Trains Leaving and So's My Photo Backdrop

A group of institutions and individuals, including the venerable Virginia Museum of Transportation is preparing to move those rusting old steam locomotives and, frankly, I have mixed feelings about it. You can see the complete story on my sister blog moreFRONT here. That'll give you the who, what, when, where. I'm more concerned about me.

I've used these old train castoffs for years as backdrops for some of the best portraits I've ever taken. Take an alabaster-skinned young woman, park her in a 1930s outfit (complete with beret and suitcase covered with destination stickers) on the sideboard of one of these old rustbuckets and Voila! art.

My favorite model was a young woman named Bonnie Pivacek, who worked as a baker at my friend Steve Hartman's On the Rise Bakery on Roanoke City Market. Bonnie was a pretty good photographer (I used her photo of me for two of my books), but a better model. She was not a classic beauty, but she had a long neck, great skin and strikingly defined features in face. Her face and that train were made for each other. The photos looked like 1930s studio stills for a great movie star.

There were others, too (Sybill Barrett, who owns a coffee shop in Roanoke; Sara Honer, a dancer and writer from here; Emily Paine Brady Carter, who has spent a lifetime collecting other people's names and played a sort of Blanche DuBois for me), and none had to take off her clothes to make a strong sensual statement. The trains themselves talked of raw power, undulation, stimulation, beauty and ... well, you get it.

Whereveer the trains wind up, they will no longer be available as they have been--I never asked permission and I suspect the railroad people would kill me if they knew; they're pretty touchy about anybody getting next to their damn tracks--and I'll miss that the next time somebody comes along who looks like a great model. Monica Novicki Frick, a lovely young woman who's writing for us over at the FRONT would have been great in front of the trains. But she won't get there. Too bad.

Boxley Building Plans Proceeding; Will Not Be Torn Down

The red-hot rumor of the moment—that the venerable Boxley Building on South Jefferson Street in Roanoke will be torn down to make room for a modern hotel—is absolute fabrication from whole cloth, according to one of the developers.

Robert Arigo, who is helping to plan the future of the building, sold recently to Roanoker Worth Boone and others, says the rumor is far from being true. “The Boxley Building is one of the most significant buildings on the Roanoke landscape and keeping its historic value is absolute with us. There are no plans to tear it down.”

Quite the contrary. Though Arigo says details of future plans will not be ready until late August, there are plans that include “a boutique hotel and residential project,” the hotel occupying the first five or so floors and condominiums on the upper floors.

Arigo calls the Boxley “one of the best-built buildings I’ve ever seen. You simply couldn’t tear it down.” The Boxley was built 87 years ago and has 39,000 square. Boone’s Fairlawn at Jefferson LLC purchased the building some months ago for $1.7 million. Boone, who is out of town and did not return a phone call, was the developer of the updated Davidson’s building next door.

Hey, Grandpa, What's for Supper? (Part Deux)

In a fit of shameless self-promotion World Famous Editor and Left Sox (yep, marked with a big "L" on the back) celebrate the good life in the Salem Red Sox skybox, where hotdogs are the food of the gods.

Art Studies at Hollins University

If you're wondering what the kids on campus (Hollins in this case) are doing during the summer, I found out this morning. They're spray-painting rocks.

Happy's Sunday: Adventures in Food

Dragonfruit (above and below) is beautiful, appetizing and about as bland as fruit gets. Slice it, peel it and eat bite sizes. Then wait for taste that doesn't come.

Cactus leaves and fruit are here for the adventurous Gringo.

This young fellow (above) was selling rambutan, a melon, jackfruit (small below) and something else I couldn't identify. He was busy, so I didn't interrupt to ask.

Halifax cantaloupes sold out quickly. These were left. Not bad.^

This old boy drove to South Carolina Friday, picked up these fresh-picked watermelons and wound up at Happy's Sunday.

I've been buying mid-summer produce at Happy's Flea Market for several years because it's fresh, inexpensive and almost always better than what I can buy elsewhere. Some of the vendors tell me they sell to Roanoke City Market vendors before making their way with what's left to Happy's. I buy their goods for what the City Market vendors pay.

It's finally melon season at Happy's and I brought in a big, gorgeous cantaloupe this a.m., but had to bypass some truly special watermelons because I was on my scooter and couldn't carry something that is basically the size of a small trunk.

