Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 5, 1993 TAG: 9302050406
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
LONE WOLF'S ROMANCE CAN'T GET OFF THE GROUND
A single wolf is pacing this moment in Roanoke County, waiting. His loneliness says a lot about the quality of our lives.Until last month, the red wolf lived in a zoo in Wheeling, W.Va. He arrived here last month, the first participant in an Explore program to breed red wolves - an endangered species. Mill Mountain Zoo, a partner in the project, is helping set a romantic stage.
Missing so far, though, is one of the wolf lovebirds. Our one wolf's prospective mate has been at a zoo in Tacoma, Wash.
She was supposed to be here on Tuesday, but it was too cold to travel.
Apparently, they don't make wolves like they used to. When I was a boy, a wolf was commonly seen cantering through snow in a moonlit forest.
"They're pretty tough," says Beth Poff, the director of the Mill Mountain Zoo. "I don't think anything would happen. But you usually look for the most temperate conditions possible before shipping an animal."
And so dawned Thursday, a fine day for travel, balmy and full of sun.
The red wolf - stashed inside a big dog kennel - flew USAir from Tacoma to Pittsburgh. She was to connect for a flight to Roanoke.
Alas, a kennel with a wolf inside is a big thing - and a puddle-jumper flying from Pittsburgh to Roanoke is a little thing.
"There were no planes big enough to carry her," said Poff.
Welcome to Roanoke, sister wolf. In the air, you can't get there from here.
Said Poff on Thursday, "Now, we're waiting for the next available big-enough plane to Charlotte. Then we'll get her on a plane to Roanoke."
Though she's never even been here, the red wolf already is enduring the quintessential Roanoke experience: Being here is nice, getting here is hell.
She's expected on a big-enough plane today.
\ Pepsi has clear Cola; Gillette has see-through deodorant. There's a color revolution going on, and the retail lessons haven't been lost on our Fortune 500 neighbors.
Parked in Norfolk Southern Corp.'s south yards, along Smith Park in Roanoke, are about 40 jack-o'-lantern-orange coal cars.
The railroad doesn't have an attic, so it has to store the new designer-colored cars on the south yard tracks. I called to compliment the railroad on the striking choice, so much more lively and clashing than the sedate and somber old black and gray cars.
Not so fast, cautioned the railroad's L.B. Nunez.
Those cars are not the color of things to come. They're shorter and fatter and stronger than coal cars, he said. The orange cars haul rock to places where the track beds are being reworked.
Our scenery is handily color-coded: Coal in black cars; rock in orange.