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

DATE: THURSDAY, January 20, 1994                   TAG: 9401200199
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

POLICE, COFFEE FIENDS BRAVE COLD

While most of Western Virginia shivered indoors, some residents had to stay outside.

Roanoke Police Officer Ronald Cassell was still doling out parking tickets downtown, while shielding himself from the cold by sitting in the small glass cage aboard his three-wheeled Cushman motorcycle.

Cassell admitted that the vehicle's heater is nothing to brag about.

"It's like a Volkswagen," he said. "It comes off the muffler. By the time it gets to me, it's cold."

Still, he's optimistic.

"There's only 60 days until spring," he said.

Down the street, caffeine junkies at Mill Mountain Coffee & Tea would not be deterred from their appointed rounds.

"All the diehard coffee regulars, this hasn't bothered them at all," said Janet Carty, the coffee shop's manager.

But coffee fiends such as "Ed the stockbroker" and "Mr. Hoge" were joined Wednesday by foul weather friends who ordered 11 Thermoses of coffee before 11 a.m.

Some were the wimpy types, asking Carty and her staff to deliver.

by CNB