ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, January 7, 1997 TAG: 9701070050
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BETH MACY
SOURCE: BETH MACY
Cast aside, for a minute, the leftover Hoppin' John, the hair-of-the-dog and those weight-loss resolutions that always end up flooding the health clubs this time of year.
It's time to take a brief look back - and forward - with some of the folks I wrote about in 1996:
Tomika Miller, the first female to complete both the West End Center and a four-year college degree, was heading to Manassas to live with her mother and to find work when I interviewed her last month.
Happy news: She's found a job as the director of an elementary-school before- and after-school program - a program much like the West End Center, which Tomika credits for her success.
One correction to that Dec. 17 column: In describing the working-poor conditions of the parents of most kids who attend West End, I summarized that Tomika grew up in ``poverty.'' That word offended her mother, Patricia Miller, and several of the Millers' Roanoke relatives, and I'm sorry for that.
``When you meet your family's needs, I don't consider that `poverty,''' Patricia Miller said. Miller also wanted to thank Tomika's grandmother, the late Pansy Miller, and other extended-family members for helping care for Tomika and her sister (who's also now in college) while she was working.
Sadly, the center is still $25,000 short of meeting its $248,000 budget. Director Kaye Hale said last week she'd have to deplete its savings just to make December's payroll.
None of the 65 kids on the waiting list will get to attend West End in 1997 - unless some last-minute donations come through. And field trips for the attendees may be eliminated. (For information on the center or making donations, call Hale at 342-0902.)
In May, I wrote about Lois Webb, a Roanoke County mother who had worked through a lot of grief - but, alas, no tears - in stitching a memorial quilt for her son, William Webb III, who died of AIDS in 1994. Webb had mailed the quilt off to NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt as an early Mother's Day present to herself.
In October, she and her husband and daughter drove to Washington to see the massive exhibit of quilt squares - 40,000 quilts spanning 15 city blocks, the names of the dead ringing out over the National Mall.
``I was able to help unfold the quilts on two of the mornings, and it was a very warming experience,'' she says. By chance, one of the quilts she reached down to unfold was laden with tulips, a crown and a picture of her only son.
``I cried when I saw it was my own quilt - oh yeah,'' she recalls. ``One young fellow there hugged me and said, `I wish I had a mother like you.'''
The day after the Webbs returned to Roanoke, Lois' husband had a heart attack. Doctors blamed it on high-blood pressure and the stress of the past two years.
Her goal for 1997 is to help him get healthy again. Asked if she's done any sewing since the quilt, she said: ``I've picked up a needle twice to sew on a button.
``I really hate to sew,'' she added. ``I only enjoyed the quilt because it was for him.''
It was April Fool's Day when Dr. Hayden Hollingsworth, the dean of Roanoke cardiologists, retired his stethoscope and picked up his pen. Fed up with the money-driven changes in health care, the longtime doc quit the business in hopes of writing a novel about the intrigue and intensity of the medical world.
A friend of his in Stuart read the column and wrote him, mentioning that her son is a literary agent for William Morris publishers in New York. The agent later agreed to read Hollingsworth's book, which is nearly finished.
``I've written 20 days a month, 1,200 words a day,'' the 60-year-old says. And loved every minute of it, he adds, joking that maybe he waited too long to quit medicine.
Titled ``A Walk Down Another Street,'' it's a novel about ``redemption and about how the harder you chase the things you want, the farther away the things you really need become,'' he says. The two protagonists are a lawyer and a physician working together in a malpractice suit.
Hollingsworth doesn't know whether Morris will publish his book or not, but he knows this: He's hooked on writing. His goals for 1997 are to finish the book and begin another - about what Alzheimer's disease can do to relationships.
A lot of people responded to the Oct. 10 column on Tim Austin, whose 29-year-old wife, Terri, died suddenly of a brain aneurysm in August, leaving him to raise an infant and a toddler by himself.
Austin was struggling - not just with his grief, but also with all the details his wife normally handled: grocery shopping, bill paying, dropping the kids off at day-care, cleaning the house.
The details have gotten easier - slightly - but the loneliness hasn't. ``Christmas was hard. She was really into Christmas,'' he says. One day while cleaning out the pantry, Tim ran across a Christmas gift Terri had tucked away for their 3-year-old, Ashley, bought earlier in the year: a dollhouse.
The kids were already getting so much for Christmas - from neighbors, churches and family members - that Tim decided to hold the dollhouse back, reserving it as a gift for her upcoming fourth birthday. She'll like getting a birthday gift from Mom, he says.
Greenberg and Associates, Terri's employer, has set up a fund for the kids' education. Contributions may be made to the Austin Children Educational Fund, P.O. Box 240, Roanoke, Va. 24002.
Men all over Roanoke - or at least the men in my office - are still talking about the sexy (but tasteful) shower-scene photo we ran of Dianne Rhodes, who in September represented the Star City in the national Lever soap-sponsored Singing in the Shower competition.
Clad in a matching black bath towel and shower cap, Dianne made the Top 10 in the contest with her act, a take-off on the Peggy Lee tune ``Fever'' - only it was called ``Lever.'' Her finger snaps were dripping with panache.
Dianne's since managed to keep her middle-child extrovert tendencies under wraps, she claims, although she did recently sing ``Amazing Grace'' at a wedding. She didn't even get racy at the reception.
She's also switched jobs. She sells memberships for the Roanoke Athletic Club.
Which, come to think of it, may be the perfect impetus for some of you to work those abs
Happy resolving.
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