5 Gems of Radford

The speaker discusses the "jewels" of Radford, Virginia, starting with the New River, which is known for its fishing and recreational activities. The speaker also mentions improvements made to boat ramps and access points along the river. The second jewel mentioned is Radford City Parks, specifically Riverview Park and Bissett Park, which offer amenities such as football fields and access to the river. The speaker highlights the recent improvements made to Riverview Park, including the addition of lights and a scoreboard. As I went down in the river to pray, Studying about that good old way, And who shall bear the starry crown, Good Lord, show me the way. Oh sister, let's go down, Let's go down, come on down. Oh sister, let's go down, Down in the river to pray. That's Alison Krauss' Down to the River to Pray. We're going to talk about our own river today, just a little bit. You want to hear how? Well, come on. Let's get in the ring. I'm your host, Keith Marshall, and let's go one more round. Everything we have to fear is fear itself. Tear down this wall. We will make America great again. If I say something that you don't want to listen to, don't listen. One more round. One more round. Hey, welcome to One More Round Podcast. I'm your host, as always, Keith Marshall. Today we're going to be doing something a little bit different. We're going to move away from the politics. I know it's been a pretty tough month to be a Radford City politician, probably, with some of the revelations that we've had and some of the things that's come out. But here in the last week or so, I've been kind of thinking about some really cool things about Radford. Even though we're in the midst of this financial debacle, and even though we're trying to recover from some malfeasance that's went on down at City Hall, there are still a lot of great things about Radford City. And I've picked out five things. I'm calling it the jewels of Radford. Jewels signify something very special, something that we really appreciate, that we hold in high regard. That's the kind of five that I was looking for for this podcast. Now, I want to tell you, as I move into this, much of my podcast can be kind of political. We all know that. Kind of opinionated. And though these are my opinions about some special places in Radford, there's nothing political about any of these spots or things that I'm going to point out here today. No people, no places are in any way involved in my podcast, or I'm not doing this to make someone happy or not happy. I'm just picking out some special things about Radford City that I wanted to mention. And this is not an all-encompassing list. I'm picking five. These five just come straight to the top of my mind, and I don't necessarily have them in a particular order. And I will say that there's a lot of other locations that you probably can think of, and I hope that it prompts you to think of those. I'd like to hear from you some of the places that are not on my list, or some of the things about Radford that are not on my list. And I would like to mention them. I won't mention your name, of course, but I'd like to mention some of the things that I've missed, because I undoubtedly will miss a few places. So as I go through this list, try to think of what you agree with, what you disagree with, maybe some that I have missed, maybe some that I've left out. I left off for a reason, because they're not on my list. They may be on yours, though. But anyway, I don't want to delay much further. I want to go ahead and get started with this. And we're going to start with number one. Now, again, these are the jewels of Radford, the very special things, entities, places, whatever it is that I find in the top five of Radford when I think about it, just that come to my heart, that are important to me. And I'm going to list the first one that comes to my mind, again, not necessarily in order, but one of the first ones that comes to my mind is the New River. I need a drumroll, don't I? The New River. The New River. The New River runs along the Radford southwestern, western, and northern edge. I don't know if many people know this, but it's listed as the number two, I personally think it's close to number one, but it's listed as the number two best smallmouth fisheries in the state of Virginia. And that's listed by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. It's listed as an excellent place to musky fish and to smallmouth fish, just two really cool bodies of water. And I don't know about those of you that grew up in Radford like I did, I spent a lot of time down on the river as a boy. We fished a lot up and down the river. I'm sure times are different, but it wasn't unusual. I didn't live really close enough to the river. I grew up in Forest Park. But I didn't really live close enough to the river where I'd want to grab my fishing pole and ride down there on my bike. It wasn't unusual for one of our parents that would stop by on their lunch break or sometime real quick to pick us up and drop us off down at the river in the morning and come back late in the afternoon and pick us up. And we would spend the whole day down there fishing and running around down there at the river. So it still is, it was and it still is a great, great jewel here in the city of Radford. Now one of the things that we improved while I was on council, and that is some of our areas that we used to put in boats. In particular, we improved Riverview. It used to be when you backed your boat into the Riverview, I