© Richard L. Thornton, Architect and City Planner
Well, your author yesterday got a dressing down from an esteemed professional colleague on LinkedIn. Her “nom de plume” is Cindy Funkhouser in Chapter 17 of the Shenandoah Chronicles. Cynthia does have a German last name, but Funkhouser was her mother’s maiden name. I remembered that! She demands equal treatment with Vivi, Susan and Juliana as a member of the Shenandoah Chevre Fan Club, but also be designated its founding member. She also wants it to be known that our friendship did not end at that disastrous grand opening of the house in Saumsville, VA. [Chapter Seventeen]
A new version of Chapter 18, follows this introduction. Remember that these are chapters in an online book, not a blog. The entire publication is structured is such a way that it may later be published as a book.
T’is true. In 1988, when she was 20, she accompanied her father, a professor at Virginia Tech’s prestigious College of Veterinary Medicine to our farm. At this time, the house was under construction and no work had begun on the cheese creamery. She visited the farm at least a dozen times after that first visit.
On many of those occasions, she did indeed flirt with me and I, indeed said “Hey, how are you? Good to see you again.” Thus, making her exceedingly frustrated.
Cindy said that what immediately attracted her to me was how kind and affectionate I was to the dogs and the goats. She longed for a man that would treat her as well as I treated my dogs. The boys at Virginia Tech thought that they had to act like cavemen in order to be masculine.
Cindy holds a Masters degree in International Commerce from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in Agricultural Economics from Cornell University. She has worked much of her life at either as a faculty member of Virginia Tech or as an international consultant with the World Bank. She is seriously considering an appointment by President Biden to a joint position with the US Dept. of Agriculture and Bureau of Indian Affairs as a consultant to Federally recognized tribes.
It was while doing research on Native American culture that Cynthia stumbled upon my article about the importance of Native American – domesticated plants and animals. She thought perhaps that I was the author, but back then I rarely discussed anything to do with Native Americans. Something that she NEVER told me is that her mother is part Saponi Indian. I can see it now with her pronounced cheek bones and high forehead. Then she read Chapter Seventeen last week and learned for the first time what actually happened the night of the party. She was astounded that I would even speak to her . . . and indeed I did do a lot more than speak on the weekend of Octoberfest -1993. That is what you are going to learn about.
Cindy has accurately pointed out that if I had jumped into a scandalous affair with a cheerleader at Virginia Tech in 1988, I might have been shunned by graduates of Georgia Tech, but would have avoided seven years of absolute misery, created by the Anti-Wife. All along, her Daddy really liked me, despised every other guy she dated back then and would have approved of said affair. Furthermore, since her daddy was a senior professor at Virginia Tech, all sorts of financial goodies could have been found to save the farm and keep it in my name as the Anti-Wife was departing. We can not undo the past.
I was going to leave out the discussion of what happened after the party. At the party Cindy was obviously the victim of multiple crimes. Later on, I was either legally separated or legally divorced on all of our other times together. However, I didn’t know if she was dating her future husband at the same time and assumed that she would want to keep her intermittent dalliances with me an eternal secret.
She me that she married a divorced professor at Cornell, who was older than me. They had two children together then he announced that he was leaving her for a man. She would much prefer discussion of the fun times we had around Winchester and Washington in 1993 through the fall of 1998 than a marriage that was a lie from the start. I told her that I understood what it was like to be in a marriage that was a lie.
Because Cindy was still recovering from being given a toxic daquiri by a woman in the occult in August 1992 and I was still recovering from being given a toxic cup of tea by my estranged wife in August 1993, neither one of were in condition to do much polka dancing. However, down the street was an Austrian band, which was playing beautiful waltzes like the one below. I had a wonderful time, dancing to Alpine waltzes like this one that afternoon. Cynthia lived in the same gated townhouse complex, where FBI Susan Karlson had formerly lived. The demonic creatures at the end of the video were also a part of Shenandoah Valley tradition.
The Shenandoah Chronicles continue . . . with addenda, demanded by a Virginia Belle!
The Americas Revealed 