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Putt-Putting Through Virginia

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After traveling to 50 states, The Mini Golf Guys are bringing their mini-golf tournament to Richmond. 

For several days, co-founder Michael Babcock and his two longtime high school friends, Alex Cram and Tony Haakenson, will be playing mini-golf matches in and around Richmond, at courses like Hotel Greene and Glowgolf in Glen Allen. The three have several other stops booked in Chesterfield, Williamsburg, and Newport News, before they finish their trip in Virginia Beach on August 11. 

The story of The Mini Golf Guys began simply, when they first stumbled upon an abandoned course one day in 2009. 

“We found an abandoned mini-golf course and played mini-golf… and from there, we played three or four more times that trip,” Babcock said. “We were really good friends in high school, and we learned the importance of making sure you spend time with your friends.” 

Photo via The Mini Golf Guys

According to Babcock, the three friends all live in different states now, which makes it more difficult to stick with the yearly tradition that’s been going more than 11 years. 

“We’ve got to make sure once a year, we make a weekend to hang out,” Babcock said. 

Babcock says that the research into courses in different states is extensive, involving cross-references across the internet and various platforms of social media. The guys pick their paths in ways that allow them to fit in the most courses. 

“We decided to stay by the coast, where we have a lot more options,” Babcock said. “Hotel Greene is definitely one of the most exciting, and there’s also a course in Virginia Beach that’s open 24/7.” 

During this trip, the Mini Golf Guys are raising money for the Children’s Home Society of Virginia, a Richmond-based non-profit whose mission is to find permanent adoptive homes for children of all ages throughout the Commonwealth. 

“We’ve never done a fundraiser before,” Babcock said. “If we’re going to be out there putting our names and faces in front of all these people, we might as well try to do something good with that as well.” 

Photo via @theminigolfguys on Instagram

According to Babcock, even just starting the dialogue and helping people learn about these organizations can be just as good as donations. 

“They’re not just learning about us, but [getting] a chance to learn more about their own community,” Babcock said. 

Babcock explains that The Mini Golf Guys aren’t just about the competitive side of mini-golf: they’re all about friendship, getting out of the house, and being a part of something other than a TV screen. 

“We’re trying to motivate people to get out and do something, and we’re celebrating friends,” Babcock said.

The Mini Golf Guys will be in Richmond starting August 7, and will be ending their trip in Virginia Beach on August 11. In that time, they’ll hit around two dozen courses in five days, including 11 in the Richmond metro area. For The Mini Golf Guys’ full tour schedule and information on the fundraiser for Children’s Home Society, you can check out their website here. 

Get your tiny clubs out, get your friends, and let’s get golfing. 

The Meridian Coffeehouse Is A DIY Haven On a Small College Campus

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Last Saturday at the Meridian Coffeehouse, a long-running cafe and musical venue on the William & Mary campus, the crowd was alive with music. It was a jazz and hip-hop night, and Richmond musicians Kaelan Brown and The Blue Chips took the headlining spot. Per Meridian rules, Brown warned the crowd not to jump because the aged building could fall — but once the music started, Brown jumped anyway. 

The Meridian Coffeehouse is a small house that sits on the outskirts of W&M, close to Colonial Williamsburg. The university owns the building, but the entire establishment is student-led. 

“It’s a warm and fuzzy environment that was a joy to play in,” said Brown. The Richmond rapper was happy to play at William and Mary: he’s always wanted to play at Virginia schools outside VCU. While the structure of the building (and friendliness of the staff) may be in question, the bands don’t think it’s scary, either — to its attendees, The Meridian just feels like home. 

PHOTO: Kaelan Brown, Instagram, Credit @kyliehoneycomb

In the 90’s, W&M students John and Catherine Carraway started the building as “Zarathustra’s,” an alternative to fraternity parties and bars near campus. The name Zarathustra came from Friedrich Nietzsche’s 19th century philosophical novel, Thus Spake Zarathustra. The venue took from Nietzsche the idea that individuals must create their own culture — so they did. The space later evolved into the Meridian Coffeehouse, named after the civil rights novel by Alice Walker. 

