Once upon a time …

...there was a place called Woodstock, perched in the middle of Virginia's gracious Shenandoah Valley. 

People strolling the amiable downtown area centered on the eighteenth century stone courthouse were smiling and saying, "Hello", to their neighbors, those they knew by name and those they had yet to meet.

Parking curbside, they might drop in on a bistro, an art gallery, a design studio or an antique store.  Visiting grocer, gas station, department store or hardware store would need only a five-minute jaunt.  Stoplights?  Oh, there were a few.

Weekends brimmed with festivals, carnivals, art shows, street dances and parades.  Choirs gave concerts, theater productions were mounted by local thespians, and musicians of countless flavors performed on stages and in eateries. 

The mountains rising above the town’s rooftops were rich with pleasures of hiking, hunting and skiing.  The seven deep bends of the ancient North Fork of the Shenandoah River twisting along the town’s edge welcomed fishermen, campers and boaters.  Nearby farms were speckled with sheep, poultry, cattle and lush crops.  

Here where America’s founding father George Washington surveyed land, where Confederate hero Stonewall Jackson led his troops with courage and valor, where the first Civilian Conservation Corps boys fought off the Great Depression, farms and towns thrived for centuries. 

And life was good there, once upon a time.

 Once upon a time was – just yesterday.  And it’s that way in Woodstock today, too.  Come see for yourself.

Mary Byrd Blackwell