the one weekend a month for a couple years.

And um, once I was back to NASA, I got an interesting opportunity.

Um, it was actually a project funded by another government agency that we can't talk about.

So the money just showed up in the NASA bank accounts, and we're not supposed to ask any questions, but it was design a really unique aircraft and demonstrate the feasibility of it, and that aircraft is called Grease Lightning.

And the aircraft can take off and land vertically, like what a helicopter does, but they wanted it to fly for over 24 hours, which is impossible for a helicopter.

So it's got 10 propellers on it and it takes off and the wing and the tail rotate and then it flies around like an airplane.

And the the key value proposition is a very good thing.

So uh that would have been a manned aircraft or that would have been an unmanned aircraft.

And uh so we designed the aircraft, we did a whole bunch of wind tunnel testing and simulation, and we built it and we flew it, and you can go watch the video on YouTube now.

So it worked, and it's not a secret, and it's there.

You proved you could do it.

So we were just doing the technology feasibility demonstration, which was all open.

Um, and then who knows what's going on with it now.

But uh we are intending to commercialize the technology at Advanced Aircraft Company, which is the company I founded.

So we finished the project.

We quite literally put the aircraft up on a shelf.

And we as NASA at the end of the day.

Thank you.

Yep.

So I was at NASA leading the NASA team.

I did the conceptual design of the aircraft and led it all the way through its flight testing.

And we put it up on a shelf, we said slap the table, this technology works, and we went to go work the next project.

And that's just NASA's job.

NASA doesn't commercialize.

NASA's intention is to develop new technology to keep the U.S.

aerospace industry ahead of other comp other countries.

Right.

And uh so that's what we did.

And then I decided, you know what?

We just proved this technology works, and it's literally just sitting on the shelf.

Why don't I do something with it?

So that's when I decided to found advanced aircraft company.

And we had to work through legal processes to make sure there was no conflict of interest.

And I was actually working part-time at NASA for about a year until I could raise enough investor money to be able to leave NASA and do advanced aircraft company full-time.

So coming up on about two years ago now is when I left NASA to do advanced aircraft company full-time.

And the Grease Lightning product will now be our second product.

We're first going to develop a lower expense product first called hammer, stands for hybrid electric multi-rotor.

The hammer's cooler.

Yeah.

It sounds cool.

And the value of the hammer is useful both for commercial markets and also military markets.

So the real pain point in the commercial industry with battery-powered multi-rotors is you only get 20 minutes of flight time.

And so for a commercial operator, if you're not, and that leads to very poor productivity.

So the drone service providers, they sell data to the end user by the acre.

So they're flying, taking images, taking the images, compiling all that.

You can only fly 20 minutes this direction, you have to, or 10 minutes, and then you have to come back.

Yeah, so if you were to map an area, you take off, you get a couple laps in, the batteries are low, you gotta come back land.

Swap the batteries, take off again, fly back out to where you left off, get a couple more laps in, stop, fly back, swap the batteries again.

Very poor productivity.

Um the hammer, which is the first product we'll be making, is a long endurance multi-rotor.

So it maintains the ease of use of a typical battery-powered multi-rotor, but it can fly way longer.

And the key technology piece to allow it to fly longer is hybrid electric propulsion.

Hybrid cars are now becoming rather popular.

I actually have a Ford C Max, and conceptually, it's just like a hybrid car, but it's now a hybrid drone.

So we've got a gas engine that turns a generator, producing electricity.

There's also some batteries on the aircraft, too.

Yep.

And so yes, exactly.

It's just like a Prius or a CMAX in my car.

So conceptually, it's the same thing.

So instead of flying 20 minutes per flight, we can now do upwards of three hours per flight.

And so that means that our customers can take off and they just keep flying and image the whole field, they're done, land, go to the next field.

And they can get way more acres imaged per day.

And that's the key value proposition of our technology.

So where are you now?

Are you in production?

Are you in sales?

I mean, what what is your status?

It takes a long time to get this thing moving.

And especially with the technology product, there's a lot of complexity and uncertainty on timelines.

So we are not yet in production.

Uh, we're in the developmental flight testing phase right now.

And uh, if you had asked me when we're gonna enter production a year ago, I would say three months.

Uh-huh.

You asked me that question today, I'm also gonna say three months.

So unfortunately, it's the unknown unknowns that come up and bite.

Yeah, it's certainly been stressful, it's been exciting, uh, and hopefully someday it'll be rewarding.

Um I okay, NASA has been officially uh had this position of wanting to find ways to commercialize on on its developments, its intellectual property, but has also been fairly unsuccessful in a lot of ways.

I mean, it is it is a government red tape, legal it's a complicated issue because you've got things developed at taxpayer expense, and and you shouldn't give them away, but you can't make the bar too high.

And it how did you find that process?

Well, first of all, it was an eight-month process to get a licensing agreement.

Quite as bad as I'm again.

And actually, they're making a lot of steps to streamline that process too.

So I was kind of the guy that took a bunch of arrows in the back to sort of streamline a new process.

But the way NASA sees it now is we're developing all this incredible technology, but very little of it is actually transferred into commercialization.

And um, in my personal opinion, I think there's probably two reasons that a lot of that happens.

Um, the first one is I mean, the technologies that NASA develops are complicated.

Um, and really, honestly, in my opinion, the most effective way to transfer the technology is the inventors have to go with it.

It's pretty hard to take such a complicated thing, throw it over the fence and say, good luck, guys.

Hope it works out well.

I mean, really, and a company or any organization, it's all about the people.

And and technologies are great, and like business plans are great, but really when it comes down to it, it's the people that make things happen.

And um, in general, a lot of people who enjoy the research sort of position are not well endowed with the skills to also be the entrepreneur businessman person.

So there's not a lot of overlap opportunity for someone who can develop a new technology and someone who can commercialize it and someone that can bridge the two gaps to span that chasm of death to get through the mid TRL levels.

And yeah, commercialize it, but also the risk taker.

I mean, being an entrepreneur is inherently it it there's a different personality there.

And it doesn't necessarily match up either with the person who has the business plan or the person who does the research.

And someone who can span all three of those is unique.

And I'm really blessed.

My wife is a chemist, so uh she has a nice salary that covers the mortgage and basic living expenses.

So that's been a very I mean honestly, I would not have been able to make this leap if it wasn't for the fact that my wife had a nice salary.

So that was really a key factor in my risk decision making process that enabled me as like you know what?

I can give up this government job with a nice salary and take the risk because I know we're not gonna lose our house.

My wife can pay for it, and um it's really been a blessing in that respect.

Well, and you you going into the military and and overseas duty clearly shows that you were comfortable with some level of risk.

My risk profile.

You were not a lab development exclusively kind of guy if you were willing to walk out of that and um give yourself that kind of a commitment toward the rest of the country and and national service.

Yeah, your perspective on risk changes greatly uh from returning from an environment like that.

And actually, I needed to be careful because I like I was driving recklessly and doing all sorts of a couple of my friends called me out on it.

It's like, Bill, you gotta slow down and you're gonna get yourself hurt.

So, how did that change your perspective?

Um, I mean, when you uh I mean a financial risk, I I really the way I sold it to myself is like, hey, this is a technology that works.

Uh my wife can cover the mortgage.

I mean, I know if this doesn't work out, I can get a good job somewhere else and recover and have lots of time to recover before retirement.

And it's certainly a lot less risky than going on a foot patrol, making sure you don't step on something funny.

So I was like, you know what, why not?

And and that's really what came down to is I said, why not?

And I couldn't think of a good reason not to, so I decided to do it.

Wow.

How did you learn all the business side?

Did you still learn?

