ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 5, 1997 TAG: 9701060010
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: New River Journal
SOURCE: GERRY DAVIES
I'm stepping out on a limb for 1997.
Unlike those weenies who privately resolve to lose weight, learn Portuguese and read Proust's "Remembrances of Things Past," I'm going public with my New Year's resolutions.
Holding my own feet to the fire, you could say.
Bear in mind that I'm at midlife, that traumatic age at which many a man, grasping for his youth, starts chasing skirts, buys a Harley and takes up hang-gliding.
My resolutions are less radical. A few are a little exotic, but nothing you, too, couldn't do right here in the New River Valley.
One, however, might involve wearing a skirt.
*RESOLUTION NO. 1: I will start learning to play the bagpipes.
To many of you this is akin to learning to screech like a scalded cat. My own wife heard an unseen piper strike up a tune once and remarked that she thought someone's car horn was stuck.
But for as long as I can remember, I've found the skirl of the pipes exhilarating. Spine-tingling, even. I hear them and see Scottish clans and regiments charging bravely through the mists into volleys of gunfire. I understand - I feel - the pipes' effect.
So that's my goal. I'm somewhat musical, though like my father (and probably his father), I can't sing. Couldn't carry a tune if it had handles. But I've learned to play the tin whistle and clarinet a bit, and I think, if I really applied myself, I might be a piper.
A practice chanter - the part that makes the notes - has been sitting in my cupboard for two years now, a gift from the aforementioned wife, who'll likely regret it. On my dresser is a brochure titled "An Invitation to Join" from the Virginia Highlands Pipes and Drums, a local group with members in the New River Valley. It says it wants people who want to learn.
It may also regret it.
But I think I'm ready to pipe.
*RESOLUTION NO. 2: I will make more beer.
I've come a long way, beer-wise. Twenty years ago, in college in Ohio, I regularly drank a loathsome concoction named Drewry's. I suspect it was brewed in a converted rubber plant somewhere in Akron, probably using ingredients found on the factory floor. Drewry's had one virtue only: It cost $1.39 a six-pack, and by the time the weekend rolled around that was usually all I had in my pocket. (Unless I skipped doing laundry that week, in which case I could afford Blatt's, at $2 a six-pack.)
As my fortunes improved over the years, so did my beer. First to good domestics, then Canadians, then English Bass and Irish Harp and German Beck's and micro-brews.
And then my wife bought me my own home-brewing kit, and I entered beer heaven: Really good beer, really cheap.
But after the first couple of batches, even though they were easy to make, I fell away. I don't know why. I went back to spending six bucks for a German import.
Then for Christmas someone gave me more beer-making ingredients (available at several stores around the valley), and that lighted the old fire. I have the fixings for several cases of stout and pale ale, at a cost of maybe $10 a case.
So by February, friends, I'll be bottling again, filling the house with the scent of hops and yeast and malt.
In other words, it'll smell a lot like my old dorm room.
*RESOLUTION NO. 3: I will train my dogs.
You remember my dogs, Rat Dog and Barbie-eating Politically Correct Dog, bane of neighbors, shopkeepers and injection-molded plastic toys.
I've tired of chasing them and yelling at them and insisting that next time they go back to the pound! I mean it!
No one pays attention any more, especially the dogs, so it seems the only answer is to take them out in the back yard and teach them to sit, stay and - most important - shut up.
I'll report back on these undertakings around this time next year. But if I'm successful, I believe you'll see telltale signs well before then.
Look for:
*A revised nuisance-noise ordinance in Blacksburg that specifically bans "all loud, allegedly musical instruments powered by windbags."
*Announcement of the first Blacksburg Home-Brew Festival, followed immediately by a campaign to make Montgomery County "dry."
*A large, smug-looking man walking around the Tech Duck Pond with two small, quiet dogs trotting obediently at his heels.
Don't look too soon for the last one.
Gerry Davies is night metro editor of The Roanoke Times
LENGTH: Medium: 86 linesby CNB