Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 22, 1993 TAG: 9311250340
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GLENN M. AYERS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
But for most in the Roanoke Valley who don't hunt, it will be just a day to sleep later and visit the immediate family. Add turkey and pumpkin pie to any Sunday and that's today's Thanksgiving.
It hasn't always been that way. At one time, Roanoke's Thanksgiving was as big as Derby Day in Louisville. The young, the old, the firm and infirm gathered on Turkey Day to spread late fall festival from Hotel Roanoke out Jefferson to Yellow Mountain.
For those with short memories or none at all, the focal point was the Tech-VMI (then, "VPI"-VMI) football game, billed as the Military Classic of the South. It was played each year on Thanksgiving afternoon in Victory Stadium during the years I remember, though it had been held for at least 30 years previously at the old Maher Field.
There are so many memories of the day for me, both real and vicarious, that sometimes I have to ask, "Do I remember that, or did Dad tell me?" Dad's recollections began in 1917, extended through his years at Tech (1924-28), to mine (1953-57), to the last game played on Thanksgiving in 1968. My actual recall begins in 1945, the year Tech resumed playing after the War.
"Thanksgiving" really started on its eve, Wednesday night. We would drive or stroll down Church and Jefferson, seeing the painted "Welcome VPI/VMI" signs in the shop windows. The letters were always orange and maroon or red, white, yellow. Dad would check on the mum orders for the ladies at Weber's Florist to make sure they were done in the Hokie motif.
Returning to the Rosalind Avenue house, we would find Mom and Grandma laying out the clothes for next day, while Aunt Elmira was separating her collection of the VPI pins, ribbons and pennants that she collected to save buying new ones. Some were getting a bit antique even for 1945. My pennant pictured a player carrying what looked like a rugby ball.
Aunt Adaline was airing her furs. She always said she only wanted a diamond, a mink and a seat at Victory Stadium on Thanksgiving to show them off. Her other duty, already performed, was taping the Roanoke World-News' schedule of the next day's events to the mirror over the desk. I would begin reading the game preview while Dad had a Scotch and water. Thanksgiving officially began.
Next morning after breakfast, Dad and I went downtown. It was amazing how festive the sidewalks were, even at 9 a.m. On Campbell Avenue near the Market, Sunshine Cleaners had as many as a dozen shoeshine boys going full tilt as men had their hats cleaned "While-U-Wait." The Weiner Stand and other Market cafes hummed.
About midmorning, folks began gravitating toward Jefferson, Dad drifting up Kirk to a few offices he knew would be operating as libation centers. While we were there, the VMI cadets would arrive by bus. Their headquarters was the Hotel Roanoke and a little after noon they would gather in a staging area uptown for their march to the stadium.
The VPI Corps of Cadets, led by their regimental band, the Highty-Tighties, came on the "Huckleberry" and marched from the Norfolk and Western station up Jefferson to the Patrick Henry Hotel. It was this parade we had come to see. Little boys who watched it would some day march in it themselves, and live to see their sons do the same.
When the corps was 1,500 strong, the parade seemed to stretch forever; when the vanguard dismissed at the hotel, the last company was just stepping off at the depot. VMI cadets mingled among the watchers, shouting comments and false cadences, harbingers of the heckling chants that would follow later at the stadium.
The height of the pageantry that was the "Military Classic of the South," happened there. VMI marched in, in battalion mass; the Tech corps followed by companies. Roanoke's umbers of autumn were intensified by the colors in the crowd: the red-trimmed grays of VMI, the dark blue of the Techmen with scarlet capes and white covers for the famous "hat-tricks.", the great mass of spectators dressed in their finest pigskin decor with flowers, ribbons and school colors, finished the portrait.
Once seated, the two corps - like answering Greek choruses across a Roman amphitheater - shouted and sang to each other in largely good-natured jeers. These were delivered mostly before the game, but also at time-outs, interspersed with the VPI hat tricks - words spelled out by cadets holding hats or overcoat capes in front of their faces.The best perennials were Tech's version of "VMI Spirit" and the Keydets' Hokie parody, "Horky, Horky ... Blacksburg High!" But the impromptu chants were usually better. One, however, always struck poignantly home.
A good friend who was a VMI cadet says one Tech jibe always hurt. Toward the end of the game, VPI would begin: "We're going ho-ome," meaning, of course, they would scatter for the Thanksgiving weekend while VMI loaded up for Lexington and classes the next day. It was the Ring Figure for the upper classmen, but for the rest - particularly the rats - it was midnight after the ball.
The game was always the day's centerpiece, and years later, its happenings would form the pantheon of memory. In my earliest visions, the players were of the Golden Age: VMI's Lynn Chewning, Malachi Mills and Bobby Thomason. Tech had Ki Luczak, John "the Greek" Maskas and Sterling Wingo, the uniquely named halfback whose thrilling touchdown dashes marked the '47 and '49 games.
The most unforgettable wins for me were the 1946 Tech victory that capped a season that gained a tie with UNC and Choo-Choo Justice as well as a Sun Bowl berth, and Don Divers' twin interceptions that turned potential upset in 1954 to a 46-9 Tech rout. The best games were the 28-28 tie in '49, and Speck stopping Dyer on the two-point try in 1960. In the games I watched on Thanksgiving from 1945 to 1967, the record was 11-11-1. That's how good it was.
The game was the climax, but not, certainly, the end of the day. There was lots of "descending action" when the festivities shifted out to the house on Rosalind.
While the finishing touches were being put on dinner, Dad entertained visitors in the living room. Sometimes I felt most of South Roanoke dropped by.
There was Uncle Penn who lived a block over, on Carolina. He had been a fixture at the game till the war interruption; when it resumed, he didn't, but he always came by after, perhaps to absorb part of the cheer that was being poured liberally. Then there was Baxter Murphy. "Pat," as he was called, and Dad had been best friends since childhood, but had drifted apart when Dad went to Tech. They met once a year at the post-game happy hour; two middle-aged men recounting playing ball for Elmwood Park, camping on Little Yellow Mountain, or turning over Professor Holroyd's outhouse on Halloween.
Despite the number of visitors beforehand, our Thanksgiving meal was always privately shared. The table was neatly set with the aunts' elegant lace "army-navy" tablecloth, old china, silver, crystal, cruets and other relics from their father's old hotel, including the wine glass Teddy Roosevelt sipped from. The fare was standard Thanksgiving save the sauerkraut Aunt Elmira always insisted on serving, a memento from her distaff Dutch.
So would end our Roanoke Thanksgiving. Next day we would be out to the farm, resuming our lives. Who won or lost was already fading as rapidly as the happy thoughts of the day that some say will come no more. It was inevitable. The expansion of Virginia Tech as the commonwealth's largest university and modern Roanoke's more urbane posture finished an event for a society grown too old, too Southern, too out of style.
It's a revel now ended and probably no sadder than the demise of the Hotel Roanoke or the Boiler Room. Still, much like the vanished hair of my head, I regret it will come no more. I only pity those who never had a chance to see it, and I feel I can truly say that for those who did not experience the Roanoke Thanksgiving, they missed the star attraction of the Star City of the South.
\ Glenn M. Ayers teaches at Staunton River High School in Bedford County.
by CNB