Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 4, 1991 TAG: 9103040293
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CECIL EDMONDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Until their photograph appeared, I questioned the effectiveness of the terrain-map design as camouflage in the one-color desert. But, The Times is also one color: gray.
We will leave the Gulf War for now. Because it is not for us who write of the provinces to become global George Wills. There is plenty of camouflage on the home front.
Atop Mill Mountain, our star's red, white and blue speaks to a serene sky and makes a sincere statement of support for our soldiers.
Perhaps the star should flash a yellow for caution every few minutes. In the valley below, camouflage is afoot.
Proposals by prospective developer/restorers of Hotel Roanoke uncamouflaged it with the suggestion that perhaps the hotel is too expensive to rekindle, and might best serve as a facade.
At first, it's a totally unacceptable thought. But, settle down, talk it through, appoint a task force. It may become a "why not?"
Most restoration is camouflage for T-shirts and sliced pizza.
Colonial Williamsburg was not restored to hear Patrick Henry say, "Give me liberty or give me death" but for Howard Johnson to utter, "I give you 28 flavors."
Our own City Market, especially the farmers' part, is more faithful than most, because it fools some of us most of the time and out-of-towners all the time.
Recently, a visitor going back home to New York extolled the market and said he really looked forward to eating Ezra Wertz' homemade eggs and his sack of Roanoke-grown oranges.
And Hotel Roanoke has some camouflage in its empty closets. Back when the late Fred Walker was manager, he told of folks from all over who stopped by the hotel to pick up a batch of their wonderful, frozen Pepperidge Farm hard rolls.
Camouflage abounds in the travel business. The task force will tell us to get a Trip-tik and join in. Immediately, we should reconvene the General Assembly and ask for authorization to form the Roanoke Valley Facade Authority.
The authority should first solicit proposals from all of the outdoor-sign companies to turn the hotel into a giant billboard. Behind it, we can place anything we choose: conference center, education oasis. Even the museum suggested by one developer. It can exhibit all the plans for restoration and a convention center.
A major hanging in Facade Museum will be the Marie Antoinette Job Classification Plan.
This tells us in words and pictures how becoming a minimum-wage travel attraction will keep our young people at home in high-tech jobs. It includes a 20-minute video entitled "Let Them Serve Cake."
The Facade Authority will seek bids for camouflage suits for all citizens to wear at all times: basic black appliqued with native white-pine Tudor stripes.
Concurrent with the hotel re-camouflaging (it never was what we think it was), the Facade Authority should be empowered to create approximately 2,300 facade-citizens to bring us to the 100,000 population base. These can be cutouts or mannequins from closed stores.
Or, they can be real people brought into the city under a new Squatters Right subsidy - four-tenths of an acre and a handgun. Members of the Facade Authority will see the precedent for this. There are subsidies in place for several floors of parking spaces for downtown shoppers, currently camouflaged as The Invisible Man.
The authority should use its best efforts to spread the 2,300 facade-citizens across all civil and human-rights sectors. This means 91 percent of them must be able to apply for the police force.
The task force that grilled Police Chief David Hooper shall report to the Facade Authority. Task forces understand camouflage. They are put in place to avoid asking the right questions.
The one we have going now has come dangerously close to being meaningful. Watch for it to recommend a new police chief, who is a facade-composite of Rambo and Mr. Tibbs in Angela Lansbury drag. Priority for the new chief: assemble a force that covers its badges with "have a nice day" smile-buttons, speaks softly and hits a lick.
These are the just a few Facade Authority assignments. It will have on-going duties of camouflaging Roanoke as a destination travel attraction - and, that may not be in our destiny.
For God did not put a big rock with a hole in it in Roanoke. Just some holes in our thinking. He did not let the Roanoke River suddenly fall hundreds of feet, or put Salem in a big canyon. (They did that voluntarily.) He did not give us any sand or 12 months of sun or snow.
He gave us Lewis and Clark, but they're having more trouble getting to Hardy than they did opening up the West.
But, apparently by mistake, God or man placed the nation's most traveled scenic parkway across the top of the city, and it has proven that Roanoke's a nice place to live but "I wouldn't want to visit there."
If camouflage is needed to lure them off the Blue Ridge Parkway, bring it on. Let them wander between the Festival City beer trucks, eating our native jerky on stick, and sending post cards home.
"Wish you were here with us in this great amusement park with the funny name: Roanoke."
"P.S. - It is very historical. Roanoke is an Indian word. It means shell money. Ha. Ha."
by CNB