Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, October 14, 1995 TAG: 9510170010
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Friday the 13th; two weeks and four days before Halloween; a bat hanging from a tree in front of Guy's restaurant in downtown Roanoke.
Not the orange or black cardboard-cutout type. A living, breathing 10-inch wingspan of a creature.
"If you were a superstitious person, you would have locked the doors and run like crazy," said Robin Tayloe, Guy's manager. "I kept waiting for a real squeamish person to walk by and hit the ground."
Guy's employees found the bat around 6 a.m. Friday, balled up on the sidewalk. It wasn't moving. They figured it was dead.
Andy Roberts, owner of the Peanut Store across First Street Southwest, wandered over and nudged the animal with his foot.
The bat jumped, "Just before I did," Roberts said.
Worried that a passer-by might step on the bat, or that the bat "might bite someone on the ankle," Roberts lowered a branch from a tree to the sidewalk. The bat climbed aboard, and clung - upside down, of course.
As Roberts watched people walk "dangerously close" to the bat on the limb, he worried someone might unknowingly plow right into it. He asked an employee at a neighboring construction business to create an 81/2-by-11-inch sign issuing a warning: "Beware of Bat!'' Roberts thumbtacked it to the tree, just below the bat's perch.
The skittish animal attracted more attention than it perhaps wanted.
"There were a good 15, maybe 20 people here, fascinated with the fact that a bat was hanging from the tree," Tayloe said. "If all these people come in here and eat, that would be great."
A Roanoke animal control officer gently removed the bat and took it to a safe area.
by CNB