The Six O'Clock Fox

I hated to leave Mason's Neck, but I was losing light, as one does in November. It was 6:30 when I decided to turn toward finding dinner and sleep. I was driving very slowly, drinking in the warm wind, the incense fragrance of the forest, when a big fox walked out of the woods and headed toward my car. 

Foxes usually avoid making eye contact, but this one was as bold as he was beautiful. 

It didn't take long for me to figure out that people have been feeding this animal.

For he was clearly begging.

He came up to my car and sat down.

I'll just wait here until you decide to give me some of those snacks I can smell you have in your car.

And then he lay down and pretended to doze.

I am nothing if not patient.

It is very dull, waiting for you to do the right thing. Do you have any fruit? Nuts?

Chips? Fried chicken?

Apples? Ham?

Instead of throwing him what he was asking for, I spoke to the fox. 

You, sir, are far too healthy and beautiful to be begging from cars.

Someone has done you a great disservice, throwing treats from their car. 

Probably many someones. I've no doubt you're famous around here.

But make no mistake:

You're the most beautiful fox I've ever seen, but you're a garbage hound.

There's nothing wrong with you that you need to abase yourself this way. Your fur is thick and glossy, your eyes bright, your legs strong.

But there is something wrong with the people who think it's a good idea to feed a fox.

Those are the same people who carve their initials on beech trees, you know. 

The very same?  I hate to see the beeches marked up. It's so ugly, and it never heals.

Yes. They aren't bad people, but they are ignorant and they have little respect for the beauty and sanctity of living things like 100-year-old trees, or wild red foxes.

And though you may think they're being kind, they have no respect for you and your amazing ability to catch food with nothing more than your teeth. They couldn't do what you do in a million years. They'd die in a week out here. And you're letting them turn you into a junk food junkie. Nothing they give you is good for you.

You are wild and free, making your living off the land, and there is absolutely no reason you should be begging for Cheetos from cars. 

The fox thought for a moment, then slowly walked away, his great thick brush low.

The white tip shone like a beacon in the gathering dark.

He stopped three times to look back at me.

You are an unusual human. You're not like the rest of them, who are very loud and who move too quickly and throw their hands around when they talk.

That's right. And you're not like the rest of the foxes. Go in peace, and find yourself a squirrel or a vole before dark. The world of people is no place for a soul like yours.

I drove away, and he continued walking around the bend. I hoped he'd change his ways; I sent him mind pictures of speeding cars, dogs let loose to chase him; people with guns.

I tried to send him back to the woods to stay, but I knew he'd do what he'd do.

I hoped he wouldn't bring his kits up begging.

I Yelped around until I found an El Salvadorean restaurant that, contrary to reviews and my high hopes, was awful. Who serves a quesadilla with frozen french fries? Ish. All white food.

 I'd have done better foraging in the woods.

So I Yelped some more and found an ice cream stand called Tim's Soft Serve and that was good.

It more or less balanced out. I hoped the fox had done better than me for his evening meal. 

 

The Ancestral Home

Lots of people ask me what my name means. Zickefoose is a corruption of the German name Ziegenfuss, which means goat foot. It's not derogatory, not based on our looks. It refers to a nimble way of walking. Much better! I have had only two bad falls in my life, and both were when I was hugely pregnant. Amniotic fluid is a great cushion. Just ask my kids. As for the falls, I'm sure I can arrange more as I get old and doddery. But for now, I'm getting around pretty good. That was always what my grandparents said when asked how they were. It was all about mobility. I never understood why they emphasized how they were "getting around" then, when I was a little kid, and I moved as easily as I breathed. I get it now. Oh boy do I get it. 

Zickefoose is quirky enough that, when I got married and the pressure was on to change my name, I didn't. Wouldn't. Couldn't. I am a Zickefoose and will always be. Actually the decision had been made when I was very young. I loved my name, even though I was last in every line. I loved being my father's daughter, of being identified in some tangible way as his. He was a very cool man. My mom knew we'd have a special bond, with me being the last of six kids. She wanted my middle name to be Dale, to honor him. My dad voted it down. So my middle name defaulted to Sue. Which honors no one. A placeholder. Damn, and oh well. Why DOD, why?? Well, you know now that it would have been the right thing to do.

