Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, November 28, 1994 TAG: 9411280074
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: FINCASTLE LENGTH: Long
Connie's specializes in home cooking and food for the soul.
And each day during the workweek, the restaurant, just a half-block from the Botetourt County Courthouse, serves as a forum for public opinion.
Three tables pulled together and surrounded by eight chairs serve as a platform for debate. The tables take on the appearance of a checkerboard. A small white, square table has been pushed between two brown ones just to make sure everyone has a seat.
The patrons are also a patchwork of this courthouse town. There are judges, lawyers, probation officers, sheriff's deputies, carpenters and plumbers. About a quarter of them are women. All are treated alike.
"We range from the blue collar to the white collar," said Bob Gengo, a carpenter who renovates old houses. "Abuse and advice are free and offered in great quantities."
One recent lunch started with a critique of Sheriff Reed Kelly's short haircut.
"Quit cutting your hair," yelled the restaurant's owner, Connie Sink, as Kelly walked through the front door.
Kelly seemed unfazed as he bent over slightly to allow her to rub his bristly head. He then walked to the back and got himself a cup of coffee.
Connie's prides itself on service. Self-service.
Patrons line up at the cash register to place their orders. They get back into line again to pay.
The conversation at the table was less traditional fare. While most agreed that Tech would narrowly beat the University of Virginia (they were wrong this time - UVa won 42-23), From a discussion of the Virginia Tech and University of Virginia football teams, the conversation soon turned to the sentencing practices of judges and the attempted-murder case against a former Virginia beauty queen in West Virginia.
"What was the old saying, `Don't marry a beautiful woman?''' someone asked.
"No, I think it was, `Don't marry a mean woman in West Virginia,''' someone else countered.
Patrons say that conversations cover topics as diverse as politics, crime, kids and sex. The only rule is not to let the lunch hour get boring.
"We just talk about current events," Gengo said. "Our ideas range across the spectrum. It goes from the far left to the far right."
It also goes across the county line. Part of the conversation dealt with Bedford County Commonwealth's Attorney Jim Updike's intention to seek a judgeship.
"Wonder how he'll fare with the bar?" someone asked.
Closer to home and seated at the table was Tom Roe, a Fincastle lawyer who plans to seek Botetourt's Commonwealth Attorney's seat.
"I thought you were a pretty good guy," someone said in a puzzled voice.
"He's just another sleazy politician," Gengo joked.
When Roe asked what he'd done wrong, Gengo said he hadn't meant it personally.
"It's just the reflex we have to all politicians," he said.
Fortunately, the combatants keep things in perspective.
"No one takes it seriously," Gengo said. "It's a neutral site. There's no bloodshed."
Sink, who bought the restaurant seven months ago from Dee Minnix, has a different point of view.
"They just sit there and gossip," she said.
Tai Ruff, who has cooked for the restaurant for 15 years or more, is more gracious in her appraisal.
"There's nothing wrong with it," she said. "They just eating."
In celebration of the group's appetite for food and information, Ruff photographs participants and puts their pictures on the wall. In Fincastle, her collection is known affectionately as "Tai's Wall of Fame."
Sink said that no matter how many official spaces are available, some lunch patrons crowd in on the tables' corners. On this day, as attorney Harold Eads sidled up to one of the corners, the group shifted to one side as if it were a precision drill.
"There's nowhere to put the plates," Sink said, but "they'll still sit there and eat."
Actually, as the lunch hour continues, the food becomes incidental. The spice that makes the meal is friendly disagreement.
"Someone will throw out a little opinion to see what they can get out of it," said Dr. Clarke Andrews, who runs a family practice. "We enjoy each other's ideas. Some people will take the opposing view just for the sake of discussion."
When the tables become too crowded, debaters move into the annex. There is a round white table in the front and booths on the side of the main area.
Many Fincastle residents get antsy around lunchtime, knowing full well that the chairs at the table are obtained on a "first-come, first-served" basis.
"We come, we sit, we share and feel comfortable about it," Andrews said. "It is a freedom-of-speech idea to the fullest. You don't fear reprisal."
"No opinion is controversial," said Eads. "No one is put down for their opinion, no matter how outrageous it seems to the others.
"We don't usually discuss other people's lives. We discuss current events."
Eads said the quality of discussion is all that matters to the group. Someone with a criminal history would not be disqualified, as long as he or she could contribute to the conversation.
"Anyone who has anything interesting to say is welcome," Eads said. "Who knows better about a prison system than someone who's been there?"
Sue Robinson, Eads' secretary, said the environment at the tables is always cordial.
"I'm more of a listener," she said. "It's a warm, comfortable place. You feel like you're sitting at your table at home."
That table seems a little lonelier these days, following the death this year of Paxton Davis, the Fincastle writer whose liberal editorial contributions to the Roanoke Times & World-News often brought immediate and harsh reactions from conservative readers.
Davis was a regular at Connie's.
"Since he's been gone from the table, particularly for the morning crowd, it hasn't been the same," said Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judge Dudley "Buzz" Emick, a former state legislator who frequented the table. "Pax would let you finish your speech. You wouldn't change his mind."
Davis took his role seriously, allowing time in his workday for two sessions of debate.
Commonwealth's Attorney Rob Hagan said Davis' sense of justice reached beyond Connie's tables. Once when court was canceled for a snow day, Davis held court at Connie's, named himself judge and acquitted several defendants.
Hagan received a letter from a lawyer, who informed him of ``Judge Davis''' acquittal.
While that ruling had no standing, Davis still is a part of the forum.
"Pax was probably as far left as any of the hippies," Gengo said.
In celebration of Davis' passion for the table, his portrait graces the wall just a few feet from where the debate and advice continue.
"It's democracy in action," Hagan said. "Everyone is heard on any topic. There's comments on the youth and the mores of our times."
by CNB