And uh, as I would tell my sergeants in the Marine Corps, um, you can make mistakes, but don't make a mistake twice.

And so I I've made a number of mistakes, and through the process, I've been learning sort of through the class of hard knocks, and I've also been um in some uh business consulting programs in the area, like one of them is Tempo through ODU.

Okay.

Um, and uh also NASA has uh new program they're starting for in the regional economic development to help train NASA folks on the skills of starting a business too.

So that was also very helpful.

Well, that's interesting too, because of what you said about the transfer of technology really works if the developer goes with it, then NASA has to kind of encourage its people to this is a new thing at NASA.

So historically that wasn't something, but now in recent history, NASA's trying to say, hey, well, the people are the key thing too.

And uh, yeah.

So where is your company?

I mean, it's you're not manufacturing yet, so you're you're not large.

We're located in Peninsula Technology Incubator, which is here in Hampton by NIA.

And uh, what's wonderful, the city of Hampton supports that program, so it makes the rent cheap, uh, especially while we're pre-revenue.

Um, and that's where we're located, and we can manufacture up to about two aircraft a month in the lab space we have here in Hampton.

And um, as we get more sales, we'll grow, and I intend to stay in this area, and uh we'll just have to get a bigger shop at some point, but that's a good problem to have.

That's a great problem to have, and obviously we want you to stay in Hampton.

So that you know, that does tell this story that that Hampton's been trying to talk about about technology and growth and NASA spin-offs, and it's it's been a little slow to come to fruition, and obviously, not all startups really really work, and you've already found your first product had too big too big a hurdle to be your first product.

Yep.

Um and you're learning as you go.

What advice do you have for other people trying to do this?

Because I think it it's a dream in a lot of people's heads, not mine, I know that I'm not that kind of a risk taker.

So um, I guess you need to set yourself up in a situation where you financially can go without a salary for a while.

And if you can come up with a way to do that, that's one of the key sort of gates that you need to set up before giving yourself the opportunity of succeeding.

And then the other thing is I I always uh there's been a few times when I've been like really down, and my wife wonderful has been really supportive, sort of be like, Bill, you'll get through this.

Um, so that's been very helpful.

And then also I frequently will hear like the voice from one of my drill instructors in the back of my head, marines never quit.

And persistence.

Um, you're I guarantee you you're gonna hit roadblock after roadblock after roadblock after roadblock.

And you just have to be persistent, and you look at that situation, you say, Well, how do I get through this task?

And then how do you get through the next one?

And they're gonna be one after another after another.

And now we're not out of the woods yet, so I I can't speak from a uh saying that we've got through all the roadblocks, but uh persistence is absolutely a key driver, and just never quitting.

Umce the music stops, you run out of money, then well, I guess that's the end of that.

But uh, if you still got resources, you just can never quit and have to be persistent.

Never quit.

And then I think the other thing you said was use some of the resources that are around you.

Yes, that's another thing is um uh the key teams that succeed are teams.

There's no I in team, and umbody can do all of this themselves, so you gotta draw on other resources and other people and surround yourself with people that complement your weaknesses.

So, like, as I said, I was a technology guy, and I'm learning the business world, and so I need to surround myself with people that have business experience that can go, hey Bill, you might want to consider this, you don't want to step on that landmine, and I'll go, oh good, I didn't think of that.

And then that's an opportunity to sort of steer around an obstacle.

Um, so get having good advisors is another key ingredient.

Great.

And I'm also gonna ask, because before we started taping, you and I mentioned um Yaz, Mike Yaskowski.

Has the city's economic uh development department been able to work with you and and smooth some of these hurdles?

Yes, it's been very helpful.

Like one of the challenges we have is flight testing.

Obviously, we're developing drones, and here in the Hampton Roads area, most of the airspace is controlled airspace all the way to the ground.

Yep.

Um, and so uh, and then also getting permission by PTI, there's not a lot of real estate around that building.

You're pretty close to pretty close to Langley Air Force Base there.

Um so he's been helpful and finding another property for us to fly on.

And um actually, there's I'll put in a plug, there's gonna be a new drone facility going in in Williamsburg, and all the municipalities here in the peninsula are coming together, and I really hope that facility gets approved and gets started because that will solve a key pain point for us.

And if we can just roll up the door, go outside, do flight testing, come right back in again, that'll solve a pain point and allow us to develop our technology in a much shorter timeline.

Yeah, Hampton's an early adopter in that, and I think it also speaks to one of the natural niches that this area has.

We have Langley Air Force Base, we have NASA, we have flight, we have aerospace, and drone technology is a natural fit for the next aerospace industry.

I mean, if I were to make a uh hypothesis about the future, okay.

Um, I would say the drone industry today is where the personal computer industry was in the early 1990s.

In the early 1990s, people were like, Well, will everyone have a computer?

Um, and then as we know now, I mean, the market adoption rate of computers, everybody's got computers.

Um, and the drone industry is kind of at that same point.

So I would uh forecast that in 10 years' time, any given time you look out a window, you're gonna see a drone going by doing something, whether it's inspecting power lines or performing precision agriculture work or supporting the police to help enforce the community.

Um, and I'm not suggesting the sky will be darkened by drones, not that many.

But uh at any given time you look out a window, you might see one, two, or three drones going by performing a task.

Oh, yeah, the city uses them now to check ditches to know where they're where there's blockages.

I mean, it saves a lot of time, and you really're efficiencies, they are sort of remote computers in a lot of ways.

They can they can bring back data that is extremely.

And that's the key thing.

It's it's the new way of acquiring data much more uh quickly.

So, okay, I know you're an optimist, you're gonna say something wonderful, but look look in the crystal ball five, ten years.

Okay, what do you think your company is doing?

Uh I hope to be exited by that point.

So there's a lot of precedent in the aerospace industry for consolidation, and most startups in the aerospace industry um grow to the point where you're generating a lot of revenue that a larger aerospace company acquires you.

Uh huh.

And so at that time, I intend to maybe put my feet up for a few months and having sold the company to a larger aerospace company, and then I probably won't sit still for very long.

I'd want to start the next thing.

You don't look like someone who would sit still for very long.

So still in aerospace development, probably, or maybe not.

Yeah, I think the next thing that I've also been blessed.

I'm a private pilot and own my own small airplane.

We fly around and access to regional transportation in a small airplane is wonderful.

Like if you're traveling from here to northern New Jersey, where my wife grew up, it's an hour and 40 minutes in our airplane, or it's eight hours plus traffic by car, or it's seven hours by the airlines.

And so I think the next thing I want to work on, and Uber is starting to talk about this using aircraft to transport you within a city.

I think an even bigger opportunity is regional transportation to get from, say, here to northern New Jersey.

And I would see that as a uh a neat, interesting market to maybe go after next once advanced aircraft companies sold off the next thing to go after.

Awesome.

Awesome.

I I know you have ideas you haven't gotten to yet.

So good luck.

First of all, good luck with advanced aircraft company and growing and staying in Hampton because I think that's an exciting um proposition, exciting opportunity for jobs if you become a manufacturer here as well.

But uh solving the problems and challenges in that sphere of aerospace is great too.

Cool.

Thank you, Bill.

It's nice to meet you.

And thank you for inviting me.

Sure.

Thank you.

And thank you for watching.

I think that advanced aircraft is doing amazing things right here in Hampton, and most of us didn't even know about it.

And thanks to Bill's ability to explain what he's doing, we now understand what's going on right here.

Thanks for watching.

Hello, and welcome to Round Robin.

I'm your host, Robin McCormick with the City of Hampton.

And today we're gonna tell you about a new book that talks about the history of Phoebus.