don't know, into the Riverview ramp there down at Riverview Park, your boat would kind of drop off. It kind of would go a little bit on the concrete and it would drop off and it was really hard on your axle, hard on your trailer. But that was something that we repaired. We got a grant from the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, I believe it was, and we were able to match that grant. We were able to extend that concrete out a little further into the river and make a really good launching point. And there at Riverview Park we also improved the parking, so there's plenty of room there for anyone who wants to access the river there by using their boat, their canoe, or maybe just floating. And it provides a pretty neat on and access in and out point right there at the park. And also down at Bissett Park we have another one, I believe we call it Dudley's Landing, and it has excellent facilities there to back your boat in, put your John boat or your canoe or whatever it is in the water, but also, again, to use as a place for floats. They do have a paid float deal they got down there at the river. I've never messed with that. Me, I'm kind of tight. I'm going to buy my own float at Walmart and I'm going to use that. But it is really a cool thing to access in the river. And it's just, you know, it's synonymous with Radford City, the New River. It covers so much of our boundary as it runs down. I think Radford's like 10-point-some miles long, and .3 of our territory is water. Now I did, in my research, learn an interesting fact about the New River, and I said I wasn't going to be political, but this does take a little shot at the global warming crowd that believes everything bad that's happened has happened in the last 10 years with cars and automobiles and climate change and all that garbage that I personally just you're not convincing me on. But anyway, I wanted to tell you just one little small detail, because I thought it was cool. I think maybe you would think it was cool, too. But, you know, we've had some flooding down at the parks in different areas from time to time when we have a, you know, prolonged amount of rain and the run down the river. It eventually just rises higher and higher, and sometimes it floods down into the park and down into the Deadman Center and some other areas. But did you know, I have learned this, and I'll tell you, that the worst flooding in Radford happened not recently. It actually happened on August the 14th, 1940. That's a long time ago, what, 84 years ago. August the 14th, 1940. It was hurricane season, and that particular hurricane season produced eight big storms. Eight big storms. You know, if we have two or three now, it's the end of the world global warm. Anyway, let me just get off of that. But the U.S. Geological Survey stream gauge, which was located at the time, from what I read, across from where Bissett Park is now. Bissett Park didn't exist then in 1940. But it was across the river from that. It had a storm gauge, and they measured it at 35 feet, 11 1⁄2 inches. So basically 36 feet high. And it was nearly 22 feet above the floodplain. And the flood was so bad that it shut down the Lynchburg Foundry and Burlington Mills, which, you know, it shut down the foundry when it was in its heyday. That's a pretty big deal. But that's just a little piece of history that I learned about the New River and its conjunction with Radford City. So just a cool little point I thought you would enjoy. Now, let's go on to number two. Number two I have listed as Radford City Parks. I think Radford City has a couple of gems in our parks in the city. Especially one, but I really enjoy both of them. And I've mentioned them both talking about the boat ramps because they both have access points for the river, boat ramps. They both have, both parks, are along our riverbanks. And that is Riverview Park, which is located west in Radford, and Bissett Park, which is more central, heading towards east in Radford. Now, Riverview Park is much smaller, but there we have traditionally, when I was a kid, that's where we played football. That was where we went down to Riverview Park, and down there on the river on those cool evenings, we would play football there. And they moved away from that for a while, but I was happy, when I was back on council, we were able to do some restructuring about where our ball fields was, and football come back to Riverview. We actually lengthened the football field and expanded it a little bit. It was led by some really hardworking people there at the rec department, and the city funded that. And we were able to bring football back down there to Riverview Park. In addition, one of our local businessmen donated the lights that would be a lit field from now on. It wasn't lit ever before. He donated that, and I believe a scoreboard as well. And through his philanthropy and through his kindness, we were able to put lights down there. So it's a great little ball field, but it's also great little fishing down through there too, and it has a phenomenal playground for kids. If you're looking for a place that's really nice to run one evening, to go down there, you're able to rent the shelter, by the way, but you also, you know, any Radford resident could go down there and use the playground down there at Riverview Park. It's really a cool and a nice playground and just a beautiful setting and a safe place for you to watch your kids while they play, and that's Riverview Park. Now the other one's a little more popular and