ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, November 18, 1996 TAG: 9611190018
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
BETTY FIELD loves and cares for Mill Mountain, its trails, its wildlife and the people who sometimes camp there by necessity. But she worries about its future, and she wants you to worry, too.
Fallen leaves crunch beneath Betty Field's feet as she heads down a path on Mill Mountain.
The soft-spoken 63-year-old points to a tree where a "resident" owl lives; leads the way to a small triangular-mouthed cave; and trudges down a trail to a mostly intact "camp" where a homeless woman (whom Field fed regularly) lived for three years, until last winter. Empty water jugs, a clothesline-rigged lean-to and a box full of clothes remain.
"This is where Bohemian Waxwings come to eat on their way south," Field says as she stands on a grassy plot at the turnoff to the Mill Mountain Star. Later, along winding Prospect Road - the "old" road up to the star - Field gestures to the "cowboy tree," its roots splayed out across a steep bank as if saddled on a horse.
This is one of thousands of treks the South Roanoke resident has made to Mill Mountain in the 30 years since her doctor diagnosed her with arthritis and told her to begin exercising regularly.
Since 1980, she's been truly serious about it, logging every mile she has run, walked or hiked. The total now stands at just more than 28,000 miles - the equivalent of 1,069 marathon runs, a distance greater than the circumference of the earth.
"Actually, it's 29,006," The Roanoke native confides. "But about 1,000 miles were at other places." Dozens of area road races, many of which she's won or placed in, account for some of the miles.
To Field, however, Mill Mountain is something far more than a place to exercise. She has developed a mystical attachment to it. It's where she comes almost every day to envelope herself in nature's solitude. Even last winter, when snows ran 2 feet deep or more, she was there.
Normally shy, Field becomes animated when pausing on a trail to talk about the turkeys that run wild; the deer, foxes, raccoons and bluebirds that live on the mountain; and the people she sees up there.
There was the partially disabled man who worked his way back to strength on walks (and later runs) up Fishburn Parkway. And mentally ill people who take refuge in the woods. Many of them she recognizes from an outreach program conducted by St. John's Episcopal Church, where she worships.
"There are so many who come up here," she says. "I think it's because the mountain doesn't judge them, you know?"
The former kindergarten teacher displays an almost childlike delight in elements of Mill Mountain's nature.
Ordinary chunks of growing moss draw mentions (the brilliant green really stands out in the fall, she notes). She hears blessings in the gentle gurgle of wet-weather streams. A lone clump of bright red leaves clinging to a small tree is worthy of her notice. For a time, she was friends with a small red bat (``He was so cute," she recalls) that would circle above her in the air. After it hadn't shown up to greet her for a while, she found its body one day.
The walks "are like praying with your body," Field says. "People pray in all sorts of ways: They dance, they sing, they bow down to Mecca. I think you can pray with a walk on the mountain. Looking back in history, many people have gone to a mountain to focus in on their God or whatever it was they believed in. Moses did it, Jesus did it. Mountaintop experiences can happen even on an ordinary walk on Mill Mountain."
That's a message Field wants more people to get.
She's already converted her family - her husband of 40 years, Robert, who's retired from Norfolk Southern Corp.; her daughter, Liza, who operates a nonprofit land trust in Wytheville; her two grown sons and their daughters.
The rest of the valley's people, well, they're a harder sell.
When Field stood up at a Planning Commission hearing on Mill Mountain's future about six years ago and said, "I represent Mill Mountain, because I love it," one commissioner burst into laughter, she says.
"It sounded as if it was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard," she recalls.
About two weeks ago at a meeting of the Mill Mountain Development Committee, the panel demurred on Field's request to join the committee. There were no vacancies, members explained, and the next one will be filled by City Council appointment.
"I would like to be on the committee," she says. "Because I've got all this information and I'm up there all the time."
Field didn't get an invitation to a summit on the mountain convened by Mayor David Bowers last summer. She showed up anyway. Her plea to leave the mountain as it is was received politely, amid a rush of others' ideas to expand the zoo, build a parking garage, bring back a restaurant and erect a cable car ride to the summit from down below.
She cringes when she hears plans like those.
"We are supposed to be stewards of the earth," she says. "Our mountain is a gift.
"I just feel like there's nobody taking up for the mountain. There's so many ideas for it. I feel like it's going to be citylike things. I'm afraid its true identity as a mountain might perish."
"This concept of bigger is better, I just don't understand," she adds. "My hope is that somehow, the people in this valley will feel somewhat like I do and speak out."
LENGTH: Long : 104 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS\Staff. 1. Betty Field, a Roanokeby CNBnative and avid walker, has some strong feelings for Mill Mountain.
She says the mountain is nurturing. 2. Bundled up for the brisk
mid-November weather, Field hikes (above) on a trail behind the Mill
Mountain Zoo. She takes time to stop at the Fishburn Memorial on the
J.P. Fishburn Parkway on Mill Mountain. color. 3. Betty Field spends
a few hours almost every day on Mill Mountain. This cave is one of
her favorite haunts.