 Once I started doing freelance art as a freshman in college, I figured if I was going to hang out my shingle, I might as well have a memorable last name, one that, once learned, isn't forgotten.

What follows here is a small and shallow exploration of Zickefoose roots in America. I'm doing it mostly so my kids and family and I have a record of the things I've been told about our line. I don't expect it to be particularly interesting to anyone who isn't a Zickefoose, but I'm glad to know these things. Some people, like my brother Bob and especially our first cousin Brad Braga, have an aptitude for genealogy. Brad has an entire climate-controlled room in his Marshalltown, Iowa basement devoted to family photos and original records. He can answer any question we throw at him about who's related to whom and how.  He is a meet keeper of the Zickefoose flame and records. I am thankful for Brad. We all are.  He can explain what a third cousin, once removed, actually is. I can have something like that explained to me a hundred times and still not get it. Genealogy is like math to me. Genealogy lore goes through me like a dose of salts. So I'm determined to record it so I have it.

In 1751, Johan Jacob Ziegenfuss came to America from Germany. It's thought he had a son named Peter, who settled near the little town of Blue Grass, Virginia, in Highland County. At that time, Blue Grass was called Crab Apple Bottom. I guess I can see why they changed the name to Blue Grass.

  Peter had a son named George. George settled near Pipe Stem, West Virginia, with a land grant. At that time, Greenbriar County, WV, encompassed Pipe Stem. Larry Zickefoose, historian and genealogist for the West Virginia clan, says that during the time George was living there, you could be born, live and die in the same spot, but the county lines were changing such that you'd have lived in three different counties.

 So whether the Ziegenfuss/Zickefooses come from Virginia or West Virginia is a bit muddled. George's son, Benjamin, married his first cousin, Susannah Buzzard. DOD had told us this, and West Virginia genealogist Larry Zickefoose, who's written a book called From Zigenfuss to Zickefoose, confirms this. Marrying one's first cousin is forbidden in the Old Testament. 

This photo of Benjamin and Susannah entrances me. As I look at the pair, the set of their wide mouths and the shape of their heads, with prominent cheekbones and high foreheads, is very familiar to me. Susanna in particular looks like my dad's sisters, in a big way. 

The cheekbones alone belie their bloodlines. 

My father always said that he thought Ben and Susannah went west to escape the disapproval of their family. I'm glad they did.   They lived for a short while in Ohio (!) and Indiana, then settled in Henry County, Iowa, near Olds, around 1837. They had eight children. The first three were born in Virginia, the fourth in Ohio on the way to Iowa.  Their sixth was Western Summers Zickefoose, born near Olds, Iowa in 1842. That would make him just the right age to get caught up in the Civil War. He fought for the Union, with the 25th Iowa Regiment.

Western Summers was my great grandfather. 

He was at Vicksburg and other battles along the Mississippi, and was with Sherman around Atlanta and on his famous march. As they marched through the Carolinas Wes got malaria, and was sent north on a boat. He regretted missing the grand mustering in Washington D.C. Western's older brother, Clark, was killed at Arkansas Post and died in Wes's arms. He had been hit in the temple by a spent Minie ball. I remember DOD saying, "It never even broke the skin."  

Western was in Buell's Army of the Ohio, reinforcing Grant after the first day of fighting, when troops were being boated across the Tennessee River all night long. But Wes never got off the boat to join the fight at Shiloh. Good thing. 

My sister Micky has a tin plate and cup that had belonged to Western Summers, part of his mess kit. He lived through that terrible war and went on to live a full life. Missing Shiloh might have been the key there. Attaining the age of 83 is remarkable for a man, for those days. 

Western Summers' grave, Asbury Cemetery, Henry Co., Iowa

Western Summers Zickefoose, my great grandfather.

Martha Jane Yancey, my great grandmother.

Wes went on to marry Martha Yancey and have a son named Charles Summers Zickefoose. He was born in 1878, and remained unnamed for two years. Not sure what that's about. What do you call him until you decide what to name him? Hey You??  I remember Grampa Charlie Zickefoose being pretty crochety, but then he wasn't feeling well by the time I came along. My grandmother Elnora Zickefoose was the sweetest person you could imagine, so she more than made up for that. Whenever Nora would hear us Zickefoose kids singing in harmony, she would say, "They got that from the Yancey's." That's still a catch phrase in our family. It came from the Yancey's. Thank you, Martha, for giving us our musicality. It somehow escaped my dad. He loved music and could sing just fine, but had little sense of rhythm. Singing (or dancing, Ida said) with him was an adventure in compensation.

