Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 25, 1995 TAG: 9502280012
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If their war over Big Boy continues to escalate, something truly dreadful could happen: The word might get out that Roanoke is weird.
Far be it from us, of course, to suggest there's something strange about our obsession with icons: a colossal man-made star on Mill Mountain that's visible for miles, by air and by land; miniature Graceland; the American Chemical building's Pepto-Bismol hue; the neon H&C Coffee sign that for years has poured out its heart to visitors and seems more revered by some than the Statue of Liberty,
No, this strikes us as perfectly normal. It obviously strikes Mayor David Bowers that way, too: He pronounced Macher's earring-revised Big Boy an ``appropriate'' symbol for the city.
And make no mistake: Though Oliver North doubtless would find it offensive, we have nothing against Big Boy's earring. Or his tattoo, also part of the revised version. Or the bib overalls, or beer gut (both original). It all adds a nice Bubba flavor, which Roanoke can always use more of.
The ``in your face'' nature of the dispute, with neither Macher nor Dorsey apparently in a mood for conflict resolution, is a bit more troubling.
The Big Boy, punked up by Macher and hoisted to the top of his new one-story restaurant in downtown Roanoke, may well be in violation of the city's rooftop sign ordinance, as Dorsey contends.
But Big Boy shares the roof with a national-debt clock, bought by two members of Roanoke's business elite, George Cartledge and the late John Hancock, and sponsored by two former congressmen, Caldwell Butler (an R) and Jim Olin (a D).
Let's leave aside the issue of whether a before-inflation per-capita dollar figure is as accurate an expression of deficit horrors as, say, debt as a percentage of gross domestic product. Let's even leave aside the question of whether it's the fault of Reaganomics or tax-and-spend Democrats. Let's get to the gut issue: How is a slightly punkish Big Boy any more a sign-ordinance violation than the debt clock, regardless of the legal-language contortions undergone by the city to approve the latter?
Yet, where does it stop? Macher plans, if it is not already a done deed, to erect another monument to rooftop chutzpah (not to mention, source of publicity): a fiberglass statue of a roller-skated waitress, complete with flashing-neon hula hoop. Schlock appeal, don'tcha know.
What say to a truce? Big Government will get off Big Boy's back. Macher will ground his fiberglass bimbo. Let there be peace once again, here in the valley of the dolls.
by CNB