a little more known, and that is Bissett Park. Now Bissett Park is 57 acres. I don't know if you remember this. I remember as a kid when they were building the park, so I'm guessing that it was in the 70s, mid-late 70s, maybe early 80s, when they were digging out the park. And that dirt that they dug out as they were doing that, a lot of people were able to take that dirt home and put it on their yards and on their gardens. They had a place you could pick it up. But they found a lot of artifacts, actually Indian artifacts, in that dirt, arrowheads and some other things, and I'm sure that threw them for a loop when they were trying to get that done. Maybe I should ask Mayor Starnes about that in his interview a little more. We talked about that. I believe they called it Dunkard's Bottom. Was that the right name? I can't remember. But he talked about how that was a vision of one of the councilmen there who was kind of made fun of, but it has turned out to be just one of the absolute jewels of the city, definitely a gem of the city, as I've said, in that park. Now not only is there just a beautiful riverfront, we have walking trails that run along the river for recreation. There's soccer fields, there's baseball fields, softball fields, all in the same connected complex down there at Bissett Park. In addition, there's three shelters along with bathroom facilities as well on site, and it hosts our Fourth of July celebration and car shows and many other things throughout the year. Truthfully, though, it is seriously underutilized. We talk a lot about having an amphitheater in the city, and if I could put my two cents in, I believe that's the area that it belongs in, not down on Rafferty University's campus where it's pretty much going to be used by them, and we won't feel near as welcome as we will in our own beautiful Bissett Park, an absolute, like I said, an absolute jewel of the city, one of those special places that we've had so many picnics, so many family events, so many work events, just, you know, there's all kinds of different opportunities and things to do at Bissett Park, a real jewel and a real gem in Radford City. Now I want to talk about number three. Normally I think it would be odd to, and it's a ball field, it's a particular ball field, and I have a couple on this list because I believe the two on this list are synonymous with Radford City, and there's no more special ball field or no more special gem in the city of Radford than it's Hodgefield. Hodgefield is located on the edge of Forest Park. I grew up just over the hill, just through the field and past a couple houses from Hodgefield, played ball there as a kid, and it is truly a special place. It's Radford City's own little field of dreams. Now they had a rededication back at Hodgefield. Here, I believe it was in April of this year, they did some upgrades to the dugouts, to the bleachers, and some other things in the field, much needed, had been needed for a while, but they really fixed it up nice, they did some painting, and it looks awesome. Thanks to the recreational staff and some of the members on council that pushed that along, that had some really good ideas about how to do that frugally and smartly, and it's just a special field. You know, it's named after Joe Hodge, it's namesake. Joe Hodge was a very special man who was directly involved in all youth-type athletics within the city of Radford, and he actually helped, along with others, with the construction of that field, and it has literally stood the test of time. One of the things I always remember about Hodgefield, living in Forest Park, and I think those that live there now or are close by will attest to that, and that is the unique sound of a baseball hitting an aluminum bat, and hearing parents and kids cheer. It's really a, it's just a special thing, and it's a special place, and I think that everybody, all the kids in Radford, look forward to the opportunity to get to play on the field, and it used to be just used for Radford City kids, as we played our league ball there, but I think it's being utilized some now for tournaments, for girls' softball, and maybe little league baseball, some other things, and I'm really happy about that because it's a very special place that we need to keep up, we need to keep modern, and we need to keep nice, because it's a special, just special gym and a special place for people to go and spend some of their youth. The memories made there are ones that you'll carry for a lifetime, and there's no greater place to make a memory than at Hodge Field in Radford City. Now, let's get on to number four. Now, number four, I debated whether or not I wanted to put this on my list, because I wasn't sure if this was the kind of thing or the kind of place that you would put on a list of, you know, gems of the city or jewels of the city. I can't decide if I want to use the word gems or jewels, but officially this is called the gems of Radford City, so I'll try to stick to that. But I couldn't decide if I wanted to put this place on there. It was actually at the top of my list as soon as I thought of the number, the top five gems of Radford City. It was right there at the top. But I wasn't sure if this was the kind of thing that I should mention, but I changed my mind. I definitely believe it is. And that is Sal's Italian Pizzeria in Radford City, located on West Main Street, down in the Central Square Shopping Center in Radford. It has been there literally all of my life. It was opened in the 70s, and the Pugliese