(Left to right) Gordon Soderberg, Bill Hudson of Moneta, and Jacob Kimmel outside the disabled Veterans Green Bus on a tow lot in northeast Roanoke. The bus caught fire and almost burned up Wednesday night. | Photo by STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS | The Roanoke Times.

Just a little more than two months ago, Gordon Soderberg and the Veterans Green Bus pulled into Roanoke, fresh from a months-long relief effort on Long Island following Superstorm Sandy.

Then disaster struck the bus, which has been elaborately retooled to run on used cooking grease. Its starter system caught fire, necessitating more than $4,000 in repairs.

Soderberg picked up the fixed bus from the Virginia Truck Center in Cloverdale May 15. It has a new starter, battery cables, air lines, fuel lines, and U-joints. He paid the bill with money he raised from online and cash donations from readers of The Roanoke Times.

The final $1,200 toward repairs came from Archie Gordon. A Vietnam veteran who lives in Cave Spring and is retired from the telecommunications industry, Gordon said he hooked up with Soderberg after reading of his plight in this newspaper.

“He needed it,” Gordon told me Wednesday. “That was all that was keeping him from getting [the bus] to the west coast. “It’s the brotherhood.”

Now Soderberg is preparing to head out of town to the next big disaster scene — Moore, Oklahoma, which was decimated by a gigantic killer tornado on Monday. And he needs your discarded grease.

READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.

330 Upland Shores Drive, in the Water’s Edge subdivision of Franklin County, owned by Jonnie Williams, a friend to both Gov. Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. | Photo by Stephanie Klein Davis | The Roanoke Times

To get to one of the most noteworthy homes of late on Smith Mountain Lake, you head east on Virginia 40 from Rocky Mount. Pass the one-horse communities of Redwood and Glade Hill. Soon you’ll come to Penhook and the local landmark known as Carl’s Place, a friendly diner and gas station.

Just past Carl’s, follow some back roads for 3 to 4 miles to the lushly landscaped golf community called Water’s Edge. A little ways off a cul de sac at the end of Upland Shores Drive, you’ll find No. 330, a house owned by Jonnie and Celeste Williams.

Built in 1993, the cedar and stone-sided mansion stands on two waterfront acres, behind some shade-providing trees on a point that juts out into the lake’s Blackwater River side. There’s a stone-paver driveway with a turning circle, six parking spaces and an attached, two-car garage. It’s currently listed for sale at $3.9 million. (More pix are here).

There’s another waterfront home in Water’s Edge which Jonnie Williams owns with his son, Jonnie Jr. It’s at 125 Sconset Drive, and is smaller and is also for sale — for $649,000. )More pix are here.)

125 Sconset Drive, in the Water’s Edge Community of Franklin County, owned by Jonnie Williams and his son, Jonnie Williams Jr. | Shot by Dan

Neither home is particularly noteworthy at Smith Mountain Lake, where scores of similar mansions dot 500-some miles of shoreline. Instead, the recent prominence comes from the friends of Williams — a car dealer turned tobacco magnate — who he’s gifted with lake vacations in recent years.

One is Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for governor, who’s vacationed three times at Williams’ expense. Twice, in 2011 and 2012, Williams gave the Cuccinelli a week in the summer (value of each: $3,000), according to the attorney general’s recently amended financial disclosures.

Once, in 2010, Williams provided a place to Cuccinelli for a four-day Thanksgiving retreat (value: $1,500). For that, Williams also provided a catered dinner.

Another is Gov. Bob McDonnell. In 2011, according to the governor’s financial disclosure, Williams gave McDonnell $2,268 worth of lodging and entertainment at Smith Mountain Lake. Williams has lavished other gifts upon the governor as well.

READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.

Bojin | Wikimedia Commons

If you’re curious why Roanoke County is sponsoring a bicycle safety event June 8 at Tanglewood Mall, you should listen to the stories of local lawyer David Harrison.

Twice in the past five years, he has been hit by cars while riding his bike carefully and legally. The first time was on the Blue Ridge Parkway in 2008 when he was bumped off the road by a passing sedan pulling a fishing boat. It knocked him off the pavement and he landed in adjacent grass.

