Dear Gossipman: I’ve been noting lately that some pieces of history we don’t much like are getting all shined up pretty to be more the way we want them. Like taking the N-word out of Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” and getting the bust of Joseph Stalin out of the D-Day Memorial. Any other local fix-history things on the horizon? -DT, SE.
A: Several are in the works, DT. One is that the current generations of families who had their land taken away back in the ‘30s to build the Blue Ridge Parkway are going to have two choices: Either declare they never lived there in the first place or gather at Mabry Mill once a year to sing “Kumbaya” and talk about how Ed Mabry’s mill once ground all the grain for the Wonder Bread company. And from back in the days when I-64 could have come through here but ended up there in the middle of nowhere (a.k.a. Lexington)? Well, turns out we didn’t want the damn thing anyway since we have big bad 460, and those Rockbridge County snoots don’t have a shot in the world at getting I-73 when it comes through here in a century or two.
Hey, G-man, you get one of those mailings from your bank talking about all the ways they take your name and information and give it away to most anybody? And then show you this little chart about how you can opt out of stuff, but then over there on the last column it says you can’t? -FG, SW.
A: Yep.
Gossipman, I’ve been noticing that issue after issue you keep picking on the Taubman Museum. Can’t you say something nice once in awhile? -TK, Downtown
A: You bet, TK. Our worries over the appearance of the building – its sort of clashing with all the older buildings around it – got fully allayed the other day when it was pointed out that the thing doesn’t look like the mountains gone nuts at all – it looks like a train, and so everything’s OK.
Hey, G-man, you get one of those things from your bank where they send you four pages of six-point type headed “Important Changes in Your Credit Card Agreement” where if you did take the time to hire a lawyer to wade through it all and translate, the only real message would be we can charge more interest for more different things for more days of the month? -LC, NW
A: Yep.
And where do they get off calling it an “Agreement”? Like you agree or they take the damn card, right?
A: Yep.
Geez, there’s that would-be-toughtest-in-the-nation marathon coming up, and then that 25k race out at Carvins Cove . . . what’s next? -JC, SW
A: RoanokeOutdoors.com and Mountain Junkies are planning a continuous year-long run where you can stop only once, to pee, and for 20 minutes on Christmas morning.