I am especially fond of trying foods I don't recognize. This morning it was dragonfruit and jackfruit. I bypassed the rambutan because of its size, but I'm told it's a sweet melon. I considered cactus fruit and cactus (which I tried and liked--grilled--a few weeks ago), but just didn't. My favorite of this a.m.'s haul was the jackfruit, which looks and tastes like a grape (bred with a pear) when you peel it and eat around a sizeable seed.

Bad Dog Owners Take Charge in Albemarle

Albemarle County barking dog owners scored a resounding victory over those with a love of peace and quiet the other night. The Board of Supervisors said "no" to an ordinance that would have warned owners of dogs barking for more than 30 minutes at a time, then taken their dog away after that.

It was an ordinance of enormous good sense, attempting to regulate a selfish, arrogant, thoughtless, irresponsible type of dog owner who has no more business owning a dog than I have owning a cape buffalo.

Their argument is that dogs bark, that they all live in the country and that if you choose to live in the country you have to accept anything they throw at you. Damn civilization. Damn simple courtesy. Damn you if you complain.

People in this country have the same rights, regardless of where they live and that includes the right to be free of this kind of incessant noise, almost always caused by dogs that need attention from owners who are absent, ignorant, careless, stupid or simply boorish. Dogs are social animals and if they are left alone, they bark. If they are tied up, they bark. If they are ignored by their owners, they bark.

One of those opposed to the Albemarle County ordinance brought up the fact that her dogs were bought to protect goats that had been killed by roaming dogs. Sheep dogs are totally unacceptable if they bark. Barking is bred out of them. If they bark as puppies, their breeders put them to sleep. Barking scares sheep. And it annoys the hell out of people like me.

Responsible owners' dogs don't bark for 30 minutes at a time (or all day, as the dog of a neighbor of mine did until I sicced the cops on him) unless there is a very real and present threat to life and property. Guard dogs are trained to do that. Just sticking a dog outside and saying he is a "guard dog" is a simple case of piled high bullshit. Guard are trained to bite, not to piss off the neighborhood.

I like dogs. I especially like dogs that are trained, that behave and that act domesticated. Anybody who has a dog that is none of those, needs not to have the dog. At the least, we need to be protected from these people and their out of control animals.

Going ... going ... going ...

The three structures in the center are part of Roanoke City Mills and are coming down^

Work progressed rapidly today tearing down the silos and grain elevators at Roanoke City Mills, across the street from the Carilion Biomedical complex. The huge, old grain storage facilities are coming down over the next few weeks to make way for an expansion of Carilion's campus.

Fair Well to the Fair ... Well ...

I got this shot of the Salem Fair from the top of the stands at Salem Red Sox stadium tonight. Pretty site it was, as the fair runs down for another year ... finally giving us our damn parking spaces back for the ball game. (Double-click the photo. The bigger it is, the pretter.)

2 Plus 2 Equals Home?

WDBJ7 has a teaser it's tossing around about "reporting next week" on a new home for the old steam engines sitting behind the Roanoke City Mills, which is being torn down. The trains have been sitting there--mostly rusting--for nearly 60 years. Meanwhile, the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke has called a news conference for early next week.

Do we suppose there is a connection?

Killing You Softly With Thier Nitrites

Hotdog Boy prepares his feast (sans bun, an homage to his wellness program) in a skybox at a Salem Red Sox game^

If you’re absolutely hooked on hot dogs, burgers and beer, bacon and cheese and a host of other processed foods, a new study will give you pause. The study from researchers at Rhode Island Hospital “have found a substantial link between increased levels of nitrates in our environment and food with increased deaths from diseases, including Alzheimer's, diabetes mellitus and Parkinson's.”

The report is in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (read the report here) found “strong parallels between age adjusted increases in death rate from Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and diabetes and the progressive increases in human exposure to nitrates, nitrites and nitrosamines through processed and preserved foods as well as fertilizers."

Dr. Suzanne De la Monte, who led the research team, says, "We have moved to a diet that is rich in amines and nitrates, which lead to increased nitrosamine production. We receive increased exposure through the abundant use of nitrate-containing fertilizers for agriculture … Not only do we consume them in processed foods, but they get into our food supply by leeching from the soil and contaminating water supplies used for crop irrigation, food processing and drinking."

