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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 22, 1993                   TAG: 9312220110
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ED SHAMY
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

UGLY REALITY SHATTERS SPELL CAST BY SNOWFALL, SEASON

When snow and Christmas fall on or near the same day, something gently magical happens. Suddenly, self-deception becomes so much easier. With the snow falling and the Christmas lights brightening the dark and goodwill toward men welling up on every street corner, it's a cinch to convince yourself that maybe things aren't so bad, maybe there is a kindred and gentle spirit which binds us all. Maybe we're all reaching for the same hopes with our different fingers.

And then the snow stops falling.

By lunchtime Tuesday, most of that gentle magic was gone. Schoolkids, giddy with the prospect of an unexpected day off, had sledded grass ruts into the popular hills. The snow and ice had been mashed to slush on roads and sidewalks.

George was back at the grind, pushing his shopping cart along Patterson Avenue in Roanoke. The cart was laden with George's usual gleanings - aluminum cans and the tiny shards of copper and brass he could pick from trash cans and trash bins in his neighborhood. George was headed for the aluminum recycling station at Shaffers Crossing.

George leaned into a stiff wind that shot chilled daggers through even the thickest coat, easing his cargo around the pockets and puddles of slush at the avenue's edge. Duct tape bound together the split seam of one of George's tennis shoes.

He was nearly half a mile from his destination, but the pocket change that George earns every day from the recyclables he collects and sells is about the only money George can earn.

He lives alone on Patterson Avenue, and he is given to long and sometimes incoherent ramblings. He talks to himself a lot. His eyeglasses are usually cockeyed and often so filthy it's a wonder he can see through them.

To be blunt, George is somewhat addled.

He wears a ballcap and a gray beard; George will turn 52 on Tuesday.

But there was no magic - birthday, snowfall, Christmas or otherwise - for George.

He was being taunted. Some neighborhood teen, armed with swifter legs and a spirit void of humanity, was swooping on George, trying hard to pluck from the shopping cart a giant bagful of soda-sticky, stale-beer-smelling cans. George was plodding on, trying to get to the recyling center, trying hard to ignore the kid, but he couldn't. He'd flick up a defensive arm when the punk got too close, but never stopped moving.

The young miscreant was shouting taunts at George - as simple-minded and defenseless a prey as a cowardly predator could hope to find.

The cruelty lasted but a block or so, and George was left again to face the gale and slog toward his day's earnings.

At Shaffers Crossing, George mumbled about a blade, and he felt around with a thin hand toward the back of his belt. He said he should have taught the kid a lesson.

But he was too busy now to think much about the kid, pulling a few feet of copper wire - too little to register on the scale at the Reynolds Metals recycling station. He was turning over and over again in his hand a few brass fittings he'd found and would sell.

The snow, this holiday, that spirit that seems so magical?

It's a mirage. Ask George.

by CNB