Proving the point
When I first read Christian Trejbal’s commentary in The Roanoke Times, the one entitled Southwest Virginia is for haters, I knew the feedback to the paper would be loud and filled with misplaced pride over the area’s so-called “values.”
Sadly, I was right. The message board on The Times Web site is filled with just the kind of hate that Trejbal so aptly described.
So, of course, I had to throw in my nickel’s worth:
The day before the day after
Thanksgiving. A time when we pause and give thanks for what we have, although in this commercial age the day for many is simply a pause before “Black Friday,” the busiest shopping day of the year and a make or break time for retailers.
The rainy, windy weather that swept through our area on Wednesday struck New York for Thanksgiving, giving balloon handlers in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade a lot to handle.
Family time
Appropriately, Amy and I spent Thanksgiving with family, going to dinner in Christiansburg with my mother and younger brother.
When we moved back to my home county two years ago, I expected to spend more time with family. Sadly, there never seems to be as much time as we’d like. I’m busier in “retirement” than I ever was while “working for a living.” True, I’m not on the road more than 250 days a year but a steady schedule of volunteer activities plus a couple of part time gigs that each stretch into full time work mean less time than ever for family.
Friendship
I find myself often wrapped up in the lives of friends. I take friendship very seriously. It goes back to another time and another place when you put your life in a friend’s hands and also accepted responsibility for theirs.
Friendship can be strong or fragile, depending on the personalities of those involved. I’m a difficult person to befriend. I’m opinionated, stubborn, arrogant, maddening and blunt. I challenge my friends to think, to consider and to weigh the consequences of their actions and I hope they will treat me with the same bluntness, honesty and compassion.
It just ain’t the same…
The 2006 NASCAR season is finally over with Jimmie Johnson taking the Nextel Cup title. With 35 races running from February to November, the stock car series is the longest season in professional sports.
A night for Mama
They packed Mama Lazardos in Floyd Saturday night: Musicians, restaurant owners and friends of Liz (above), the "mama" of Mama Lazardos.
Liz is retiring after a long battle with illness and the retirement party/benefit at her Locust Street eatery brought out the best of Floyd’s musical scene to perform for the packed house.
Tom Ryan brought his crew from Over the Moon to cook up a special menu while musical artists Scott Perry, Sally Walker, John Winnike, Bernie Coveney, Mike Mitchell, Rob Neukirch (who also owns Oddfellas) and Chris Luster played well into the night for the guest of honor. In many ways, the evening displayed what Floyd does best: come together to help one of its own.
People put differences aside, competitors remember that they are friends first and even those who met Liz for the first time Saturday night heeded the call. 
Liz says she will be heading for Florida after Christmas to spend a few weeks with family and friends but told the audience that "contrary to rumor, I’m not going anywhere…I will be back."
Evenings like this make Floyd a special place to live. As I sat and listened to Sally Walker (above) sing or Mike Mitchell (right) showcase his mastery of the fiddle or Rob Neukirch (below) belt out a Hank Williams tune, I thought about the many times that friends from other places ask: "Why do you live there?"
This is why. Floyd County is a collection of really good people: locals and newcomers.
Most will do anything in the world for you. They will help their neighbors in time of need.
And they will come together for nights like this: Good music, good food and a lot of love for a friend to the many people in the room.
I watched while the love spread through the room Saturday night but thought also of the outpouring of support for Bernie Coveney, the popular guitarist whose house was ransacked by a relative last month.
Bernie played for Liz Saturday night, coming out to help her much as people have come together to help him. This is Floyd…the real Floyd. Our people make this town what it is. Hopefully, that is something special that will never change. 
When hate rules
Christian Trejbal, an editorial writer for The Roanoke Times (where I worked for as a reporter and photographer from 1965-69) says recent election returns shape how people view our region and, unfortunately, showcases how too many people here feel.
Voters’ choices do more than just pick Election Day winners. They shape how the rest of the world views a region.
Friends from across the continent called and e-mailed me Tuesday night and into Wednesday. The conversations mostly went something like this:
“Where the hell do you live?”
I don’t know.
“Allen’s winning” or, on Wednesday, “Allen carried your region and might win.”
I know.
“After ‘macaca’ and ‘nigger.’”
I know.
“The noose and the assault.”
I know.
“And you approved that gay marriage ban that screws over all unmarried people.”
I know!
“Where the hell do you live?”
Those election-night chats reflected an unfortunate but justified perception of Southwest Virginia.
Voters in our region heavily backed Allen and a hateful gay marriage ban that spites their single neighbors and children just to prevent the state from recognizing the unions of loving same-sex couples.
Screwing the pooch
When I was a teenager in Floyd County, the locals regarded newcomers with suspicion and distrust. From what I understand, that attitude flourished in the 1970s when the “alternative lifestylers,” aka “hippies,” moved to the county in large numbers.
Today, many of those alternative life stylers are mainstays of the community — owners of businesses and promoters of programs to benefit all county residents. When I returned in 2004, I hoped the “not from here” syndrome had vanished.
Sadly, it has not.
At meetings of the county board of supervisors, I still hear phrases like “are they from here” used when considering appointments. Too often, we disregard suggestions by newcomers with a dismissive “well, they don’t know how we do things here.”
If someone who is new to the county comes on a little too aggressively, the locals too often shrug their shoulders and say “well, what do you expect? They’re not from here.”
I find myself falling into that trap, even though I’m “from here” but have spent a lot of time “out there.”
A friend’s betrayal
Jamey Singleton’s tortured career as a weatherman at WSLS Channel 10 in Roanoke is over, killed by an act of vengeance by someone he thought was a friend.
For the 28-year-old Singleton, who battled heroin addiction and the near-fatal drug overdose of his friend Marc Lamarre, another meteorologist fired by Channel 10, the firing Thursday over a nude photo of him published on the Internet is the latest bizarre twist in a troubled life.
He says he doesn’t blame Channel 10 for their actions.
Singing the ‘got no picture, my Tivo is down, will someone send me a new DVR’ blues
It took two tries but DirecTV finally managed to send me a new digital video recorder that works. Ten days after our HD Tivo melted down (20 minutes into election night returns) we’re back in business with a working high-def DVR for the plasma flat screen in our living room.
Wasn’t easy getting there. The Tivo went into convulsions election night, displaying a message that a “severe programming error” had occurred and saying it was attempting “to repair itself,” which is technobabble for “I’m downloading patches from Tivo central to see if I can reboot.”