
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 12, 1991                   TAG: 9104120932
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A/6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

OLD-TIMERS DISPLACED BY THE HOT-SHOTS

I READ with interest about the Franklin County Planning Commission rejecting the mobile-home park. I really can't blame residents for not wanting a mobile home near their $200,000 homes.

Can't everyone afford a home on the lake? Some of us riffraff have a mobile home.

The old-timers worked hard to have their farms and make a living when a dollar was a dollar. Your hours didn't end with an eight-hour shift; more like 16. Sometime you wondered where the next meal would come from.

As for the unsightly mess on Route 616, I can remember when there was no gravel, just dirt; when there was lots of rain or snow, you just stayed home because of the mud or walked or rode the wagon. Everyone was a neighbor and your friend; everyone went to church together.

Now the old-timers are supposed to give in to those hot-shot developers or those great Northerners who came down here to get their homes and rule the roost. The old-timers who put their heart and soul in that land mean nothing. Those unsightly tobacco farms: I am glad I was a part of it.

BETTY MABE

SALEM

by CNB