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Back in late April, I wrote a column about Sarah Sanzo, the 'Little Italian Lady' hostess at the Olive Garden restaurant out at Valley View Mall. Her father, 96, was ill in Italy and his days were numbered. She was hoping to see him one last time.

The employees of Olive Garden took up a collection to help Sarah afford her plane ticket and the missed income from three weeks off work. And an employee-benefit program called Darden Dimes, operated by Olive Garden's Fortune 500 owner, Darden Restaurants, helped out, too. Darden Dimes ended up paying for her plane ticket.

After the column I heard that some long-time Olive Garden customers also chipped into the kiddie for Sarah.

Sarah is back with good news: her dad, Guiseppe Colletti, made a recovery and his back on his feet. Sarah got to spend some quality time with him during what is probably the last time she will see him before he passes away.

Last week I received an email from one of Sarah's sons, John Sanzo, along with a snapshot you see here.

Here is the email:

A Notice of THANK YOU FOR YOUR ALL PRAYERS & SUPPORT

From the family of SARAH SANZO and the “Little Italian LADY”, we would like to extend our sincere thanks & gratefulness to all the friends around the Roanoke Valley.

You will never know what the outpouring of support, prayers, thoughts & concerns, which has come in many ways, has meant to me and my family. I was totally overwhelmed with emotion at the generosity of all, to simply help a humble member of the community.

I had not expected nor was I prepared for the overwhelming support that came from this community. I am convinced that it shows that from whatever background we may come from, we are only as strong as our weakest link. People helping people, is what America has and will always truly be about.

I would like to THANK YOU ALL for everything you did on my behalf, in enabling me to be see my 96-year-old father, Guiseppe Colletti, and spend some time with him one more time. May God Bless You ALL richly.

I would like to extend a very Special THANK YOU to every member of the Darden Restaurant family, Dan Casey & The Roanoke Times staff and all my friends located here in the Roanoke Valley, the true Star City.

President Barack Obama

Now that the Navy has freed Capt. Richard Phillips, killed three pirates, injured one and captured one, under orders from the president, it's worth asking how the Obama haters will spin to try and make the president look bad.

This is what they were saying before the rescue.

How do you think those nutty arguments will go now?

1) Obama should have acted more quickly. His dawdling encouraged the pirates to seize another ship in the Gulf of Aden. Instead, he's flying in pizza chefs from Missouri while he's been watching college basketball on TV.

2) Obama should have saturation bombed Somalia's east coast months ago. If he had done that, there wouldn't have been any pirates to seize the ship. You know, it cost a lot to send all those Navy ships in there -- a monumental waste of taxpayer dollars!

3) The pirates were emboldened because Obama himself is a pirate, in a political sense. He hijacked the American electoral system to take control of the country, and now he's holding all of us hostage while he spends like a drunken sailor.

4) Obama had NOTHING to do with this. It was all the work of our heroic military, which as everyone knows, he's trying to dismantle.

5) Other -- please add YOUR nutty arguments in the comments section.

Dopes with markers #6

Last week I blogged about the inane graffiti all over the rock wall beneath the Mill Mountain Star. You can find that post, and the snapshots of the "artistry,"  here.

By Monday afternoon, Poopie was gone. And most of the other defacings had been removed, too. (In some instances, it appears that was accomplished by removing the actual rocks, yikes). Thank you, whoever performed this thankless task.

Let's hope the missing rocks reappear, though.

Also, a recent column about the lovely "old road" up Mill Mountain, aka Prospect Road, aka the Mill Mountain Greenway, noted the small pile of roofing rubble that had been outside the toll booth for more than a year.

Monday, that pile was gone, too. I'm assuming the Roanoke City Hall was responsible for this, although I'm not sure.

On behalf of all us Mill Mountain regulars, thank you -- whoever it was.

Yeah, I know. I'm not a sports fan.

But I'm a Maryland Terrapins fan.

I was at the Terps-Cal football game last fall with a motley crew of former college bad boys who've gone respectable: Skidar the economist; Bongin' Bob the producer; Tony the tiger, a reporter feared all over Florida, and his beautiful columnist wife; Kurt the Pa. professor; Godfather Don and Scott, who Skidar calls "the big Jew" because he's like 6' 8" or something.

The Terps were vast underdogs. But even early in the game it was obvious that the Terps were going to win big. And it wasn't the action on the field that told me that.

It was the students from Cal in the stands. They were lame as could be. Read more »

Grandin Road, heading east, Friday morning

Aren't the Bradford Pear trees beautiful?

