DOWN MEMORY LANE

Dec. 16, 1998

Mary Ann Kuhn recently received the hospitality industry’s prestigious AAA Four Diamond Award for 1999 for her Middleton Inn on Main Street in the Town of Washington. This is remarkable, especially since she received it less than three years since she opened the bed and breakfast inn.

Kuhn acknowledged being a perfectionist who is constantly trying to improve her inn, but said people are what she likes best about innkeeping.

“My guests ask me how I know how to run an inn. Did I take a course? I didn’t. Actually, my journalism background helps me because innkeeping is so much like producing a show or an event, what with the daily deadlines, the attention to detail, and all the preparation behind the scenes,” Kuhn said, adding she could never get it off the ground without the help of her housekeeper, Laura Smoot and her breakfast chef, Charity Snyder.

And when the curtain goes up at 3 p.m. when the guests start to arrive, the stage is set; the inn is sparkling, afternoon tea is set out, classical music is in the background, the fireplaces are glowing with fires. “As the guests arrive, our focus is on making sure that he or she has a memorable time,” she said.

If you see green bags hanging from your door or your neighbor’s, you know the Rappahannock “Green Pages” has been delivered.

3rd Level has begun delivering the Second Annual Edition of the Rappahannock County Resource Guide and Business Directory. Chris Salmon of 3rd Level estimates it will take two additional weeks to deliver to the entire county.

Provided free to residents by the businesses and government of Rappahannock County, “The Green Pages” is 72 pages of over 235 businesses, offices, professional organizations and county information. The businesses are listed alphabetically for easy reference, as well as under the business categories that best describe their services.

June 17, 1976

Dick Pierson of Amissville considers himself one of the last practitioners of a dying art, a master of a craft that is no longer being properly taught. He is a calligrapher of the old school, instructed in that discipline at the Zanerian College of Penmanship.

Dick’s interest in calligraphy began when he was young. “As a kid, I never liked anything around me except my grandparents. They lived two miles away and I wore a path to their door, going back and forth,” he said. Under their influence, Dick started collecting “old things” and in a book found an example of old fashioned calligraphy that particularly impressed him. “I can do that,” he told himself. Self satisfaction was his reason.

“I live in the 1890s. I should have come from another time, I belong in another time . . . a time when life was slower and the quality of craftsmanship was higher.”