Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, August 22, 1995 TAG: 9508230015
SECTION: WELCOME STUDENTS PAGE: WS-20 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ADRIANNE BEE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
So it was strange that I decided to go to college in a one-horse town like Blacksburg.
One Saturday morning during my senior year in high school, my father and I left our suburban home in the outskirts of Washington, D.C., in search of a place called Virginia Tech.
Rain slapped angrily against the windshield of our minivan as we left behind the stubble-faced men with their bad luck stories scrawled in magic marker on cardboard signs, arms outstretched for spare change at stoplights. We left long strings of town houses with names that represent the nature that was there before the developments: "Willow Creek," "Oak Meadows." We left the busy streets full of horns honking and the occasional extended middle finger.
Four-and-a-half hours later, there were cows. My dad, a Wisconsin native, liked this. I think he was sold on Tech the moment we drove on campus and saw even more of them. He works at the Pentagon, wears paisley ties, but still boasts of the prize-winning cows he used to show in 4-H competitions.
It was a dark day in Blacksburg (how surprising). Rain drizzled as I stood under an umbrella with my father and gazed across the Drillfield. I wasn't big on cows, and I found this place kind of creepy on this particular stormy day. The broken circle of gray buildings, the fog, rain and the thunder clapping overhead reminded me of the perfect place for Dr. Frankenstein to scream "It's alive!''
After the campus tour, we drove around Blacksburg, and I asked my father where the town, you know, downtown, was. He said we were in it. That's when I realized I was in quite a different place from what I had known my entire life. I was in a small town.
Trying new things can frighten some people. I sprang from the womb of a woman who has worn Lipquencher No. 337, Misty Mauve, for the past 25 years. If No. 337 is ever discontinued, my mother might very well go into shock or stop breathing. Fear of change is in my genes.
But I have spent the past four years fighting this genetic propensity, determined to adapt and assimilate to life in the New River Valley.
First the shopping mall. I had always taken for granted the comfort, safety, the certain peace in my soul that comes from having shopping malls in every direction. In Northern Virginia, our malls have stores in them, lots of stores. Places to fill your every greedy materialistic need from shoes to CDs. I guess I took this for granted. That was until I entered the New River Valley Mall. I prefer to call it "The Mall That Time Forgot," but as college started, I realized I didn't have any money to spend anyway, so it didn't really matter.
I guess I had always thought of small towns in terms of what they don't have. Thought of them as isolated places far away from the hustle and bustle of real life. As places that don't have a Gap. Thus I spent more weekends going back to Northern Virginia than exploring this place.
Then I found back roads where people wave as you drive by, and they don't even know you! Back roads lead to hiking trails, waterfalls, completely quiet places, untouched by townhouse developments. Beautiful places make you start to think that wherever you're from, in comparison with this place, has all the appeal of black licorice jelly beans.
As an English major, I often have the disturbing thought that even if I read a book every day for the rest of my life, I will never read even a small percentage of them all. The same feeling applies to these long winding paths through the untouched hills and valleys that provide a respite from all the stuff that isn't going to matter when I'm dead.
Last weekend, I drove to Alexandria to visit my parents. I came off the exit to see a new housing development springing up next to a pile of cut trees. "Coming soon: Elmwood Estates" read a nearby sign. I scowled at the yellow John Deere equipment and continued driving. I drove past a new bank, gas station and restaurant. Hadn't I only been gone two months? I tried not to think too much about it, and I took comfort in the fact that Monday I would be back home.
In Blacksburg.
by CNB