Staunton- Friday, October 16, 2026

[Note: More pictures will be posted here when I get a chance to get them.] 

     After breakfast, Scott wanted to take a walk.  He went back to the former Statler Complex and took a closer look at the house we used to live in.  He went around the back via the church parking lot, and found that their are kids living there now because their bikes and toys were around the backyard.  He continued up to Alleghany Avenue, where the "Maple Street Memories' house was, and then to overlook the baseball field where the Happy Birthday USA celebrations used to be held.  He went back down and into Gypsy Hill Park.  He made his away around Lake Tams, which we will always remember as the lake that Wags jumped into when he was chasing geese.  He came out smelling like goose poo.  Ironically, there's a dog park on the far side of the lake now.  He went up to the monument to the Statlers that was dedicated on the occasion of their 25th and last Happy Birthday USA, and then around to the duck pond where he was to meet up with his parents.

      Last night, Scott bought a t-shirt from the show, but he was disappointed to find out that all of the printing is on the back of the shirt.  It doesn't even have a small logo on the front.  Anyway, he wore it today, but after his walk in the warm weather this morning, it was pretty sweaty.  He returned to the hotel with his parents and freshened up, changed his clothes and hung the shirt on a hanger.

     While he was walking, Scott saw signs for a book sale in Gypsy Hill Park.  It was being run by the Friends of the Staunton Library.  He wanted to go back to see what was there.  His dad found a yearbook for the Virginia Cavaliers basketball team that won the national championship back in 2019, and it only cost 50 cents.  Scott found a complete first year of American Heritage magazine in one bound volume for a dollar.  He picked up a few other books too.

     When Scott was saying goodbye to Abby, he asked her what she wanted him to bring her back.  She said, "A squirrel in a hat."  That seemed oddly specific, but he said he would do his best.  He remembered that nearby Mary Baldwin University is known as the Fighting Squirrels, so he wanted to see if the bookstore there had any squirrels in hats.  Even though the campus is pretty close to the hotel, Dad tried to drive him over.  Eventually, we parked at the edge of the campus.  Scott said he would be right back, but didn't realize that he was going to have to go up sooooo many steps to the building where the campus store was at the top of a very big hill.  Let's face it.  Staunton is a hilly place.  Once he found the bookstore, there were several squirrels to choose from, but none with a hat.  He found one with a shirt that has the Mary Baldwin seal on it an got that one for Abby.  (Don't tell her.  It's a surprise!)

     After Mary Baldwin University, we went to Thornrose Cemetery to visit Harold's crypt.  Scott's parents had seen it before, but Scott had not.  Harold's side reads "Husband- Father- Grandfather- American- Cofounder of the Statler Brothers."  Brenda's reads "Wife- Mother- Grandmother- Homemaker- Inspiration."  Scott thought that last word was sweet.   Brenda passed away in 2024.  Don's and Debbie's gravestone for their future grave is nearby.  It might be a little creepy to see your own gravestone, but clearly Don wanted to write his very specific and meaningful epitaph- "I'll Go to My Grave Loving You."  That's cool.  And here's that very grave he's always sung about, so it's not a metaphor.

     It was getting close to lunch time, and Scott's mom wisely thought that they should get to Wright's Dairy Rite before noon if they wanted to beat the lunch rush.  We got there and sat in one of the booths that the Statlers had been photographed in, naturally.   We placed our order through the red phone at the booth, but had a little while to wait.  It was good we didn't get there much later because it was getting busy.

     After lunch, we drove by the Staunton Mall's former location.  Except for the Belk's department store, the rest of the mall has been reduced to a pile of rubble.   We went towards Waynesboro to look for Lew DeWitt's cenotaph.  Once, long ago, we had asked the secretary at the Statler's offices where Lew's grave was, but she said he was cremated and didn't have a grave.  While that is technically true, he did have a memorial marker and we have since learned that it is in the Augusta Memorial Park.  Scott's parents have visited here before but had not been successful in finding it.  Scott had done a bit of Googling this morning and had a hand-drawn map to help find its location.  Two funerals were happening at the time, so we had to make some detours and tried to not interrupt them.  We did find his cenotaph- a flat marker with his name and his wife's name on it.  Lew's side also had a picture of  small guitar on it.  Glenda was his first wife and the mother of his four children.  They got divorced and Lew was married twice more,  but it is Glenda's name on the marker here.  She passed away in 2024.  The marker was covered with grass and debris, so we worked to brush it off in order to get a picture.

     After that, our afternoon was less enjoyable.  We drove through Waynesboro, past  the high school where Scott did his student teaching and where there is an enormous amount of construction happening.  Dad wanted to go "up on the mountain" but only for a short time.  We weren't able to find out what a "short time" actually meant because there was an accident on the road that we would have had to follow up to the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Traffic had come to a complete standstill.    We turned around and tried to come up with other things to do, but Dad's hearing aid wasn't working and the GPS wasn't either.  We left Waynesboro altogether.  Scott was a little disappointed that we didn't get to the Applebee's in Waynesboro to see if, in fact, Lew's guitar was hanging on the wall there, but it will have to wait for a future trip.  It really was too early to go to dinner then, and too far to come back to later.  We eventually made our way to the Walmart in Staunton to get a few things and then went back to the hotel.

