Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 11, 1995 TAG: 9509110075
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
This is our future, if we have one. Give young people places to go. I can bet you not a one of them got invited to the $25-per-person fund-raiser for Center in the Square.
I did, but with my widowed retirement threads that I would have worn, I would have been thrown out.
I feel out of place taking my middle-income grandchildren to the Science Museum. It has wonderful displays, but they can't compete with the well-bred, upper-class children of Roanoke, who have the place memorized and run and rip through there like it is a park.
Leave the City Market alone. It's alive. I have a 90-year-old friend who gets a ride and goes to the market area every day.
These kids give us hope for downtown Roanoke, of which I have many good memories of the past. Window shopping at night and stopping at the little People's Drugstore, and getting a cherry smash and a creamed cheese-and-olive sandwich.
I say God Bless America and God Bless Roanoke's City Market.
Hang in there, kids. Behave and set an example.
JOAN K. SHANNON ROANOKE
Ruby made the day seem brighter
THANK YOU for the beautiful front-page photo of Ruby, Roanoke's own Siberian tiger, in the Aug. 30 edition of The Roanoke Times, and thanks also to your photographer, Don Petersen, who did us all a good service with this photo.
It just did me good to see this beautiful tiger - in my opinion, one of God's most beautiful animals - taking the place of the usual tragic and depressing pictures of war or crime that we are generally greeted with when we pick up the newspaper.
I realize it doesn't make the sadness in the world go away, nor do I mean to imply we should not tell about that sadness, but once in a while to share some of God's created beauty seems to make the day go just a little bit better.
WILLIAM E. BOOTH VINTON
Tall tales from a convict's diary
AS A daily reader of The Roanoke Times, I have followed with interest and compassion the death-row dispatches (series of articles based on the inmate's diary) of inmate Dennis Stockton.
He states that he is on death row, sentenced to die for a crime that he is not guilty of? And that he wants to be free? Sorry, Dennis, your readers are just not buying this.
He was given a fair trial, and I'm certain that the jury did not want to sentence him to death, but this is what the crime demanded.
Notice that Dennis does not say anything at all about the trial, or about the horrible mutilation of the victim's body. Wonder why?
He goes on to describe his life of crime, and how he almost laughed many times at the way he easily evaded local police as he went about his arson-for-hire and other ``easy money'' crimes. He describes in detail how he outsmarted the local police, over and over again. This went on for years.
The Bible clearly describes this kind of living as ``sin for a season'' - then it is over. It is now over for Dennis Stockton.
Soon he will enter the spirit world, and he must face his Creator and give an accounting of his life on this Earth. Just as we must all do after death. God will then be Stockton's judge. Not you or me.
RON PENLAND WYTHEVILLE
Goodlatte's office followed through
MOST OF us complain about a person more than we praise a person. We tend to forget to say ``thank you'' when a person has done a good job - especially when it is our congressman.
I would like to comment on Congressman Bob Goodlatte and his local district director, Mr. Pete Larkin.
I have lived in more than 20 states, and have written to more than 80 congressmen in the last 10 years. Most of the responses, if I got a response, were a standard form letter.
Recently, I was involved in a government Catch-22. I wrote to Rep. Goodlatte's office. He has been very responsive, and has followed up on the situation with me and with the government agency involved.
Mr. Larkin has also called several times to follow up on the situation. Both Rep. Goodlatte and his staff have been available to see me. The Catch-22 has been solved.
It has been a pleasure to have a congressman who does not send form letters in response to requests. This has renewed my faith in congressmen.
The citizens of the 6th District have elected an excellent representative.
CHARLES A. P. SCHOMAKER ROANOKE ||||||||||||||||||||| JUNK
by CNB