Plenty of flags in downtown Roanoke which lend color but is it any surprise the heart of the city is dominated by all the antennae that make a television station work?
As much as it is despised, the mainstream press is what the mainstream depends on for a daily reality check. When I let strangers know I have no TV reception, more do I want any they tend to get either thunderstruck or angry.
The big banks have twisted the press around their collective little finger and we are all suffering for those shortcomings.
Roanoke did better no doubt in the boom years before the crash like everywhere else. There are plenty of empty storefronts to attest to that downtown.
But Roanoke has a vibrant core that avoids box stores and debates about sustainability by sustaining local artisans and growers in the Roanoke River Valley.
Go by in the afternoon and the city market is wrapped for the day. No preservatives is a policy that requires early sales. Go by in the morning and finds meat fruits and vegetables coming to your table direct from the growers. Local food for local people, and demand is so high for space there is a waiting list to become a vendor.
Go downtown on a motorcycle and don't expect to find dedicated parking. However the cute local trolleys are part of the regular metro system and do more than clog streets with slow moving traffic as they do in Key West. These trolleys function as cute buses.
Key West's Havana One Cuban restaurant on Truman Avenue used to operate around here. Their move south has not removed the last trace of Cuban cuisine from Roanoke.
Cheyenne liked the sights and smells of the City Market even though I had forgotten her collar and had to improvise with a loop in her extend-a-leash.
Traffic was light, trees were in evidence all to the carbon dioxide good.
As was Roanoke's finest in evidence but I forgot to bring a patch to swap as police departments have a habit of doing. The patch is the log worn on the shoulder of the uniform and swapping these symbols is a widespread hobby among law enforcement.
The founding family of the Advance Auto Parts chain lives around here and donated something like 76 million bucks to locate a misplaced flying saucer here. It's actually a performing arts center and quite controversial in shape they say though it works beautifully.
More traditional is the Hotel Roanoke dominating it's own piece of Elizabethan skyline.
On one side of the market is old time Roanoke's old fashioned barber shop, while on the other side, seen in the reflection is the new and gentrified renovation, still not completely accepted despite the deplorable condition of the original building.
The Cornerstone was our stop for beer and cold water. Beer above the table and cold water below.
Cheyenne was supplied under the table by the friendly bartender because Roanoke unlike Key West allows dogs outdoors in bars without elaborate and silly health and insecurity regulations such as are the fashion in the Sunshine State.
It was a good moment to stop and measure the head on a draft beer, or the silly signs in the bar.
Roanoke has miles of bicycle trails and sells itself as an outdoor city in the Blue Ridge mountains. Never mind the trails and the hiking and the paddling, I like that it has benches in it's parks and no snowbirds and no traffic jams.
It has unobtrusive bums not panhandling as though they were on Duval but they do have to pray for their supper at the massive Christian Mission nearby.
And no matter how far one gets from the Southernmost Point one finds reminders everywhere. I thought for a moment the city was coming up to meet me and save me a long drive home.
Key West in this context is I am told a band not unlike the locally grown Latitude 24 of Keys fame. Key West really is everywhere.
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The East Martello Museum, of which I wrote previously, has a wing devoted to local artists, and of those two in particular struck my fancy. Stanley Papio lived in the Upper Keys and settled there after he had a career as a welder. His artwork developed from his passion for found objects and he took a fancy to welding them together to create objects of whimsy:
The story goes that Papio's neighbors were none too excited about his welded junk lining the Highway, but he didn't much care it seems.
And the way these things go, before too long the welder became an icon:
And the East Martello has a number of these "culturally important artworks" in it's collection:
The other artist on permanent display is Mario Sanchez who died in 2005 and who, like Papio came to his art later in life. Sanchez took to making wood carvings, intaglios, of Key West life. Including a picnic at the East Martello Tower:
He carved street scenes from memory, and made three dimensional the Key West of his childhood, remembering the merchants, the buildings and the activities of Key West long ago. These wood blocks are much more vibrant and immediate than the posed stiff black and white photographs of the era:
Funnily enough Sanchez himself springs to life out of a simple black and white photo:
He drew his ideas on old paper bags before committing them to wood:
And then he went to town with all the finely carved details, like this scene from a cigar factory:
I particularly liked the caption on the wall: "...in Spanish English or Bahamian..." The mind boggles, and ponders the life and times of Mario Sanchez.