“Since 1995, it’s been a haven for intellectuals, artists, coffee drinkers… ‘Intellectuals’ is a weird word, but people could come here and talk,” said W&M senior and Meridian stage manager, Ben Fox. “It was substance-free, so they could just have a cup of coffee, take a break from their school work, and hang out with people. Then they’d go back to their work unaltered — not having gone for a couple beers or anything.” 

The Greek-life alternative has gone through many transformations over the years. The Meridian’s original purpose was more of a salon, later serving as a coffeehouse, and now almost nixing the coffee entirely. 

“We do coffee at shows, but it’s more of a nod to the coffeehouse [name], rather than actually running it,” said W&M senior and Meridian co-general manager, Stacia Phalen. These days, there aren’t enough resources or manpower to keep The Meridian’s actual coffeehouse running full-time. Between the student staff’s class and work schedules, the house has to remain closed during the day.

The Meridian has a reputation of being a bit intimidating on campus. This may come from the lack of accessible information about what the Meridian is exactly. The William & Mary website has no information on the space, only a Google map showing the location, on South Boundary Street. 

PHOTO: themeridiancoffeehouse Instagram

“Maybe less so now, but in the past, staff had a rep of being kind of scary,” Phalen said of its intimidating reputation. “We definitely try hard to debunk that.” 

Freshmen Emma Eubank and Alyssa Castronuovo disagree. Castronuovo said, “I overheard Stacia talk about how they try not to be intimidating, and I think they’ve done a good job with that. I don’t feel intimidated.” Then, she hesitates. “Well, when I first walked in and I saw the — where is it? The pentagram…” 

Eubank laughed and pointed to the fireplace where a pentagram was hidden among fake flowers, drawings, printed pictures, and other knickknacks. “And the mannequin in the bathroom,” Castronuovo added. 

The Meridian’s bathroom contains a five-foot tall mannequin named Jane, who watches over patrons with large headphones covering her ears. “I screamed twice the first time I went to the bathroom in there,” said Eubank.

The Meridian serves as a place for musically- and artistically-inclined students to gather on campus. The Meridian hopes to encourage more community engagement, and serve as an alternative community center for campus organizers to meet. 

The Meridian’s safe-space policy. Photo by Christina McBride

In addition to its managers, booking agents, art directors, and facilities developers, The Meridian also has a gender-based violence accountability staff, to ensure the venue stays a safe space for all who attend it. It’s a go-to space for music and arts on campus, and its weekend-DIY shows bring in crowds from all backgrounds. It’s known for hosting long-standing events like art nights, film clubs, D&D get-togethers, and zombie movie nights (formerly “Zombie Zensdays” to regulars). 

For the staff, as long as it stays substance-free and student-run, The Meridian is here to stay. 

“Safe spaces are the tenets that we’ve taken on,” said Phalen. “Currently, we self-fund through door donations, so we have a pool to pay bands and artists out of if we need it (and to buy coffee). The school keeps the lights on and lets us have the house.”  

As for future goals, Phalen hopes the space can serve the DIY scene in an inclusive manner. The Meridian makes a point to book femme artists, queer artists, and artists of color. 

“There’s this idea that the DIY scene tends to be dominated by white dudes with guitars,” Phalen said. “We’re trying to counter that as the base of the scene, because that isn’t true. I want to see it grow, and offer a place to play to people that might not have the easiest time getting shows other places.” 

The Meridian promotes their shows on their Facebook page. Over this past weekend, they hosted Tavishi, Gorpopap, the Ledgesleepers, and Benjamin Chase. As always,  the event page reminded us:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!NO JUMPING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

You can watch Kaelan Brown’s latest music video for  “Fear & Loathing II” here. You can also find him on Bandcamp, SoundCloud, Spotify, and more. 

Music Sponsored By Graduate Richmond

After 324 Years, A Memorial to William & Mary’s Enslaved

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After more than 10 years of deliberation and planning, the College of William and Mary is finalizing a memorial to the people enslaved by the school between the 17th and mid-19th centuries. The school has been open for 324 years, and it practiced institutionalized slavery for 172 years — more than 50 percent of the time its doors have been open to students.

