
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, November 21, 1993                   TAG: 9311210013
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HE'S ALSO TALLER THAN HIS PICTURE

The mailbag overflows once again with pertinent correspondence from the loyal, the distant, the worried and the strange:

"Dear Ed, I heard you recently on the radio. Please be advised that your voice does not match your picture and change one or the other accordingly."

B.G., Elliston.

Dear B.G., My voice is deeper than you'd expect from such a dweeby looking guy? Or, who'd expect such a macho slab of testosterone to have such a squeaky and high-pitched voice? Which is the problem?

"Dear Ed, Have you ever wondered why you can get a ticket for not wearing a seat belt, but the U.S. Postal Service has rural carriers sitting on the wrong side of the car, driving with one hand that is stretched across the front seat, sorting mail and putting it into the mailboxes with the other hand, all the while sporting a sign on the back of the vehicle that says, `Caution, Frequent stops' and that's legal?"

P.D.L., Radford.

Dear P.D.L., The price of prompt mail service is that we must endure drivers weaving from shoulder to roadway and back again, sprawled across the front seat of their car, pumping brake and accelerator with their left feet and guiding the steering wheel with their knees. That seems a small price to pay for urgent, first-class letters that take a week to reach their destination and bulk- rate junk mail that sprints from the typewriter of some shyster to our homes in a matter of hours.

"Dear Ed, When you first started writing for the Roanoke Times & World-News, I couldn't even read your column. . . . For many, many months I tried to read your columns, and there was no way - you were impossible. Then one day you wrote something that sounded like a reporter wrote it. I even read the whole thing. After that, it was kind of hit and miss for a while - a long while. I don't know what happened. Did you metamorphose into a readable writer, or what? Anyway, I can now read your column most all the time."

S.R., Roanoke

Dear S.R., You're merely confusing your cause-effect relationship by assuming that I improved, and thus you can read me. In truth, you've just seen the light.

"Dear Ed, I was frying eggs recently. Well, do you know that when I picked up the skillet, it was hot? I got burned. I just can't understand it . . . "

H.F., Newbern.

Dear H.F., Oh?

by CNB