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

DATE: MONDAY, May 16, 1994                   TAG: 9405170034
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TOUR DUPONT? I'D RATHER DO LUNCH

I just hope you've been having as much fun as I am now that spring is here and you can hear the voice of the turtle and it doesn't hurt as much to look at the stump of the pecan tree that fell over in March.

These are interesting times. I got a laugh - sort of - when I noticed that the postmark on one of those service memos the car people send you was Amityville, N.Y.

When we took the car in, I thought I saw a red-eyed pig in the back seat. The pig disappeared after we got the bill. Scared him off, I guess.

Although it's been a week, I remember it as though it were yesterday. That is, I remember the morning - under great peer pressure - that I agreed to walk a very long distance to watch the cyclers of the Tour DuPont go by.

If those guys had my sciatica, they'd be stuck on the Salem side of 12 O'Clock Knob well into next January.

But I forgot the pain and applauded these remarkably skinny males as they hummed by - with enough cars and motorcycles accompanying them to remind you of the Second Armored Division on the prod.

I'd need major liposuction surgery to fit into one of those suits - which is something I don't want to do for myself right now.

I hate to admit a lack of civic fervor, but after 10 of these admirable young men had pedaled past, I wanted to go home for lunch.

You know. Corned-beef, rye, cheese, a slather of mayonnaise, a hint of mustard, lettuce and tomato. Potato chips? A nice nap?

Who needs to fit into one of those dumb suits anyway?

There were several former friends of mine there who said I wanted to go home to watch my favorite soap opera.

And, as I say, these are interesting times, and the greatest station wagon driver of them all and I enriched the day further by having an epic argument right there on the shoulder of Roselawn Road.

Did I mention that one of the reasons I was on this little excursion is that Roselawn Road was closed and I couldn't go anywhere? Even to the ABC store?

It was not long after these moving experiences that the mattress blew up. Well, actually, it more or less imploded. I felt sharp things in my ribs, and my sciatica became nearly terminal.

The new mattress and springs wiped out six months of savings, but I don't care - as long as the mattress company's postmark isn't Amityville, N.Y.

by CNB