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

DATE: THURSDAY, December 30, 1993                   TAG: 9312300161
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SO MUCH SNOW! SO LITTLE TO DO?

So what are people doing?

They're breaking bones. Roanoke Memorial Hospital's emergency room admissions doubled the past few days.

"We had a lady in today who slipped on ice and broke her wrist. She was 72 and had never broken a bone before in her life," said spokeswoman Sally Ramey.

They're chuckling at this wimpy snow.

At least, if they're a twentysomething couple from the Rockies.

As they drove along slushy Elm Avenue, Robert Davis and his Roanoke-reared girlfriend Michelle Meador were coaxed out of their Colorado-tagged car for an interview.

"You might call this a slight flurry," was Davis' critique. An inch or two is so uneventful back home, weather folks wouldn't even mention it.

However, Tuesday's freezing rain laminated Davis Blazer 4X4 in ice and impressed him a whole lot. "I'd never really seen anything like that before."

They're risking their lives without knowing it.

Ramey, Roanoke Memorial's spokeswoman, says people - and get this, people as young as 30 or 40 - can have heart attacks from shoveling snow.

This is true even if you're in el primo health and your family has no history whatsoever of cardiovascular disease.

It's the combination of hard physical work and the body's reaction to cold temperatures. Blood vessels contract, causing blood pressure to rise and reducing your ability to absorb oxygen. The heart must pump harder and faster. Add to that the unusual exertion of lifting and tossing heavy snow, and even a triathlete might keel over.

Ramey learned this in the mid-1980s when Roanoke had a string of big snows. Nurses were concerned about the young ages of their snow-shoveling patients and asked her to put out a warning. This unusually snowy winter, Ramey's doing it early.

They're going to see "Mrs. Doubtfire."

About the longest line in town was for Wednesday's matinee at Tanglewood Mall's General Cinema. A Salem movie house showing the Robin Williams hit was closed because of snow and General Cinema was raking in the ticket sales.

They're flying down hills on little plastic things.

They couldn't make snowmen with the fall-apart new snow. They couldn't make snowballs, like in last week's better snow. So kids at Ghent Park in Southwest Roanoke scored this one only a 7. But they tore down the park's hills anyway on plastic sleds, sheets, discs and one old-fashioned wooden sled.

They're sweating and panting.

The Roanoke Athletic Club opened at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday, regardless of the snow. Eight members already were sitting in the parking lot, waiting to work out. "It's a part of their daily routine," said club employee Stuart Rhinehart.

They're doing things so the rest of us can goof off.

James Watkins, a city streets worker for 15 years, was scooping snow off Brambleton Avenue. His big truck still had its leaf box on the back. All these snows have buried curbside leaf piles and postponed final collections. But Watkins and his compadres will still suck the leaves up - as soon as they can quit using the snowplows on the fronts of their trucks.

Surprise, surprise: They're renting videos.

You can rent up to nine at a time at Countryside Video in Northwest Roanoke, and bunches of people have gone the limit.

The most popular flick: "The Firm."