Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, November 19, 1993 TAG: 9311190020
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A couple of weeks ago, a pair of fish mated inside a tank at Warehouse for Pets in Roanoke County, and the female laid eggs. Simple though it might sound, the procreation had profound biological consequences.
The fish were parrot cichlids - hybrids that were supposed to be incapable of producing their own offspring. Roanoke County teetered at the precipice of greatness, and the fish with it.
A cardboard privacy wall was put on the tank, the fish were taken off the market, the world waited breathlessly for the 100 or so eggs to hatch.
An insidious fungus slowly grew on the eggs, killing them all.
End of story. Except that, just in case the fish do turn out to be miracle maters, they're still not for sale.
The moral: Never count your fish before they're hatched, and don't give away the goose until you're absolutely sure it doesn't lay golden eggs.
Better than a year ago, some fanatic managed to spray paint "Harley Davidson" on the flank of the Blue Ridge Parkway bridge over the Roanoke River.
To express this sentiment, the vandal had to dangle from the bridge's edge or clamber onto an exposed steel girder 140 feet over the whitecapped and rocky Roanoke River.
The graffito prompted one unforgiving Harley owner to point out that there is correctly a hyphen between Harley and Davidson, but proper punctuation pretty much goes out the window at altitudes over 125 feet.
Blue Ridge Parkway maintenance squadrons were helpless to erase the paint, because their annual budget had been pared to $4.95. Ignoring that evidence, I opted to blame the parkway's reluctance on its failure to employ brave-enough workers. "A stableful of sissies" is, I think, how I referred to them.
They wish ill upon me to this day.
In fairness, the Harley Davidson (sic) on the bridge near milepost 117 has since been painted over by a couple of those sissies who rappelled off the siderail, suspended over certain death only by a strand of dental floss.
The moral: If you must spray paint the brand of your favorite bike onto a very high place, learn to like BMW. Fewer letters.
In 1989, Larry Edward Buchanan chopped down nine paulownia trees in Fallon Park in Roanoke and was caught. Paulownias are prized by the Japanese, who'll pay top dollar for its wood.
Buchanan was ordered to pay $2,000 in restitution to the city; a 12-month jail term was suspended.
In August, James E. Bowyer of Buena Vista admitted in U.S. District Court in Roanoke that he'd pinched 14 paulownia trees from the George Washington National Forest in Rockbridge County.
Bowyer is still in Rockbridge County Jail, serving a six-month jail term. He was ordered to pay $8,341 to the U.S. Forest Service and was told to keep his fanny out of the forest for two years.
The moral: If you absolutely must steal paulownias, steal them in Roanoke.
And finally, a photo with a built-in moral.
The moral: Thirty days hath September, April, June and November - unless you're the YMCA and you have a membership drive on, which means November is subject to stretching.
by CNB