NORTH GARDEN—There’s a lot of good memories out here on the Albemarle County Fairgrounds.

There’s the time we brought two little Redlings to the fair and walked them around all exhausting day in the heat, bribing them with ice cream and drinks and hot dogs they partly ate, desperately distracting them from their heated misery and the assaulting grasshoppers with pigs to pet and cows to look at. They rode a few kiddie-style rides and we went home. Later that week the adults came back, rode some rides, took our time and lost the car in the parking lot in the dark.

There’s the time Red and I combined our expertise to create the perfect blue ribbon-winning pecan pie. It’s an old family recipe we made up then and there that included my filling featuring brown sugar, real maple syrup (not no freakin’ corn) and a bit of Jack Daniels (OK, so it ain’t bourbon. Sue me.). The ribbon hung in our kitchen for years and is still floating about in a basement box of memories.

There were the rides, riding with the little ones as they got not quite so little and branched out into bigger adventures. The Himalaya, The Gutwrencher, The Tilt-O-Spew. There were the Carnies who set up and tore down, elected officials flesh-pressing and vote-trolling, the Living Stones Christian Motorcycle Club with their bikes parked and the hands out in a welcome shake.

There were the years when downgraded hurricanes beat the fairgrounds into muddy submission and the time high winds made a tent collapse on the fairgoers beneath it.

There was the school bus mock up with the horrific and terrifying movie about a little girl who slips beneath the wheels. “She was just waving to her friends and then her life was gone...” The kids didn’t want to get anywhere near a bus for weeks.

Neither did I.

Good times all, but Time ain’t got no heart. We’re older now, all of us. The Redlings are adults with adult interests and that nickname no longer fits them anymore than the jeans I wore in high school fit me. We’ve all got so many things going that doing something we’ve done over and over again is a hard thing to make time for.

Still there’s a call there, an urge to check out the grounds, gawk at the exhibits and maybe even pet a pig.

The fair’s just beginning. Who knows what the rest of the week will bring? 

By Laura E. Bland
Online editor

It’s a rite of summer. Every year, I watch “Jaws.” Sometimes, I watch “Jaws” over and over again, as I did earlier this summer when Bravo showed the iconic don’t-go-in-the-water film (and its less entertaining sequels) for what seemed like three days. I remember standing in a line wrapped around the Westhampton Theater in Richmond when the movie came out--and feeling slightly nauseous. I’d heard rumors. I had read Peter Benchley’s book. I loved swimming in the ocean. Somehow, life was about to get much scarier.

Now, thanks to the Discovery Channel, I’ll be able to immerse myself (pun intended) in all things shark-related. Again. On Sunday, the channel kicks off its 20th year of Shark Week with 130 hours of programming devoted to scary fish and the people who study them, hunt them, were bitten by them.

Eight programs premiering this year, according to AP television writer Frazier Moore, include:

“Ocean of Fear: The Worst Shark Attack Ever” (Sunday, 9 p.m.). Narrated by Richard Dreyfuss, it recalls the worst shark attack on record—after the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in July 1945. All “Jaws” lovers will enjoy this, since Dreyfuss’s shark researcher in the film listened in horror—as we all did—as the steely eyed Quint (the late Robert Shaw) recalled his experience on the Indianapolis.

“Top 5 Eaten Alive” (Monday, 10 p.m.). Five tales of shark attack survival, as told by the victims.

“Shark Feeding Frenzy” (Tuesday, 9 p.m.). Examining the diets of the species, including great white, mako and hammerhead sharks.

“Sharkman” (Saturday, 9 p.m.). Self-titled Sharkman Michael Rutzen conducts an open water hypnotism of great white sharks. Can sharks be hypnotized? Can people?

There are plenty of other programs to satisfy those with that peculiar fascination with sharks. Discovery’s shark week programming stays on from 9 a.m. until 2 a.m. every day.

Can anyone explain our cultural fascination with sharks? Maybe it’s that love-hate relationship we all have with danger. You look out over the ocean and it is deceptively calming. Beneath the surface, there are things that can harm or kill us. Sharks. Rip tides. Medical waste. Swim out and make it back in one piece and you feel exhilirated. Yes--the bungee cord didn’t snap, the parachute opened right, the cop didn’t pull me over even though I was going really fast!

They want to put cameras up at bad and busy intersections to catch us running red lights and mail to us our repentence in the form of a fine as a way to keep us from slamming into someone and killing them or ourselves..

