Q: Dear Gossipman: Have you seen that stuff on Wallops Island, over there by the Eastern Shore? They’re going to be a major spaceport for the nation as we move to commercial launches into space. They have six rocket launchpads ready and waiting to send people into the ionosphere, for cripesakes. My question is when is our part of the state going to get a can’t-miss chunk of economic development like that? –WS, Downtown
A: It’s coming, WS, it’s coming, and it is of course in our great rail and coal traditions here in western Virginia. The plan is to take some of those nice, flat mountaintop-removed spots down in Buchanan County and install some humongous rubber bands stuck to giant posts coming out of the new land. Then a person who is not afraid of rapid air travel will step into the oversized slingshot and six ex-coal miners will then pull the band back to the very edge of where the mountain drops off, let go and launch the rider over a couple of leftover mountaintops and toward the landing pad on another scoured-off mountain two counties over.
Q: G-man – I really enjoy that retail watch they do in the paper, with all the new shops opening and restaurants closing and all. How come you never report on that kind of stuff? –MM, Southwest County
A: Thought you’d never ask, MM. The latest trend over at Tanglewood is on the sciences. In fact, the Science Museum of Western Virginia (upper level) and Miller-Motte Technical College (former French Quarter) are hard at work on a joint experiment to understand if there’s any combination of retail in the world better than K & W Cafeteria, A.C. Moore and Bath & Body Works to attract that coveted 75-and-up white-shoe demographic.
Q: Dear Gossipman, I’m sure you’ve seen the talk over on the eastern side of the state about instituting tolls on some roadways to pay for much-needed road construction and other transporation needs. Assuming that happens, don’t we over here at this end of things get left out again, just like always? – DC, Vinton
A: Au contraire, DC. It hasn’t made the mainstream press yet, but there are several spots around the valley that are under active discussion for toll booths:
• Any egress from Valley View during the Christmas shopping season. The thinking is that since cars are already stopped and drivers are already steamed to the point of insanity, the city may add strolling toll collectors, using some of the same personnel that drive those little chalk-mark/parking ticket three-wheelers.
• You know that narrow place on the Roanoke River Greenway just past where the river turns east there by Piedmont Park? Where those guys are like two feet from the greenway working on lawn mowers and stuff? Word is they are getting ready to set up their own little toll/extortion booth and offer the city 15 percent of take.
• And of course you can never be sure Salem won’t start tolling any out-of-city plates crossing its borders.
