
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 25, 1990                   TAG: 9003232701
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JIM ECHOLS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

EDITORIAL PAGE FIT FOR VINTON RECYCLING

WE MIDDLE- and working-class stiffs over here in Vinton wake up and pinch ourselves these mornings. We can hardly believe we're doing anything so upscale as recycling.

But, then, there it was. Right there on our morning editorial page. "Vinton recycles," the headline told us. It's just amazing, the editorial said, that folks - backward Baptists, no less - who drive pickup trucks and watch ice hockey have become the first in the valley to fully recycle their trash.

We're popping with pride and we'd like to celebrate with a bit of that brie and chablis the editorial talked about, if we knew what it was.

Vinton folk are strange creatures that have been confounding such intellectuals as anthropologists, editorial writers and Episcopalians for years. We don't know much, but we're trying to do better. Recycling's a start, so give us time.

We admit there are still some Vintonites who prefer pickup trucks to Volvos. They cling to that outmoded notion that it's OK to be seen driving something you can afford.

Then there's still a cantankerous streak in some Vinton folk. As the editorial pointed out, we are mostly Democrats but sometimes don't vote that way. For instance, in 1988 under the incentive of an editorial urging a straight Democratic ticket, Vintonites trouped to the polls to vote Republican.

But despite our faults, we recycle. And with any luck the benefits of this farsighted decision by our town manager and Town Council will pay handsome dividends. It might even result in the paper on which the "Vinton recycles" editorial was printed being turned into something useful in its next life.

Charmin, maybe.

by CNB