Dear Ace: Can you find out who lives in those houses around Observatory Hill?—Jess WundringJess: Ace thinks you must be referring to Alden House, named for University of Virginia alumnus and former astronomy professor Harold Lee Alden, and Vyssotsky House, the Cape Cod-style house found on Observatory Mountain near UVA. While the latter is still […]

Dear Ace: I was out at Greene Meadows Tree Farm in Stanardsville, and I wondered, do the owners make enough money during the holidays to sustain them for the year?—Fraiser Firbank Fraiser: Ah, the holiday season. There’s nothing Ace likes more than nonstop holiday music radioplay, unwrapping and rewrapping presents (to himself), and the yearly trip […]

Dear Ace: I saw some guys poking around on the Downtown Mall the other day. Do you know what they were doing?—N. Oz Parker Mr. Parker: Well, whenever someone sees "some guys poking around" anywhere and asks Ace to investigate, he tends to approach the situation as cautiously as possible. This was no exception, but still […]

Dear Ace: Something seemed a bit off in your recent column about roadkill.—Bambi Goboome Bambi: What’s that smell, you say? Dead varmint on the asphalt? No, it’s the stench of Ace’s not-exactly-clear previous column. Ace had a miscommunication with an official at Animal Control. Nevertheless, Ace is a gentleman and does not like to place […]

Dear Ace: The good folks at Brown’s Dry Cleaners claim they are not allowed to recycle metal hangers. My husband and I collect them by the dozens each month and it makes me sick to think of piles of hangers going nowhere but the landfill. Also, one other cleaner—now defunct Terra Bella—used to recycle hangers. […]

Dear Ace: I was driving home late last night and saw a dead cat lying in the street in my neighborhood. After I got home, I wondered, Who would I call to get that cat picked up off the side of the road? And, what if that cat were a bear? Would I call the […]