Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 16, 1994 TAG: 9408160061
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
If only the sun would shine down warm on the weekends indefinitely.
If only the the season for tubing and hanging out on the rocks at McCoy Falls could linger.
If only the hordes of Virginia Tech students would stay away!
Ahhh, but all good things must end.
Blacksburg in the summer is a special place. Things slow down. The sidewalks seem spacier. Crowded bars are not so much an unavoidable norm that must be tolerated, but rather a sign of the place to be that night.
When I was a student at Tech, I spent my final summer in Blacksburg, flipping hot dogs for a meager living, taking a couple classes, heading to the New River, whiling away the nights in the various watering holes around downtown.
I remember hanging out on a Saturday night in late August of that summer of 1990, sipping on a beer with a friend in a corner of The Cellar. The next week classes were to begin, and that day the wave of returning and first-time students had begun flooding the town.
As Rob and I sat there, we began slumping back in our chairs, saying little, slipping farther into the corner as we watched more and more people walk through the restaurant door. After spending a summer of nights where elbows were for resting on instead of staking out turf, I knew things were about to change.
Rob suggested we split to somewhere less crowded. We went home.
Each year around this time, I suspect many "townies" think something to themselves along the lines of: "This is my town - stay out of it."
Of course, that's arrogant. But after living here year-round, and savoring Blacksburg and nearby spots like the river, Dragons Tooth or McAfee Knob without battling a crowd - well, it's hard not to feel a little selfish.
I spent my second summer in Blacksburg this year, this time as a reporter.
Some in the newsroom await the assault of 20,000 Tech students with the gleeful anticipation of more news to report. In that sense, so do I: Blacksburg is my beat.
And I'm sure the town's merchants and restaurant operators can't wait to see a huge chunk of their clientele back walking the streets. No blame there.
This craving for relative solitude won't last forever, I know. A couple of weeks and Blacksburg-sans-students will be a memory, but not a bitter one. Plenty of new faces to see, new people to meet. And oh, football season, too.
It's still a good place to be.
But I can't help but lament in advance the (increased) lack of parking, the crowded sidewalks, the bars packed weekend after weekend. I can't help but wish the town's populace would remain half of what it will be.
If only summer would last a little longer....
STEPHEN FOSTER is a staff writer in the Roanoke Times & World-News' New River Valley bureau.
by CNB