ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, November 28, 1996 TAG: 9611290014
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A30 EDITION: HOLIDAY
RAIN or shine, and snow is also a possibility, the bounties and blessings of one beautiful region are in our sights to be thankful for today.
Family and food, of course, still top the gratitude list. But we should be glad, too, that we don't live in Tidewater.
Not that Tidewater can help itself. But it's flat and congested. And any travelers trying to follow highway signs will discover there are no roads leading out.
No such infrastructural anomalies in the Roanoke Valley - unless you count mall entrances from hell and the Viaduct to nowhere. Even they are so distinctively Roanoke that we can only smile in appreciation of them.
Be thankful, too, for:
* Texas Tavern chili, the only effective antidote for sweet potatoes cooked with marshmallows, as may soon be confirmed by the New England Journal of Medicine.
* Floyd County, where the Macarena will never catch on with the Friday-night cloggers at Cockram's General Store.
* The Roanoke Symphony Orchestra, whose Wiley new conductor has them asking: Victoria Who?
* Mountain Lake Resort, with or without Patrick Swayze.
* Drivers who at least slow down for jaywalking pedestrians.
* Sausage-and-gravy biscuits at the Roanoker Restaurant, the only effective antidote for Texas Tavern chili.
* Del. Richard Cranwell, whose letters to the editor are still welcome at this newspaper.
* Good folks who hang out at shopping malls, jingling those bells for the Salvation Army.
* Snow removal - better late than never.
* A second Wildflour restaurant in Roanoke: yuppie comfort zone.
* The Farmhouse restaurant in Christiansburg: vegetarian discomfort zone.
* Roanoke's market district and everything in it, plus Salem's Main Street. You won't find them in Tidewater.
* Kind souls who take in to their homes un-house-broken animals each time floods threaten Roanoke's SPCA shelter.
* All public libraries and public parks.
* Baseball in Salem, where players are still in it less for the money than the game.
* The Salem Times-Register, which, like the Energizer bunny, goes on and on.
* The Showtimers - ditto. And Mill Mountain Theatre.
* Good cooks who'll spend today cooking and serving turkey dinners for the homeless and hungry, and even for football watchers.
* The Blue Ridge Parkway and Appalachian Trail, effective antidotes for shopping malls.
* The Mill Mountain Star, whatever its color.
* The Galax Old-Time Fiddlers Convention, where they never even heard of the Macarena.
* Dixie Caverns. Not in Tidewater, either.
* OK, OK - Virginia Tech football.
This is not, by the way, a complete list. Two more things:
Have a great Thanksgiving.
And go, Hokies.
LENGTH: Medium: 63 linesby CNB