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

DATE: FRIDAY, February 1, 1991                   TAG: 9102010242
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

STAR CITY MAKES WAY FOR ESOPHAGUS OF THE BAY

For the past year, we've all been wrapped up in pan-Roanokism, cherishing our status as the country's 175th largest city.

We've also been warning Hayward, Calif., not to breach our ranking. Hayward was considered just one notch below us - the 176th largest city - in terms of population as of 1986. Repeatedly, and using every diplomatic channel available to us, we warned the Hayward Huns.

Still, Hayward - in the person of Tom Goff, a newspaper columnist - fired back. He conjured for his readers an image of Roanoke as a city of possum casseroles and toothless tobacco chewers. He dubbed us the Oyster of the Blue Ridge.

And we acted like any big brother or sister would act toward an underling.

We teased, relentlessly.

We pointed out the Hayward noise ordinance, which requires pilots coming into their mudflat airport to run their airplane engines so quietly that some have conked out in mid-air and landed on places other than the runway. Trees, apartment houses, places like that.

We pointed out that a Hayward man was accused of having sex with a sheep on their first date.

We chuckled at the forced, trendy, counter-culinary-cultural Hayward Zucchini Festival held each summer to embarrass city residents.

We simply mentioned that the Hayward Fault - a jagged rent in the Earth's surface - runs beneath Hayward's main drag. We now note that Hayward City Hall - all 11 stories of it - will have to be moved because the building isn't earthquake-proof.

We reported the statistical fact that Hayward has fewer cops and more crime than Roanoke.

We happened to note that Hayward brazenly dubbed itself the Heart of the Bay. It shares that bay with San Francisco and Oakland, and we suggested that perhaps Hayward could more accurately be called the Esophagus of the Bay.

We uncovered moles, including this Roanoke businessman, code-named Bugman, who visited Hayward not long ago and returned with these counterintelligence findings:

"There's nothing to see there at all. Nothing."

"The first thing you notice, all the city limits signs have bullet holes in them."

"The freeways are lined with 20-foot walls. You can't see the blight and they prevent drive-by shootings."

"Downtown Hayward on a weekday looks like the Statesman Industrial Park about 7 a.m. on a Sunday."

"Close to San Francisco? Yeah, it's close to San Francisco. They get all San Francisco's exhaust."

In spite of Bugman's efforts, in spite of our claims of superiority, in spite of the heroic efforts of people proud of their Roanoke heritage, we have been stomped.

Roanoke's population dipped. Hayward's soared.

We're not going to be ranked anymore, because we dropped below 100,000 people. We're has-beens. We're washed up.

But we fought the good fight and will always look back fondly on our days as this nation's 175th largest city.

Curses, forever, on Hayward.