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Ethan Roques, almost 5, spends most of his time outside when he visits his great-grandmother, Betty Hilosky.
Bob Yarbrough likes to attach his sky chair to the rope swing and glide through the air near the Rappahannock River. |
By CATHY DYSON
Betty Hilosky's backyard is an outdoor version of "Cheers," mixed with elements of Davy Crockett and set against the natural beauty of the Rappahannock River.
It's a place where friends spend leisurely Sundays eating hunks of grilled meat, climbing on tree trunks and throwing axes at wooden targets.
But don't worry.
"We are a child-safe area," said Bob Yarbrough, the main host of the outdoor gatherings. "This is just a lovely place to be."
Yarbrough is Hilosky's son and a well-known Fredericksburg bartender.
His mother balked when he set up a campsite right outside the basement door. He assembled his cooking gear and stereo system, pieces of driftwood and homemade Adirondack chairs, then covered them all with a blue tarp.
"I kept thinking, 'How long is that going to last?'" she said. "Then I thought, 'Why not?' What does it hurt? It's not for everybody, but we sure get a tickle out of it."
She jokes that at least her home looks normal from the front.
Hilosky, 71, and her late husband, Charlie, bought the two-acre riverfront property 40 years ago for $5,600. They built a three-story house with a brick facade and white columns.
At that time, there were so many doctors in the neighborhood, people called it "Pill Hill."
Charlie Yarbrough was an engineer at Dahlgren, and his four children grew up swimming in the river and camping.
Neighborhood kids gathered for softball games, parades and the occasional fistfight, said Hilosky's daughter, Mary Beth Yarbrough.
Not much has changed, though Hilosky--known as "Nonny"--is quick to point out there's never any trouble.
On most holidays and many Sundays, there are so many children wandering around, "you can't count them," Hilosky said. "They're like fleas."
The boys typically are barefoot and shirtless. They beg adults to push them on a rope swing, which careens high into the branches. Or, the boys pretend the tree house is a pirate ship, and they must defend it with wooden swords.
The adults aren't quite as active. They talk and listen to music while they watch Bob Yarbrough scamper around.
He cooks slabs of beef, racks of ribs and pounds of "yard bird"--otherwise known as chicken--on a homemade grill he carved from a 275-gallon oil drum.
The meat goes straight from the fire to a counter, where it's every person for himself.
"That's the name of the game here," said Bob Yarbrough, encouraging guests to grab what they want. "We don't have doilies around here. Most times, we don't even have paper plates."
Those who've come to the regular gatherings for months or years say there's no better or less stressful place.
"Nobody judges you," said Tommy Gore of Colonial Beach. "You just come here and have fun."
His wife, Janis, loves the calm atmosphere, and the fact that children are always welcome--along with cousins, neighbors and anyone else who wants to come along.
That also appeals to Brian Haynes, a firearms instructor at the Rappahannock Regional Jail.
"You might not know everybody's first name or last name," Haynes said, "but you never meet a stranger here, and that's the point."
Cathy Dyson: 540/374-5425
Email: cdyson@freelancestar.com
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There are two massive tree trunks in Betty Hilosky's backyard, but they didn't come from her property. She had them trucked there. Last summer after a storm, she was sickened to see a giant tree cut down in a yard under the Falmouth Bridge. "That tree had to be centuries old," she said. " Who knows how many times George Washington passed by that very spot, how many Civil War soldiers rested beneath it?" One Sunday on her way home from church, she saw the tree being sawed apart and asked if the two big pieces could be taken to her home instead of the landfill. |
