Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 1, 1993 TAG: 9303010041
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A MASTER MECHANIC
A master mechanicSome people don't spend enough time with a vehicle to refill the windshield-washing fluid, but not Lenwood Adkins. In 35 years, the Roanoker has never missed the specialized-service training classes offered by AC-Delco in Charlotte, N.C. Sometimes he went twice a year.
Adkins recently semiretired from his service technician job with Roanoke Fruit & Produce, where he has worked since 1948. Most of those years were devoted to keeping the fruit brokerage's fleet of trucks on the road for an average of 200,000 miles each.
He was written up in the 1988 issue of Intune, the AC-Delco magazine, which said that "around the Blue Ridge Mountains, [Adkins] is a sort of legend among auto service technicians."
Adkins said he never met a vehicle that couldn't be repaired by following proper procedure.
\ Vinegar for vitality?
Speaking with the smooth confidence of a seasoned salesman and the fevered enthusiasm of a true believer, Jack McWilliams bustled into town last week peddling his home-brewed concoction.
Jogging in a Jug is a blend of apple juice, cider vinegar and grape juice. McWilliams, who founded the company three years ago from his home in Tuscumbia, Ala., has parlayed Jogging in a Jug into one of the top eight sports beverages in the country, the Wall Street Journal says.
A half-gallon sells for $5.95. While McWilliams is reluctant to share exact figures on his earnings, the 67-year-old former dairy farmer says he's printed 2.3 million labels. Some of them are showing up now in the Roanoke market.
McWilliams visited Nature's Outlet Health Foods store in Roanoke County to pitch the tart brew, which he says helped him recover from debilitating arthritis and heart disease.
His theory: Vinegar helps dislodge crud from the inside of the body just as it chisels deposits from plumbing and cleans drains.
\ A crumb-y road
The Virginia Department of Transportation will get more wear out of tires on a section of Interstate 81 in Wythe County next year.
Part of the highway will be made from rubber tires.
" Crumb rubber" from tires is blended with asphalt as a binder for stone and gravel laid as a base beneath the actual surface. About 1 percent of the blend is made of old ground-up tires, about two tires per ton.
The quarter-mile section to be repaved with the mix passes under Virginia 619 three miles east of U.S. 52. A new federal law will require 5 percent of all asphalt used on federal-aid paving projects to use the crumb rubber mix by next year, with the percentage increasing to 20 percent by 1997.
\ Sam Houston, Virginian
Tuesday is a state holiday in Texas, honoring the birthday of Sam Houston. The man who avenged the Alamo, Houston served as president of the Republic of Texas and later, after statehood, as its governor and U.S. senator.
Houston was born in Timber Ridge, just north of Lexington in Rockbridge County.
Observing the 200th anniversary of Sam Houston's birth, a delegation of Texans, Houston kin and Lexington-area residents will gather at the birthplace at 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday.
Among the visitors will be Daniel Murph of Nashville, Tenn., Sam Houston's great-great-great-great grandson, and Don Kennard, a former Texas state senator.
They'll present a portrait of Sam Houston and a battle flag to the Rockbridge Historical Society.
The ceremony, on U.S. 11 a few hundred feet north of Interstate 81 exit 195, is open to the public.
\ Missed the bug
Although the flu virus generally wreaks the most havoc during winter, this year Roanoke Valley residents generally have been spared.
"Last year was pretty devastating, but this year we've been fortunate," said Sandra Fleeman, a nurse with the Roanoke Department of Health.
Although swings in temperature spawn sinus and other respiratory problems, the weather does not have an impact on an outbreak of flu.
\ Snow notes
Last week's snow wasn't a record-setter, but it got us wondering. And this is what we discovered: The largest single-day snowfall in the Roanoke Valley's recorded weather history occurred on Feb. 13, 1960, according to the state climatological office.
On that Valentine's Day eve, from midnight to midnight, 15.4 inches of snow fell.