History Period, Lunch Period

You want your historical speaker to have a sense of humor. You do not, however, want him to go beyond the time allotted.

Just ask the man a few rows behind me at the Virginia Historical Society who began snoring loudly at the 45-minute mark. Or the clutches of people who began leaving at the one hour mark.

It's not like today's subject - "The Quest for Loving: Race, Sex and the Freedom to Marry" - or lecturer Peter Wallenstein, a professor of history at Virginia Tech, were boring. But when people commit to an hour in the middle of the day to be schooled on history, that's all they want.

Wallenstein's humor helped the cause a lot with comments such as, "If you see two houses at the same time in Caroline County, you know you've come to a settlement."

Beginning at the end of the story of bi-racial couple Mildred and Richard Loving with Robert long dead and Mildred just buried, Wallenstein sat down and wrote 5,000 words after going to her funeral.

Only then did he realize he'd written an epilogue which now necessitated him writing the book that comes before it. We all know how that goes.

Highlights of this he shared with us today, such as, "Tell the court I love my wife and I want to be able to live with her in Virginia," which is what Richard told his lawyer during their trial for breaking the law stipulating that blacks and whites couldn't marry.

Interesting was his point that Judge Leon Bazile could have punished them with one to five years in jail, but instead banished them from Virginia, perhaps in part because the Catholic Bazile had married a Baptists woman against his family's wishes and they'd gone on to have a long and happy marriage.

An empathetic sentence, perhaps?

Fortunately Mildred, once settled in D.C.,  was the pro-active type who wrote to Attorney General Bobby Kennedy asking for help with their case. RFK referred her to the American Civil Liberties Union and a young lawyer named Cohen took up their cause mainly because he loved the couple's name and thus, what the name of the case would be.

Loving versus Virginia. How can you not win a case with a name like that?

Not only did SCOTUS rule in the Lovings' favor, but they went further, essentially transforming the law of the land. Wallenstein made a case for the same sex marriage movement years later using the template of the Loving case.

What goes around, comes around.

The over-abundance of material - he kept losing his place in his script and joking that someone needed to rewrite it for him and bring it to him onstage - caused one of his biggest laughs when he cracked, "Since I can't see a clock, I think that I have three more hours to talk."

Other jokes fell flat, slipped into his talk so dryly that most of the audience seemed to miss them entirely.

On the subject of being southern (at the time the Supreme Court ruled in the Lovings' favor, fifteen other states had anti-marriage laws for the races on their books), he said that when he asks his Tech students if they're southern, many say no "because we're from northern Virginia."

It's terrifying, right, that these are the people who will be running the country when we're old?

Although I wasn't part of the first wave to cut out on the talk, by 1:10, I had to, knowing a friend was meeting me at my house to go to lunch. Walking out through the VHS, the trio in front of me complained about the overly long lecture, saying a bell needs to go off at 12:50 to warn the speaker he's out of time and allow time for a Q & A.

Fortunately my patient friend was still waiting out front when I got home, so we strolled over to the Cultured Swine with me playing guide by pointing out the sidewalk grate that a man had fallen through yesterday. The caution tape was still up, looking ominous.

Do you know how many times I've walked over those grates on my daily constitutional?

Things were lively at the Swine with RTD columnist Michael Paul Williams picking up his lunch just after we ordered ours. The RTD's wedding correspondent was also scoring eats and stopped to chat with us while we awaited food.

My first choice had been the classic, a Sausagecraft rosemary garlic pork belly and shoulder sausage smothered in coleslaw, but they'd run out of pork belly sausage the talent in the kitchen informed me. No surprise there.

Instead I chose the BLTotally Awesome of house-smoked bacon, mixed dark greens, tomatoes and local mayo on a toasted baguette while my partner in crime had the Belly Mi, a banh mi-inspired pork belly sandwich with pickled veggies, sauteed veggies and bourbon-bacon pate, also on a toasted baguette.

The baguette, a key component of a true banh mi was perfect - nice chew, beautifully toasted, delicately flavorful. Both of our sandwiches exceeded expectations with the sheer quality of ingredients. My friend, not usually a brine fan, even raved about the pickled vegetables. Every bite of mine was a burst of fresh greens, summer tomatoes and smoky bacon.

No doubt about it, the place was warm, though, so when I spotted a nearby box fan just sitting there, I plugged it in and directed it at the small dining room. The wedding reporter praised my initiative. My friend joked about my endless supply of nerve.

But like the Lovings' case, it wasn't just about me. I did it for the greater good. Even in the South - and Virginia is the South, kids - swine so fine deserves a tad more air flow.