Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 25, 1993 TAG: 9307240083
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ELIZABETH OBENSHAIN
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
And summertime in the New River Valley gives me that wonderful superior feeling toward our big neighbor down the road - you know, the place with the star up on that little hill.
I grew up on a farm out Prices Fork Road from Blacksburg. My childhood memories are full of cool summer mornings when the whole world of cornfields, gardens and pastures waited to be explored.
Today, I still think this is the best place to spend a summer.
Too many days, I have to climb into my car and rush down Interstate 81 to a meeting in Roanoke.
There's nothing that makes you love the mountains like stepping out on the concrete sidewalk of Campbell Avenue in Roanoke at 5 p.m.
It's sweltering, it's hot, it's nasty. It makes you instantly cranky.
I immediately try to make my Roanoke friends feel better by pronouncing that it is bound to be 10 degrees cooler up the mountain in the New River Valley.
I can't wait to rush to my car and head for the hills.
These days, I've been spending some nights in my little house in Blacksburg and others at my husband's old farmhouse in Floyd.
Both are divine.
Nights in Blacksburg, we sit on the back porch of my little house, watching the sun cast its final hues, outlining the white Adirondack chairs against the vivid green lawn. The night is warm, but not stifling - like some places I might mention.
As dusk cools the landscape, we take off on our evening stroll, winding up neighborhood hills then down toward Main Street and our favorite coffee stop. When we head back home in the dark, the night air is cool. The mountains have dissipated the heat that lingers for those poor folk down the mountain.
Other nights, I head up Bent Mountain, driving out U.S. 221 toward greater downtown Check and the old farmhouse that sits above the Little River.
The minute I top the mountain, I feel a change of temperature - and a change of attitude.
It's no longer a hot, miserable summer.
It's a picture-postcard summer, redolent of fresh hay and garden harvests.
The temperature is at least 20 degrees lower than downtown Roanoke - OK, I'm exaggerating, but it feels 20 degrees cooler.
For 15 miles I drive through some of the most beautiful farmland in Virginia. It's a great way to unwind after a day in the office.
At home, we throw the windows open for the house to cool and set out on our evening walk. We slowly climb a long hill, stopping to check out wild flowers and the latest calves in our neighbor's pasture.
If we're lucky, the wind will catch the aroma from another neighbor's hayfield where a horse-drawn rake sits ready for the next day's labor. Narrow haystacks steadied by thin wooden poles dot the field where our neighbor has piled his hay by hand.
The air is getting cold in the valley as we turn back toward home. I think of those city streets and marvel at the contrast that is all in my day's travel.
At night, we pull up the blanket against the mountain air.
Heaven!
Oh, you flatlanders. Why would anyone live anywhere else when you can live up the mountain in the summertime?
It's not just the temperature. It's the place. The rural beauty that still spreads out on roads throughout the New River Valley.
So, in summertime, if you spot me with that disgusting know-it-all look on my face, it's just a sign that I'm reveling in the sort of summer we fantasize about in the dead of winter. One that's hot - but not too hot; that's full of summer smells and insect sounds; that lends itself to laziness but not lethargy.
Now, all I need is a long vacation to enjoy it!
Elizabeth Obenshain is the Roanoke Times & World-News' New River editor.
by CNB