(Classic, with Boop. Culpeper Car Show 2010. Photo Socotra.)

I listen to NPR streaming on the satellite broadband at Refuge Farm when I am not blasting The Loft on the satellite radio from the antenna that points North East toward the repeater in geosynchronous orbit. I actually listen to the local outlets in the West, either Colorado or Wyoming, not the one up north, that is just personal preference.

The Declaration of Independence is just as good, regardless of which outlet is broadcasting it.

“When in the Course of human events,” read the alternating male and female voices, “it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation…”.

There is some other stuff in there, too, and you can’t not hear it without thinking of what a different world those words were uttered. The thing about the Indians sort of jars these days, but oh well. The guy who penned the words had a house just up the road from Refuge Farm, and he did pretty well with the words as they are.

I thought about the holiday, and how things were different on this one. I checked to see that the crutches were handy, so I could get out of the chair in the dining nook of Refuge Farm.

I was at Torch last year for the 4th. I took Raven and Big Mama down to see our pal Dee and the crew on the lovely lake. They were still able to be out in the world, one of the last times before the gray wool cocoon gathered them in. Torch is reputed by no less an authority than the National Geographic as “The third most beautiful lake in the world.”

Our pals throw a big shindig in the run-up to the local shoreline arms race display.  This year, with the dryness at tinder levels, they can shoot across the dark sparkling waters without concern that they will torch the shore of the Torch.

No so out west, but I am here in one what is arguably the Real Virginia, as opposed to the ersatz one where Big Pink was built.

Sonya was sitting in for Rhonda when I called yesterday. “Did the power come back?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said with that wonderful South Asian roll of the vowels. “It appeared once more last night,” she said, like the power was an incarnation of Shiva out of the Bhagavad-Gita. Which, upon consideration, I think it is.

I clicked off after thanking her for the update, thinking I should get back and deal with the contents of the refrigerator, and then shrugged. Whatever is in there is all cold again and it can wait.  Other than that, things are just about perfect here. Plus, the Car Show is downtown on the 4th, and that is about as small-town cool as it gets.

I was there two years ago, stumbled on it completely by chance. I wanted a couple Frost Diner eggs sunny side up, side of grits and shredded home-fries with an English Muffin, and what I discovered was an eclectic aggregation of antiques cars, hot rods and moonshine-running vehicles. The line of diagonally parked cars lined both sides of the street from the Diner down to the Depot. Too awesome.

I imagine I will head into town for breakfast, and crutch my way as far as I can go. It is a beautiful day to be a refugee from the great Derecha storm that still has hundreds of thousands of people without electricity on this sultry Independence Day.

I was thinking I was going to drive back north in the police cruiser after looking at the other classics, but the thought occurred to me right then: Why? It is pretty damn nice right here, I do declare.

(Culpeper Moonshine Cruiser. Completely understated. Photo 2010 Socotra.)

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra

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