The report says, “Nitrites and nitrates have been determined to be carcinogenic in various organs. They are found in many food products, including [ground beef], fried bacon, cured meats and cheese products as well as beer and water. Exposure also occurs through manufacturing and processing of rubber and latex products, as well as fertilizers, pesticides and cosmetics.”

Nitrosamines are “generated under strong acid conditions, such as in the stomach, or at high temperatures associated with frying or flame broiling. Reducing sodium nitrite content reduces nitrosamine formation in foods.”

Bob Terrell: A Remembrance of a Beginning

That old Underwood typewriter in the foreground of the above photo is similar to the one I was presented as a rookie sports writer--and the youngest person in the newsroom, meaning I got the oldest typewriter--in 1964. In the photo below, Bob sits in the press box at McCormick Field, home of the Asheville Tourists. Oh, could I tell you some stories ...

About two weeks ago, in the middle of June, the man who gave me my first job in the newspaper business died at 80 after nearly 60 years of writing every day. Bob Terrell was a beloved columnist of a type that rarely exists any longer: he was of the people, his people, the people of the mountains of Western North Carolina.

I never really thought of Bob as a hero or as anything above the crowd, though I always respected him as a storyteller and as a man who produced. He not only wrote his column nearly forever, but he produced about 70 books (many of them column collections, but many not). He was a good guy, a man with a terrific sense of humor and a man who understood those around him about as well as anybody could. He was not complicated and he saw right and wrong in vivid color. When Muhammad Ali changed his name from Cassius Clay and refused to enter the U.S. Army ("I ain't got nothing against no Viet Congs"), Bob was livid and banned the boxer's name--in any form--from the pages of the Asheville Citizen-Times sports section. This was at the height of Ali's career.

He was always for the government, against those who opposed it, for God and against behavior that he considered anti-Christian. Very clear on every point, always. I didn't always agree with Bob--I didn't generally agree with Bob, in fact--in many things, but I always liked and respected him and thought he was held in proper esteem for a guy who made a mark.

Following is a piece of a chapter of my book, Burning the Furniture, dealing with meeting Bob for the first time and getting my first job at a newspaper. He didn't have to hire me. He did, though. I remain grateful 45 years later.

***

Anybody who has ever worked in a newsroom, especially a newspaperroom, understands why people who have been called “ink-stained wretches” generally considered other work beneath them.

The first time I walked into a newsroom—a late August afternoon in 1964—I couldn’t see enough of it in my view shed. I turned around, and looked at people and machines; listened to clattering, urgent noises; smelled cigarette smoke and coffee and paste and an asphalt- and oil-tinged breeze off the parking lot, As it wafted through open metal-framed windows. I wanted to touch something, and knew instinctively that a final level of stimulation would complete this sensual feast.

As I sat in front of Bob Terrell’s editor’s chair in the sports department as he interviewed me for a “copy boy” job, my head continued to roam. His office had walls only rib high and above that I could see the activity at the city desk; I could watch reporters type and argue on telephones simultaneously; I saw the AP wire editor as he tore copy or watched AP Photos as they rolled out of their machine in magical fashion, making a screeching noise. At one point, I heard Bob say, “Dan, are you listening?” and I realized I’d strayed from the interview. I said, “This looks like so much fun. I want to do it.” I think the depth of sincerity of that innocent pronouncement from an 18-year-old who’d barely ever held a job got me a desk, a chair and a typewriter that I didn’t know how to use, starting that day, that minute.

The pay was $5 a day no matter how many hours were in that work day, and Bob wanted me to work every day until I could type well enough to write. Every day, no matter how many it took. He wanted me in the office at 4 and out at midnight. I was to type the whole time that I wasn’t carrying somebody else’s copy to the composing room—I was, after all, a copy boy—and he didn’t care what I typed. As soon as I had a feel for the keyboard, regardless of how fast or accurately I typed, I would begin with briefs, then headlines, then captions. I would learn layout and be responsible for putting the paper out. All this before I could cover a game, conduct an interview, write a news or feature story.