And the author is here with us today, Tim Receiver.

Welcome, Tim.

Thank you, Robin.

Thank you for having me.

It's really um it's fun because I think Phoebus is such a rich place.

I mean, the the stories, the legends are just rich there.

What what interested you about this?

So we we had just moved back to Hampton.

We used to live in the the area back in the 90s.

So we moved to Phoebus in August and and found it really interesting.

Uh the the history of of kind of the proximity to Fort Monroe and the Civil War history, and we heard a lot of stories from the locals about uh the riots that have happened there, and you know, a lot of stories that we've you know, we wanted to kind of go back and see what the truth was behind it.

You know, they're interesting, but uh dug a lot into that.

So that's kind of what started it.

So it started with your house.

You have one of the older houses, like a Victorian.

We do.

We have a Victorian, and we we think that uh there's a there's a restaurant called Fuller's that's been open you know was open for about a hundred years.

Yes.

And kind of a yeah, it's a legend in in in Hampton, and uh we think that the the guy P.A.

Fuller that built that built our house because he was an architect and a builder and built these old Victorians in Hampton at the time.

Yeah, he did he built quite a few.

Yeah, so that's kind of we started with that and thinking, you know, we we've heard that he built these Victorians, and so we're looking to see what that connection was, and found out that he was he built uh a house for William Trustee, who was the was an African American that was elected to the town council.

He built the house for trustee who had the most expensive house in town, which was kind of interesting.

It's like that you know, at that time period and everything, you just don't think of that, and then look into it a little deeper.

And William Trusty is elected, you know, in 1901 in the first election of Phoebus to the town council.

Now let's talk about that a little bit because I think that is one of the interesting at least myths about Phoebus, and and it looks, you know, through your book that uh that a lot of it is true, is that um it was less racially divided than a lot of Virginia communities.

Certainly there was always gonna be a gap, and people were not treated fairly.

I'm not trying to say they were, but Phoebus was weirdly independent and a little different.

Yeah, and it's it's very uh entrepreneurial at that time.

Like the um, I think w what what some of the big things that happened is you have a proximity to Fort Monroe, like I said, and so then you've got these kind of attitudes, these northern attitudes, and especially during Reconstruction that that are there.

You have the first community for freed slaves in the South is in Phoebus, and you have a lot of freed blacks that were even, you know, before the Civil War, even were in business and and kind of you know buying property.

Yeah, it's the pre-Civil War part that actually interests me the most.

Because the reconstruction, you know, there was it was sort of enforced.

But but Phoebus had that history before and kept it long after, whereas a lot of the rest of Virginia w you know, went into Jim Crow and things like that, and certainly Phoebus did too.

But they had they had a little more um violence.

Yeah, and that's you know, we look at other places, you know, on the peninsula at that time, and even you know, in Phoebus we had churches, they the um the Methodist church that's there now was uh anti-slavery, you know, before the Civil War, which is a you know, it's a rare thing in the South to see that.

You know, you just don't see it.

And you know, we did see signs for you know, um segregation signs in like the early 1900s, but it was very I found one, you know, and we're looking at other places, and it's everywhere, it's on giant billboards and sides of buildings and other towns, but in Phoebus, you know, you have a lot of African American business owners there that are owning saloons, and there's just a lot of you know, um people, you know, it's it's not just the separate but equal, it's like really a community of of people that kind of respect each other at that time, it seems it's very interesting.

And certainly after the Civil War, you do have these sort of effects from Fort Monroe and effects from Hampton University that sort of bracket the city and that that change it.

So yeah, actually Hampton Institute uh after the Civil War was it was a uh was a tourist attraction.

So when people were coming to Fort Monroe, they're you know, there was the the Hygia and the Chamberlain, these very wealthy hotels, and people were taking, you know, they were taking little day trips into Phoebus to see the the bars and see Hampton Institute and St.

John's Church in Hampton, you know.

So it's anyway, it's all these things, and then Buckrow obviously is kind of, you know, it's growing in the early 1900s too.

Yeah, and there's influences to Phoebus because it's not that far.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, my favorite piece of lore is the saloons and that era.

Talk about that a little bit.

How how that evolved and how prevalent and pervasive it was.

Yeah, so we we were doing research on this, and and what we hear is, you know, there are 52 saloons in 1900, but there were actually more before 1900.

So, you know, there were in 1898 there were we were seeing as many as uh 83 saloons in Phoebus for a town that has 1,500 to 2,000 people in it.

So it's you know, I I've been looking at New Orleans and San Francisco and other places in the world at that time to see per capita, you know, what what are the numbers?

And I'm I can't imagine there are more per capita saloons than anywhere than than Phoebus was at that time.

But what one of the reasons was we had you know, Fort Monroe on one end, which was all the soldiers coming through there quite a bit, Spanish American War.

It was much bigger.

And I mean I kind of I know it in my day, and um, but it was a huge base at that time.

It was.

And ports were big and w you know, still neighborhood.

And you had all these tourists there.

And then you had on the other end, you had the old soldiers' home, which is the the VA that's there now, but there were you know thousands of Civil War veterans that were there after the war, you know, so you had kind of military on the bottom.

Yeah, um, often to come into town, I guess, especially um when they got their checks.

Yeah, so they had their checks and and even the military banned liquor sales at the VA, they banned liquor sales at Fort Monroe because it was a military base in 1901, so that even expanded, you know, people coming to to the saloons in in Phoebus even more.

So, in some ways it sort of contributed to it.

But I understand um drinking was a rampant problem then, and their original goal was to clamp down on it, and instead I think they just concentrated it.

They did.

And they it was kind of unintentional.

They were trying to keep people from from getting drunk in the, you know, and and one of the side effects was they especially the soldiers' home, they were making money about um equivalent of about $300,000 a month to 2018 dollars, you know, but but just it was supporting the home, and then when the military shut that down, everybody went outside, they lost that stream of income and it hurt them for a couple of years.

You know, so it's kind of unintentional consequences, but and it also sent more soldiers out to drink whiskey and you know what they called the vile den of Phoebus.

Well, talk about why it was such a vile den.

It was not just the drinking, there was a whole lot else going on.

So the you know, w one of the one of the key periods we were looking at was 1898.

So the Spanish American war was going on.

The uh just one we really don't think about that much.

But you know, everybody was leaving from the East Coast and Fort Monroe was kind of the center of the world at that time.

So everybody's, you know, thousands of soldiers are coming in and coming back, blowing off steam and Phoebus and kind of thinking they can get away with anything.

Uh one of the in 1898 and in June through October, there were just numerous riots with all those soldiers coming in.

And especially we were looking at one uh the this contingent of Maryland volunteers that were down, and they they got into a fight in June, and 75 were arrested.

They got in a fight with their own military.

The uh the regulars from Fort Monroe were were in Phoebus with them, and they were making fun of the Maryland volunteers for lack of training and making fun of Maryland as the state.

And so these guys got in a huge bar fight that went on like all night.

And they finally the military came in and arrested 75 soldiers, mostly from Maryland.

And then in uh August of 1898, there was another major riot there, and uh the police and Phoebus arrested four Maryland volunteers after after this this riot and took them to prison.

Word got back to Fort Monroe and this this group of of Maryland soldiers, they called it a soldier mob, like came with so they said there was even a battering ram involved in this, but they went to the the prison to break their comrades out, and the Sheriff Curtis, the the Phoebus sheriff uh deputized a whole bunch, you know, uh uh he says a score, but it was 12 to 15 soldiers or 12 to 15 citizens.

Right.

And one of the things that set off the Maryland soldiers was the fact that they were integrated.

And that brings us back to that race and how Phoebus was different.

