Bingo Night at the Fire Hall: The Case for Cows, Orchards, Bake Sales, & Fairs - Hardcover

Holland, Barbara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1574901796 ISBN 13: 9781574901795

Publisher: Thomas t Beeler, 1999

Synopsis

A humorous portrait of the author's life in the Virginia Blue Ridge Mountains details a small town where everyone gets along and her adventures there, which include finding shelter in a bar during a blizzard and writing obituaries for the local paper."

About this title

About the Author

Barbara Holland is the author of several books, including Wasn't the Grass Greener? and Endangered Pleasures. She has written for the Washington Post, Ladies' Home Journal, Smithsonian, Mid-Atlantic Country, Utne Reader, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, Parents, and more. She lives in Loudoun County, Virginia.

From Kirkus Reviews

Reflections on living in the Blue Ridge Mountains, as they metamorphose from farmland and self-sufficiency to commuter subdivisions dependent on cars and asphalt. Holland (Endangered Pleasures, 1995, etc.) came to the Virginia Blue Ridge when she inherited her mother's summer cabin. She couldn't afford the upkeep on both her Philadelphia apartment and this rural retreat, so she opted for for the ``one-bedroom, one-bath house without furnace or insulation,'' but with ``flush toilet, electric stove, and a phone.'' Holland is both cautious and adventurous as, ``stiff with sophistication,'' she tries to carve a niche for herself in this self-contained community. Establishing herself as a part-time writer of obituaries on the local newspaper, she insinuates herself carefully among the regular customers at a nearby bar and never undestimates how alien she is. From her perches on the bar stool, at the newspaper office, and in her snowed-in cabin, Holland rearranges priorities. For instance, she learns that her neigbors believe that government people don't do much--``What could anyone possibly do while sitting at a desk?'' Doing, for them, is ``fixing the tractor, nailing shingles on the roof . . . motion.'' Nevertheless, Holland gives due to both her long- established neighbors who raise pigs, can tomatoes, and chauffeur children, and to those newcomers who chauffeur themselves back and forth on the highways to city jobs. She explores the history of the region: Its point of reference is the Civil War, and its hero is Southern guerrilla John Mosby of Mosby's Rangers. She celebrates the rhythms of community suppers with supportive neighbors but accepts the inevitable replacement of small towns with the Internet. Still, it was lovely while it lasted, and Holland describes the past and the intruding future eloquently, without whining: ``I was told as a child to eat what was put on my plate.'' -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thomas t Beeler
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1574901796
• ISBN 13: 9781574901795
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 200