Loose Leaf Notes

A group of investors purchased an abandoned building in downtown Floyd because they didn’t want to see a McDonalds there, Woody Crenshaw, one of the investors told the crowd at the ribbon cutting ceremony this past Saturday morning. What was most recently Farmers Food Grocery Store has been renovated into “The Village Green,” a timber-framed style complex of offices and businesses.
“We got fudge coming,” Woody joked, referring to Nancy’s Candy, a homemade candy company based in Meadows of Dan that now has a front row store in the Village Green.
The green part of the Village Green is still to come. I stood on the newly spread mulch where some of it will grow as I edged my way in for a photo opportunity while listening to Woody, who also owns The Floyd Country Store, home to Floyd’s famous Friday Night Jamboree.
After speaking to a crowd of well over a hundred, Woody turned the speaker’s platform over to Kathleen Ingoldsby, a Floyd County Historical Society archivist, fellow Scrabble player, and member of the writer’s circle I belong to. Kathleen talked about the history of the building and the site, which is adjacent to the historical Nannie Harman Howard House, aka the Rakes Mansion.
With a similar style to the Village Green building, the new Hotel Floyd sits behind it and almost looks like an extension of the compound. Hotel Floyd owner, Jack Wall also spoke and later gave tours through the hotel’s themed rooms. Woody introduced Jack by describing the hotel as “a real deal boutique hotel filled with the best of Floyd’s arts and crafts. He ended his introduction by saying, “Don’t forget to buy locally.”
Besides Nancy’s Candy store, there is a book store, a clothing store, an interior design store, a timber framing storefront, art galleries, and more at The Village Green. Blue Ridge Muse blogger, Doug Thompson, and his wife Amy own one of the new galleries. Named after Doug’s blog, The Blue Ridge Muse Gallery is in a prime corner location with a view of downtown, which I imagine will give Doug, a journalist and photographer, even more opportunity to keep his hand on the pulse of Floyd activity.
After the ribbon cutting, I chatted with some of the enthusiastic ceremony attendees before heading over to the Hotel Floyd to run an errand. As a decorator of The Writers Suite, one of the themed suites in the hotel, I had a book to drop off for the bookcase. I passed by Jack who looked like a pied piper leading a line of about twenty into the Bell Gallery room for a tour.
In the Writers Suite, I ran into Fred First, local blogger and fellow writer’s circle member, whose framed photograph of a tree hangs in one of the Writer’s Suite’s bedrooms. His wife Ann hadn’t seen any of the rooms yet and he was showing her around. As we were talking, he happened to mention the visit he and Ann recently had with Texas blogger Gary Boyd and his wife.
We were talking about the very real bonds that are created between fellow bloggers who have never met in person. I was feeling disappointed that I didn’t get to see Gary, who keeps up with Floyd activities by regularly reading all the Floyd blogs. I joked about being dissed and was preparing myself to give Gary a hard time once I got back online, when I flipped through the leather guest journal in the room and saw an entry from Gary.
He stayed right here in the Writer’s Room?!” I shouted.
It was true, Fred concurred. But faster than an email shooting through cyberspace, all of my disappointment melted away when I saw my name in the entry Gary had written. “Sorry we didn’t catch up with you, Colleen,” Gary wrote. It was a nice twist to a morning spent acknowledging community and the interconnected bonds we all share.
Post Notes:
The blogger gets blogged: Check out June’s post on the Village Green Grand Opening HERE. She caught me in the act.
Coming Soon: Performance art photo journal involving the late poet Elliot Dabinsky’s T-shirt collection and the monthly Spoken Word Night, in which the T-shirts played a role.
Photos: 1 – That’s Floyd Press editor, Wanda Combs, snapping a shot of the ceremonious ribbon being cut by a town counsel member, the Floyd county mayor, and Woody Crenshaw. 2 – The crowd of onlookers. 3 – The Hotel Floyd Writer’s Suite journal.