And you know, stereotypically people think of Maryland as the North and Virginia as the South.

But here at least it flipped the conventional attitudes, which I think are stereotypical anyway.

But yeah, they they or they use that as an excuse, but either way, it it inflamed that particular regiment.

The actually that regiment wrote an article, like a article to the Daily Press the next day and was saying that you know there wouldn't have been problems except for the the police force was integrated in the town, you know, it was the deputies that were they were brought in, but the you know there wouldn't have been a problem except for that.

And um, you know, they said that the the the African Americans in town had had teamed up with the saloon owners, and what they didn't know was you know, a lot of the African Americans were salooners.

Exactly.

Well, and that you know, it's a different military um back then than what we see today.

And there were volunteers.

They didn't have control and you know, the the the way things are now, and it's it is fascinating.

So you see these civilians kind of arming themselves from the marauding, rioting, drunken army uh at that time.

It really you it it feels colorful, and I think we like to kind of romanticize.

It's like we romanticize pirates.

We romanticize the saloons and uh, you know, kind of cool vibe at the time, but it was uh pretty scary and pretty darn violent.

It was dangerous and violent, and you know, I mean there were a lot of things that we didn't put in the book that we saw that were you know just just murders that were going on and you know the the the what they call lewd women and the body houses and all these things.

Quite a few body houses, I hear.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah, red light districts and so Phoebus goes through this period of kind of trying to clean itself up.

And of course it goes through prohibition.

Yeah, but it was uh not necessarily the most obedient to that state law.

Yeah, that's it's really interesting that you know, in 1900 they they rebrand the town as Phoebus.

It was called that before a little, you know, with um Harrison Phoebus brought the the railroad in was named after him even a little bit earlier than that, but he officially dedicated it in April.

He was kind of everything in the town at that time, it looked it sounded like he was.

He was really dynamic guy and and uh was actually in talks with the Greenbrier in West Virginia to to actually take that over and make it into the Hygia, you know, for the East.

Yeah, you know, or for the West sorry for the West out for the mountains.

At least for a short time at least, kind of partner hotels where you could vacation in the mountains and the springs, or you could vacation here at the at the lovely beach.

Yeah.

And it's you know, so they rebrand the town in 1900.

The Spanish American war is over, the violence has kind of receded at that point, things have getting gotten better.

Um interesting thing though is like a lot of the town council members are all saloon owners.

So they're they're tasked with cleaning up the town.

Meanwhile, they're you know their livelihoods.

And in and the interesting thing, the first election in 1901 was uh two African Americans were elected to the town council, which is for Virginia at that time is is very rare.

Yeah, there was a short bout there during Reconstruction, but to happen that early, I think is a huge statement.

Yeah, and so we're reading in the Phoebus Sentinel, you know, just how respected they were in the town and how everybody, you know, the trustee had a you know the most expensive house in the town that I mentioned, but this other guy named NC Barnes was just completely respected by all classes, all you know, uh races and and uh led the town for qu quite a you know, up until 1909.

So how does Phoebus get through uh the prohibition era?

So it's it it's uh kind of a mixed bag.

Uh so the I think you know, looking through the papers, there there are no arrests in the first month.

So they you know, October 1916 comes around and the prohibition comes to Virginia three years before it does the rest of the state or the rest of the country.

And so they they don't arrest anybody the first month, and the the you know, the the police come in and they release this to the town council, you know, that into the first month there's been no arrest.

And people are kind of dumbfounded, but like, okay, well, this is great, you know.

And then the Daily Press comes out with an article like mocking the town, like Phoebus is is totally clean, there's not a single arrest, and and w one of the things that we see is there's still no arrest even later on.

The bigger arrests are made by the Department of Justice and those kind of organizations.

To move in and begin to really uh make it make that happen.

And Mayor Dixon and and there are there are a uh couple different characters in this, but they are accused of bribery and there's a big scandal and they're put on trial in 1922, and uh uh it's a mistrial, and then they get another trial and they're found not guilty.

But uh Hey, trial your peers.

Exactly.

So it it seems like they did a lot of you know, there were a lot of things going on at that time that that look suspicious, but they don't charge them with anything.

But there, that whole uh mayor and his staff, everybody is voted out right after that, like a few months later.

And uh Mayor Kearney uh Carney comes in at that point and really kind of has a little bit of a reform, and we see more arrest and more, you know, more trials going on at that time for alcohol.

So what you know, um what was kind of that was that the heyday of Phoebus?

Would you say or would you say it was earlier during the Hygiea and during that grand hotel sort of period?

Or is Phoebus how long the heydays?

There's there's like several heydays.

Uh I would say that you know, for the the interesting part of the book where it was the 1898.

So the, you know, you've got kind of everything going, you have civil war veterans, and you have the Spanish American War and the saloons and all this stuff is kind of not not the place you probably want to live at that time, but you know, that's you know, and then all the way up till in the you know 20s, you know, with with prohibition kind of taking effect and trying to figure out how that's gonna work.

You know, it seems like they stabilize after that point.

And there's enough money coming in from the military and from the veterans and from all these other sources that that even the Great Depression doesn't really impact them very much.

Oh, that's interesting.

I haven't gotten that far.

Okay, sorry.

So did you substantiate the Al Capone rumor at all?

Is there a way to do that?

I mean, was he uh So we we've seen a lot of different organized crime figures, but they're very low level that we could, you know, at least what we could research uh in the papers and from talking to people.

Um but there are reports that Al Capone was in Hampton.

It came to Phoebus, you know, people like Minnesota Fats and gambling rings were kind of coming through, and and um we see a lot more arrest after prohibition starts for gambling too.

So then some of the crime moves into pool halls, and there's a push to take, you know, that they've they've coated all the windows with black paint and you know, put them behind and they want glass for some of those things so they can see what's going on.

See what's going on in there.

Yeah, but that's one thing that we're we're we're talking with a lot of people that have those connections.

And we do know there were there were mob ties in Phoebus for sure.

Uh but trying to I didn't want to put that in the book until we had more proof, and this is kind of a living book that we're updating as we get more information.

Is it?

I was gonna ask.

It is.

Yeah.

It is, I will say, a very different kind of history book.

It is not um kind of I mean, there are facts and there are dates, but it's driven by stories.

Yes.

And I think that makes it very, very readable.

Yeah, I think that the downside to just, you know, the the upside and the downside to moving here is it's all fresh, and you're coming in with with new eyes on on some of these stories and these, you know, these kind of legends that the people in Phoebus have.

And some of the downsides is we missed some of the more important people or some of the stories that, you know, if you're not looking for it, you don't see it.

So we're trying to add some of that into.

And you keep saying we, so does this mean we should be crediting your wife with some of the things?

I think so.

I think so.

My wife is she took a lot of photos in here and she set up a lot of the meetings, you know, with people to talk to them, and and so she's played a major role in in putting the book together.

My daughter's actually uh a history major and teaches Latin in in Arizona, and she was did the editing for the book.

I have a major problem with commas, it turns out.

Well, it's great that that uh this could be a family uh kind of project, because I'm sure it took you a while, although you're indicating to me it didn't take as long as nearly as long as I would have thought.

Yeah, so we we were collecting the photos back in starting in in September, October, and I had enough photos to really kind of I it was gonna be more of a photo book and kind of telling the history with photos, like uh like an arcadia would or something.

And when we started talking to Daily Press and finding some of the articles in there, we we were able to go back and piece a lot more of this together, and then we talked to the Phoebus family, and anyway, just uh a lot of great stories that we were able to go back and and really put it all together, you know, as much as we could.

Well, tell me um we were talking a little bit before this started, but but how you ended up in Phoebus?

