Hey, y’all. It’s Amie.

Given the opportunity, would you travel back in time? (K Adams/Unsplash)

By Amie Knowles

Here’s what you need to know: You’ve heard the stories of Pocahontas and John Smith, of George Washington surveying the commonwealth, and of Virginia’s last witch trial in 1706. What if you had the opportunity to travel back to those days—no virtual reality headset required? 

The specifics: 

• Taking time away from his illustrious Space Z program we mentioned in last year’s April 1 newsletter, Dogwood once again caught up with founder Yelon Nusk. Following his failed 2025 Virginia Moon Corridor, which sought to connect a random island off the commonwealth’s coast with the dark side of the moon, he’s back with another innovative idea—offering time travel tickets to colonial Virginia sites.

• “While working on my great idea to colonize Mars, I was like, ‘Whoa! ‘Colonize’ sounds a lot like ‘colonial.’ That’s when I got the even greater idea to halt my outer space mission in favor of recolonizing colonial Virginia,” Nusk explained. “The plus-side is, thanks to my Space Z satellite technology, you can take your cell phone with you. Selfie with Gen. Washington, anyone?”
• We then asked Nusk about the effectiveness of the colonial time machine, and his answers were rather elusive. That’s when, all of a sudden, a man with a bad spray tan and worse orange hair dye job burst into the room while “YMCA” blared in the background, yelling, “We have concepts of a plan, okay? It’s a beautiful plan, the most beautiful. No one’s ever done this before, but we’re doing it—can you believe it? Make Time Travel Great Again!” 

Interested in traveling back to the colonial era? Well, you might have to wait a while—it is, after all, April 1…

Next time you grab your trusty ChapStick, you can thank a Virginia inventor. (Natalia Blauth/Unsplash)

By Aila Boyd

The iconic lip balm ChapStick traces its roots to Lynchburg, where Dr. Charles Browne Fleet, a pharmacist and inventor, concocted the balm in his pharmacy in the 1890s. The product originally looked like a small candle that lacked a wick and was wrapped in foil. Unfortunately for Fleet, he had a hard time getting customers to smear the odd-looking formula on their lips.

However, Fleet’s friend John Morton agreed to buy the formula for $5. Morton’s wife ingeniously realized that the melted formula should be poured into a brass tube that could be used to push the product up. By the late 1930s, ChapStick was gaining popularity. It continued to be produced in Lynchburg until the early 1960s, when it was bought by a pharmaceutical company.

A motivational lecture by Alan Watts. (YouTube Screenshot/T&H – Inspiration & Motivation)

By Amie Knowles

In college, I handpicked the campus’s hardest English professor for one simple reason: he was a published writer. Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I couldn’t wait to pick his brain. When he prompted the class to ask a question about himself on the first day, I raised my hand and then blurted out, “Why did you want to become a writer?”

He took one look at me, crossed his arms, and laughed, “Because it makes money. That’s it. Next question.”

The following semester, I signed up for a creative writing class under a different teacher. She almost immediately opened up something in me. Boundless creativity. Endless wonder. No fear of expression or repression or pressure of making a dime at it. Then, one day, she put on a short YouTube video for our class: “What if Money was No Object?”

It’s an excerpt from the lecture “Do You Do It, or Does It Do You?” by Alan Watts. In it, the late philosopher tackles the issues of action and existence—pondering if people control their lives or if their lives control them. Specifically, “What if Money was No Object?” explores the concepts of monetary wealth vs. being rich in experience, in expression, and in authentic living.

“When we finally got down to something, which the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him, ‘You do that, and forget the money.’ Because if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time,” Watts said. “You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing, in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid.” 

Sometimes, when I’m feeling a little disenfranchised, I’ll go back to that video. It’s a great reminder that while, sure, money’s a necessity in today’s world, amassing monetary wealth isn’t what life’s about at all—there’s so much more.

Job Type: Operations Manager

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Salary: $81,900 to$150,100/year

Qualifications:

3+ years of employee and performance management experience

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent, or 2+ years of Amazon (blue badge/FTE) experience

Work a flexible schedule/shift/work area, including weekends, nights, and/or holidays

Job description on Indeed: “In this role, you will lead and develop a team of salaried and hourly talent. You will be responsible for engaging your team during their shifts to maintain the highest levels of safety, quality, attendance, and performance. To achieve this, managers are expected to provide their team with the tools needed for success while driving improvements in productivity and efficiency through data-driven decisions and analytical problem-solving. You will also play a key role in maintaining our customer expectations to ensure customer orders are delivered at the right time, to the right location.”

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