Publications by John L. Geddie

As it happens, the 5-year-old is my goddaughter and I had foolishly agreed to take a long car ride with her.

Children seem so much easier when you’re in the front seat and they are safely trapped in a car seat behind you, don’t they? Car seats still boggle my mind a bit. I know that they’re necessary for safety, but those of us of a certain age all remember all the fun we had just lounging around the back of a wood-paneled station wagon.

Those were big, roomy cars. Keep your SUVs, the old station wagons were big enough that you didn’t have to even see your traveling companions.

As expected, the recently re-elected Lt. Governor Bill Bolling is among the team.

However, McDonnell also tapped Loudoun’s own, Bill Mims for the transition team. Currently serving as Virginia Attorney General after McDonnell resigned to run for Governor, Mims is a familiar face in Loudoun County, having served as both delegate (1992-1998) and state senator (1998-2006). Mims resigned from the state senate to act as McDonnell’s Chief Deputy Attorney General.

To begin with, I was a little anxious about my purchase anyway. I’m not exactly “handy” around the house. I can do the basics, but only if I have very clear-cut instructions. In this way, I’m different from my father, who had a tendency to dive into a project before really sketching it out. Ask me about how he tried to cut the wires that makes the car beep when you don’t have your seatbelt on. When he was done, the car still beeped, and it didn’t have heat.  

Even so, I dreaded getting into the car to drive down—what I really wanted to do was sleep, read and perhaps watch TV if I became particularly adventuresome. It’s one of those trips that only your close friends can convince you to make through a combination of guilt and blackmail. While it’s important to have friends who know where the bodies are buried, but occasionally they’ll remind you of the plot number.

Now, there were some old-time moments, especially when hearing about how Julie’s daughter is in college and how Marco’s son has just joined the Air Force. How old does that make me? But for the most part, it really did make me feel young. It was just like high school, except that we are all a little nicer and a little smarter. A few of us are a little rounder, and somehow Doug and Chris are both taller.

 Most of you reading this were not born in Loudoun. The last 40 years have been a time of tremendous growth and change for the county. The old Loudoun was largely a farming community, but over time it has transitioned into a thriving suburban community with a growing business and commercial center all its own.