In those years, traveling there was an exiting journey over the hills and through the woods (well, OK - this is Norfolk, and there aren't any hills - but it was long trip 'out in the sticks', back then). I remember going out Airline Boulevard, and doing that wide, wierd detour at Military Highway and George Washington Boulevard, then down and across the steel bridge at Deep Creek, along Cedar Lane (a narrow country lane with ditches right on the edges of the pavement) down to Shillelagh. Later, when we lived in Norfolk, we'd come down the little road that has been replaced by Dominion, across the very memorable little bridge there.

If we were lucky, there'd be a boat coming. The bridge-keeper (who hung out in a 3x3 shelter in the middle of the bridge) would walk to one end of the bridge, turn on the flashing lights and the bell, pull down the crossing gates, then walk all the way down to the other end of the bridge and pull down the crossing gates on that end, then walk back to the middle of the bridge span, take a giant 5-foot-long crank, stick it in a hole in the middle of the road, and walk around and around, slowly moving the movable bridge span until it was perpendicular to the road. He would then signal the boat to pass, and reverse the whole process, until we finally could pass. And you think it's a disaster to be caught by the bridge at Great Bridge!

The site of the old farm has recently become the storm-catch basin at the edge of the parking lot for the Wall Mart at Ceday Road and Dominion. To locate it on a map, it is now the intersection of Shillelagh and Calhoon.

But, in the old days, ah, what a place!