Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 9, 1992 TAG: 9202090015
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
JOCKEYING FOR CONCRETE EVIDENCE
Roanoke's Hazardous Lawn Jockey Disposal Team stood, for one breathless day, on red alert.The squad's job: Get rid of the black-faced concrete lawn jockey standing at the city police shooting range. The cement servant threatened to tip the scales of racial harmony between police and Roanoke's black community.
Forget how he got there. Forget that while police bullets whizzed over his head, the same police were courting the black community, promising to be more sensitive, more caring and more inclusive.
Just get him out. Fast.
Jerry Chocklett waited for the call. Roger Marcum waited. From the city's refuse collection office, they daily dispatch crews with trucks and cranes to collect and throw out old appliances and couches. They could handle a lawn jockey.
Raye Bayse at grounds maintenance has lawn mowers and leaf rakers and trucks and front-end loaders. He could pick up a lawn jockey.
The landfill? Always ready. Bring on the lawn jockey.
The jockey smashed onto the scene Thursday morning, in a newspaper photograph.
Police said that the jockey was gone by later that same day.
Where? Chocklett sort of expected a call. It never came. Ditto for Marcum.
Bayse's men mow the grass at the shooting academy/racial sensitivity center. He was ready. The call never came.
No lawn jockeys passed over the landfill scales. No patrol cars. Not so much as a paddy wagon.
Police brass say they did not need refuse collection, grounds maintenance or the landfill to get rid of the defamed lawn jockey. They say he is gone.
This community has no proof. We have no concrete chunks. No grave.
What's to say the jockey will not resurface? Holed up in the police property room, ready to man his post once again once this tempest passes? How do we know he's not in somebody's den? Or being sold on the black market?
A new lawn jockey, pre-painted, costs $50 to $75. A slightly used, battle-tested, now-historically significant jockey could fetch $100 or more.
By the way, the figure in question is actually a cavalier lawn ornament, experts say. The features are more Caucasian, the stance more erect. The genuine lawn jockey squats obediently, less proudly. He's also cheaper.
Cavaliers and jockeys both are still sold. Black faces, white faces and natural concrete color do not affect prices.
Let us now strike a deal.
Our community wants, and deserves, the finest police officers available. We want them trained properly, and if the lawn jockey really did serve as a useful prop - confronting officers-in-training with real-life backyard-type obstacles - then by gum we will replace him.
A toad goes for $25. A cherub holding a bird-bath basin on his head can be had for $45; an owl for $35. The Virgin Mary cradling baby Jesus is a steal at $25.
If it's a lawn ornament our police need, it's a lawn ornament our police will get.
First, though, we need proof that the jockey is gone. Rubble. A shallow grave. An arm.
Police can cement their faith in us; we'll cast in stone our faith in them.