Our website has a new look!
We’ve recently upgraded WordPress, the program that allows us to edit and present our website. In addition, we are using a new theme, which gives the whole site a new look. Check back often as we have plans to expand features. Please let us know if you have any questions or experience any problems, and we look forward to hearing what you think of the new look. Ali Forrest can be reached at aliforrest1@gmail.com and Jane Martinache at redcarom@aol.com.

Third Reactor News
Virginia’s Department of Environmental Quality has scheduled hearings about the proposed third reactor. The public hearing for Unit 3 North Anna Power Station will be held January 18, 2012 at 7 pm Louisa County Middle School, Mineral VA. You can read the Notification of Draft Permit and Public Hearing here: Unit 3 Hearing Notice Dated December 15, 2011

Gazebo Reservations
Have you ever wanted to check the availability of the big gazebo on the date of your event? Look at the calendar on the right hand side of this page. You will notice that the current date is highlighted in red. If necessary, scroll through the months find the date you are interested in by clicking on the arrow to the right of the month and year on the calendar. If the date is highlighted green, then place your mouse on that date to see what event is scheduled. To reserve a date, send an email to the web committee members with “Gazebo Request” as the subject. Ali Forrest can be reached at aliforrest1@gmail.com and Jane Martinache at redcarom@aol.com.

Get Your Tall Pines Yacht Club T-Shirt!
Many people have asked me to post the link to the website where you can purchase the Tall Pines Yacht Club and other Lake Anna t-shirts, so here it is ZAZZLE. Be sure to check out all the custom t-shirts available!

Web Content, Calendar Entries and Gazebo Reservations
Do you have information to share with your neighbors? Do you have an event you want to put on the community calendar? Do you want to reserve the gazebo for a function? Contact Ali Forrest at aliforrest1@gmail.com.Do you have photos of Tall Pines events that you would like to share? I have an area on the site that I can now upload pictures to. Please send good quality jpg files to the address listed above. Try to keep the files under 2MB, I will attempt to post larger files, but they may take too long to display.

Permit Info for Proposed Third Reactor
As John Grandfield mentioned at the fall membership meeting, Although the final decision to build a third reactor has not yet been made, Dominion Power has begun the permit process with the Commonwealth of Virginia. You can view the documents here, and the maps here.

The ability to play music beautifully is a gift—a gift that Jim Lyon freely gives.
Lyon, a resident of the Tall Pines subdivision at Lake Anna, is one of those pianists who can play just about anything, with or without music in front of him. That ability is hard to explain.
Lyon shares his talent and love of music on Monday afternoons with the residents of the Louisa Healthcare Center. He plays old favorites for an hour in the dining room for 10 to 30 listeners. He has also donated his time to playing background music at community fund-raisers, such as Habitat, at Early House and the Rotary Club, and is available to play at private parties or social events.
His hands effortlessly find chords, arpeggios and melodies on a new Roland electric keyboard as he talks about his music. New at Christmas, the Roland keyboard has features he hasn’t figured out yet. Lyon pushes buttons and the songs seem to be played by strings, or a honky-tonk piano. With the honky-tonk setting, Lyon smiles and breaks into a Joplin rag.
He plays by ear, and also reads “fake books.” The fake books are frequently used by musicians who improvise in clubs or piano bars. In them the melody is written out and the chords are noted by name. Lyon plays the melody with his right hand, and breaks up the chords into arpeggios played all over the keyboard to add “texture” to the piece. “All I need is melody and chord changes,” he says, as he demonstrates with “I Could Have Danced All Night” from “My Fair Lady.”
He tries to explain the process, but words fail and he thinks with his fingers—demonstrating with song after song on the keyboard.
Lyon didn’t start his musical career with the piano, although keyboard has been his primary instrument for more than 40 years.
His accountant father recognized that Lyon at age 8 might have musical ability and paid for accordion lessons for eight years. When Lyon went to high school, he became involved with bands, and taught himself piano at his grandmother’s house next door.
In 1960, he married Ann, his high school sweetheart, and the couple has three sons and four grandchildren. Lyon worked for a phone company and music took up many evening and weekend hours. He has played with a variety of groups and in many styles—jazz, Dixieland, popular standards, soft rock, and often provided background music in lounges. His favorite composers are Rodgers and Hart (Think “Blue Moon,” “My Funny Valentine,” This Can’t be Love”) but has no favorite among their compositions.
One he played with was comprised of Lyon on the piana, tuba and three banjos. The musicians wore barbershop-style outfits, with garters on their sleeves, and played WWII-era songs in a sing-along establishment that served peanuts and beer. The audience was familiar with the songs that were listed by number on sheets. “Number 29, someone would holler,” said Lyon and the band would play it while the audience sang. “The work was demanding because the tempos were really quick.”
He recalls a startling performance with another group. The musicians were on a low stage and during the course of a vigorous Dixieland set, his piano inched closer and closer to the edge. Near the end of the piece, the piano crashed to the floor, scaring Lyon and everyone else.
In 1974, Lyon and his family moved from Chicago, where he had grown up, to Gillette, Wyoming. “I decided I wanted to leave the big city,” he says. “I was tired of the traffic.”
Gillette opened up new musical opportunities for him. He played on weekends at a Holiday Inn with a small group, and discovered that “strangely, Gillette had a 20-piece big band that played Glenn Miller music.” Most of the members were music teachers, and the band was so popular that “trombone players were waiting in line to play in it.”
He also played in a nursing home in Gillette—duets with another musician. “It was kind of a ministry,” Lyon said. Because of that experience, he looked for an opportunity to play at a nursing home when he and his wife moved to Virginia in 2004.
The big sky still beckons. The Lyons return to Wyoming to visit family, and Jim Lyon and his purebred yellow Lab, Max, still enjoy hunting game birds each year in Wyoming and North Dakota. He has shared his pheasant bounty with friends at dinner.
He also enjoys fishing, boating and working with his hands on various projects around the house. With grandchildren nearby, and his father and stepmother in a nursing facility in Charlottesville, the Lyons are busy with their family. He also sings in the Presbyterian choir in Louisa.
When he has the time, he is at the keyboard—maybe for a three-hours stretch. It’s not practicing so much as it is just playing for the love of it.
Lyon has composed a Christmas song that has all the characteristics of a holiday hit. It’s lush in its chords and melody, and has lyrics that capture both the secular and sacred aspects of the holiday season. Coaxed into playing it, Lyon sings on the second time through.
Lyon still experiments with chords, creating his own style of artistry to avoid being in a rut. And, like many creative people, he can’t explain how he does any of it.
His hands ripple into another ballad. “I don’t know how you can define me,” he says modestly. “I just like to sit and play.”
(To reach Jim Lyon, call 894-0589.)