No breakers break, the beach is trucked in every few years and any white caps are a sign to vacate the shoreline, but there’s still something soothing about Chris Greene Lake.

“People enjoy it, here. They have fun and that’s what it’s all about,” says David Dollins, sultan of the Albemarle County Parks and Recreation Department’s northern district. “They can bring the kids and hang out in the sun on the beach or go into the shade of the woods.”

If the sofa won’t fit next to the new sheepskin in the Jeep Cherokee, don’t worry, the Salvation Army is waiting around the corner to take up your burden.

The old folks are all right.
The upcoming generation of Monticello High School journalists got a chance to meet their grandparents’ generation up close and personal as students photographed and interviewed local seniors for the Leadership Charlottesville-sponsored publication “Voices Through Time.”

Dressed as she is, for business, it’s hard to imagine that a few short hours ago Linnea Saby was pushing pedals 25 miles across western Albemarle County to the Renaissance School in downtown Charlottesville.

What to get a shelter for battered women and children as a housewarming gift is not the kind of question you mull every morning, but there are some local folks who hope you’ll consider it soon.

Next to the feed store at the corner of Church and Main, right near the Sheriff’s Office and catty-corner from the DMV, a faux brick walkway meanders through a small park with wrought iron arches sporting iron vines entwined to spell “Beasley Park.”

In front of the Charlottesville Police Department, set in a bed of flowers, a monument dedicated last week testifies to the dedication and sacrifice of the city’s law enforcement officers who died on duty.
But less than a half-block away, in the alley between the department and the Market Street Parking Garage, an act of heroism committed nearly 25 years ago goes unmarked.

Tonight, as the tribes gather at their respective high schools for the annual pageantry of prom and the hordes thunder after Foxfield’s day at the races, think straight and right for you don’t want to be too wrong.

Impoverished fiscally, physically or emotionally, women, men and children throughout the world and even in the commonwealth are being exploited, and the Sexual Assault Resource Agency wants to do something about it.

At the 60-year-old social event attended by many statewide hopefuls and activists of all stripes, candidates are expected to reach out and speak lightly, offer a glimpse of their personality and save the toughest red-meat rhetoric for more partisan crowds.

Some 65 University of Virginia student-athletes will gather at the Mad Bowl on Sunday, but don’t worry about a potential sudden increase in crime; they’re just raising money and awareness for cancer research.

I made time stand still for the young teen behind the counter, shutting down his universe by paying my $3 tab with a bill and a coin that made exact change.

Virginia, once the mother of presidents, is now the proud parent of a boatload of political figures who insist there is “no higher honor” than serving as governor.
Virginia also is the only state remaining with a one-term-and-gone governorship, perhaps to en-courage the long line of would-be governors who seek to occupy the two statewide governor-in-waiting positions.

They’re painting and hammering, priming and coating, from the sanctuary to the classrooms to basement fellowship hall to better suit their mission.

The Germans have a saying: Aus Schaden wird man klug.
No one exemplified that proverb, “sorrow and pain makes one wiser,” more than Bernhard Leipelt, who went from Hitler Youth and Wehrmacht officer in World War II to a Charlottesville social activist in his retirement.

Cleaning out a desk after 31 years, OK, four desks really, but this one is quite the messiest, yields nice little nuggets of what made yesterday’s news a few years back, having escaped the fleeting flirtation of an editor’s knife and the lure of the landfill.

This animal, so dangerous that in Denver it would be confiscated and killed upon discovery, sniffs my pant leg.
It’s a pit bull named Zena, like the warrior princess, but spelled with a Z because she’s so much cooler. The breed is one of the most popular in Our Fair City with nigh unto as many pits as hounds awaiting adoption at the SPCA to prove it

It took 100 years, but Lou Pinto left nothing undone.
He grew up hardscrabble and poor in Hell’s Kitchen, in the long shadow cast by professional baseball’s famous Bronx Bombers, the New York Yankees of the 1920s. He played a little major league ball himself. He raised a family. He retired. He moved to Charlottesville and re-established his life as a sportsman and a volunteer.
Last week, only three months after reaching his 100th birthday, he moved on again, leaving this life for what comes next.
“What I’ll always remember him for is the way he gave of himself. He was always smiling, always positive,” remembered Liz Courain, volunteer coordinator at the University of Virginia Medical Center, where Mr. Pinto offered his services for nearly a quarter of a century. “He was just a tremendous bright spot in our lives.”
Mr. Pinto always looked on the bright side and found positive messages in things others might consider failure.

At home, in bed, at work, school or church, there is no safety and no one is to be completely trusted. That’s the price women, men and children often pay as sexual assault victims.

“Opportunity Time, a Memoir by Gov. Linwood Holton” tackles the difficulties he and others encountered trying to win statewide office in the 1960s South for those like him who opposed segregation.

When a grown man pulls a teenaged boy into the woods and sexually assaults him, it has a profound and long-lasting impact on that boy’s life. Joe Williamson can attest to that.

I was just about to get my throttle on when I looked in my mirror and saw a black-and-white pull in behind me.

Becoming a victim of one of the nation’s fastest-growing crimes - identity theft - can be a pain.

The penny: Is there no end to its power?

No one has coined a really good name for the recently concluded and not-yet-missed 2008 General Assembly session.

Jenny Gardiner sits in Milano Espresso Gelato stirring a foam-covered, latte-like, fancy coffee drink sprinkled with cinnamon, a drink keeping with her fancy new status.

U.S. Sen. George Allen, R-Fairfax County, first won in a nail-biter and finally lost 24 years later in a nail-biter.