What why are you here?

That's a good question.

Um so my wife, we we we lived here back in the mid-90s with the Air Force and lived in Hampton off of Mercury Boulevard, actually just within walking distance of here.

And always loved the area.

Um we've lived all over the world on on multiple continents, and and uh this is the only place that we lived in that we really both agreed that we wanted to move back to.

And so when my son graduated from high school uh in this in the summer last year, we decided to put down roots here and and move down here, and uh so we're anyway, really excited to be back and Phoebus is uh is a great community and bought an old Victorian house there, and and that's kind of how all this started is the research on the house.

Was it already renovated or are you guys having to do a lot of that?

It was already renovated.

So after uh the hurricane in 2003, they they really like renovated the entire house and repainted and read, you know, it's it's as close to perfect from 1900 as it could be.

That's awesome.

You know, one of the things I notice is that sometimes people f who aren't born here um j dive into this history and you know, Greg Siegel and with I mean it is it one of these things where you almost have to see it from the outside to appreciate it.

Do people who've been here all their lives just not get it?

Not you know, yeah, and uh, you know, when when we were actually when we were living here, I didn't really get it.

You know, we went to Fort Monroe all the time and walked around, you know, we did all that, but uh I was at a party in Washington, DC, and they're like, oh, you lived in Hampton.

That's interesting.

Like, why why was the union like so far, you know, how did they get there when DC is up here and how you know, and so we started just talking that out, and I was like, that's kind of interesting.

And then, you know, we've we've been kind of following it from afar and kind of all the developments with it shutting down in 2011 and and uh kind of the history it played in the you know in in Hampton, you know, and just always found that interesting, and and um with the book, um, you know, we just started seeing all these kind of first for Phoebus.

You know, that it was the first union camp, you know, union position in this in the South during the Civil War.

It's like that's it's amazing.

And like I don't never see that in Hampton.

Well it's not like they came in and occupied it.

Like they had it to begin with.

They didn't just didn't leave.

Well, they were they were in Fort Monroe and they you know, they they out of, you know, they were reinforcing with 5,000 troops and and they didn't have enough water to provide for, you know, so then they came across to Phoebus and the house is still there, the Willowdell, and there's a well there that they were the ships were just the union ships were just filling up you know, right from the water, you know, and all that is something that people they know it's there, and they might have seen a picture, you know, but when you start looking at the scale and the in the kind of the colorful people that were there and then the contraband decision and the slaves kind of you know, the freed community there for the and we see you know, it's not in a book either, but we started talking to John Quarlstein, who's a really animated guy and then knows his history for Hampton Roads.

And I, you know, I'm asking him for you know the freed slave community.

I'm like, was you know, I hear Slabtown in Phoebus, I hear Slabtown in Hampton, like what was he's like, there's a slab town in both.

Phoebus was first.

I'm like, well, does that make it the first one?

It was right in or outside the gates, and it just kept it so many um people came that they they were all over.

Yeah, so we were asking, you know, is this is the first you know, freed slave community here, which would make it the first in the South because there were no other places at that time, you know, and so just kind of talking with him.

I mean, Great Dismal Swamp, I think was home to a lot of escapees before they because no one could get in and get them and find them.

And there were probably some other communities, but yeah, yeah.

But is you know, that was more official.

They were allowed to live openly.

Interesting.

So you're gonna write more?

We're gonna, yeah, I think we're uh right now I'm I'm actually a meteorologist by background, so I'm looking at uh hist do you know, kind of keeping this updated and then looking at doing a history of the 1933 hurricane kind of impact on Hampton.

Oh, that would be that would be fascinating.

Well, we are looking forward to more, and I do want to tell people your first uh talk at the history museum.

I'm I'm told, uh, reached capacity if people had to be turned away, and you're coming back.

That's a good problem.

You will also be at various events in Phoebus um to sign your book and I hope talk about your book stories.

Yeah, I think we're right now we are looking at the Hampton History Museum, a follow-up for the the 1900 to about uh you know during the prohibition era.

Yeah, you can't skip that part.

So we're not gonna skip that, we're gonna kind of focus on that, and that'll be March 4th from seven to eight.

And then I think at Slyclydes and some other some of the other bars in in Phoebus were looking at new.

You gotta hit the saloons, right?

I mean, it seems like it's a good mix.

The building that Sly Clyde is in and the renovations that they've done and how they because it was the his family, of course.

You know, really started with let's preserve the building and use it, not here's this business idea I have.

It's more like how can we use it?

I live like right around the corner from that, and it's just exciting to see cars there and like activity and people out on the streets and uh you know Sly Clides is just the new restaurant using the Fuller's name.

I know they're not connected, but it it does sort of bring that tradition down.

It feels alive out there for sure.

Like it's a lot, a lot a lot of new restaurants, a lot of new energy.

You know, we just moved here, but you know, you can see it already in the six months, you know, kind of how it's really grown.

Well, it's very exciting.

So Tim, we hope you'll stay around and write some more and um help us tell these stories.

I'm I'm gonna come here too.

Been here a little longer than you have, but I think sometimes people have heard these stories growing up and don't understand how important they are.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's sort of like Margaret Lee Shetterly, who grew up her whole life around the you know, female mathematicians at NASA and African Americans and that whole community, and didn't realize how unique it was until she got out for a while.

And her husband is saying, like, hey, that's a big deal.

And you know, you you kind of miss that when when you've been here or your family's been here or whatever.

Yeah, so there's yeah, there's plenty of more stories to tell, I'm sure.

So where can we get your book, Tim?

So they're available at the Hampton History Museum in downtown Hampton, and then we've got them all at um Roberts Antiques and a whole bunch of other you know, uh restaurants and and places in Phoebus too.

If you ask around there, you'll you'll be able to find one.

Okay, well, thank you so much for coming and sharing your stories.

Thank you, Robin.

Thank you for your time.

And thank you for watching.

I hope you will get a copy of this book.

It is, there are a lot of photographs, and that really enhances the stories he's telling.

So no matter how much he says, you really do need to get the book, leaf through it.

Um it is not like a like a boring history book.

It's very easy to read, very fun, and because of the way it's chaptered out in time frames, you can start at the end, start at the middle, you can just read whatever period interests you first.

And again, thanks for watching.

My guests are from the history museum, Beth Austin and Lucy Cochran.

Welcome.

Thanks for having us.

Thanks for having us.

You know, this is really interesting, and so many people grew up with the understanding that the arrival of those first two ships was at Jamestown.

And now Hampton is laying claim to that and and the history is it on our side, Beth.

I mean, you spent a lot of time doing this research.

I've still heard people saying Jamestown was the place that the ships came aground and unloaded their cargo.

What do you think is the truth?

Well, I'm not sure that that controversy is ever really gonna be laid to rest.

Um there's very little information in the historic documents.

Um they're uh pretty vague about what actually happened at Point Comfort versus at Jamestown.

Um they don't say where the Africans first um came off the ship.

Um however, we do know that they did land at Point Comfort.

Um, the ship did.

And um there's no reason to think that they didn't get off the ship here.

Um, but of course, you know, here in Hampton, we're always gonna say that it was here in Hampton, and in Jamestown, they're gonna say the same thing.

Um so uh it's really um, you know, it's a mystery that you know, unless some uh new historic document miraculously is discovered, we're just never really gonna know.

Um there's a strong case to be made for Hampton, however.

So what do we know?

The ships, there were two ships.

The first week, I'm gonna let you tell it because I'm gonna get it mixed up.

Um the first ship to arrive was the White Line, and it arrived um about the end of the month of August 1619.