Bob put the old warrior and outdoor editor Al Geremonte on me as my personal coach. Al, a Boston native and former platoon sergeant who’d fought at Guadalcanal, carried a blue editing pen and wore it out on me. He called me “Kid” in a thick Massachusetts-Italian accent and told me newspaper stories when he wasn’t teaching me newspaper skills. I learned later that the stories are—in the long run—as valuable as writing, editing, layout and all the other things I had to learn to do. He gave me structure and purpose, a framework for a career.

Every day I came in, for the longest time, I passed through the door with the same wonder at being here, the sensual overload, the feeling that I was supposed to be in this place at this time, and that something good was in store for me.

It seemed only minutes before I could type well enough to get other assignments, slowly at first, then almost nightly for a while. I hadn’t been at the Asheville Citizen for more than three months before I put out a paper by myself for the first time. I drew sports pages on layout dummies, read AP and local copy and corrected it, typed headlines, captions and all the rest, in a slow, careful, halting manner as I looked for the right keys. Al and Bob and Richard Morris and the one or two others who worked in the department up and left one night, saying, “It’s yours. Do it right.” And I did. Al had taught me how. I wasn’t even nervous about it.

The Battle of Ft. Tomato: It's Total War!

Me 'n' Maddy down by the Fort-yard^

Fully understanding the addictive nature of my personality and that no matter what I do, I'll never beat the groundhogs, I constructed Fort Tomato in the back yard, while my wife rolled in the grass laughing.

It is a noble construction: wood, wire, rope, nails, big rocks and the coup de gras, olive oil and cayenne pepper. It should stop not only this little six-groundhog family, but the Seventh Groundhog Army. And so far the results have been ... uh ... mixed.

I simply can't imagine a little wooley animal taking a large bite out of a tomato leaf (and they don't seem to be interested in the tomatoes, themselves) and living for very long afterwards. The cayenne wouldn't directly kill them, I suspect, but suicide is a distinct option. The olive oil makes the pepper adhere to both the tomato leaf and to the groundhog tongue ... in theory. So why do they keep coming back, climbing the screens, tearing them down to a level where they can use them as ladders, burrowing under the whole mess? Must be damn good tomato leaves; a little Mexican treat, as it were, given the spices.

If this isn't enough, we have birds dive bombing the tomatoes and squirrels taking a bite out of anything I deem valuable and throwing it away. Damn squirrels. The birds--mockingbirds, bluejays, cardinals and those god-awful grackels when they're moving through the area on the way to their summer home in hell--eat the tomatoes. They're the only real animal to do that.

Bugs love the tomatoes, but that's easily controlled with a little white dust. Birds? Nope. Not even the cats can control them. I caught Moochie cowering under a chair on the front porch the other day while a mocking bird sat on the porch rail screaming at him: "Come out you little bastard and fight like a man!" That same mockingbird ran off a whole squadron of bluejays a little later. I had not thought of a mockingbird as a public menace before that.

So, now, I'm on the way to the backyard to check the crops. Pray for me.

(Minutes after finishing this piece, I go out to the backyard to have Christina take a photo of my pal Madeline and me at Fort Tomato and what do I find: two large groundhogs camping at the foot of the fort. They scurry off--I detect a middle finger in the air from the lead varmint--only to come back out from under the utility building moments later during the middle of the photo shoot. Looks like they want to negotiate until I pull a George Bush and scream, "You're either with us or you're against us!" They take off again.)

Somewhere in the Blackness of the City a Dog Yelled ...

OK, so I send this photo of the 1989 Alpha Romeo convertible (that my daughter is passing along to her dad*) to my partner in Valley Business FRONT, and he sends back the following missive. This is why I love working with this guy:<

debonair–[adjective] Dan Smith in an Alpha Romeo

Example: The white convertible pulled into the lot. Flat and cracked asphalt. A stark contrast and more accepting of the rusted LTD sedan and occasional police cruiser.

Another Saturday night. Another murder.

The debonair city editor, steps out purposefully, grabbing his fedora from the seat beside him in robotic fashion, as if he’d done this a million times. Snatching his memo pad he flips it open while striding up to Lieutenant Fletcher, nearly snapping the yellow police tape.

“Victim of circumstance or stupidity?,” he blurts out, ignoring the television news crew blasting its large spotlight on one lovely Michelle Sartonni, the metro’s favorite news anchor (among males 15 to 65). The editor already knew the crumpled body was either the clerk or the robber. Innocent bystanders seemed to disappear at this hour.

