Keswick

-->

A time before I remember, I time I spent in the mountains of Virginia.

Leaving Richmond and the hotel life on a Grace Street row house, to the dusty road leading up to a giant granite and glass monument of human consumption of elegance.

But I was only a few years old and did not understand the surroundings, except for the smell of oil from the groundkeeper’s shed or the slick marble floors of the clubhouse.

A few years were spent in the mountains. My brother played baseball, catcher as I remember. I was a participant in a May Day celebration with a jester hat and a furlough look captured later in a tapestry for the Crimson King.

The swimming pool was always there. The green grass and the smell of open air were always there. The crowd of horses and dogs in a gathering with red jackets and black hats and much drinking became a foxhunt with little hunting and much more drinking.

My brother tells me there was strife in the family, but I don’t remember (or wish not to remember it) while we lived there.

I only have a few references of this time, then we move to Richmond.

Another life was about to begin.