Illustration by Kristy Heilenday
This month, the seemingly endless campaign for president finally ends, and the more-colorful-than-usual Richmond mayoral race may end, if someone takes the majority of votes in five of nine districts. Below, we’ve expressed our gratitude through the accumulation of joyful tears shed by a Richmond voter, as measured on an index featuring other things Richmonders should be grateful for during this season of Thanksgiving.
- VCU men’s basketball begins its 2016-2017 season this month, with a seventh consecutive NCAA bid sure to follow, right?
- The Richmond Folk Festival returns in just 11 months.
- Whatever the outcome, as of Nov. 8, the presidential election is done.
- The VCU Institute for Contemporary Art is scheduled to open next fall.
- Harry Kollatz Jr.*
- The original site of the Village Cafe, vacant since the legendary restaurant moved across the street in 1989, is for sale. Here’s hoping its new owners are dreaming big — or at least not boring.
- The Richmond Marathon returns this month as Sports Backers, the organizer of this and approximately 5,000 other races in the region**, continues celebrating its 25th anniversary. ***
- Hardywood Park Craft Brewery’s 60,000-square-foot Goochland County facility, with its taproom, beer garden, orchard and amphitheater, is aiming for a spring 2017 debut.
- A report released in September by the Environmental Working Group found that levels of the potential carcinogen hexavalent chromium in local drinking water were well below California’s maximum limit of 10 parts per billion, the country’s only state-level standard.
*Seriously guys, Kollatz (aka The Hat) has been delivering the goods monthly for 24 years. To know him is to love him.
** Estimated — but it seems accurate, no?
*** Note: The marathon would’ve ranked higher if we’d actually gotten off the couch and entered this year. Oh, well, another year of cheering on our betters ...