My DOD, Charles Dale Zickefoose

He may not have had much rhythm, but there was a lot he could do. Like, everything.

 I love the fact that my immediate family originated in Iowa, my grandparents and both my parents being born there, thanks to Ben and Susanna's moving west. When we moved from the Midwest to Richmond, Virginia in 1962, we were coming back to the homeland, though that fact was lost on me then. I remember missing terribly the big skies of the Great Plains. I was born in South Dakota and lived my early years in a suburb of Kansas City, Kansas. We were used to seeing the weather coming. In Richmond, we had to look straight up through the trees to see the sky, and storms always took us by surprise.

So you might imagine the feelings that coursed through me when my brother Bob gave me and Liam a route home from his place in Mt. Solon, Virginia, back to Ohio, that went right through the ancestral Zickefoose home along the Virginia/West Virginia line. (We were heading home from the wedding of Bob and Bonnie's daughter, Holly).

There are not many places in this world that I look at and say, "Yes. I could live here." But this was one of them. Rt. 250 went up, down and around through gorgeous healthy national forest with scattered agriculture and mountain vistas. 

Speeding car out the window photo. Near Blue Grass, Virginia. Ohhh yeah. It's sooo beautiful here.

Liam loved the ride so much he rolled down the window and hung his head out like a dog. He couldn't get over the views and the beauty of this place.

Before long the highway, which was all but deserted, rolled down into a valley where beavers had made a beautiful series of ponds, like beads on a big watery chain.

The clouds and reflections were perfect.

I've never seen Liam respond to a landscape the way he did to this one. We pulled over and got out to revel in it. 

I loved to think that our ancestors may have ridden or driven wagons along this route and loved this valley, too. I wondered if the beavers were there then.

I don't know if a landscape or a place can be so deep in your genes that you somehow know your ancestral place when you see it, but Liam and I knew something special was going on here.

I am grateful to have children with a sense of place, genetic or not. Who know beauty when they see it, and stop to wallow around in it.

Here's a little movie of Route 250 near the Virginia/ West Virginia line. I hope you've enjoyed this exploration of Zickefoose roots as much as I've enjoyed ferreting out the information and photos. Many thanks to Bob Zickefoose and Brad Braga for keeping the genealogical flame for know-nothings like me.

And because it was the song in my head the entire drive, here's Jonathan Edwards and the Seldom Scene with "Blue Ridge."

Back to the Blue Ridge: Natural Bridge

It was time to travel back to the state where I was raised, Virginia. There was a family wedding, and nearly everyone would be there. I couldn't wait to see my brother and sisters! Liam and I stopped for gas before hitting the highway and saw this, which sent me into fits of laughter. Something about the shameless Muppets knockoff and the troupe's name gave us the giggles. It was going to be a good trip.

The drive from southeast Ohio to Lexington VA, of course, was fabulous. Mountains and sky and green and blue. Heaven, Almost Heaven, Heaven.

My dear brother Bob at the "I Do Barbeque" with his newest grandson, Simon.

I haven't experienced it, but boy do I get it. Your baby's baby. Oh my. The love was obviously mutual as Simon asked for more kisses.

He wanted my iPhone something awful. His daddy keeps his iPhone hidden away. All that will come too soon. Oh what a face! Liam and I were totally Simonized.

He got the phone! Bob's grandchildren Gabe and Emma as witness. 

We spent a great deal of time simply watching Simon. Baby TV. 

We all fetched up in a hotel in Lexington.  There was much yakking and hanging out with kids. Max wanted his hair to look like Liam's, so there was pomade applied in the hotel lobby.

On the morning of the 5:30 pm wedding, we decided to go as a herd to see Natural Bridge, an enormous rock formation about 10 miles away. We scattered like sheep, but should have caravaned. Liam and I climbed in sister Micky and David's back seat; I launched my iPhone's map function with great confidence, and chose "Natural Bridge, Natural Bridge, VA." That oughta do it. 

