Joe Kennedy

Joe Kennedy is routinely named the region's best writer by readers of The Roanoker magazine.

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Just in time for the family vacation season, a new book called "Weird Virginia" has turned up on my desk, and guess what -- we're in it.

We, as in the Roanoke Valley, plus a nearly overwhelming number of other places with strange creations, legends and phenomena.

Roanoke makes the cut for its mainstay attractions that are not so much weird as campy -- the Mill Mountain Star and Miniature Graceland -- plus an account of the so-called Woman in Black.

She was a ghostly figure who terrorized the city in March 1902. Her scariness stemmed, oddly, from her alleged habit of accompanying married men to their homes after dark, frightening the dickens out of them.

Burnt Chimney's Ass-Kicking Machine, the creation of Bob Boothe, gets a two-page spread with photographs.

The book also recounts the legend of Fotheringay, the antebellum plantation in Montgomery County, where Col. George Hancock purportedly was buried standing up or sitting in a chair, the better to oversee his slaves.

It describes the Gasser of Botetourt, someone, apparently a woman, who supposedly piped gas into homes, sickening residents both around here and in Mattoon, Ill.

Western Virginia celeb

Naturally, "Weird Virginia" includes Marc Cline, the "man responsible for at least three of the most unusual sites to be seen in Virginia."

The sites are Foamhenge, Escape from Dinosaur Kingdom and the Enchanted Castle, all in the area of Natural Bridge.

"Cline is the textbook definition of weird," the authors say, "with all of that word's intangibles, twists and nuances thrown in for good measure."

By this point you may be wondering why I'm writing about "Weird Virginia."

This, folks, is the family travel season. Surprise, surprise: Gas prices are high again.

In my role as guardian of all that is good and true in these parts, I will do anything I can to bring a little sunshine into the lives of families looking for nearby amusements. Plus, I dig these kinds of things, though their attraction has diminished somewhat for me, what with my children grown.

Humble origins

"Weird Virginia" is the work of three men, Jeff Bahr, Troy Taylor and Loren Coleman.

Its roots go back to Mark Sceurman and Mark Moran, two guys who used to put out a newsletter titled "Weird N.J.," a compilation of oddities in their home state.

The newsletter became a magazine, and in 2003 it became a book titled "Weird N.J.: Your Travel Guide to New Jersey's Local Legends and Best-Kept Secrets."

That led to a tidal wave of tales from people in other states. That led to another book titled "Weird U.S.," and that led to a project that would look at and publish strange stuff from every state.

The founders of the series hired the three guys who put together "Weird Virginia."

(And to think that the rest of us have to work for a living.)

Some of the entries may seem familiar. The giant steel pencil attached to the front wall of Wytheville Office Supply is depicted, as is the corrugated metal coffeepot on U.S. 60 between Lexington and Buena Vista in Rockbridge County.

Holy Land USA in Bedford County gets four pages of photos and text.

But the real winners to me are the folk-art geniuses from other areas. Walter Flax of Yorktown used scrap metal and wood to create his own navy fleet, with ships up to 25 feet long.

Flax died in 1982 and his collection moldered away, but one ship is displayed at the Smithsonian's American Art Museum.

He is but one of the unwitting artists who followed his private vision to produce a one-of-a-kind treasure.

That is the spirit that "Weird Virginia" evokes -- an era when TV didn't homogenize our culture, roads were two-lane and slow, cars had yet to become sealed concert halls, and produce stands and snake farms helped break the monotony of our summer car trips.