That one left Harrison with some bruises and a busted cellphone. He rode away from the crash, but on the next one he wasn’t so lucky.

It happened on Edgewood Street just off Brandon Avenue Southwest in 2010. Once again, a car bumped Harrison as it passed him too closely; this time he went down hard on the asphalt. He fractured five ribs, broke his collarbone in two places and his shoulder blade in one, and suffered a collapsed lung. Read more »

The Old Lick Cemetery is on Orange Avenue, directly across the street from the Roanoke Civic Center.

Polly Steptoe died in 1907, at age 70. Amelia Lawson, who was born in 1864, left this world at age 60.

Their gravestones are among scores stretched along an easy- to-overlook plot of land along Orange Avenue, tucked between a motel parking lot and the northbound Interstate 581 on ramp. Right across the street from the Roanoke Civic Center, it’s called Old Lick Cemetery.

Partly sun-drenched and partly hidden by spots of deep shade, the roughly four-acre cemetery (my eyeball estimate) is owned by First Baptist Church of Gainsboro. Nobody has been buried there for decades.

In that time the inexorable growth of weeds, trees and grass has slowly taken it over. The place is looking a lot better these days, thanks to five local Girl Scouts.

Let’s give a hand to Hannah Stewart, 14; Savannah Lindsley, 13, and MacKenzie Duncan, 15, all of the Bonsack area; Jasmin Wilhelm, 13 of Monterey; and Sami Graham, 13, of the Reed Mountain area in Botetourt County.

READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE

Charles “Hamp” Vest, in front of the dump truck he drives at the Acco Stone Quarry, just outside Blacksburg. He’ll turn 92 in July, and works 40 to 50 hours a week. | By MATT GENTRY

The world has no shortage of unsung heroes. Last week I was lucky to meet one. His name is Charles Hampton Vest, but everybody he knows calls him Hamp.

They’ve called him that for a long, long time. Hamp will turn 92 in July. Living long is not necessarily heroic. But I’d submit that working full time in a quarry at his age makes him one.

It’s no paper-shuffling desk job. For 40 to 50 hours a week, Hamp operates a dump truck that’s so tall he must clamber up a ladder to get into the driver’s seat.

There are 35-year old men who couldn’t do it with the grace and ease that he does. Until a little more a year ago he operated a huge bulldozer.

Did I mention Hamp has only one arm? That’s a bit of an exaggeration. He has only one hand. Doctors amputated the left one at his wrist in 1953, long after he’d injured it working on U.S. 460 between Shawsville and Elliston. More about that later.

He’s a husband of 66 years, father of four, and has so many grandchildren he’s lost count. The same goes for his posse of great-grandkids. “You’ll have to ask Louise about that,” he said, referring to his wife. She’s the one who keeps track.

The answer is nine and seven respectively, Louise Vest informed me later. The grandchildren are ages 7 to 38. The great-grandchildren range from 4 to 12.

Hamp and Louise live in the Check area of Floyd County, on a 72-acre cattle farm off Alleghany Spring Road. He works at the Acco Stone Quarry off Jennelle Road, just outside Blacksburg in Montgomery County. It’s a huge, 400-acre limestone pit that sidles up to the Smart Road and employs 20.
Read more »

Bill Murray, from “Groundhog Day” and Roanoke Mayor David Bowers

Have you ever seen the 1993 movie “Groundhog Day?” It’s a Bill Murray comedy about an egotistical TV weatherman from Pittsburgh and an annual assignment he despises: covering Punxsutawney Phil, the famous Pennsylvania groundhog.

One year the weatherman finds himself trapped both in Punxsutawney and in a time loop, repeating Feb. 2 over and over again. Ultimately, this causes him to take stock of his priorities in life and make significant changes.

Which brings us to Mayor David Bowers, his and Roanoke City Council members’ salaries and Bowers’ serial attempts to raise them over the past 17 years. The issue will be back before council Monday.

It’s been a comedy of errors each time, with Bowers usually ending up as the brunt of anger and many jokes. In 2000, it arguably cost him re-election. Let’s review. Read more »

Shot by Dan on the Roanoke River greenway in Salem

Which came first — the chicken or the egg? Which is more refreshing — Coke or Pepsi? Some arguments will never be resolved.

