Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 30, 1993 TAG: 9307300085
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: EARL SWIFT LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It didn't involve the motorists who'd yelled stuff, or locked up their brakes inches behind him or passed so close "that they just about sucked out my guts."
It came Wednesday southwest of Roanoke, shortly after he packed his tent and sleeping bag into a three-wheeled baby jogger, laced up his skates and rolled onto U.S. 11, headed north.
The former Virginia Beach store clerk was cruising into Wytheville when the state police cruiser slid up He said I would have to walk the rest of the way to Virginia Beach. Joe Rehana After a state trooper threatened to end his Los Angeles-to-Virginia in-line skating trip in Wytheville behind him.
Rehana didn't think much of it. He'd been on his skates since May 5, when he left the Santa Monica Pier in suburban Los Angeles, bound for Virginia Beach's 17th Street Pier. Across those 2,700 miles he'd seen plenty of cops, and without exception, they'd been terrific to him.
Back in Kentucky, they'd let him set up camp behind their jail. In dozens of small towns they'd kept a watchful eye as he slept in public parks and churchyards. All had seemed enthusiastic about his transcontinental adventure.
So Rehana was unprepared when this trooper told him that his in-line skates were out of line in Virginia.
"I found out that if I continued on, I'd be arrested," the 23-year-old Rehana said from Wytheville on Thursday. "He said I would have to walk the rest of the way to Virginia Beach."
The trooper pointed to Virginia Code 46.2-932, which governs "playing on highways; roller skates, skateboards, toys or other devices on wheels or runners." It outlawed play on highways designed "exclusively for vehicular travel."
Rehana explained that he wasn't playing, he was skating coast to coast to advertise the merits of self-propelled travel. He told the trooper he'd passed through nine states on highways like U.S. 11. He'd come from California, for goodness sake, had skated 50 to 60 miles a day over the desert and the southern Rockies and the rain-swollen Mississippi, had sweated his way over mountainous Kentucky.
And now, little more than a week away from his goal and a cold beer at Ocean Eddie's, now he was being stopped? "I was just kind of, `I can't believe this is happening,' " he said. " `This has to be a joke. There's a camera somewhere, right?' "
Assured it was no joke, Rehana pushed his baby jogger over to Wytheville's municipal offices, where a friendly bureaucrat offered to do what she could to help. Rehana also called his former boss at Wild River Outfitters in Virginia Beach. The store's staff got on the phone to Richmond.
In the hours that followed, Rehana's plight prompted a flurry of calls among the troopers, a Norfolk state delegate, the governor's office, Wytheville City Hall and the Virginia Department of Transportation.
Surprisingly, all this talk did some good. "We found that if he was on state-maintained road, he was all right," said Dave Gehr, a big deal at the Transportation Department.
"The state code applies only if the highway is designated exclusively for vehicular travel, and in Virginia, really, only the interstate highways are like that."
Gehr called the state police brass, who got the troopers off Rehana's back. Meanwhile, Wytheville officials called ahead to other towns he'd pass through, smoothing the way.
Unfortunately, Wednesday wasn't over yet. A day behind schedule, Rehana bumped the baby jogger against a curb while pushing his dirty clothes to a Wytheville coin laundry. The cart's rear axle snapped.
He was still stuck in Wytheville late Thursday, his tent pitched in a park in the center of town, waiting for a new part.
"It's not a bad place. The people have been really great.
"But you know these smaller towns," he said. "They don't have much to do."
by CNB