Um and we know that it had um between 20 and 30 enslaved Africans on board.

And we also know that those enslaved Africans were traded for supplies.

Um and again, the record doesn't say where that trade took place.

Um it's you know it's totally, you know, it it seems likely that you they at least um came off the ship here, um, but whether that trade actually took place at Jamestown, we don't know.

Because this there's the ship was pretty desperate for supplies by the time it got here, which I think would lead you to believe there was at least some some trading going on here.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Um, and we just don't know whether the stores, the supplies that were actually traded were here.

The trade was made with the colony of Virginia, um, and the trade was made with the two uh leading colonial officials, the governor and the cape merchant, who was the colony's trade agent essentially.

So what wherever it happened, it was an official um act by the colony.

Um it was it was a uh an officially sanctioned activity.

It wasn't just um a ship pulling in and then um you know having a conversation with somebody on shore, uh, like a you know, a just a settler.

Yeah, it was not an individual trade.

It was a it was a uh trade by the colony.

So the second ship that arrived was the treasurer, and it arrived three or four days after the White Lion.

Again, we don't know the exact date.

Um the treasurer is a bit more um the treasurer's story is fascinating and a bit more complicated because it was involved in a piracy scandal that had engulfed the um the uh former governor of Virginia, several um high-ranking officials in the Virginia uh company.

Um and so when the treasurer arrived in Virginia, um theoretically um it could have been in trouble for trading.

Um the treasurer also did not have a valid letter of mark, which is the uh documentation that allowed it to legally um attack um a Spanish ship, which is uh it sounds funny to us today, legally attack.

Yeah, so it's sort of a uh what they call privateer, which is like a hired gun Navy, sort of, right?

Like yeah, a letter of mark um is a is a uh paper document authorizing a ship um by some um European um government or usually a European prince who has an interest in say weakening the Spanish Empire will provide these authorate authorizations to individual ships um that let them attack um, say a Spanish um treasure galleon or a Spanish ship that uh privateers think may have gold and silver on board, but is in fact carrying enslaved Africans, which is what we think happened with the White Lion and the Treasurer.

Um the two ships um agreed to work together to attack the San Juan Bautista, which was a Spanish slave ship.

Um and so the enslaved Africans aboard the White Lion and the Treasurer both came from the San Juan Bautista.

Um the White Lion Um was legally authorized to make that attack, but the treasurers on behalf of on behalf of um various sort of Dutch uh principalities, um the treasurer's letter of mark was supposed to have come from the Duke of Savoy, which is now mostly part of Italy.

Um but that letter of Mark was uh rendered invalid by a peace treaty.

Um and the captain of the treasurer probably knew that, but um it's not it's not completely clear in the historical record.

So the treasurer, when it arrived in Virginia, was in this very perilous position of um essentially not um knowing whether her arrival would be accepted or whether she would legally be allowed to trade.

And so the treasurer, um, for a long time historians thought that the treasurer um then just sailed to Bermuda before um uh before trading any enslaved Africans.

But um uh historians are now starting to kind of shift and think that one or two enslaved Africans may have been traded illicitly.

Um that is of course not in the historical record because it would have been illegal.

But for example, the enslaved woman Angelo or Angela, who is uh who was enslaved at Jamestown and who uh whose site is being excavated currently um at historic Jamestown.

Um she may have been traded illicitly from the treasurer when she arrived after the white line.

Wow, this is way more complex.

Like people want this to be a simple, easily explained story, but you've obviously gone to a lot of original sources to build this tale.

I want to get back to something you said though, that this was a trade with the colony.

Yes.

So, you know, some people have said this was more like an indentured servant situation at the beginning.

But if you're trading people for goods, this doesn't sound indentured.

This sounds like um some pretty official enslavement of human beings.

I mean, you're you're treating them as goods officially by the British government's representatives here in the colonies.

Yeah, so I think one of the biggest controversies about the landing of the first Africans in Virginia is whether they were enslaved or not.

Um and there's no um clear watertight case that we can make from the legal documents that survive.

Um you know, the historical record does not make it 100% clear.

Um most historians, however, uh believe that um most or all Africans who arrived in early Virginia were immediately considered enslaved.

Um there have been some really exceptional stories.

Um I think the most well known is Anthony Johnson of uh enslaved Africans who arrived and had um a bit more opportunity than most enslaved Africans or African Americans did later to become free, to become landowners and to achieve a status that was near to or equal to white landowners in Virginia.

Um it's clear that that was a bit more possible in in 17th century Virginia than it was later.

Um however, those uh those Africans and those African Americans who were able to do that were very exceptional stories.

Um the vast majority of Africans and African Americans in Virginia um were treated as enslaved from the outset.

And again, there's no um, you know, there's no law on the books that says that.

But at the same time, the the existing uh legal record and the existing cultural record most importantly make it really clear that that was the assumption when Africans arrived in Virginia.

Um and we uh because a lot of Virginia's records have been lost, um, you know, it's it's possible that those records would have existed and we just don't have them anymore.

Um what is clear, however, is that um slavery was a familiar institution um in the English Empire even before Africans were brought to Virginia.

Um English privateers were trading in slaves, were deliberately raiding slaves from Spanish colonies and Spanish ships for at least 50 years before Virginia was founded.

And this was happening where?

In Barbados and the islands, I mean what what kinds of Yeah, so this happening in um the Caribbean and present-day Mexico.

Um a lot of those attacks on Spanish slave ships and Spanish colonies to raid and and steal enslaved people.

Um those are those are happening um in the more densely developed parts of the Spanish Empire in Central and South America.

And so it is a European practice in colonized uh places that obviously has carried over into British, if you know and we wasn't the first.

Everybody knows about, I mean, you know, they don't have the internet, but but yeah, people in power know what's going on and it's yeah, people in power know what's going on.

Um people who are uh traveling around the English Atlantic are gonna be aware of what's going on in the Spanish Atlantic.

The English is very much trying to catch up with the success of Spain's colonial ventures, and so an important way they're gonna do that is to copy a lot of the Spanish model.

They're going to use coerced labor, especially enslaved labor to extract natural resources, and that's how England is going to become wealthy, you know, as wealthy as Spain.

That is the that is the reason for empire.

And even when New England is founded.

Gotcha.

Why is all this important?

Like you spent a lot of time doing this research.

Maybe I turned to Lucy for the big picture on this.

Why is this important?

And why is the Hampton History Museum doing this research in the first place?

Well, that's really our job, and we're fortunate to have experts that can, you know, historians like Beth that really have this ability that looked at all the historic research.

I mean, we're certainly looking what at what other historians have done, but also looking at original source material from all over the world.

I mean, she was translating Spanish documents.

So you know, the issue of why we should care is really it this is one of the most pivotal moments in American history.

And when the these Africans first arrived, it was the beginning of an institution that would affect us and does still affect us slavery.

And you know, history is messy.

I'm of course not a historian, so I'm speaking as a layman, but that's the way you have to look at it.

Not everything was documented back then.

And they're always going to be, as Beth said, you know, we may never resolve this in everyone's mind, what happened, what didn't happen, how they were treated, um, but we know that they were brought against their will.

We know they were trying to be able to do that.

They arrived, right?

What did they look like when they arrived?

They're descriptions, right?

Of what the Africans were in shackles, or is that right?

No, there's actually no description.

Really?

Yeah.

Um, I think I know.

Yeah, we we actually really know very little.

Um we know um about how many there were.

We don't even know an exact number.

We don't know um, we don't know ages.

Um we know by 1620 that there were 17 women and uh 15 men.

Um that's really all we know.

You often don't know their names, few were mentioned.

