Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 12, 1991 TAG: 9104120239
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Then they sit down for, and with, Donald Manns.
Soldiers returning from Operation Desert Schwarzkopf have trickled back toward Western Virginia, many of them flying into Roanoke Regional Airport - where Donald Manns awaits them.
He owns the shoeshine business beneath the escalators in the airport terminal, and he's been flagging down the soldiers in the airport lobby to offer a freebie.
He shines returning veterans' shoes at no charge - a $3 value for shoes; $4 for boots.
"What can I do to thank them?" asks Mann. "It's a small thing, but it's what I do."
Slather on the black boot polish. Snap the buffing rag to it. Touch up the scuffs.
"One guy said, `I never had my shoes shined before!'" said Manns. "Another guy had a teddy bear with combat boots on. I shined the bear's boots, too."
So far, Mann has sent six or seven shiny pairs of shoes striding out of the airport terminal, headed for the homecoming party.
What a neat way to come back home.
\ As if you, a newspaper reader, could handle more than one good-news item on the same page, here's another:
Next week, way up on the Blue Ridge, lots of men and machines are going to get together to do something unheard-of.
They're going to clean up, not for pay or for a publicity event or because they're serving jail time. They're going to clean up a mammoth mess that somebody else made.
Crowell Gap Road, which twists over the ridge to link Roanoke and Franklin counties, has become a popular, if unlikely, dumping ground for oversized trash - appliances, tires, furniture, construction debris. The rubbish is dumped, usually at night, always by creeps, over the side of the steep mountain face, where it wraps around trees and beds down in thick forest carpet.
Three days next week, the following groups will hoist the garbage back up the hill and onto the bed of a truck for the white-knuckle drive back down to Earth and the landfill: Branch Highways, Lanford Brothers Construction, Carter Machinery, the Virginia Department of Transportation, Roanoke and Franklin counties.
Bravo.
May many more follow the lead. And may guilt weigh heavily on the consciences of the subterraneans who hauled the problem up to that mountain, the very rim of the Roanoke Valley, in the first place.
\ And finally, because this is after all a daily newspaper, you deserve, demand and expect some bad news:
The cutting edge of recreational frenzy is no more.
John and Debra Ritter opened Mini Putt, an indoor miniature golf course, on West Main Street in Salem in September. It was the first indoor mini-golf venture in Roanoke Valley history.
Weatherproof mini-links. It was heaven.
And now it's gone.
I don't know when Mini Putt closed, but I saw a U-Haul truck outside last week. John and Debra's phone has been disconnected. I wish them luck.
We now return to the recreational dark ages.
by CNB