“Get in line, Smitty,” the cop replies, adjusting his uniform as the television light cut a path toward the crime scene.

Fletcher and Editor Smith both knew the reply was a public announcement, in front of the gathering crowd. Like the gleaming white Alpha Romeo among the more utilitarian vehicles at the liquor store lot, Smith was not the usual news hack. He would get the exclusive. He knew it. Lieutenant Fletcher knew it.

The next morning, metro citizens would read about another murder at a liquor store. But not on Smith’s blog. Smith’s readers would feel the impact of the hot lead, sinking into a young man’s chest. Fired from a cold blue steel 38. They would see the angle of death and splattered trajectory of senselessness.

Exactly forty-seven minutes later, a door shuts. A hat gets placed methodically in the passenger’s seat. And a topless, nearly silent, sleek white car leaves the scene of the crime. And the launching pad of yet another story. Of life. Of death.

Fletcher watched the car disappear down 14th Avenue, the white fading out as a neon donut shop sign took over. He looked over and saw the lovely Michelle getting into the front seat of the van as the On-the-Spot News 8 team packed up equipment. “That dame has legs that never end,” he thought.

Noticing a camera still on the ground, Fletcher regretted it wasn’t far enough away from the van to “accidentally” run his cruiser over it. The TV news never got this story right. If the camera broke, he mused, people could read about tonight on Smitty’s blog.

(* I will mention that Editor Smitty has no intention of driving this little beauty. He intends to upgrade it to 2009 standards, sell it and purchase a suitable automobile for his son with the proceeds. Editor Smitty explains that he has already gone through his second, third and fourth childhoods and that the 10-year-old pickup he drives "is just fine, thank you. We ain't tryin' to impress nobody.")

SALE! Washington Post's Soul; Gently Used

The Washington Post has apparently become the first large daily newspaper to plublicly sell its soul to D.C. lobbyists.

In Today's Huffington Post, Jason Linkins writes: "For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to "those powerful few"--Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors."

Incidentally (and ironically), the story was initially broken by Politico, an Internet news organization started by two former WaPo reporters.

BR Business Journal Going Monthly?

A knowledgeable source told me today that the Blue Ridge Business Journal, whose revenues have been falling steadily for some time--if the number of ads and their size has anything to do with revenue--will become a monthly publication again. The Journal was a monthly for nine years until it was purchased by The Roanoke Times about 12 years ago.

(Update: The Blue Ridge Business Journal's editor, Elizabeth Parsons, says she's unaware of any plan to change the publication day and "I think I would have heard about it before an ad rep," the alleged source of the information.)

When The Times asked us if we thought our staff could handle publishing twice monthly (I was editor at the time), I said, "Yes, want to start with the next issue?" The Times guy laughed and said, "We were thinking six months. Can you do that?" I said, "Yes, we can also do next issue." We converted the next issue and it has run that way since.

The Journal is apparently scheduled to move into the Roanoke Times building when its lease in what we called Business Journal Towers on the corner of 2nd St. and Campbell Avenue is up in August, making its absorption by The Roanoke Times complete.

(I will also note that the BRBJ--after months of a Web site that was laughable at best--has updated its site ... by copying ours. Note the page turning device. Direct rip-off. They know where the good stuff is. Gotta give 'em that.)

Making a Movie at Smith Mountain Lake: In This Economy? You Bet!

Sara Elizabeth Timmins: Opportunity time^

At that very moment, Sara Elizabeth Timmins was looking at the prospect of raising $500,000 in about three weeks. You’d have thought she had a surplus.

If sheer force of will has anything at all to do with the making of the new Smith Mountain Lake-based movie “Lake Effect,” it’ll be on time, under budget and a box office smash.

This small, pretty, 33-year-old actress/producer from L.A. via Ohio and now The Lake, where her parents have retired, has a resume that includes 12 productions of various kinds, so it’s not as if she was a rookie. But, the conventional wisdom asks, what about the worst economy in the memory of most of us? Huh! Opportunity: “It’s more exciting this way,” she says, leaning forward and emphasizing each word. “Millionaires are made and people do great things during recessions.”

