I had a bunch of over sized, extra postage required halloween cards to mail out today so, it being a beautiful fall day I thought I'd drive 20 miles to Smithfield to mail them in the Post Office there. Now there is a Post Office half a mile from my house but it's manned by the rudest surliest bunch of jobsworths it has ever been my misfortune to meet. For the last 3 years I've mailed Xmas packages there and paid through the nose for the pleasure of being insulted by an entire team of unmitigated assholes. So, rant over, it seemed worth a shot to combine a little trip out with my mail run.
Now when I got there they were closed for lunch but what the heck I went 4 doors down and got lunch myself. A crab cake BLT (hold the T) with home made potato chips. And when the Post Office and I had both eaten I went to mail my cards. The lady was as nice as pie and I wasn't given the third degree by some ex military asshole who is suspicious as to why anyone might want to mail something outside the USA which isn't a military base and/or currently under US occupation. In and out in 2 minutes if I hadn't paused to admire their mural.
Captain John Smith Trading With the Indians was painted by one William Abbott Cheever in 1941 as part of Roosevelt's New Deal cultural improvent scheme, the Public Works of Art Project. The PWAP ran from 1934 to 1943 and produced thousands of public artworks across America. Post Offices in particular were singled out as the most commonly visited of public buildings. Interestingly to me the scene looked to be set on the shore of the James river below the site of Fort Boykin just outside of Smithfield a spot where Jr. and I photographed Tiger Beetles back in the spring.
A better image of the painting follows not from my phone.
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