Charlie Rowe likes to tell the story about the guitar buyer at a big-box retailer who returned to get the instrument tuned.

A blank look dropped like a veil over the cheery salesperson's face. "Huh?" was the puzzled reply. Soon, the guitar was one more item in a pile behind the returns desk.

Such a scenario is unthinkable at Melody Haven, the downtown Roanoke music retailer on Church Avenue run by Rowe and his wife, Sue.

"We service what we sell," she says proudly.

For 75 years, the Rowe family has sold musical instruments that range from $1 kazoos to $45,000 organs. They have installed them, tuned them, repaired them and taught students to play them. For Charlie and Sue, spreading music is a mission.

Read the rest of today's column here.

Check out the slide show, with audio, by Stephanie Klein-Davis, here.

This cool new kiddie playground on Mill Mountain appears open for business

Parents who bring their kids to Mill Mountain have long asked for a playground. This one just opened in the picnic area, on the other side of the parking lot across from the Discovery Center. And it looks pretty cool.

It features a couple of faux climbing walls for kids to clamber up. The tall one has a slide. There are some faux log benches and faux log tunnel. The city chose a natural look that blends into the scenery -- much better than the brightly painted metal and plastic setups.

The setup cost about $38,000, says Michael Clark, recreation superintendent for Roanoke Parks & Recreation. It came from capital funds approved way back in 1999, not current operating funds, he stressed. The latter are the funds that a pinched right now.

What took so long? The city hunted far and wide for a manufacturer who could supply the natural-look playground equipment. But until recently, everything the city found was too expensive and way over budget.

"We've had a really good response to it. The children really love it," Clark said.

The next time you're up there, check it out!

Silly me; I thought Penthouse magazine died years ago. But I guess it's still around -- two Roanoke dancers, Beth Deel and Wendy Schuyler, are in the April issue.

If you were in The Cornerstone on Campbell Avenue Tuesday night, you would have seen Beth and Wendy strutting their stuff on the dance floor, dressed up as leprechauns the way Pippi Longstocking would do it. Their costumes and their moves were eyepopping. (Fyi, they're trained dancers, not strippers).

The magazine, which is on newstands now, has an article about an event last year in which Deel, Schuyler and a bunch of fun-loving folks raced Big Wheels down the Church Avenue parking garage's circular spiral.

That was a fun stunt and certainly worthy of national magazine attention. But Penthouse?

Asked if she was clothed or unclothed in the Penthouse spread, Deel quipped, "You'll have to buy the magazine to find out."

If anyone knows where it's sold, please let this old fogey know. Journalistic research, you know.

Check out my column in The Roanoke Times Tuesday about Steve Flickinger. He's a 22-year air traffic controller at Roanoke Regional Airport who recently won a national award for a heroic flight assist to a private pilot in November. Here's the beginning:

Walt Namitz was in a bit of a fix.

He was flying his Piper Cherokee back to his home in Cary, N.C., on Nov. 30, after a Thanksgiving with family in Michigan. As dusk approached, his plane was about 15 miles north of Roanoke Regional Airport.

Problem No. 1: headwinds. At 70 mph, or more, they were far stronger than Namitz had reckoned. They slowed his usual 110 mph airspeed to a 40-50 mph crawl, at best

Problem No. 2: visibility. With a thick and low cloudy blanket covering the ground, Namitz, 57, couldn't see anything below

Problem No. 3: fuel. At most, Namitz (pronounced NAY-mits) had an hour's worth left. There was no way to make it to Cary on that. It was barely enough to attempt one landing in Roanoke.

Problem No. 4: no approach plate for the airport. That's a kind of map that shows pilots how to land here.

The rest of the column is here.

WFIR-960 AM has ditched syndicated right-wing talk queen Laura Ingraham and replaced her shrill morning hour with the wise and venerable consumer advocate Clark Howard. His syndicated show runs in her former 9-10 a.m. slot, Monday through Friday.

Finally, some useful daytime talk radio on a local AM station. Laura's a worthless hack and her show was a godawful bore. She's so clueless that, as of Monday night, she was still listing WFIR as one of her stations on her Web site. Guess what, Laura -- you're off it!

Besides the news, the best thing WFIR has going is Greg Roberts in the 5-7 p.m. slot weekdays. I'm not a big sports fan, but Greg is relevant and local. And when he starts talking about guys who don't wash their hands in the restroom, his heebee jeebees jump right through the speaker. It's hilarious. He's funnier than Jay Leno.

Now if the station could just get rid of Mark Levin.....

What do you think of WFIR?