DanielHolth | Wikimedia Commons

If you’re taking Amtrak on its Montreal-to-New York run, via Albany, you’ll climb aboard the Adirondack. When you leave New York and are headed to Miami, you’ll be riding either the Silver Meteor or the Silver Star. And if you’re riding the rails from Chicago to San Francisco, it’ll be on the California Zephyr.

Such romantic passenger train names are worth considering here in Starville. Because in four short years, maybe fewer, Amtrak will make a triumphant return to Roanoke.

That train will connect Roanoke to Boston and will make stops in Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Providence and other places. Right now the southern terminus is Libertytown – er, Lynchburg – and we must suffer the indignity of a 5:45 a.m. shuttle bus ride to catch it.

Unfortunately, that train currently has a depressingly utilitarian name, the Northeast Regional. Informally, it’s known as the “Lynchburg Train.” Problem is, both monikers have as much creativity and romance as you’d find in Soviet-era bus to suburban Chernobyl.

We can do better. So today, I’m launching the great Name That Train Game. Email your suggestions to me, explaining your idea, and I’ll use the best ones in a future column.

This contest was sparked by “Train Man” Dan Peacock of Manassas, the Old Dominion’s unofficial No. 1 passenger railfan . Before we get to his ideas, here’s a bit of background.

READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.

Emily Looney, operator of the amazing new beer tap at the Salem Red Sox double header Friday night. | Shot by Dan

Meet Emily Looney, a concessions staffer for the Salem Red Sox. Friday night she was operating an invention that has to be seen to be believed: a new beer tap that fills the cup from the bottom up.

I was kibitzing in the center concourse Friday night, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw this this thing in action. I felt like pinching myself.

These taps look like a big Coleman camp stove, right? Here’s how they work: They use a special cup with a hole in the bottom.

The hole is rimmed by a metal ring. And inside the cup is a magnetic disc, about 2 inches in diameter, that sticks to the metal ring and covers the hole.

When  a customer orders a beer, Emily takes the cup, pushes the bottom over one of these taps. This disc pops up. She presses a button on an electric panel for small, medium or large, and the cup fills up from the bottom. It’s an electronically metered pour, so there’s no spillage. Bonus, there is almost no head. So you get all beer.

When she lifts the full cup off the tap, the magnetic disc automatically seals the hole in the bottom.

Here’s a pic of it in action:

Shot by Dan

You can see the magnetic disc near the bottom of the cup.

Yet another of many reasons to go to a Salem Red Sox game!

Midnight Special by Creedence Clearwater Revival

ericci8996 | Wikimedia Commons

Your daily Letter to the Columnist — June 14, 2013

I just sent this email contact to Del’s Lemonade. Crazy!

Mary Conner
ROANOKE COUNTY

Note to Del’s:

Just read in The Roanoke Times about your ridiculous trademark infringement case against Roanoke’s Deb’s Lemonade.  Somebody in your company and your attorney need to find something better to do than harass innocent parties that have a similar name.

Imagine that, they also used a LEMON in their logo!  Hope someone in your operation gets a clue and determines that the pursuit of this is a waste of time.

Here in Roanoke, VA we have never heard of Del’s Lemonade.  So, maybe Deb’s needs to send you a letter for copying them.

I guess all the target ranges better start suing Target retail stores, too.

Shot by Dan

“Bring down Mike Mann and we can bring down the IPCC, they reckoned. It is a classic technique for the deniers’ movement, I have discovered, and I don’t mean only those who reject the idea of global warming but those who insist that smoking doesn’t cause cancer or that industrial pollution isn’t linked to acid rain.”
Michael E. Mann

Behold Texas Gov. Rick Perry, doing his best George W. Bush imitation, as he signs what is perhaps the most ridiculous state law in U.S. history. The mere idea that a kid could get suspended or expelled for wishing holiday greetings to a school chum — or that the pupil’s teacher could be disciplined for allowing that –  is absurd. This bill “fixes” nothing, except that it perhaps elevates Christmas and Hanukkah above all other religious holiday observances in Texas. (Surely it’s coming to Virginia soon!)

Also, did Perry really say “Cooch cheerleaders?”

DanielHolth | Wikimedia Commons

Note from Dan: Dan Peacock of Manassas, aka TrainManDan, is Virginia’s unofficial No. 1 passenger railfan. The email he sent me below was the impetus for the column coming Sunday. Here’s your chance to weigh in with suggestions for names of the upcoming “Roanoke Train.” Be sincere, tongue-in-cheek or tongue-dipped-in-acid, and don’t be shy about explaining your idea. Hurry! I’ll try to include the best in the column. I’ve got dibs on “The Big Licker.”

By Dan Peacock

The Governor’s recent signing of North America’s most complicated transportation bill will provide stable funding for Virginia’s Regional Amtrak service, including one of the nation’s most successful and profitable services, the unofficially named “Lynchburg Train,” and will likely insure the return of passenger rail service to Roanoke in 3 – 4 years.

To prepare, The Roanoke Times needs to initiate a contest to name the new service.  Here are my suggestions: both serious and not, and the reasons for their selection: Read more »

Wikimedia Commons

Your daily Letter to the Columnist — June 13, 2013

Dan,

I liked your column today about Deb’s Lemonade!  Do you think this job will qualify Jeffrey Techentin as a “Lemon Lawyer”?

You do this to me frequently.  . . .I am a died-in-the-wool, conservative, white, Southern-born-and-bred, male, straight, senior citizen.

Just when I’m about to swear off reading your mostly liberally-slanted stuff  (my wife talked me out of using another word here), you go and write something that gives me good laugh or warm-hearted feeling.

To quote Michael Corleone, “Just when I think I was out . . . they pull me back in.”

Oh well, keep up the good (intermittently) work.

Have a good day!

Lynwood Shelton
ROANKE COUNTY

PS:  Check out this link . . . looks like old Techentin has his work cut out for him, not to mention the fees.

———————

Note from Dan: Maybe Deb’s should change its logo to the one on the upper right in the link above!

Shot by Dan

“Thanks to television, for the first time the young are seeing history made before it is censored by their elders.”
Margaret Mead

Debra Castelli started Deb’s Frozen Lemonade with her dad, Rudolfo Castelli, 36 years ago when she was 17 years old. Now she owns the single-stand, three-truck business with her mom, Joyce Castelli. | Photo by Joel Hawksley

People in the Roanoke Valley love Deb’s Frozen Lemonade.

You can see it in children’s crayon drawings taped to the humble stand’s white cinder block walls. Or in the photos of weddings the tiny business has catered, or in the line out the door that forms on a hot summer afternoon. Or in the nearly 8,000 “likes” Deb’s has garnered on Facebook.

Since 1977 the mother-daughter operation has been cooling the Roanoke Valley with a tart and refreshing iced concoction. It’s a sweet and simple small business: shaved ice lemonade, hot dogs and snacks. Cash only.

But a sour May 31 letter from a Rhode Island lawyer has a left owners Joyce and Debra Castelli puckering with displeasure.

It suggests their single-store, three-truck operation has stolen the registered trademarks of Del’s Lemonade, an industry behemoth with dozens of stores spread across 13 states, mostly in New England.

“Your business, Deb’s Frozen Lemonade, has been using a trademark consisting of a lemon design either identical to marks belonging and registered to Del’s … or confusing similar to such marks,” lawyer Jeffrey Techentin wrote.

The letter demands Deb’s “cease and desist any further use of the infringing mark(s).” It concludes with a hint Del’s may sue.

READ THE REST OF THIS COLUMN HERE.