family has owned and operated that since almost the very beginning. I think I heard the other day, something I'd never heard before, that someone else actually opened that restaurant for a very short time before the Puglieses bought that and made it their own. And I have to say that there is not a better place in this world, and I mean that with all my heart, there is not a better place in this world that Keith Marshall has eaten than Sal's Pizza in Radford City. And I always just call it Sal's Pizza, I know that's not the full name, but that's kind of what I grew up saying. You know, whether it's the service, or the food obviously, or the authenticity of the Italian restaurant that's there, I can't put my finger on one thing that makes it special and deserving of that list. I can mention a lot of things, but one of the things that's most special to me, you remember the song, You Want to Go Somewhere Where Everybody Knows Your Name? That's the way I feel Sal's is like. It feels like family when I go into Sal's, and not because I know everybody. You don't necessarily have to know the people that work there, or the staff, although I do. But I think they make you feel like you're welcome there. They make you feel like, hey, we're glad to have you, we want you to enjoy not only the food, we want you to enjoy every minute of your time here in our restaurant. The fact that the food is exemplary is just an unbelievable bonus to the overall atmosphere and just the hospitality that is that restaurant. You know, sometimes, because I'm a hometown boy, it's easy to look at your hometown places and love them the most, and have no context about other places and other towns and cities. And I probably don't have a lot of context. I'm not the world traveler that's eaten all over the country or all over the world or anything. But I'm pretty happy with my little Italian restaurant in the city. But one of the things I've noticed, and I've really picked up on this as of late, you know, often at church, we will have visiting guests, might be visiting missionaries or visiting speakers, pastors, whatever they are. But they will come to Radford to speak, and they'll stay here in town. And they will, it's funny, the ones that have been here before, they will make a point, oftentimes in their sermon or while they're, you know, thanking everybody for their hospitality, they will mention the fact that they always look forward to coming to speak at our church because they love going to Sal's in Radford. And I think that's, that is so awesome when I hear that. And I just think Radford and Sal's are synonymous together. I really do. And, you know, matter of fact, Sal's is one of those restaurants that I put on that final meals list. You know what I mean? Where if you ever found yourself on death row or whatever it was, you know, and you could have one more meal, just one more meal, you know, I'm going to get to Sal's. And it's going to be a hard decision about what plate or what food I'm going to get because I have several favorites when I go there. So I don't want to put it on too thick. I'm just being honest about it. Sal's Pizza is one of Radford's most special, most special culinary gems. That was number four. All right. I'm moving on to number five. Now number five contains many special memories for me, for me personally. Now I know that this is my top five list. Like I said, I'd like to hear your top five list. This is my top five gems of the city of Radford. And obviously I'm going to gravitate towards things that I have loved and enjoyed the most. And there's no place in the city of Radford that I have more fond memories than at Norman G. Linenberg Field in Radford, Virginia. The field later named for legendary coach Norman G. Linenberg, who I played for, the field was constructed in 1967. It now has seen three, was two, now three Radford football state championships, or winners play on the field. It also has seen several, several state championships in soccer for teams that played on the field as well. But that field, that particular field holds some very special memories for me. There's a lot of sweat, blood, and tears left on that field. And I think many of you that are listening can remember some of the greatest nights of your life and maybe even some of the saddest nights of your life. I can remember a few sad days there where we lost some very important ballgames that I didn't walk over there, walk out of there very happy. But I can also remember some joyous times there. I can remember the faces and the friendships that were forged there with guys that I played with. But it's an extra special place on Friday night during football season. And it's not only, although, hey, I'm a football guy, so I'm not going to make any apologies about that. But it's not only just a great place for football players and their parents to go to. There's a lot going on at that field that night. There's also a lot of great musicians showing up there on a Friday night. And that's the best band in the land that shows up, the Rappert High School Marching Band, there every Friday night for the home football games. We get to enjoy the work and the preparation that they put into the performance they're going to give at halftime. And I think there's also competitions on the field that the band does, and they're an award-winning band as well. So Norman G. Lindenburg Field is quite a hopping place on Friday nights for home football games. Now, the field has had some upgrades over the years, as is always necessary. We've