Not Once, Not Twice, Retired & Buck Naked On The Back Porch But 3 Times... A-C Tops Angie’s 2012 List

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June 2013

and other new exhibits

Books, naps, & soft-serve

By Mike Appleton

Appleton Campbell, a local family owned and operated plumbing, heating, air conditioning, and electrical services company based in Warrenton since 1976, received the 2012 Angie’s List Super Service Award for consistently providing excellent customer service in Heating & Air Conditioning, Plumbing, Plumbing— Drain Cleaning. This honor is awarded annually to approximately five percent of all of the companies rated on Angie’s List, the nation’s leading provider of consumer reviews on local service companies. “It’s a select group of companies rated on Angie’s List that can claim the exemplary customer service record of being a Super Service Award winner,” said Angie’s List Founder Angie Hicks. “Our standards for the Super Service Award are quite high. The fact that Appleton Campbell earned this recognition speaks volumes about its dedication providing great service to its customers,” she continued.

Through the Eye of the Forrest

by jo middleton

Angie’s List Super Service Award winners have met strict eligibility requirements, including earning a minimum number of reports, an exemplary rating from their customers, and abiding by Angie’s List operational guidelines. More than 1.5 million households use Angie’s List to find high-quality service companies and health care professionals in more than 550 categories. The ratings for service businesses are updated daily. For additional information about Appleton Campbell, please visit appletoncampbell.com

Mike Appleton is president of Appleton Campbell, based in Warrenton and serving the FXBG market.

Front porch fredericksburg

You know it is June, early Dog Days of summer, when you visit your friend over on Charles Street, and her menagerie, one Collie, two stray cats who came to stay, and one noble Siamese who deigns to join the pack, are languishing on the shady back porch, where there blows the only bit of breeze, albeit humid, in town. In January one longs for these warm days to counter the icy blasts of the arctic air mass sliding southward to freeze our pitushkins. In June the arctic idea sounds pretty fine, when the humidity clings to your skin like a cheap polyester blouse. Air conditioning makes it worse. Artificial Arctic inside makes going outside a blast from an iron ore oven. But, here’s the deal, taking the lead of the dogcat languishing menagerie, you go sit on your pillowed porch swing, with a pitcher of very icy tea (house wine of the South) a plate of Hanover County melons, and several really good books. Now you’re talking. It is this that every kid knows about summer and why it is their delight, wearing their little shorts, white tee shirts, breezy sandals, and a nice un-Michael Pollan approved glass of orange (with lots of chemicals) Kool-Aid, sitting on the porch playing Go Fish with a friend. The library features beach books, which are small and reading-light. I rather enjoy those, particularly the British mysteries. I have been trying for years to complete my IX volumes of Samuel Pepys diaries in those, as Nat King Cole sang, “lazy, hazy, days of summer.” I have carried those babies in every move I’ve made, and there have been lots since I retired, and Mr. Pepys contributed significantly to the weight and volume of my packed items. But reading-light he is not, and I drift into the land of torpid inactivity until the book falls on the porch breaking my bliss. It is at that time I realize that I have heard the siren call of Mr. Carl down there on Princess Anne Street. A chocolate soft serve in a sugar cone are soul mates with a Fredericksburg high heat and humid day. The only catch is you have to eat it rapidly as soon as the hand holding the delight (“Hello, Hand!”) appears at the Carl’s window, otherwise it becomes soft

chocolate liquid. Then back to the porch to resume the literary languish. I have tried to do my summer reading with handy, dandy e-books. Being of the manually retarded persuasion, I am forever touching the touch screen with greater enthusiasm than it allows, causing the words to increase in size to maximum, which makes about two sentences per screen, and fast pacing the text various chapters ahead. Getting the book back to where I last read is, to say the least, challenging. But, it’s about nap time. I’ll get my Pepys big old book, and prepare for z’s and a good languish out here, retired and buck naked on the back porch. Jo Middleton grabs a pile of napkins at Carl’s for every “cone chocolate” she orders.

“I suppose if we’re giving the show a title it would be “through the eye of the Forrest” (Todd’s middle, and his grandfather’s first, name) His hope is just to share his visions, and make people take a second glance. The show will be a blend of photography styles, landscapes, juxtapositions and quite a few macro’s. It will consist of 15 pieces, all framed Photography. Special orders or more information can be obtained at The Scenter of Town, across the street from kybecca.

beauty surrounding her. From the jewellike colors still radiant in a dilapidated mansion to the poetry of nascent branches of pussy willows, Newton explains that viewers time and again have used the adjective “painterly” to describe what she captures. For Bruno, photography is a spiritual endeavor. Her aim is to translate pixels into feelings and emotions. In some ways, her work might be the most abstract in ultimate meaning.

Through 3 Lenses

Art First member and FCCA Board VP Guerin Wolf’s first Solo Show is up in the Atrium at CRRL Headquarters, 1201 Caroline. All of Guerin’s works are paintings done in Oil Pastels (such as Olde Towne with Olive Oil). The artist debuted just last year and received three art awards last June. At Brush Strokes, 824 Caroline, June’s featured exhibit is “Road Trip!” by acrylic artist Peggy Wickham. Her show features paintings done on trips crosscountry by car and rail. The paintings portray the kind of scenery that catches the eye and makes an artist long for paints and canvas (Pacific Coast Hwy.).

First Todd Woollam, now three more lenses! Photography has definitely “arrived” in the Burg. Bistro Bethem’s new exhibit (June 10-August 5), “Through

Old Town With Olive Oil by Guerin Wolf Todd Woollam is not your usual suspect when it comes to art, in his case photography. The Philadelphian-turnedFredericksburger surprises you with his lens-ability: “I use photography as a means of self-expression, a way to capture the thoughts and feelings of the world I see around me. Each photograph is an expression of the fleeting nature of our lives, and the world around us.” Todd began taking photographs

as a child, and found his true enjoyment “when I could be alone in the peace and quiet of nature, capturing the images that most people would pass by without a second glance. My passion,” he says, is to find the unique, the individual, the untouched.” The Photography show will be at kybecca beginning the Monday AFTER First Friday (make that June 10) and will remain until the end of July.

3 Lenses”— featuring the images of Adam DeSio, Audrey Bruno, and Fritzi Newton — will convince you photographs hold their own against other medium. Self-professed camera junkies, DeSio, Bruno and Newton are with Art First Gallery on Caroline. DeSio works mainly in color and is equally fascinated with the natural world as well as man’s impact on his surroundings; he aspires to include hints of surrealism, isolation, and unease in his work. Newton is enamored with the

First Solo Show

For mo art, turn to page 24…

Your Place for Confirmation and First Communion Gifts My First Holy Communion sets First Communion Porcelain Rosary boxes Confirmation Prayer boxes Appropriate Charms Assortment of Crosses 212 William Street,Fredericksburg 540-373-5513 Mon-Fri 9-5:30; Sat 9-5 front porch fredericksburg

June 2013

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