Advantages? Yep: “There are fewer movies being made and therefore more talent available and it’s cheaper.” Raising that 500 Large was the problem of the moment and Sara Elizabeth Timmins was in the middle of her whirlwind tour, meeting, cajoling, convincing, charming. She had already secured roughly $1.3 million in donations, loaned materials, volunteer work. It is a wide variety of necessities from boats to homes to all that which is required to put together a movie and support its crew.

The goal is to begin shooting in October, when the leaves are at peak, but, says Sara Elizabeth, “If we don’t meet the goal, then we go to spring or next fall. The movie will be made.”

She has been something of a roiling storm from the beginning. She went to Xavier University in Cincinnati to study theater and discovered there was no major when she got there. She put together a coalition of students, demanding one and voila! It was deemed so.

Her first producing project came when the producer of a movie on which she was working as a volunteer left to do “Seabiscuit.” She had so impressed the powers that be that they slotted her into the producer’s chair for “Tattered Angel,” an award-winner.

She’s been in the business eight years (and yes, she admits she still looks like a teenager) and has 12 production credits. She’s also an actor, but it’s the business side that fascinates her most. Will she act in “Lake Effect”? “Probably,” she says, unimpressed.

She’s been a Los Angeles resident for the past six years, but has never really taken to it. “I was disheartened by what I found,” she says. “It is not in line with the way I work. There’s a lot of dishonesty there.”

The Lake, though, is another matter. She loves the Lake. “I was here one winter,” she says, “and went for a walk. I was suddenly calm and, click, there was clarity. The film, based here, came to me.”

So, she hired a writer (Scott Winter of Providence, R.I.) who produced a script and she was right smack in the middle of “taking my own advice. I do motivational speaking and I always tell people to follow their dreams.”

The idea is to tell a good story (it’s about coming home), showcase the Lake and create community around the movie. Her company, Life Out Loud Films, “can be a catalyst for possible change,” she says.

“When I started, I asked myself how I could do this differently or better. I felt like we had to give some of the profits to lake cleanup. “My dad started getting the word out and I was getting calls from people offering lodging, medical care, a plane, boats, things we could use.”

Bart Wilner of Entre Computer in Roanoke became the first cash investor and Sara Elizabeth is working the room for more, maybe 10 total at about $50K each. “When I started pitching,” she says, “it ceased to be my project and became the community’s project. It all began to click that way. We’re hoping to create a positive economic impact with this film. We’re using the name of the lake, businesses at the lake and we’re using Virginia products everywhere we can. We’ll use as much as we can without losing the integrity of the project.”

It’s a project “we couldn’t do in L.A.,” she says, emphasizing that “I have no money. It’s more exciting this way.”

Make That Biscuits AND Gravy, Mr. Sheriff

After asking myself the rhetorical question, "What kind of people are we?" upon reading the NYTimes editorial this a.m. on cutting prison food budgets, I noted that one crooked old boy sheriff from 'Bama is now serving a stretch in his own jail for pocketing $200,000 in food money. Seems the state allows sheriffs to keep the food budget dollars they don't spend.

My guess is that he invested the money in sherrif's belly futures, a shrinking portfolio in this case.

Campbell Avenue Soap Opera Updates

More from the land of cut and past over on Campbell Avenue at The Roanoke Times, where the news department continues to be patched together. Seems the pasting of the newsie leaks continues, judging from the e-mails I'm getting.

Here's the latest from somebody I trust:

"Lerone Graham--a recently married man who's been working as an intern for well over a year now--either has or is about to head to the Roanoke bureau [from the New River Bureau, which produces Current for that area] to cover night cops. He will not be replaced [in NRV], so the bureau will go down another body. That would be two in less than three months. The staff was already at just under half its size of three years ago.

"That's part of a shuffling of deck chairs that--at least in one scenario--will include the end of the religion beat." [This is the beat Rob Johnson covered when he was shoved out the door. Rob was brought in several years ago from the Wall Street Journal to head the business department, but was demoted to reporter, then given the religion beat. He's done some work for us at FRONT of late. Good work, I'll add.]

Religion reporter "Tonia Moxley [who used to do business reporting for roanoke.com] is up for the Virginia Tech/Radford University beat--though she's been on the religion beat for only a short time and was assured the beat wouldn't be canceled beneath her if she left her Blacksburg beat to take it." [I saw Tonia downtown the other day and she was excited about covering religion and said she had some great ideas how she was going to do it.]

