Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, September 26, 1994 TAG: 9411090009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MONTY S. LEITCH
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"Will Do Odd Jobs - Yard Work, Clean Garages, Haul Wood, Etc."
Not unlike other signs I've seen elsewhere. Signs of the times.
But on this sign, below the "Need Work" message, two phone numbers: one for the advertiser's home phone, and one for his pager.
His pager!
Out of work, willing to do menial labor, but owner of a personal pager. A sign of our times. Of our odd embarrassment of riches.
About six weeks ago, the Man of the House bought us a satellite dish. One of those sleek little dishes that looks like the very sophisticated scientific instrument that it is.
Now, we live with an embarrassment of riches: so many television stations available in our living room that we haven't even watched them all. May never watch them all.
Along with our latest subscription package offer came two "gifts." One, a sheet of "handy stickers." (I know they are "handy stickers" because they're labelled "handy stickers.")
These can be attached to the back of our remote control. Handily, they will help us remember the 20 stations comprising this package.
The other "gift" - a colorful laminated bookmark, also listing the 20 optional stations.
A bookmark!
With which we are supposed to do what, exactly? Mark our place in the T.V. Guide? Mark our place in Paradise Lost so we can return to it during commercials in the beach volleyball coverage?
What a combination. Hi-tech, lo-tech.
Late in the summer I came down with a sore neck, the cause of which my physician has now identified as "middle age."
Of course, the words he used had significantly more syllables, significantly more scientific weight. But they all boil down to the same thing.
The prescribed treatment is traction. And so I now have a little contraption, consisiting of weights and pulleys and headbands, suspended from a door. For half an hour each day, I hang.
"Are you getting taller?" a friend asked.
No. I'm just getting older.
The contraption, though, is already old. Old technologically, that is. The very principles it employs were once applied, albeit more extremely, in drawing-and-quartering.
For the past couple of weeks, I've been watching The Thing go up on Coles Knob, across the ridge from our house. I have a perfect view.
It's huge. It's very ugly. A great round bulb atop spindly poles, high above the treeline. I suppose it's the new weather-watching station that's promising much-improved forecasts for the Terry's Fork area.
Of course, I've never much wondered about the weather here.
When I want to know what it is, I watch it. Out the window.
Monty S. Leitch is a Roanoke Times & World-News columnist.
by CNB