Much as it pains me as a graduate of The College of William & Mary to say this, the University of Virginia is a magnificent institution. Nestled within low mountains and sloping hills, Charlottesville is gorgeous territory. There’s a reason real estate is so expensive in these glorious little burgs - all of us old alumni are trying to recapture that ephemeral joy, expansiveness and freedom from grown-up obligations that wraps you like a warm blanket of your alma mater’s colors when you’re in a college town. Athens, Tuscaloosa, Oxford, so many more - each one both a refuge from the world and a chance to find out who you are before you enter it. There’s something unique and special about college towns, the way they’re tiny little isolated entities unto themselves. “Charlottesville” became shorthand for racist rallies - as in, We don’t want another Charlottesville here - and that in itself is a shame of perception. The debacle resulted in the death of a woman - Heather Heyer is her name - and injuries to dozens more when one of the white supremacist demonstrators drove his car into a crowd of protestors. Back in 2017, a horde of doughy henchman-grade dipshits paraded through the university grounds with tiki torches and their own pathetic spines on full display. This is the second time the nation’s eyes have turned to Charlottesville in recent years, neither in a way worth honoring. And then there was the reader who told me that the (alleged) shooter was denied twice when attempting to buy a gun, “so that means the laws are working somewhat.” Strangely, I don’t think anyone finds that “somewhat” comforting. I’ve already seen complaints that there’s too much focus on the stories of the victims and not enough on the motive behind the crime (whole lot of facts yet to come out on that). Meanwhile, beyond the bounds of Charlottesville, life goes on as normal - which in this case means trolls and low-wattage dumbasses doing all they can to shrink this nightmare to fit their agenda. All three of them possessed fiery spirits, willpower, determination, intense promise … and all of their stories ended far too soon. are their names - it’s a tragedy too awful to fully comprehend. “Some days, things seem normal, and then out of nowhere comes this overwhelming sense of sadness and loss.”Īny life lost to gunfire is a tragedy, but when it’s three students at the very start of their lives - Devin Chandler, D’Sean Perry and Lavel Davis Jr. I’ve spent much of this week delving into the UVa story, talking to friends and family members of the victims, and to a Virginia Tech-based grief counselor about what comes next for Charlottesville. All three of the dead were football players, members of a Cavalier team that, like all teams, bonds in ways and on levels far beyond wanting to win games on Saturday afternoons. Sunday night, in a bus that had just returned from seeing a play in Washington D.C., a Virginia student allegedly opened fire on his classmates, killing three and wounding two more before running. ![]() ![]() And I find I’m longing for the days when a Zonker solved all the world’s problems. I’ve been thinking about Charlottesville, and the University of Virginia, and kids, a whole lot this week. Regardless, it’s impossible to screw up and goddamn delicious no matter how you make it. The grease of the bacon melts the cream cheese just enough, the onion is a little slap to the face to keep you awake until you get back to your own dorm/bed, and the tomato - I dunno, maybe it’s supposed to be healthy or something. Tomato, sliced however you can manage without severing a fingerĪnd it’s perfect. (See: Pedialyte, cold pizza, fistfuls of Gummi Bears.) So it was with the Zonker, a monstrous beast of a late-night drunken meal that we began serving our kids pretty much as soon as they could chew solid food. It’s both a stone-cold truism and blindingly obvious that the foods best suited to cure a hangover are also the foods most likely to be huge hits with little kids. ![]() It didn’t survive the pandemic, sadly, but the memories live on - the memories, and the Zonkers. There used to be this great little deli in Charlottesville, Virginia called Littlejohn’s.
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