We saw signs pointing to Natural Bridge, but figured they referred not to the formation but to the town. We followed the GPS against my sister's better instincts in the opposite direction, down a very narrow country road. It was beautiful! It went on and on! With no sign of Natural Bridge! And dwindling hope of ever finding it!

We wound up at the intersection of two narrow country roads, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Arrived. Arrived. Arrived! Siri kept saying that until I made her stop. Not arrived. Not even close.

We retraced our route, followed analogue signs like they did in olden days, and my sister and brother in law didn't even get mad at me. We finally found the Visitor Center for Natural Bridge, regrouped via text message, bought our tickets and proceeded as a clan.

The reason Nancy, Micky, Barb and I wanted to go to Natural Bridge was to vanquish our only collective memory of it, which was the Easter morning in 1967 our parents woke us at 3:30 AM, stuffed us in the car with cereal and acrid orange juice from concentrate in our bellies, and raced to make it from Richmond out to Natural Bridge before sunrise. There was to be a service at sunrise with the Virginia  Polytechnic Institute (aka Virginia Tech) choir singing, and my brother Bob was singing with them, and we had to race to get there in time for it. Hauling kids out of bed in the middle of the night always takes longer than you'd hope. I was nine. Micky was 11. Nancy was 17. Barb was 21. Bob was 19. Lucky him, he was already there with the choir. He didn't have to make the drive with DOD at the wheel and Ida fretting shotgun. "Day-ull! Slow DOWN!" My father tore through the dark streets of downtown Richmond, and we were already feeling queasy when he hit the curving mountain roads in pre-dawn darkness. Then the throwing up began. He would slow the car down, have the urper open the car door, disgorge, then command us to close the door so he could proceed at his dizzying, pukifying pace.  No mollycoddling for us! It was a low point for both parents and parented. I remember gazing at Natural Bridge through a lingering haze of nausea and astonishment that we'd done all that to get here for this. We all needed a new memory for the place. Gorblimey, that was 50 years ago!

A nature hike should do the trick! Let's look at nature. Nature's pretty neat.

Jules! Come see this bracket fungus!

Amy and Charlie smile for the camera. Sorta.

 A huge fishing spider waits on a rock.

Northern water snake basks in flood debris.

A male bluegill tends his neat round gravelly nest, hoping a female will come by to lay eggs. Or perhaps he's watching over eggs already laid in the gravel.

A gigantic snapping turtle haunts the waters along the path, hoping someone will throw a salami sammitch in. He ain't picky. Snapping turtle is hungry!

Sticklebacks in stickleback towns on the submerged rock surfaces. I told what I could remember of Bert Holldobler's teachings in Animal Behavior. He gave me a B plus. I was a half-point off of an A in my favorite class EVER. Standard issue Teutonic professor behavior.

Some elegant serif-enhanced graffiti on the way. Wow. Nice font! Especially to be carved in solid rock. We're so soft and lazy these days, with our spray cans.

An equally elegant six-spotted tiger beetle rests for a moment on the rock face. 

Natural Bridge did not disappoint. What a piece of rock. Man. 

Standing directly beneath it, I could hear an occasional car roar over. Unbelievably, Route 11 (Lexington's main drag) goes RIGHT OVER TOP OF NATURAL BRIDGE. 

An ugly little metal wall was erected on either side of the road so people wouldn't know they were atop the bridge. There had been suicides. I was told you can't tell when you pass over it now. The walls keep you from looking over. You can just see the straight line of the wall in this photo, at the bottom of the U of sky. 

Look! George Washington was here!!

The beautiful stream that cut Natural Bridge proceeds on its way, with a waterfall.

There were Louisiana waterthrushes and phoebes singing all the way. My sister Barbara stopped to chat with Amy and Cate about their jewelry and shoes.

Another visitor offered to take a shot of me, Liam and Max when it became apparent that we were having trouble getting the whole scene in a selfie.

The boys, dwarfed by the monstrous structure, pass by the rows of pews where we listened to the Virginia Tech choir on Easter morning FIFTY YEARS AGO. Gaah I feel so ooollld.

The visit and the hike were marvelous. I now think of Natural Bridge in a completely different light, the bright blue, green and white light of a July day, with my family all around. 

Next: the wedding, and all the magic around it.