Yeah, um we don't know any names in 1620, and by 1624, we know the names of just over half.

Um, but uh some of them, you know, some of their names just don't survive in the historical record at all.

But to go back to why this is important, you know, we referenced people who were enslaved and how that affected our country, but it is a broader context than that, of course, because African Americans have shaped our country in so many amazing ways.

You know, it's not just about that the issue of slavery, but it is about something that changed our world, changed our country specifically, and continues to shape our laws, how our culture.

And for us, it's about not only that event, but really we're really talking about the legacy, how it it shaped Hampton, you know, as this as a small town at that point, a small southern city now, and then the legacy of how it shaped the country through war, through um, you know, certainly the civil war.

You there's a direct line, and of course, we know while slavery began here, it also began to end here with the con wonderful contraband story.

So for us, we want people to have this history in their minds as they look at their world today.

And we're talking about something that just a few years ago people weren't talking about.

They weren't even that familiar with.

Some of us may have known, but really to start having this conversation, I think is important for our community.

We begin to have conversations about things that are hard to talk about sometimes, but it brings us together as a community, and I think it strengthens the community.

So for us, this is a an amazing way to build a common kind of ground for us to have an important conversation that you use the his the lens of history to have.

And it really allows us to, I think, move forward in a much better way.

Well, you know, you talked about the Spanish were getting natural resources and gold, and and pretty much what the British learned to do from their colonies was tobacco and and farming the land, and you would not have had that without the enslaved Africans.

I mean, you would not have had people working those fields, the colony would not have survived.

That was the economic backbone in those days.

And so, you know, you you do look back at that and think that that's how we started as a country, as a people, as a region, as Virginia.

You know, it's clearly a key piece.

Yeah, I think there have been a lot of historians who have looked at that in the last 10 years or so, especially.

They've really been drawing a clear line between the products of enslaved labor and um the economies that really built um the the British Empire and then what became the United States.

Um so I think that connection especially has gotten a lot of attention, especially recently.

Um the other thing I was gonna look at is you know, today Hampton is, if not majority black black, certainly it's the largest percentage, you know, that we have in terms of our demographics, and it is reasonable to believe that perhaps some of those people, if not from those first slave ships, you know, they're there are descendants from those early days.

Absolutely.

You've also done the research that looked at the likelihood of where they came from.

And one's heritage is important.

So where did, as far as you could you could determine, where did the um Africans from those first two ships, where did they come from?

What's their background?

Um so the San Juan Bautista was one of um several dozen slave ships that left um the colony of Angola, um, which was a Portuguese colony uh in West Central Africa, um, between 1618 and 1620.

And um the Portuguese at that time were leading raids into um the kingdom of Ndongo, um, which is uh just to the interior of the Portuguese colony colony of Angola.

Um and they are they were doing that because they were uh starting to expand their colonial footprint and conquer those areas, um, but they also wanted to extract a lot of slaves.

And it's clear that the uh one of the primary goals of those those raids were to um extract enslaves, uh enslaved Africans to Spanish colonies.

Um then also make it easier to expand their footprint because you've gotten rid of people who used to be there.

Yeah, and it really destabilizes the population that is there as well.

Um so the Kingdom of Indongo was uh a uh actually a a really culturally rich, really powerful, very urbanized um society before the the Portuguese um started gutting it essentially.

Um it had a uh uh really large urban center, cabassa, and um the that urban center was surrounded by um uh small sort of uh we would the way we think about today is is kind of suburban farms.

So there's a lot of really rich agriculture going on, um, but those farms are not they're not really large plantations, they're not really large um uninhabited areas, you know, it's it's a very urban and suburban um society.

And so a lot of the enslaved Africans that were um captured by the Portuguese and their allies were from those urban areas, especially because the the main Portuguese attack was on the city of Cabasa.

And so um, you know, interestingly, these are not, you know, I I think there's a kind of stereotype or a kind of misconception.

A misconception about um a lot of Africa being very rural, um, but the the enslaved Africans who came from Ndongo in the 1618 to 1620 raids were were very much urban um urban citizens of a you know of a thriving kingdom.

And so communal used to trade, used to working with each other, very cosmopolitan.

Very skilled skilled laborers, brought a lot to yeah, and um interestingly, they also um unlike a lot of other uh especially later um populations of enslaved Africans who were brought to the Americas.

These are um people who have come from a pretty specific geographic area, so they share a common identity and a common language and a common culture, um, which is um uh, you know, that that is sort of a uh a somewhat unique experience in the um in the story of African American um enslavement.

And um and and it's really clear that they they maintained that identity, you know, even their descendants um had, you know, they they kind of saw themselves as Angolans, um and and um you know, because they shared that common West Central African identity.

Interesting.

And I think this is a perfect example.

All this work Beth did, it really shows that history can really change our perception of our past.

I mean, if you think about the detail and about just the ships themselves and the piracy and the privateer, I mean, that's a fascinating story.

And we need to realize that that's important because it did shape who we are.

It shapes also how we think about who we are.

And I think this really indicates the importance.

As we say at the history museum, right downtown, is that um, it really is an important thing for us to look at now and use when we have conversations about this kind of thing, but also how we move forward as a community.

Well, thank you.

Is there anything you want to add that I haven't asked you about before we close?

I don't think so.

Hello and thank you for tuning in to another episode of Fusion Fitness.

I'm very excited because today is our very first episode of doing chair exercise.

We want to make sure that everybody at all levels can get a workout.

And so we embark on that today.

First and foremost, I have with me Taishana Felix.

And Tony.

And I'm really excited because Tony just happens to be my daddy.

And so uh being a military brad, I have to call him daddy.

You don't address your parents by their first names.

But I'm really excited he's on board with us today.

So without further ado, sit right where you are, and we're gonna get you going.

All right, nice and easy.

Just extend and back.

Extend and back.

Extend and back, extend and back.

You can add the arms out and in, out, and in.

Out and in out and in.

Good good.

All right, we're gonna do it for four.

It's four, three, two, one.

Hands up and down, hands up, and down.

Good, good.

And four, three, two, one, and up, and down, and up.

Two, one other side.

I want to bring three to your legs.

One, good, and four.

And center.

Side lift center.

You should feel a good stretch on your back area.

Keep it going.

Side round.

Center.

Side center.

Good.

It's four.

Three, two, one.

Hands up and down.

Hands up and down.

Good, good.

And four.

Three, two, one.

Good.

Up and down.

Four arm extensions.

Three.

Two.

One other side and first.

Keep it up.

You're ready to hold here.

And center.

Side center.

Really twist.

Get that back stretch in.

Very good.

Let's release the hands down to the side.

Shoulders back.

Shoulders back.

Good.

Good.

Four out.

And four.

Up down.

Up down.

Keep it going.

And four.

Up down.

Four.

Up down.

Turn your thighs up.

Good.

Up down.

Turn your thigh leaves up.

Very good.

We're going to go ahead and keep it moving.

Hope you're getting warmed up.

Good marches here.

Good.

Just march it out.

We're gonna extend out.

It's out and tap twice.

Out, tap twice.

Out, tap twice.

Good.

Say that I will never fall for her, but my heart leaves where it will.

Good.

We're gonna get ready.

Kick out to the front.

It's front and tap tap.

Front, tap, tap.

Front.

Sword, never find myself back.

Good.

Well, my heart's made itself clear.

Good.

Really extend it out.

We're gonna have pull downs.

Pull, down, pull, down.

Very good.

Both hands.

That's just a waste of time.

You might as well pull a head.

Very good.

Front back.

Front back, front, back, front, back, front, back, and side to side.

Again, good.

And front, back.

Good.

And front, back, front, back, side to side.

