ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 13, 1996 TAG: 9601150018
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
TYPE: COMMENTARY
SOURCE: RAY COX
Because newspaper deliveries have been curtailed in sundry areas lately, it has come as something of a surprise to some of us that it snowed recently.
Now that that has been brought to our attention, the bad news just keeps coming.
On a particularly melancholy note in the wake of the expected arrival of another whiteout Friday, there will be no more high school basketball, wrestling or volleyball contested in the New River Valley until next December.
That is assuming, of course, that a satisfactory thaw has provided access to the various high schools by then. This is by no means a certainty.
Should this be considered a trifle pessimistic, sit still for a history lesson.
In the month of January of the frozen Year of Our Lord 1917, it became so wretchedly cold in these parts that the New River near Fries froze to a thickness of 12 to 15 inches. Some time later, a thaw broke the ice into chunks roughly the size of Cassell Coliseum, and they were transported forthwith, glacierlike, downstream.
This crunchy flow then was met by a wooden railroad trestle some 200 feet in length that was connected to an iron bridge. The icy assault separated these sturdy structures from their moorings and carried them, still upright, for a considerable distance.
Some weeks later, the trestle was returned, by a particularly impressive piece of engineering artistry, to its rightful spot.
And that same bridge was restored many months sooner than the ice melted. According to eyewitness accounts, there were still chunks of ice on the river banks as late as June.
The material for this brief and impromptu essay was plucked from the pages of recently published ``Norfolk & Western Railway Company North Carolina Branch'' by Munsey W. Webb.
It is unclear what Webb knows about basketball, but you don't have to be a historian to know that you can't hoop if you can't get into the gym.
In the case of some of the older schools around here, you might not want to be in the gym to begin with. When these scholarly enclaves are closed for any length of time, coal isn't shoveled into the furnace with quite the same vigor as it is when students and staff are present. Then it is recommended that those who use the gym dress for the occasion, as it were.
The quality of the basketball suffers, as it must when played by those attired in mittens and fur-lined boots. But at least they survive to play again another day.
Survival is a frequent issue in the so-called winter sports, particularly ski-jumping, giant slalom, and ice hockey.
Take it from one who fly fished the rapids of the Roanoke River in Salem as the near blizzard began last Saturday, that has its hazards too, but not for the reasons one might expect. The danger in that activity came not from the weather or from the assault of bloodthirsty trout but from reckless youths at the controls of Japanese and American-made light four-wheel-drive trucks who attempted to transform the snow-covered streamside road into a NASCAR SuperTruck series venue. At any moment, said fishermen was in peril from the possibility of a speeding vehicle hurdling off the road and landing atop his stocking-cap covered head before finding its final watery resting place.
So too occasionally is basketball a hazardous exercise.
One year a while back, an above-average team from around here was visiting a lesser-skilled opponent in its home gym up in the mountains. Alas, the good team played poorly and was defeated by the underdog, who immediately staged an uproarious celebration as the vanquished visitors made their solemn way from the court.
Later, aboard the team bus, there was funereal silence on the trip back down the mountain. At length, the quiet was broken by the sound of a player opening a bag lunch that he brought for his postgame repast.
This racket was apparently intolerable for the team's coach, a gentleman so enraged by the evening's events that he had deposed the regular driver and taken the wheel himself for the trip home.
``I am so angry,'' thundered the coach, ``that if I hear one more thing out of any of you that I intend to drive this bus off this mountain and kill us all!''
It was said by members of the audience to this fiery speech that nary a one believed that the coach would not live up to his word if so provoked.
Ray Cox is a Roanoke Times sportswriter.
LENGTH: Medium: 83 linesby CNB