One of the town's biggest boys lay dead underneath one of the town's smallest cars. Initially, cops claimed that 19-year-old James Patrick Akins had been dragged from Greenwood to Charlottesville under a Triumph TR3.

The headlines in the Daily Progress that September described a world that was as distant as the moon to the boys who slept and woke on Dice Street. “France Prepares for War Threats,” one read; in Germany, Hitler joined “50,000 disciplined youths” at the annual Nuremberg Rally and watched as hundreds of artillery units and tanks streamed past the reviewing stand and the Hindenburg hovered overhead.

Her three-month-old infant Benjamin strapped to her chest, Crystal Icenhour moves from room to room in a cream-colored building on a side street of downtown Charlottesville. “And that,” she says pointing to several trays of plastic-filled bags near a laboratory, “is our product.”

Long before vineyards became agriculture du jour in Virginia, Mike Bowles planted grapevines in 1977,  and he claims he's Albemarle's first farm winery operator. Thirty years later, he wanted to be a pioneer again and hop on the craft-distillery trend to make the Italian spirit grappa from his chardonnay grape leftovers. Instead, he's earned a more dubious distinction as possibly the first person to get busted while applying for a federal distillery license. Under Virginia's Alcoholic Beverage Control regs, that could cost him his license to make wine at all.

While there might not be the scientific data to back up this claim, the fact of the matter is that the music scene in C'ville is like an ocean: high-energy, action-packed music moments come in waves. Charlottesville was once home to a dynamic scene of '70s ensembles; it later morphed into a sleepy little town where Dave Matthews found his calling; it went through fits and spurts of re-invention as industry moguls staked their claims on the area and ramped up the venue game; and today, the line-up for the fall season is jam-packed with must-see talent— both locally and nationally-renowned.

Back to school!

A collective sigh of relief can be heard across Charlottesville as parents pack lunchboxes and send their little and not-so-little ones back to school. From athletes to watch to a principal shake-up at CHS to a preschool program that's facing challenges, the Hook takes a look at what students, families and schools are up to this fall.

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

(Sorry, we were unable to retrive this cover story. But there is news from the issue below.)

Last fall, a seemingly outraged citizen walked into the Hook office portraying himself as the victim of an allegedly overzealous missing person investigation. The man talked of getting pushed out of his job and his home by dubious investigative methods that convinced even a judge he'd been unfairly tracked. Ten months after that interview, the disappearance of another young Central Virginia woman has renewed the specter of horror and brought fresh scrutiny to his claims.

The growl of my truck engine rose an octave as I shifted gears to climb a hill and then began making my way around a bend. The twisty road in the woods of Central Virginia was dappled with late-afternoon sunlight. My mind was on what I would make for dinner— I wondered whether I had any sour cream— until I came around the bend and saw an SUV stopped in the middle of the road. I slammed on my brakes and squealed to a stop.

On a crisp, bright day in March 2008, a suave-looking guy with long hair and a tailored light-grey suit (no tie) told us at a ground-breaking ceremony that a stylish, luxury "boutique" hotel, complete with a roof-top bar and stunning views of of the southeast mountains, would tower over Central Place on the Downtown Mall. What we got, of course, was an ugly tower of grey concrete rising out of the demolished shell of a bank building, an eyesore on our cityscape since 2009 that has the permanence of a metamorphic rock formation.

By Peter Galuszka. Their expressions say it all. Making their entrance at a recent midday celebration of Virginia wine at the Executive Mansion, Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, appear as dark as a glass of burgundy.

By Carolyn O'Neal. My cousins are beautiful. Dark eyes, shiny black hair, and cheeks as full as the sunset. When I look at their photographs, I pretend I’m looking in a mirror. I pretend I have a face that people want to see and a body that will fit into white dresses with pink ribbons and matching shoes. I run my fingers across the images of my beautiful cousins and I don’t feel like I’m living at the bottom of a well where every sound echoes off barren walls, cuts my skin, and hurts my ears. 

“Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.”—Franklin D. Roosevelt