seen new goalposts, which, by the way, I don't like the new goalposts. I like the old goalposts, but that's me. I'm old school. I just, I like the tradition. I really do. But it does look nice. They do look nice. We've also had some new lighting added in the last few years, and they've worked on it and tweaked it a little bit. It's just the field is always well kept. There's always some dedicated guys that go out there and line the football field and take care of it and keep it really nice. And here in recent years, with the deterioration of the concrete in the football stands, they took on a huge project. Now, I know a lot of us were a little irritated during the football season last year. We were kind of mad that we had all the visitors and home people all on one side as they were, you know, kind of having to cordon off the visitor side as they were beginning to work to do some repairs. And, you know, like I said, it irritated us. But, hey, they made some extra efforts. The city council, excuse me, the school board that's sitting now made some extra efforts and did some extra things to make sure that that field was open for our football team. Think about how tragic it would have been. Matter of fact, I don't believe we would be saying Rafford Bobcats state champions from 2023 had we not been able to play on our field this past year. Those were some really tight games. And I do believe that had we had to play somewhere else, that home field advantage would have really hurt us. Not having it would have hurt us. But we had it, and I'm thankful to those in the school district and in the school board that made sure we could play at home, that did the necessary things to get the field open so we could play. There was a lot of legal issues and a lot of things about liability and deterioration of the facility as far as the bleachers and other things that they were worried about and being informed about, things that we don't have to worry about. But they got it open. That's the point. They got it open. And in the offseason, they have done a lot of work redoing the stadium. And I'm telling you, it is banging. It looks good. And I cannot wait for August 10th. I always remember that was pretty close to the date when the two-a-days started and football season would get underway. I actually dreaded that part because I didn't like the two-a-days, but we did them anyway. I don't know if they still do two-a-days or not, but we did them. But that's when football season really starts to kick in. By the time you hit September, they're starting to play some ballgames, and I cannot wait. I love to go to Raverton High School football games, and I love every second that I get to spend in Norman G. Linenberg Field. You'll find me standing up next to the fence. That's where I like to stand. I learned to stand there when one of my boys played quarterback, and it was hard to sit in the crowd when people were talking bad about him. So I started standing up on the fence, and I've kind of found me a spot there that I really love to stand. But I especially love to stand on that fence on a Friday night at Norman G. Linenberg Field. And it's extra special because of who it's named after. Coach Linenberg, a longtime icon in high school football sports and just someone who blessed Rafford City, and is still blessing Rafford City, by being just a special member of our community and just an excellent role model and a special coach for all of us that played for him. I'm so thankful that I had the opportunity to play for Coach Linenberg and to play on that iconic field. It's certainly a very special place. Now I know that I called this the Five Gems of Rafford, but I'm going to throw in a bonus, number six, and I'm thinking about, if this really goes good, I may throw in a bonus, number seven. But we'll call these maybe, I don't want to call them honorable mentions, I believe they should be called gems as well. We'll keep them right up on the list. But number six, I'm going to take you a little deeper in this. Number six, gems of Rafford, I believe, are its citizens. Now I know that's cliche. I know that's easy to say. But one thing that I have found in Rafford City, we don't do everything right. We don't. Sometimes we get mad over small things and go after people in a harsh way. That's not a good thing. We need to correct that. But I've also found that when someone is in need in our community, we step up. Rafford has in the past been very much a hardworking, blue-collar community that cares about friends and they care about families. And I think that's an extra special part of Rafford City, whether our politics align all the time or whether we get along in every single aspect of a city life, I do believe that Rafford is full of special people, special people that can sometimes do better, including myself, that can get more involved in politics and figuring out what's going on in our city, that can love a little more and hate a little less. We can all do a little better at that. But we have good people in this city. We have good people that want good things for their neighbors around them, for their families around them, and especially for their children. And it's my goal, as I know it is your goal, to make sure Rafford keeps and nourishes these gems and these special things, along with keeping good people living in our community. We want a good, solid, safe community. And for the vast majority of people in this city, they are special people and certainly gems in the city. But I wanted to mention one