Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 31, 1994 TAG: 9401310024
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If you're going to see a forlorn friend and think a single rose from the convenience store might be nice to take along, be careful. Some of the roses for sale locally aren't what they appear to be.
Spotted at one convenience store: a rose that unfolds to a wisp of a bikini panty.
Workers at the store got worried that the rose could end up with the wrong person - like your mother - so they de-petaled one and hung the red, see-through results as part of the display.
Price is one clue to what kind of rose you're buying, though. You can probably get a rose with petals for $1.99; if it has leg holes, it costs $3.99i
\ What's in a name?
Corned Beef & Co., the downtown restaurant almost in the shadow of Roanoke's tallest building, has decided not to change the name of "The Dominion Tower," one of the weightier entries on its sandwich menu (grilled ribeye steak with sauteed onions and peppers, served on a 6-inch roll, $5.25).
One customer, however, felt compelled to bring the sandwich into conformity with the building, scratching out "Dominion" and writing "First Union" on a menu.
Manager Mariah Gerow said the Dominion vs. First Union question "was an issue that we talked about" in preparing the restaurant's soon-be-revised menu. "We decided to show we've been around longer than they have. So it's going to stay the Dominion Tower."
\ Sister act
Roanoke's Sister Cities Committee is no place for the provincial-minded.
Undaunted by Roanoke's modest population and size, the committee is making a bid for the 1996 International Sister Conference, which will be the 40th anniversary of the sister cities program.
David Lisk, a member of the Sister Cities Committee, appears confident that Roanoke will get the conference. "We expect about 1,280 people from over 30 countries around the world for five days," he told City Council recently.
If Roanoke gets the conference, Lisk said, it will be the smallest city ever chosen for the international event.
Councilman James Harvey said it would be a fitting conference for the newly renovated Hotel Roanoke, which is to reopen in the spring of 1995.
In the meantime, Lisk said the Sister Cities Committee has begun planning for the 30th anniversary celebration of Roanoke's ties with\ Wonju, Korea. The Wonju mayor and a delegation from the Korean city will visit Roanoke this year.
Roanoke also has a sister-city relationship with two other communities: Kisumu, Kenya and Pskov, Russia. Mayor David Bowers visited Pskov last summer.
\ Good wood
Lyndon Arbogast, superintendent of Trees Inc., a company that trims trees under utility lines, realized a year ago that many of the limbs his crews cut would make good firewood.
Ever since, he's been stockpiling free firewood for needy people. People just pull their trucks up to his office off Ninth Street in Southeast Roanoke and help themselves.
Kurt Matthews, a supervisor at the company, said the wood has been picked up especially quickly this cold winter. Another friend, who asked to remain anonymous, said the firewood giveaway is typical of Arbogast, a man he described as "a person who gives without any thought of receiving."
\ Falling behind
\ Virginia's teachers continue to lose ground in salaries to teachers across the nation.
The average classroom teacher in Virginia was paid $32,306 during the 1992-93 school year, according to a report compiled by the Virginia Department of Education.
That was $2,694, or 7.7 percent, below the national average of $35,000.
The pay gap has increased each year since 1989-90, when the state average was $423 below the national average.
The average salaries in the state in the 1992-93 school year ranged from $41,555 in Falls Church to $23,269 in Highland County.
The Department of Education estimates that the current school year average is $33,128, which is 7.9 percent, or $2,852, below the estimated national average.
\ A man of taste
Writer and artist Peter Svenson has lived in New England, traveled in France and visited a lot of other places, but Roanoke is special to him.
"It's a beautiful city," he said during a recent interview on his farm in Rockingham County. "It's my favorite in Virginia. It has a real ambience on the street," plus all that railroad history.
Train-lover Svenson's first published work, "Battlefield: Farming a Civil War Battleground," was a finalist in the nonfiction category for last year's National Book Award.
by CNB