[joe-frank-list] Culpeper county

russellbell at gmail.com russellbell at gmail.com
Thu Mar 4 04:25:36 PST 2021


	I took the ferry across Lake Nicaragua in 1989, an all-day
trip.  I tried to sit with the Nicaraguans, but they shoved me off
their bench, so I sat with the gringos.
	I struck up a conversation with a guy on his way to the San
Juan del Sur area to help build houses.  He and his wife had left DC
in the '60s, bought a farm in Culpeper county for $5,000 (!).  Its
value as farmland had disappeared with the rise of large-scale
agriculture and Interstate highways that made moving vegetables and
fruits from California, Florida, Texas, and Arizona cheap (which was
affordable because the federal taxpayer subsidized their water -
thanks, suckers!); DC had yet to grow large enough for its workers to
live as far out as Culpeper.  His wife was a carpenter, the only one
in the county then, had a hard time breaking into the workforce.
	When they had a kid, they moved to town so he could have a
friend, sold the farm for a good price ($50,000, if I remember
rightly).  Maybe it was on the Thornton river.
	I never asked his name, or gave mine.

russell bell


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