      Once we got to the hotel again, Scott said he was going to go to Hardee's to grab dinner, since he had to eat before the show and it was already after 4:00.  He didn't know what his mom and dad were going to do for dinner or what they were going to do while he  was at the show.  He thought that maybe they would do some shopping, but he had to wonder- Do the stores still stay open on Friday nights downtown?  Anyway, he ordered some chicken tenders at Hardee's, but so did another woman.  After a while, a manager came out and apologized and said that there were only enough chicken tenders for one of our orders.  Scott let her have them and he ordered a chicken sandwich instead.  Ah, Hardee's... some things haven't changed since we lived here.  Scott took his meal back to his room and was eating there when he learned that his parents would be coming to the show too.   They had called Shenanarts to see if any more cancellations had come in, and they had.  They were able to get two seats together in the back left.

      When it was time to go to the show, Scott put his mostly not smelly new shirt back on.  He later suggested to one of the girls working at the merch table that they needed to put something on the front.  She looked at one that they had hanging there and was genuinely surprised that there.  She said she would happily pass that on.  Scott's parents drove to the theater and parked so that they would have an easier time getting out than they did last night.  Scott walked there because it's not far away.  The three of us met up and got our tickets from "Will Call."  We then went out side to sit at some picnic tables that were there and enjoyed the breeze.  A big tour bus had pulled up, and a large group of church members arrived from Speedwell P.H. (Pentecostal Holiness) Church.  We know because most of them were wearing matching t-shirts and they posed for a big group picture near us while we were waiting to go in.    Speedwell is south of Wytheville, Virginia.  They took up quite a few rows in the center section.  The group members were quick to stand for ovations and sang loudly along with "How Great Thou Art" and "Amazing Grace" at the end of the show.  There were some people singing along with those songs last night, but this group was even more enthusiastic.

     Scott's seat was down in the very first row on the right, with only one person between him and the aisle on the right.  He was basically right in front of the stairs of the stage.   Scott said it was a little like sitting down the right field line because you had to sit for the whole game looking left, but he wasn't really complaining.  Because of where he was sitting, he found himself paying less attention to the screen hanging over head, and more attention to the choices that were made for pairing singers together and how much sense the combinations of quartets and harmonizers meant.  His Mom and Dad were three rows from the back on the left.  There were no Statler sightings this night, though. 

     In the Director's Note in the playbill, the writer and director wrote, "I've always thought of myself as a music lover.  As I've gotten older though, what I've learned is that I'm actually a song lover.  So when I decided to try to create a show that celebrates The Statler Brothers, it was apparent that it had to be about the songs!"  It reminded Scott of something that he has said onstage at some of the Rush the Growler performances- We love songs that tell good stories and stories that lead to good songs.  That is what this show was about and it did it beautifully.  The songs were well curated and Don's words were brightly polished pearls.

      There is one moment in the second act where the format is changed up a bit.  The female cast member listed in the program as "Woman 2") comes out into the audience to pick a volunteer to be her "date" in the song, "Let's Get Started If We're Gonna Break My Heart."  Last night's recruit was so good, we wondered if it had been prearranged.  His name was Jerry, but she called him "Jer-Bear."  When they went to sit down for ice cream at "Hamburger Dan's" he surprised her by pulling out her chair and holding it for her.  They started eating the fake ice cream, and when he pretended to wipe some from her chin, she laughed so hard she almost couldn't sing.  They danced in the instrumental part in he spun her around so much that she must have been dizzy.  Tonight, "Woman 2" went down the stairs right in front of Scott, and he was a little nervous that she might be picking him.  Instead, the person next to Scott jumped up and volunteered.  His name was John. We wondered if he might not have been a "special" person, but he clearly wasn't someone who was planted in the audience.  John may not have been as funny as Jer-Bear was, but he started singing along with the song, and although he wasn't micked up, he seemed to do a pretty good job of knowing the words and singing in key.  During the very last song, "Thank You World," Woman 2 acknowledged John's part in the show, and he surprised the cast by jumping back up on stage and singing along until the end.

      After the show, Scott took his time leaving the theater and got to compliment a few of the cast members.  He told the bass singer, "Man 3" played by George Coffey, that he enjoyed every minute of it and had been there for two shows.  He also waited to speak to Cori McDaniel, who played Woman 2, because she was one of the co-writers of the show.  He told her that it was perfectly executed and he couldn't think of anything to change.  He congratulated a few others as they passed, and all were gracious and friendly.   Scott then started to walk back to the hotel as planned, but a misty rain was falling again and his parents had been waiting in the car to drive him back.   All agreed that it was worth seeing again.

      P.S.- It's Wyatt's first birthday today, and we're looking forward to seeing him at his party on Sunday.