Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 24, 1993 TAG: 9311240028
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Are you out of your gourd? Have your forgotten the Trash Train Tunes Contest? Your entry must be postmarked or delivered to me by Friday, which makes Thanksgiving the perfect day to sit around with pitch pipes and distant cousins, fiddling with the lyrics to your favorite rail song.
There already are many entries, none of them likely to pose much of a threat next time the golden gramophones are awarded.
Wrote M.C. of Narrows: "I had to drink four beers before I could mail this poem to you. I wrote a poem while I was in Mingo County, W.Va., that everyone said was pretty bad. I had to do 50 hours of community service. Actually, I only had to do 40, as they knocked off 10 hours if I promised never to write another poem."
M.C.'s entry was exemplary of what's been submitted so far: He totally blew off the rules.
Here's the background: Beginning in a week or two, that garbage you so cavalierly pitch into the can will become part of a $42 million trash-o-rama extravaganza. It'll be picked up at your house and delivered by truck to the new transfer station on Hollins Road. It will be loaded onto rail cars and chugged 33 miles to the new Smith Gap Landfill.
As residents of a region rich in rail history and thick with buffs, we'll christen the train with an official ditty - because a train without a song is like a ship without a champagne bottle.
The rules are simple.
Your lyrics about the trash train must be written to the tune of one of these songs: "I've Been Working on the Railroad," "Wreck of the Old 97," "Chattanooga Choo-Choo," "Wabash Cannonball," "City of New Orleans," "John Henry," "Casey Jones" (Grateful Dead version only) or "Orange Blossom Special."
Record your lyrics on a cassette tape. Or just write them down, and my staff musician will perform them for judges.
Get your entries to: Ed Shamy, Chief Engineer, 201 W. Campbell Ave., Roanoke 24011.
Prizes will be, as always, extraordinary.
by CNB