The memorial has been in the works by the members of the Lemon Project for many years. An investigation into William and Mary’s slaveholding past that is itself named for a man once enslaved by the college, The Lemon Project is, according to William and Mary’s website, a “multifaceted and dynamic attempt to rectify wrongs perpetrated against African Americans by the College through action or inaction.” It works to foster connections between William & Mary and the Greater Tidewater area.

The move to install a memorial has been a goal of the Lemon Project Committee since 2009, when the Board of Visitors passed the resolution to start the Lemon Project on campus.

RVA Mag talked with Professor Jody Allen, the Lemon Project’s Director, about the expected effect of the memorial, and future goals for the project. Currently, there is a competition for memorial ideas among students at the school. Students send in design ideas, and the Lemon Project Committee on Memorialization will choose the three best designs. Those then go to President Katherine Rowe, William & Mary’s current president, and she will choose which design to present to the Board of Visitors. 

Rather than a member of the Lemon Project Committee designing the memorial, the committee decided it was a better idea to keep the submissions open to the public.

“We want to leave it open, because when you bring someone in from the outside, sometimes they see a place differently than you do,” said Allen.

When the school was first chartered in the late 17th century, the university was made up of just one building: the Christopher Wren Building. At its beginning, the school was for Native Americans and white settlers, then later segregated because the white students no longer wanted to share the space. The white students (who at the time were all-male) brought their personal slaves to campus to live in the dorms. Eventually, the school itself had enslaved people working on the campus.

Since its charter, William & Mary has expanded the campus to 1200 acres, with a population of about 6000 undergraduates. Historic Campus, where the Wren Building is located, is where the Lemon Project Committee wants the memorial to be installed.  

“We definitely think it needs to be on or adjacent to historic campus, because that’s where the enslaved people lived and worked,” said Allen. “And so that’s where we need to remember them.”

“For so long, people really didn’t stop and think about how old this school is, and that it probably did have enslaved people,” Allen said. “It’s certainly been in the archive, but it hasn’t been part of the public story.”

The public story of William & Mary, like other colonial-era schools, is focused on how the university has stood the test of time. The novelty of the school is its age, its role in the founding of this country (located only eight miles from Jamestown), and by proxy, the important historical figures — mostly white men — who are linked to the university.

William & Mary is moving towards recognizing its role in colonization and slavery. The campus historic tours, led by the Spotswood Society (a group of student historians on campus who run tours and manage the Wren Building), are starting to include more information on the roles and lives of enslaved people and Native Americans on campus during that time. Spotswood Society member Marriya Schwarz, didn’t realize the extent of those groups’ roles in William & Mary’s history until she joined the society.

“When I was researching slavery on campus, I realized William & Mary had slaves for longer than they haven’t,” Schwarz said. Spotswood Society tour guides are given the information, research, and training necessary to give historic tours, but they have a good amount of freedom in what they decide to include.

“I think it’s encouraged that we talk about it, but it’s kind of up to the tour guide,” said Schwarz. “And most people think it’s very important.” 

The memorial will be a physical reminder to the student body, Colonial Williamsburg tourists, and members of the Williamsburg City community that the area was built up with slave labor. Professor Allen has high hopes for the intended effect the memorial will have on the community.

“Of course we hope it has a wonderful effect,” Allen said. “I mean, we want it to be — for lack of a better term — a living memorial. Not something that’s just put up, people go to the dedication, and they really stop thinking about it. It just becomes part of the scene that you walk by but you don’t really pay attention to.”

Other ways Professor Allen said the college will help William & Mary recognize its past will take place in the classroom. She hopes that the extensive research conducted by the Lemon Project will be used by other professors at William & Mary, and elsewhere throughout their courses.

“I would love to see a general campus tour that focuses on African-American significant sites in terms of the history of the school,” Allen added.

The Lemon Project hopes the memorial will engage the community and strengthen the relationship between the school and the City of Williamsburg. And establishing the memorial won’t mean the end of the Lemon Project. “We certainly have ongoing research, so we can keep on filling out that picture of the black experience at William and Mary over these last 325 years or so,” Allen added. “Our archival research will continue.”

The chosen design creator will be awarded $1000. President Rowe and the Board of Visitors will decide which design to use at their meeting in February 2019.

Image: College of William and Mary, circa 1860-1920. Photo by Huestis P. Cook, via New York Public Library