Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 28, 1995 TAG: 9502280080
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Rick and Candy Hambridge looked up at the waitresses shimmying and shaking with hula hoops on the the roof. They looked down at the waiters on the sidewalk blowing bubbles. They looked at the crowd of media types and curiosity-seekers jostling for position in front of the door (how to tell the two apart: The TV stations' video cameras were bigger).
And then they looked at each other.
If life were a comic strip, there'd have been a big question mark in a thought balloon over their heads. Instead, life in Roanoke only seems like a comic strip these days, so the Hambridges had to settle for exchanging stupefied glances.
Here it was, their first full day of vacation - ``just playing Joe Tourist,'' as Candy put it - and the two visitors from Northern Virginia had stumbled into, well, what exactly was it they'd stumbled into outside the Star City Diner?
They weren't sure.
``It's just a restaurant,'' Rick said. ``I didn't know the downtown was so devastated that a restaurant opening would generate so much excitement.''
Ah, but generate excitement it has.
Monday's ribbon-cutting ceremony alone attracted a crowd of 50 or more. Even the mayor was there, glad-handing. When David Bowers spotted the Hambridges, he pumped their hands, too, and started giving them street-by-street directions to the Mill Mountain Star - even though they hadn't asked.
Rick heaved a world-weary sigh. ``I guess this is Roanoke,'' he said.
This is Roanoke, indeed.
L.A. has the O.J. trial. We've got the Big Boy controversy: does the Big Boy statue with an earring and a tattoo that Roland ``Spanky'' Macher has atop his new restaurant downtown violate the city's ordinance banning rooftop signs?
Somehow, Big Boy has become a Big Deal in Big Lick.
On Sunday afternoon, the corner of Campbell Avenue and Jefferson Street was the noisiest corner in town - cars cruising by honked their horns, drivers waved thumbs-up signs, some even shouted out ``Long live Big Boy!''
Still others stopped, gawked, and inked their names on the petition Macher posted out front. The Helms family from Vinton even made a special trip downtown to see what all the commotion was about. ``I think it's kind of neat,'' Buddy Helms said. ``I don't see where it's hurting the city's image.''
Come Monday, same thing, only more so.
Truck driver Jackie Smith of Natural Bridge took a break from his food deliveries, dashed across the street and added his name. Retired teacher Shirley Powell said she couldn't wait to invite her relatives in Washington ``to come see what we're making a fuss over in Roanoke - Big Boy's earring.''
The mayor scissored the ribbon to open the place, but not before he declared his support for Macher the zoning outlaw. ``It's not a sign,'' Bowers said of Big Boy. ``It's a sign of the times. ... If I were voting for it, I'd vote for keeping the Big Boy.''
A few hours later, he got his chance, as City Council abruptly granted Big Boy a temporary reprieve, which seems likely to become permanent.
Roanoke College sociologist Marvin Pippert finds deep meaning in all this hullabaloo.
This isn't a mere zoning issue, he says. It's a sociological phenomenon. ``You're seeing the generations-long struggle between those of us who want individuality and those of us who want to squash individuality.''
It's even a class struggle, he suggests. Conservative Roanokers might not normally identify with a punk Big Boy. But when some influential business leaders wanted to put a national debt clock on the same roof, the city ruled that it wasn't a sign, so it was OK. That's the real reason Big Boy became a flashpoint, Pippert says. ``This is the working man rebelling against the haves.''
Or maybe it's all just a publicity stunt. Advertising executives are beside themselves as they watch this Machervellian strategy unfold. ``It doesn't make a whole lot of advertising people happy,'' said media consultant Bruce Jacobson, ``because he's doing it on his own, and he's getting a lot of free publicity.''
by CNB