ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 14, 1997 TAG: 9702140064
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CHRISTINA NUCKOLS STAFF WRITER
VALENTINE'S DAY means rushed rose deliveries, but when cold-hearted Old Man Winter has no sense of romance, florists need a head start.
Seven bouquets in the rear of Ian Mack's delivery van slid toward the front, dragging heart-shaped balloons behind them, as he lurched through traffic on Hershberger Road on Thursday afternoon.
``I think the two words I've heard the most on the radio today are `Valentine's Day' and `snow' - the two words you don't want to hear together,'' Mack said.
When the forecasts calls for bad weather on Valentine's Day, Cupid breaks into a sweat.
``Cupid,'' in this case, was swigging Mountain Dew and dragging on a Marlboro cigarette as he zoomed around Roanoke delivering roses a day early to customers of Stritesky's Flower Shop.
Dressed in a leather jacket and baggy brown pants, his strawberry-blond hair tucked behind an ear, Mack pulled into the Northwest Child Development Center on Melrose Avenue and dashed inside. He was directed to a dim room filled with toddlers asleep on cots. He announced his presence in a hiss, handed a bouquet to the teacher, and zipped back outside.
At Valley View Mall he got blank stares at Hecht's customer service desk when he showed up with flowers. He was already weaving his way through the lingerie department toward the door as the recipient was being paged.
After a time-consuming encounter with a funeral procession, Mack was back at Stritesky's for another load.
Shop owner Ed Stritesky was rushing between bouquets of flowers arranged in clusters around the perimeter of the parking lot. He checked and double-checked the cards on each arrangement, talking to himself as he ran back and forth.
``We've got seven trucks and a car, and then there's one, two, three - there's 10 vehicles we've got out now,'' he muttered. ``Here's two more schools, this has got to be out by 1 o'clock. OK, red ones. How about pink ones?''
He ran back into the shop. Women stripping thorns off roses with their bare fingers smiled as their boss careered past on floors slippery with a mixture of wet leaves and crushed carnation blossoms that Mack refers to as ``floral carnage.''
There were more than 30 people working at Stritesky's on Thursday, a dozen more than usual. Many of them, like Mack, had worked until 1 o'clock that morning separating shipments of roses, then gone home to catch some sleep before returning for another full day.
The strategy for Thursday was this: Get Valentine bouquets to area schools first, then make deliveries to businesses.
After 27 years in the business, Ed and Jean Stritesky have learned to be prepared for bad weather on Valentine's Day. Their worst experience came in 1985: Snow hit hard at midday, and schools let out early. The Striteskys had to track down home addresses for teachers and students, and the vans were running until midnight trying to make deliveries in the snow.
``That was a bad scene,'' Jean Stritesky said. ``Trucks got stuck. We had to get a tow truck for one that went over a bank. We just couldn't get some out and we had to refund the money. It was chaos."
The Striteskys are determined to make sure all 7,000 roses plus nearly 300 specialty arrangements are delivered this year, while continuing to handle a steady stream of walk-in traffic.
``Would that be something you'd give for Valentine's?'' George Ray of Roanoke asked, his finger pressed against the glass of a refrigerated display.
``Oh, yeah,'' a clerk replied. ``It's red and white.''
``I'm usually a last-minute person,'' Ray said as he joined those line at the cash register. Most of the nine were men, shuffling their feet and eyeing each other's selections.
Stritesky's wasn't the only florist delivering early on Thursday.
``Some people are confused. They think it's a mistake,'' said Penny Deweese, assistant manager of Blumen Haus Florists. ``We figured they'd prefer to have them a day early than not at all.''
At Petal Pushers, owner Karen McCoy said she had enough faith in her four-wheel-drive trucks to wait until the official holiday arrived.
``We've never had a catastrophe exactly,'' she said.
Fallon Florist was making early deliveries Thursday, but owner Ruth Valentine said her employees would be out on foot in the downtown area today as well.
``My concern is that people get to work to get them,'' she said.
While florists scurried and worried, restaurateurs just waited and hoped.
``There's nothing I can do,'' said Steve Foster, owner of Stephen's Restaurant. ``I've already ordered a lot of fresh seafood. You can't disappoint people, and if it happens that everybody cancels, you get stuck.''
Foster and other business owners have learned to just accept that fact that the only thing more capricious than love is the weather.
Back in his van, Mack was singing along with The Byrds: ``To everything; Turn, turn, turn; There is a season.'' He paused to consider the wisdom of having a romantic holiday in snow-prone February, then shrugged.
``I guess Sir Valentine had a reason for it,'' he said.
LENGTH: Medium: 99 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: DON PETERSEN STAFF. 1. Ian Mack bundles roses Thursdayby CNBbefore another pre-Valentine's Day delivery run for Stritesky's
Flower Shop on Peters Creek Road. 2. A Fallon Florist deliverer
loads a van at the Roanoke shop, which added several trucks Thursday
in case of bad weather. color.