Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 16, 1991 TAG: 9104160078
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Leashed dogs can still legally squat to befoul the sidewalk in Roanoke. I've made no headway trying to get a pooper scooper law for this town.
For now, the powerful junta that runs Virginia is still snickering at Mr. License Plate. There is no indication that Virginia will scrap its embarrassingly boring plates for something more zesty - despite my badgering.
That's 0-fo-3. For those of you scoring at home, that's a .000 batting average and a one-way trip from the big leagues to the Salem Buccaneers.
It may be time to take my sordid act back north of the Mason-Dixon demilitarized zone and admit I am not cut out for this kind of work. Masonry, perhaps. Mending lobster pots.
Ha!
You should be so lucky!
Just when I was thinking I was an ineffectual buffoon, forever picking as my targets the prey least likely to succumb, I have scored a major victory.
Sunday, I revealed that a street sign along Gainsboro Road in Northwest Roanoke deceptively guided obedient motorists to follow a wicked dogleg in the road at 15 mph. By so doing, unwitting drivers would actually climb a steep grade and plow into the side of a landmark Catholic church.
Monday, the sign was gone. Vanished. No more.
Simple as that.
Dr. Frankenstein. Am I Dr. Frankenstein? What have I wrought? Where has the beast gone? Will the sign be planted in a place to guide tractor-trailers into a playground? Will domestic animals be jeopardized?
Bob Bengston, the city's road-sign czar, confessed.
He ordered the sign removed first thing Monday.
Indeed, he admitted, it was wrong to steer motorists through a sharp right turn when there was really nothing more than a gentle curve to the left.
The sign was a leftover of happier days in the Gainsboro neighborhood. Used to be, people lived there.
There were front porches. Lawn mowers droning. Food stores.
In 1968, government decided to renew that section of urbanity.
The bulldozers took over and swept away home after home. They changed the natural contours forever.
They redirected Gainsboro Road, forever eliminating that idiosyncratic, wicked turn that must have gone around a building, or a hill, or a farm, or some other obstacle.
The bulldozers left behind one road sign. After they'd straightened the road, they left a reminder of what life used to be in Gainsboro.
That sign stood there since the 1970s to commemorate a nasty curve that was no more.
Our Lady of the Valley, a nursing home, was built next to it, at Harrison Avenue and Gainsboro. Millions of dollars were pumped into the urban renewal. New homes were built. A business park was built. A hotel was built.
The sign stood.
Until Monday.
And now it is gone.
I won.
Call me Frankenstein.
by CNB