"One scenario would have Courtney Curtight leaving her Bedford/Botetourt County beat (I think for the K-12 beat -- isn't that the departing David Harrision's territory?)." One other scenario has the RT "adding a genuine, experienced journalist ... something they haven't done for a good long while." ["Genuine, experienced" journalists are expensive. Adding one won't hurt, since Beth Macy, a solid, experienced writer/reporter is leaving for a Harvard fellowship. She's expected to return. We'll see.]

Old Agnew Seed Lives Again as Walkabout

Kirk and Tina Miller this morning, finishing the move^

Tina and Kirk Miller with Auctioneer Ken Farmer just after the sale in March^

Tina and Kirk Miller, owners of Walkabout Outfitters on Roanoke City Market, are spending today moving their store into the former Agnew Seed a few doors down. The new store opens tomorrow. The difference for the Millers is that they are now owners instead of rentors, having purchased Agnew in March.

Agnew had been the sole occupant of the building for nearly 100 years, but a death in the family led to its sale and the Millers, who own three other stores--two in Lexington and a kitchen shop a couple of doors away on City Market--bought it at auction.

Kirk Miller says the most significant obstacle in the renovation process was the unanticipated levels of dust, generated by a seed store. "We're going from agricultural to retail clothing," he says, "and the one thing we can't tolerate in clothes is dust." The renovations in the store have primarily amounted to removing, rather than adding. The banks of shelving along both walls are gone and everything has been painted and refinished, including a lovely hammered tin ceiling.

We're Moving to the Jefferson Center

Come September 1, Valley Business FRONT is moving to the Jefferson Center at the West End of Downtown Roanoke, one of my favorite buildings in the Roanoke Valley. This is an arts center that initially didn't rent to for-profit enterprises, but has changed its mind and we're among the first to get in the door. I'm thoroughly pumped about it because my office is going to be in that turret at the far right, ground floor. I always wanted an office in a turret.

Jefferson opened as a high school in 1924 and closed in 1974, only to be renovated and re-opened again in 1993 as the Jefferson Center for the arts, following an impressive fund-raising campaign organized by Judge Beverly Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick Hall opened in 1995 and the Shaftman Center for the Performing Arts debuted in 2001, each the result of local fund-raising. The Jefferson opened its many offices to non-profits initially, but has recently made those offices available to businesses like the FRONT.

A Morning at Happy's Flea Market

You have no idea how much I wanted this helmet for my bike. Christina would'a killed me.

This old boy was proud of his dog, which looked like a pit bull somebody'd left in the dryer.

These girls were texting. Each other, they said. Their mother was amused.

Would you put one of these on your head ... considering where they've been?

No, I have no idea what it is, but it's fruit--I think--and it's pretty.

OK, I can't eat churros, but that doesn't mean I can't look.

This woman chatted on her cell while looking for a size on the jeans.

The missing box? Heh, heh. Mine.

The woman in the middle and my truck are basically the same size.

These old boys were selling Jesus. They said it was new, with tags.

Barbie is a big seller.

Mennonites are among the customers.

This young woman was surprised by the photo and a little scared.

This morning at about 9 a.m., I pulled my scooter into the parking lot at Happy's Flea Market in North Roanoke, lifted my Nikon (with the 10-20mm lens) out of the carry-all and started shooting. Here's some of what I came up with.

Happy's is the most international four acres in Western Virginia and though it's not especially cosmopolitan, it's full of people, character, food I can't identify (but which I'll eat in a heartbeat), great little brass thingys, old tires, people with stomachs that defy biology, cigarette smoke, women navigating with small-wheeled strollers, hot sun, large pickup trucks, Jesus salesmen, Craftsman tools, dust, old cameras (which I collect), match box cars, Texaco airplane banks (which I used to collect until I got them all), vintage Pendleton shirts, a clarinet with no mouthpiece, jeans for $8, books for 50 cents, old LIFE magazines with Jacqueline Kennedy on the cover, Tonka Trucks and cactus you can grill. There's also a guy selling fish from buckets filled with ice. The prawns weigh about half a pound each. I wouldn't any more eat one than I'd take a bite out of a warm, steaming dog deposit, which would probably be safer.

