Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 16, 1993 TAG: 9305170251
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CECIL EDMONDS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Close your eyes. Pick a vision. Get on board.
We're headed for the future, and our ticket is to prosperity in the travel industry.
Take a seat in the club car and have a drink - one of those with clever names. Perhaps a Faulty Logic or a king-size Blissful Myopia.
Sit back, relax, talk about your grandfather, but be ready when the conductor announces you can't get there from here. And, adds philosophically: Vision without horizon is fantasy.
There are many chances of derailment as Western Virginia and Roanoke, in particular, embrace tourism as a major component of their economic-development plans. Some of them are legal. Promoting Roanoke as a travel attraction will prompt an antitrust suit by Sominex.
If that doesn't deter us, Truth in Advertising legislation will.
But we must not let a little thing like absence of product impair our marketing. By 1997, every living, breathing, ambulatory man, woman and child in Western Virginia will have a job in the travel industry. Our job descriptions will be simple: All we do is visit each other and eat where there is a meal tax.
It's an economic-development plan pushed by almost every elected, hired or appointed official in the region, despite the fact that research shows about three-fourths of us don't think much of being on display, $2.06 an hour and buffet leftovers.
Perhaps it is the synergism between tourism promotion and politics that keeps it alive. The travel industry is based on getting away from it all. City government is based on getting away with all you can.
We've extended that to bring it all back, enhanced by the conceit that we're interesting. Or, at least, once were.
To lure the gawkers, the Rip Van Winkle Travel Agency has just published a brochure on the region's travel attractions. You can get your copy free by sending two proofs-of-purchase for NoDoz. While your brochure is coming, I will summarize for you.
"Pulaski: the town that stood still so long, the clock burned." Now the clock is over its licking and still ticking. This is a lively side-trip if you rub your head and pat your stomach at the same time.
"Giles County: a walking tour of downtown Pearisburg." Two steps forward and one step backward.
"Majestic far, far Southwestern Virginia: ecotravel, the shanties of a ghost coal-town restored. So authentic is this restoration that it comes with your choice of tuberculosis or emphysema."
"Roanoke: [here I admit to some paraphrasing] Star City of the South, formerly Magic City of the South. Now Mythology Capital of the Blue Ridge. You will want to spend a week's vacation overnight in this small city that's within three hours driving distance of 324 meal taxes."
The brochure notes that Roanoke is on the Blue Ridge Parkway and threatens to use a radio band to get people to come into the city. It warns that if the radio band fails, there are plans to alter the dangerous curve signs and buy a fogging machine.
The travel agency's suggestion to make Roanoke your "home base" for a Western Virginia vacation is interesting and based on research, which is second only to vision in abundance in Roanoke. Unconfirmed statistics on lengths of stays reveal that a Franklin County couple holds the record for the greatest number of travel days spent in Roanoke: three days at the Norwich railroad crossing waiting for a coal train to pass.
I have my own vision of a family vacationing in Roanoke. It has to be a vision because in the more than 30 years I have lived here (and about that many more in Wytheville) I have never seen a family not on Social Security vacationing in Roanoke.
It could happen, though. Vision with me: a family in Cleveland on a Sunday morning. The Rip Van Winkle travel brochure is spread on the floor. The father muses about a day in the old farmstead at Explore.
The mother plans to spend the week gathering apple butter on the City Market and merging with RJR foods.
The children, busy cleaning their guns for school tomorrow, are excited about bungee jumping from the Dominion Tower onto a horse-mounted policeman.
The family discusses getting on Amtrak and riding from Roanoke to Chattanooga, and think it will be a hoot. Or, toot.
There is no Amtrak trip right now. If you have ever ridden a local Amtrak train, you will agree the system should be moved from the Department of Transportation to the Justice Department for sentencing purposes.
The pressing need for Amtrak service between Roanoke and Chattanooga is an idea being steamed by Roanoke Mayor David Bowers, whose dreams seem more like sleep disorders.
The mayor envisions not only railroad buffs, but also travelers from foreign lands who "are used to trains," riding the Roanoke-to-Chattanooga rails.
Very few foreigners vacation in Roanoke. Those who come are not looking for the Orient Express. They're trying to find a place to open a restaurant.
Trains always run through our dreams for Roanoke. It's genetic.
We are children of a railroad town. With a caboose mentality.
Riding the caboose, you can't see where you're going.
Only where you've been.
Cecil Edmonds of Roanoke, while with an ad agency, produced travel and industrial-development ads for the city of Virginia Beach.
by CNB