more bonus. This will be number seven. I've really blown the five. Why did I even call it five gems of Rafford? I don't know. But these just kind of come to me as I was talking, and I didn't want to leave them out. But Rafford has a very special Christian heritage. We have churches in our community, in our city, some that are over 150 years old, quite a few that are over 75 years old, over 100 years old. I think Rafford has a strong Christian base in our community. They really do. Now, I told you in another episode, some of that's changing. Some of the churches that were founded on biblical principles have moved away from that. And that's a shame. That's not right. And I told you that if you go to a church where anything goes, well, you need to go. You need to be the first one that goes. But there's a lot of other good churches that are Bible-based, that are preaching the principles of God's word to our children and to ourselves, to our families. And that's important. It's important to have a healthy community, and one of the number one things to have a healthy and a thriving and a growing and a strong community is where we put our faith in first. And I've talked about that a lot. I've mentioned that in my podcast. Now, I hate to preach to you, but just give me a minute, and I'm going to do it just a little bit. Where we put our priorities as a community will often determine the direction that we go in. If we put our priorities towards money, if we put our priorities towards athletics, if we put our priorities towards you name it, you fill in the blank. If you put it anywhere else first, as a city or in your personal life, if you honor things greater in this world than God, I don't believe you're getting off on the right foot to begin with. And I believe Radford has been on the right foot for some time, and I think that's evident by just the sheer number of churches within our city. You know, they don't build churches if they don't believe people are going to come to them. And I believe they were built in this city, and they've been here for so long because of how important God and worshiping of God was to the founders of this city. Going back, like I said, 150, 175 years, extremely important to the citizens of Radford has been the worship of God. Extremely important. And that's something that I hope never changes. And I hope our churches don't turn into just soup kitchens in places for political discernment where we just talk about the different, we confuse the different politics and religions of the day and we just use it as a place to read a few poems and feed a few bowls of soup. We need to be using those places as places to worship God. The gospel needs to be going out from the churches of Radford, and we need to be there to hear it. We need to be there with our friends and our families to worship God as he created us to do. Then as we do that, as we worship and we serve, it will become pretty natural to help others in our community to feed and clothe and to lift up those around us that need to hear the gospel as well, because that's the most important thing. Very special part of our city. Gems and jewels of the city of Radford are her churches, and I just pray that they always stand, and they always stand on the principles of God's word. Now, I hope you like these. I'm sorry I called it five and we wound up with seven, but hey, you got more than you paid for, which was nothing. You got this free anyway. But I hope you enjoyed it. Now, please think about where your jewels are, where your gems of Radford are. What do you think is special about the city of Radford? I'd love to hear from you. Send me a private message. Send me an email. Most of you know the email for the podcast by now, but send that to me. I'd love to hear what you think, and maybe I'll share a few of the ones in my next episode. I'll slip it in there about kind of some of the special places that you consider special in Radford, because I certainly only hit the tip of the iceberg. You know, I probably have been given the reputation, and maybe fairly, for saying a lot of negative things about what's going on in the city, and I don't want to talk about just those things. But it seems like the positive things get a lot of play. I mean, they're just spoken of just ad hominem, just over and over and over. It's not stopped because everybody wants to toot their own horn about what they're involved in, and sometimes that's good, and sometimes it's not good. Sometimes it's just prideful. But there is nobody covering some of the things, or there are nobody covering some of the things that are negative, some of the things we need to know about. So I feel an obligation to put those out, but I want to work. I want to improve myself, so I have an equal obligation to talk about some of the really good things that's happening in Radford City, and there are some real gems in the city of Radford. Now, one other special gem in my life is the Word of God, and I want to finish with our theme verse. I always do that, and today is no exception. And that's found in Ecclesiastes chapter 12, verses 13 and 14. And God's Word says this, Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God, and keep His commandments. For this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. Hey, I want to thank you again for joining me here in the ring today. And until I talk to you again, I hope that God gives you an extra special weekend and blesses you and your family greatly. Thank you again for joining me. We'll talk to you soon.