ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 10, 1997 TAG: 9703100086
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
TYPE: LETTERS
Crackdown on merchants is needed
ROGER McNULTY, owner of the Dilly-Dally Mini-Market in Salem (March 1 news article, ``Kid ban may snuff out profits''), says that I should regulate my kids' smoking habits at home. He says he has a list of parents who want or do not want their kids to buy cigarettes from his store.
Put me on that list of parents who do not want him to sell cigarettes to my kids.
I called a supermarket six years ago complaining that clerks were selling cigarettes to my then-15-year-old son. The supermarket said the signs are up, and the only way to enforce the law was for my son to go to court and testify against himself as a smoker. No way would he do this. He is 21 now and still smoking - and coughing. No one else in our family smokes, and he has to smoke outside our house.
This new law of carding young people is too late for this son, but it's in time to save my 12-year-old daughter and my 15-year-old son from getting hooked. Ninety percent of all smokers get addicted before age 21.
What a wonderful thought - this law may save lives!
MARY E. WEBB
ROANOKE
Hospital addition causes sore eyes
THANK YOU for pointing out some of the beautiful Gothic examples in Roanoke (Feb. 16 Extra section article, ``Gothic Roanoke'').
There is some excellent architecture in the Star City. The new First Union and the Norfolk Southern buildings add beauty to the skyline.
One new addition that takes first prize for being the ugliest is the green glass monstrosity tacked on to the otherwise attractive Roanoke Memorial Hospital. I close my eyes when I pass, unless I am driving. The architect and the board that approved this eyesore should be exiled to Siberia.
A happier thought is to turn your readers to the beauty of the windows at Second Presbyterian Church.
ELDON C. GROVER
BLUE RIDGE
Lincoln wisely reunited America
CHRIS Almond's March 1 letter to the editor (``Lincoln created a false impression") seems to say that two separate countries - a North and a South - emerging from the Civil War would have been the best option. Abraham Lincoln knew this wasn't the case.
What has made America great is the fact that we are one country, not a fractured republic where ethnic and political conflicts lead to one uprising after another. The one-nation concept keeps us rolling along as the unquestioned leader of the free world, while countries like Russia and China fight resource-robbing battles within their borders.
Lincoln knew the ultimate goal was to reunite the country, and heal all wounds so we could move ahead.
He abhorred slavery - make no mistake about it. He knew that it was, in his own words, ``immoral for any man to deny any other man his inalienable rights,'' as described in the Constitution.
Go to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and read the man's own words. He knew slavery had to be abolished if we were to be a moral country, and he knew a unified nation was the only option.
As for Almond's statement that ``only'' 24 percent of white Southerners owned slaves, I wouldn't be too boastful about that. It means that 76 percent of these same Southerners looked the other way.
GENE MARRANO
ROANOKE
Stillsons found the right answer
I COMMEND Cody Lowe on his March 2 article (``When the prognosis calls for prayer'') about Tod and Jane Stillson. In times when we're bombarded with stories of gloom and despair that contain no sense of hope, he introduces us to an incredible couple whose life, despite life- and marriage-threatening problems, centers around the true hope of Jesus Christ.
Most of us don't know where to turn with our problems today. The Stillsons show us the answer is prayer and Jesus.
The Roanoke Times would do well to continue covering families whose faith is in God and prayer. Such articles remind us that in an age of psychic fortune-tellers, New Age gurus and false religions, there is true hope (and help) to carry us through the darkest of problems. All you have to do is ask Jesus Christ. He is always there. We may not understand why he lets problems happen, but we must have faith in his plan.
The Stillsons and their families are in my family's prayers.
RANDY WEDDLE
ROANOKE
LENGTH: Medium: 88 linesby CNB