They want to put cameras up on buildings on the Downtown Mall to watch over us and catch us when we walk up and chicken-hit each other with sucker punches and think we’re bad gangsters ‘cause we got one over on some unsuspecting dutz.

They want to watch us and monitor us because we cannot watch and monitor ourselves.

What have we done to ourselves? YouTube videos purportedly to be made in Charlottesville either this spring or last fall show youth in what appears to be a public housing parking lot smacking the snot out of each other. We care so little about each other that we will do what we can to inflict pain or steal rights of way. We tug and fight at work to make ourselves look better and get one up on the other guy, even if it’s just in grins, giggles, snickers and laughs.

I’m just as guilty as the next. I run the light, I dream of slapping some people to the end of the week and back. I cause pain in what I say and what I don’t say and I’m tired of it. I don’t want to do it anymore. It gets me nowhere, it gets us nowhere but a Big Brother society of watches and watched.

But how do I stop? How do you stop? How do we stop?

So you run around with somebody for a couple of years and figure you know them pretty well.

Not so.

My running cult, I mean, running group has been lacing up shoes, donning pink shirts and hitting the streets of Charlottesville for about three years now.

But I just found out something about one of our members that I didn’t know.

Amber is … a doctor.

She is so modest.

That’s the beauty about running. It doesn’t matter what you do for a living. Your political beliefs are of no concern. What mat-ters is making it up that next hill, and the one after that, and the one after that. Your friends are by your side, struggling and/or encouraging you along the way.

Anyway, Amber is one of those friends.

We call her a Baby Pink, because she is — or was — the youngest member of the group. (We have all the decades covered from the 20s to 60s.)

We also called Amber “Devil Woman,” with great affection, of course. You see, at the Charlottesville Ten Miler, Amber’s number was, I am not making this up, 666.

As the runners made their way over the hills of Charlottesville, people would come out and cheer on the athletes.

“Way to go 131!”

“Keep going 521!”

“Go this way 213!”

Nobody, but nobody cheered for sweet Amber.

Anyhow, on Monday night, Amber offered all of the ladies at the Four Miler Training Program a bit of wise advise. We try to do that once a week, but Amber had everyone’s attention. (Nothing like my, “A hat keeps the sun out of your eyes.” )

I’ll share her tip with you.

If you run with an iPod (which you shouldn’t do, but if you do) only wear one earpiece and keep the volume turned down low enough so that you can hear what is going on around you … your buddies talking, a stalker stalking, a dog yapping or a fan yelling “Go 666!”

Here’s the interesting part. She said that people should not turn the volume on MP3 players up past 60 percent. She said her office has seen young patients – 12-, 13-year-old — who have permanent hearing loss. 

These are kids with the hearing equivalent of old men who spent their lives working in a steel mill.

You can set your iPods so they won’t go any louder than 60 percent. Parents also can do the same for their young ones and lock it with pass code.

So, listen to the audio doc. And give her a yell next time she speeds by.

Football season is just around the corner. 

By Jay Jenkins

Blame it on the college football video game. After getting my hands on the Virginia recruiting guide, a book known better as the Virginia football media guide, the requests crammed into my inbox. What jersey number will J’Courtney Williams wear? Is Kris Burd No. 18? Is that massive blob on the screen Nick Jenkins?

Keep in mind, however, that the numbers assigned to the incoming players by the EA Sports gurus are typically passed out long before Al Groh signs off on requests.

Since I have not seen the latest model of the video game that cripples college graduation rates, I can’t answer all the questions correctly, but here are the jersey numbers and positions for the incoming players (as listed in the media guide): QB Peter Lalich (7), PK Chris Hinkebein (11), WR Kris Burd (18), WR/DB Ras-I Dowling Dowling (19), WR/DB Dom Joseph (23), DB Chase Minnifield (31), RB Max Milien (36), RB/DB Corey Mosley (40), LB J’Courtney Williams (46), LB Terrence Fells-Danzer (50), LB Aaron Taliaferro (52), LB Jared Detrick (55), OL Billy Cuffee (62), LS Danny Aiken (66), OL Landon Bradley (67), OL Anthony Mihota (68), OL Lamar Milstead (69), DL Matt Conrath (70), WR Dontrelle Inman (81), TE Mark Ambrose (82), WR Jared Green (84), TE Andrew Devlin (87), DL Zane Parr (92) and DL Nick Jenkins (96).

Scribble these jersey numbers down in pencil - as players land in new positions they often switch numbers.