Very good.

And front, back.

All right, let's take those hands up.

Just march it out.

Up.

Nice and high.

And low.

Alright, we're gonna start from the top again.

Take that foot out.

Out and tap twice.

Out, tap twice.

Out, tap twice.

Good.

Good.

We're gonna kick it out.

It's kick and tap, tap, kick, tap, tap, kick, tap, tap, kick, tap, tap.

Good.

Alright, we're gonna get ready to go back to the arms.

Pull down.

Good.

Reach and pull.

Reach, pull, reach, pull.

Both hands.

Very good.

Front back.

Front back.

Front back.

Very good.

And front, back.

Keep it up.

And front, back.

Good.

Alright, you ready to kick to the front?

Here we go.

It's kick and tap twice.

Kick and tap twice.

Out.

Good.

Alright.

Pull down.

Good.

Both hands.

One foot front back.

Front back.

Front back.

Heart down.

Very good.

And front, back.

Keep it going.

Side to side.

Very nice.

We should be warmed up by now.

So we're gonna go ahead and keep it moving.

If you need a cup of water, glass of water, be sure to get it at your own time.

It's front, back, front, back.

Alrighty.

Front, back, front, back.

Very good.

Alright, here we go.

Tap pop.

Let's get ready to open the chest.

It's open.

Open.

Open open.

Again.

Here we go.

Open.

Open.

Alright, let's get ready to have some fun.

Step it out.

It's out in and crank it up.

Out in and crank it up.

Good.

Out in.

Good.

Here we go from the top.

Tap tap.

Tap tap.

Alright, open that chest tap.

Open.

Very good.

Just take a nice.

Here we go.

It's four.

Three.

One three pass.

It's one, two, three.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

And four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Again.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

Here we go.

Out in.

Out.

In and shake it up.

Out.

In and shake it up.

I am.

Good.

Alright, let's get ready to cross it.

It's two.

One tap tap.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

Two.

Tap tap.

One, two, three.

One, two, and three.

And cough.

Cross.

One, two, three.

One, two, three.

Cross.

Cross.

Good.

Cross.

Cross.

Easy up.

And cross.

Alright, from the top.

Open up the chest.

Very good.

Just take it back.

Open up.

Good.

Good.

Alright, you're doing awesome.

Let's keep that momentum going.

Alright, we're gonna have a knee lift here.

Be sure to engage your core.

It's lift and lift.

Lift and lift.

Lift and lift.

Lift and lift.

Very good.

Work that body.

Work work.

Good.

Work work that body.

Work work that body.

Good.

Work work.

Alright.

We're gonna get ready to have a step out and in.

Here we go.

Warm out.

Roll the arms with it.

You make me left one.

Good.

And we're doing my arms.

I feel like.

Take the arms up.

I love to see you eye.

Work your body right by watching you.

Alright, here we go.

Out and out.

Let the arms fall down to the side.

Come on, just hold my hand, girl.

And I'll go.

Here we go.

Two sides.

One.

Open up.

Two.

Other side.

And front.

Front and side.

Two.

Two.

Very good.

And front.

Front and side.

Two.

Front.

Good.

From the top.

Roll it out.

Come on, just have some fun now.

Raise the arms.

Everyone's here to party.

Come on, let's have some fun.

Tab it out and out.

And out.

Good.

Come for the hands of just hold my hand, girl.

And I'm going to go.

Here we go.

Two taps.

One.

Open up and two.

Two.

Very good.

It's not.

Not open up.

Two.

Two.

And hip.

Hit two times.

Just one step.

Alright, we're gonna have a change here.

We're gonna push out for two.

One two shake it out.

Good.

One two shake it out.

Very good.

One two shake it out.

One two shake it out.

Lift me ready for a chest press.

It's one and the center.

One to the side.

One and the center.

One.

Two and the side.

Go.

Work one step by.

Alright, we're gonna get ready to knock it for two.

Here we go.

One open up.

Hit and hit good.

One step five.

Open up that body.

Good.

Let me see you just work that body.

Side to side.

If you miss new, I'm gonna swing.

And win you in my arms.

I feel like elevate.

I love to see you on.

Work your body right one time.

All the men watching you.

Good.

I'm so glad that's tab it out.

Out and out.

Come for the fine.

Come on, just hold my hand girl.

Then I'll go on your way.

Two nuts.

One open up.

Two.

Good.

One step five.

Two.

Good.

One step.

Let me see you just one step.

Alright, two pushes.

One two shake it out.

Good.

Have fun with it and hit.

Works, work, worse, good.

Work it up nice.

Very good.

Alrighty.

Right now we're gonna get into some leg work.

Again, engage your core.

And let's have some fun with it.

We're gonna have four knee lifts.

It's four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Chain sides.

Four.

Three.

Hold and down.

Hold.

We're gonna have two pushes out.

It's out.

Hold it.

Hip hip and take it around.

Push.

Hold it.

Bounce.

Side to side.

Yes.

Alright, we're gonna have eight Elifts.

Here we go.

Eight.

Seven.

Out here.

Good.

Three.

Two.

Change sides.

And when here we go.

Eight.

Seven.

Hits.

Hold and drop.

Hold and drop.

That hold is important.

Alright.

Back to the arms.

One.

Hold it.

Bounce around and very good.

Side to side.

Shake.

Again.

One.

Hold it.

Bounce around.

Tap snap.

Shake up.

Alright, we're gonna get ready to extend both feet at the same time.

Here we go.

It's lift and down.

Lift and down.

Lift.

And if you can only lift one at a time, that's fine.

Two pushes.

One hold it.

Good.

Ah, you got it by now.

Slap.

Good.

Rock it out.

Alright, we're gonna get ready to lift both feet at the same time again.

Lift and down.

Lift and down.

Lift and down.

Good.

You don't have a shade of thing.

Very good.

Alright, time to take it down.

Oh no, no, no, yes, yes.

Alright, make sure you have nice good posture.

We're gonna inhale and we're gonna exhale.

I say yes, rise up once again to see and hunt up morning.

To be reminded how much this world has fallen.

Save them come to make a change on them stalling.

It's time to take over now.

Alright, we're gonna get ready to rotate these shoulders back.

The one how we come to end three.

It just now seems to one.

Take them forward, and to clear out them down.

Seven.

To wipe them out, should be her walk in the park.

No one de herbius but it must get sparked.

To clear out we might soul.

Alright, nice inhale.

One arm up.

Inhale.

Exhale.

To be reminded how much this world has.

Breathe in.

Say I'm from to make a change, put them stall in.

It's time to take over now.

Breathe in.

You can find out.

Alright, we're gonna get ready to cross the arm over.

It's cross them just and hold.

Almighty provide for me, wipe one kiss.

I saw it.

Take it down nice and easy.

Other side.

Good.

You yum flesh wiggle on machine.

No give you clean one top in our shine.

Take it down.

Really push it out.

The morning.

To be reminded how much the world has fallen.

Say them come to make a change, but I'm stalling.

It's time to take over now.

Very good.

Gotta spray your heat button, but life just hit worse.

Alright, we're gonna get ready for a short stretch.

Take this one nice and easy.

Only go as far as you can.

Take it down.

And up.

Again.

Down.

Up very good.

I see.

Very good.

Some can't stand.

Let's get ready to stretch both hands up.

Again.

Thank you so much for tuning in to our very first chair episode of Fusion Fitness.

Once again, I have with me Taishana Felix Sadeo and my daddy say it with a straight face, but you all understand.

There's so much wonderful music on this episode.

Please tune into the credits.

You can find the artist, or you can contact me so you can figure out where to download it.

Thank you so much again for tuning in.