Happy's is a wonderful place if you like people, hell if you don't. If you're into courtesy or A+ deportment, go to charm school. If you like cigarette smoke wafting your way or smelly armpits, this is your place. It's full of a variety of smells, bright light from a too-direct sun and languages I simply can't understand, but wish I could. And there are a lot of nice people there, people for whom you don't have to put on a show.

I like it.

Quality Filmmakers at Virginia Tech

Paul Harrill and his wife Ashley Maynor at the Kindigs^

I ran into Paul Harrill at the Perry F. Kendig Awards Wednesday and wasn't aware of who he was until afterwards. He reminded me that I had interviewed him several years ago for a column I was writing when he was working on the film that won him one of the Kindig awards.

Paul's a Virginia Tech professor whose 30-minute movie, "Quick Feet/Soft Hands," the story of a minor league baseball player and his wife dreaming of the Bigs, has a date with PBS and took a Kendig for visual arts. Here's a trailer for it. His movie "Gina, an Actress, Age 29" won short film awards at the Santa Fe, Nashville and Sundance film Festivals.

Paul and his documentary-making wife, Ashley Maynor (who also teaches at Tech), and I chatted briefly after the awards dinner, talking about projects and me asking if either of them would be interested in making a movie of a book project I either will or won't undertake in a month or so (this one's really and truly made for the movies), but they didn't seem interested. Still, I think I'll ask both of them to speak at the next writer's conference at Hollins (I recruited Roland Lazenby today; he has written some very popular sports books and his journalism students' coverage of the Tech shootings a couple of years ago embarrassed the professional media with its quality).

Paul writes a blog that concentrates heavily on film and it is literate, passionate and a great read. It's here. Of the group of eight winners of the Kindigs, my money goes on Paul to make the biggest splash ultimately. His work is quite good; too good for a small market.

The Ever-Shrinking RT Newsroom, Part Deux (Or So)

One of my Roanoke Times insiders provided the following in commenting on the piece we ran here about a week ago on the changes within that institution's newsroom. It's much more dramatic than even I thought. Here's the accounting I got:

"In addition to the changes you site in your June 17 blog on the ever-dwindling Roanoke Times staff:

• "Greg Esposito is leaving the New River Valley bureau/education beat to go to grad school;
• "Stellar photographer Josh Meltzer, who was on a yearlong sabbatical will not be returning;
• "Seth Gitner who headed up videography/online is leaving to teach in Syracuse, N.Y;
• "Reporter Pete Dybdahl is leaving for Long Island.
• "On the copy desk, Kelly Short, a lead designer since 2002, left June 19, and Alec Rooney, a veteran copy editor with 20 years' experience and about 3 years at the Times, has dropped back to part time."

Pete Dybdahl spent a little time working with us at The Blue Ridge Business Journal and I've always thought of him as a terribly underused and perhaps major talent (given the opportunity). He would have made a splendid local columnist, though I think Dan Casey is the best of that breed at the RT since Mike Ives was burning up the pool tables in the 1970s.

I saw Pete on City Market at lunch a bit ago and he said this "just seems like the right thing to do now." He'll be close to his mother and "my sweetie" (a lovely young woman who's occupied that special position for some time) has a good job. Pete says he might look for something in weekly newspapering. I hope he finds something he likes and something that uses his talent.

My colleague sees "a huge decline in the editing. Typos, grammar, bad [headlines], etc." I hear that often from people who are compulsive proof readers.

A Night at the Oper ... uh ... Arts Awards

Perry Kendig's son Bill poses with me (nose to the grindstone, as usual)^

From left: Christina Koomen Smith (my wife), moi, Emily and Tom Field; cute couples, huh?

Here's the period of small talk; you'll note that I'm above it (with my camera). Heh, heh, heh ...^

One of my favorite people, Laura Rawlings, director of the Arts Council, flanked by two Literary Artist types^

So, here's the magic publishing duo enjoying an evening of being wined and dined (not so much wine for me) as winners of Arts Council of the Blue Ridge's Perry F. Kendig Awards. Ours was the Literary Arts Award, the first the council has ever given out.

We did have a good time and I just love dragging out those old tuxedoes for one more wear. (Did I mention that I'm the only journalist I know who owns three tuxedos? All those marriages.