Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 1, 1993 TAG: 9302010109
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
& NOW THIS
Songwriting successCary Rutledge has been out of the songwriting business a long time now, but a meeting with Alabama lead man Randy Owen after the group's Jan. 22 concert at the Roanoke Civic Center may lead him back.
It's not well-known that Rutledge, 37, of Roanoke, penned the song "Getting Over You" on Alabama's 1980 debut album. At the time, he was a member of the now-defunct Roanoke band King Edward and the Knights.
"Getting Over You," which made it to Alabama through a Nashville song publishing company, was recorded and released before Rutledge ever met the country group - though he did meet Owen at a concert after the album came out.
Rutledge, who co-owns Rutledge Paint and Body Service on Shenandoah Avenue Northwest, got away from serious songwriting. Recently, though, he renewed his interest in the craft, and decided to call on Owen backstage at the Jan. 22 concert. "He had said if you ever need any help, call him. I waited a long time, didn't I?" Rutledge said.
He reports that Owen was encouraging and suggested that Rutledge contact Alabama's own publishing company. He said Owen also told him that the song had meant a lot to him and his mother in the wake of his father's death.
Owen said his mother would ask him to play the song to comfort her.
"It really touched me," Rutledge said.
\ Pigeon problems
Jack Altizer has a problem.
The local lawyer bought the old Boxley Mansion off Franklin Road in Old Southwest Roanoke last month. But he's got a problem that might not be as easy to eliminate as asbestos and lead paint: Pigeons.
Several of the feather-clad warriors - with whom you may have fought a losing battle for a park bench - have infested the house. And they've made a mess all over the porch.
"It's kind of a problem for us," Altizer said. "They're multiplying this very minute."
He doesn't want to kill the beaked intruders and is looking for a safe way to get them out of the house.
Betty Altizer, partner and daughter of Jack, said it will be about six months before the house will be ready. And it's not just the pigeons. They still need to get estimates on the refurbishing.
\ General search
They'll be searching in the hills near Ararat, but not for Noah's Ark.
In March, archaeologists from the College of William and Mary will begin surveying Laurel Hill, the birthplace of Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart.
They'll try to determine where the structures that made up Stuart's boyhood home once stood, and look for artifacts possibly still on the site. Stuart's house and other buildings burned years ago.
By the way, that's Ararat in Patrick County, Va., not in eastern Turkey.
\ Looking back at the "Big Book"
The imminent passing of the Sears catalog brought a flood of memories - and letters - from newspaper readers who grew up with "the big book."
One Moneta resident reminisced how folks could always tell when the mail carrier was delivering catalogs because his horse-drawn wagon "would almost drag the ground." When word spread that the catalogs were arriving, she'd meet the mail carrier at the mailbox. "I'd sit down right there and check it out."
Some readers recalled ordering their first washing machine or first high-heeled shoes from the Sears catalog. But the fondest memories appeared to be for the catalog's other uses. A Roanoke woman wrote to tell how "as a girl child of the late '40s and early '50s, I increased the wardrobe of my paper dolls by cutting out myriad outfits from the out-of-date catalogs."
"When the new catalog came each year," another reader wrote, "one of the five of us children was always called upon to deliver the old one to the `outhouse' . . . Believe it or not, that was our `Charmin' during those days.
\ Last a year!" Have buyer! Let's haggle!
Roanoke Realtor Barry Ward Jr. has a client who wants to buy a Tudor-style home in the Rosalind Hills neighborhood and can't find one.
"So, I've resorted to this," said Ward, who penned letters to more than 40 owners of suitable houses - "I've eyeballed them," he said - asking if they'd like to sell.
By last week, Ward had had three calls about the letters. One came from a reporter who got one (and doesn't want to sell) and two others came from another reporter trying to learn if he really had a buyer or was doing some clever marketing.
\ Calling for help
As Roanoke's population has become older and poorer, the workload for the city's volunteer rescue-squad members and paramedics has increased sharply.
Calls for emergency-medical services have risen by 30 percent in the city in the past five years, according to a report given to City Council recently.
The city received 13,900 calls in 1992, up from 10,700 in 1988.
The report cites two main reasons for the increase: a growing number of elder-care facilities and more calls from low-income people.
Elderly people account for nearly 10 percent of all calls. Low-income people in the city's public housing complexes and the homeless account for 21 percent of the calls.