To those we can add, “who’s more inconsiderate on the Roanoke River Greenway — pedestrians or cyclists?” My inbox and blog were flooded with comments on this subject after the April 23 column on greenway conflicts.

There’s general agreement that a problem exists. But who’s responsible? And what should be done about it? The answers vary widely, as you can see in the April reader mailbag.

First up was Karen Dillon of Wirtz, who seems to think the situation is hopeless.

“Appreciate the attempt at getting folks to obey the rules, but we probably won’t see it in either of our lifetimes. You really do take your life into your own hands out there,” she wrote.

Joe Campbell of Glenvar wrote: “Most of the conflicts I’ve witnessed on the greenway come from pedestrians who don’t know (or understand) trail etiquette. In particular, there needs to be signage warning trail users of danger in those areas where the Greenway and public roads are contiguous or coincident.”

READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.

These two alien figurines, seen here on Robert and Dian Bolling’s front porch in Roanoke, were abducted from their front yard April 22 between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. | Photo courtesy Robert Bolling

In the strange realm of alien abductions, usually it’s the aliens snatching the humans. But in tony South Roanoke, what happened is the other way around.

Some humans abducted the aliens, in broad daylight, on well-traveled Broadway Avenue. The crime occurred April 22 in Robert and Dian Bolling’s front yard, sometime between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. And the Bollings want them back.

They’ve combed the neighborhood, stapled wanted posters to telephone poles and taped them to storefront windows. So far, zilch.

The 3-foot tall bright green molded plastic creatures have been fixtures in the family’s yard for more than a decade, first at their place on Arden Road in Raleigh Court and more recently in South Roanoke, where the Bollings moved with their three sons in 2011.

The couple picked up the aliens for peanuts about a dozen years ago. They can’t recall exactly when, or where or what they paid –$20 each, perhaps. They bought them at an after-Halloween clearance sale.
Since then, passersby have spotted them up on the Bollings’ roof; at other times perched in the trees. At Christmas time they’ve been decked out in multi-colored lights. When the power went out for days after the derecho last June, the aliens held a sign in the Bollings’ yard: “Oops!” Read more »

Dewayne Barger

One of the most talked-about people in the city of Salem these days is Dewayne Barger, a former volleyball coach at Salem High School. Given the gist of the story, it’s easy to understand why.

Salem police arrested Barger on March 22. He’s charged with four counts of possessing child pornography and four counts of producing it.

The charges stem from a pen video camera that an acquaintance of Barger turned over to police. In court documents, police said they found covertly recorded images of nude and apparently underage girls bathing, and images of other underage girls trying on volleyball uniforms.

Salem police said the videos were recorded in Barger’s apartment on Red Lane Extension, where he lived from 2011 to 2012.

Why were underage girls bathing in his apartment? What are the circumstances surrounding the other images? Those questions haven’t yet been answered. But the notions they conjure are skin-crawlingly creepy. Read more »

Diamondmagna | Wikimedia Commons | Text added by Dan

Probably every day or hour, some big corporation does something that leaves a peon consumer feeling squashed like a bug. Such episodes can resemble both Kafka and Seinfeld.

That’s how Barbara Calvert feels about her recent tussle with both Comcast and Verizon. It concerns how she lost her telephone number of 27 years, the hassle she endured to get it back, and the minor problems that persist.

Calvert is 73, and lives in Hardy with her husband Cecil, who used to own an excavating business. He has a heart condition, and Calvert has found herself calling 911 for him a number of times just in the past year. On Saturday Feb. 23, she picked up her home telephone to call her son.

“It was just as dead as a doughnut,” Calvert told me. “There was no buzzing, nothing.”

That afternoon, she called her phone company, Verizon. The customer service rep didn’t know what had happened and was no help, Calvert said. “I called them again on Sunday. The lady told me she didn’t have to tell me anything.”

Calvert is no shrinking violet. She called again, and again. She enlisted  the aid of her daughter, Sandi Saunders, and her sister-in-law, Jean St. Clair. They’re pretty feisty, too — the kind of people you don’t want to rile up.

READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.