www.roanoke.com

The Rehms -- Jeff, with Bode on his shoulders, and Angela / From Bodeswell.org

Meet the Rehms -- Jeff, Angela and 4-year-old Bode. The photogenic California family has been source of major envy for me this weekend. They're on the trip of a lifetime.

North and South America, via a restored, 1971 VW Westfalia camper.

They stopped in Roanoke this week, and headed south Friday, headed for Houston, Tex., where they'll spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with family before crossing the border into Mexico.

My colleague here at the newspaper, Jeff Burks, put them up for a night. He's a fellow VW camper fanatic.

Jeff Rehm is a rocket scientist and Angela is a food-label inspector. They decided they needed a big adventure before Bode started school. So they bought a broken down hulk of a VW bus, stripped it and rebuilt it, sold their  San Francisco house, left their jobs and hit the road.

They say their adventure will continue until the money runs out. Btw, they're accepting donations, selling T-shirts, and for $10 they'll send a friend of yours a handwritten, envy-producing postcard  -- from you! -- from one of the picturesque spots along their journey.

So far, they've been some really interesting places. Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Glacier National Park in Montana and Yellowstone in Wyoming. They've run that camper along the shores of lakes Michigan and Erie, dropped into Niagra Falls, and even passed through Binghamton, N.Y., my birthplace. (It ain't picturesque, though).

Here's their Web site, Bodeswell.org. It's worth checking out if you've been feeling a bit of wanderlust lately.

But be careful of that envy.

It'll grab you!

That is the title of a charming and diminutive compilation of countrified phrases mailed in as a review copy here at The Roanoke Times.

It will not get a review in the newspaper, sadly, because I have snatched it off that review-book pile. And we get way, way more books than we have space to review in the newspaper, anyway.

What it will get on this blog is a smidgen of promotion. Because it's full of funny, homespun and true phrases that are a pleasure to poke through.

The authors are Allen Zullo and Gene Cheek. The publisher is Andrew McMeel Publishing. The list price is $9.99 and that's worth the laughs it's given me so far.

Below is a the tiniest of selections from this book. Please add your personal favorite homespun phrases in the comments below.

• Intolerance: "You're so narrow-minded you can see through a keyhole with both eyes."
• Ineptness: "You're about as handy as a back pocket on a shirt."
• Ignorance: "If you put your brain in a hummingbird, it would fly backward."
• Unmarried lovers: "Now there's a couple that ate supper before they said grace."
• Matrimony: "Marriage is just like sittin' in a bathtub. Once you get used to it, it ain't so hot."
• Smooth-talking flirts: "Women need to keep him at a distance, like they do skunks and bankers."
• Ineffective: "You're about as useless as a milk bucket under a bull."
• Stupidity: "If dumb were dirt, you'd be 'bout an acre."

Come on, folks, I'm sure you have more and better ones. Comment away!

Cuc Cao and the car she paid $1,600 to back from a repo towing company/Photo by John W. Adkisson

Cuc Cao didn't give up when the North Vietnamese Army overran her native country in the mid 1970s.

Or when Khmer Rouge guerillas halted her escape from Vietnam and threw her into a Cambodian concentration camp.

And the (now) 59-year-old Roanoke County resident didn't give up shortly after she and her husband arrived here in Roanoke, many years ago, when he unexpectedly died, leaving her with two toddlers and pregnant with their third child.

For all of those reasons, it's no wonder Cao refused to roll over when she believed a finance company overcharged her daughter on a car loan, or when a repo tower forced Cao to pay $1,590 in "storage" fees to retrieve the car.

I detailed those outrages in a column about Cao in July. Today comes the happy news that she has achieved a small measure of justice.

Wednesday, Cao picked up a check for $412 from Hyundai Motor Finance Company at the office of her attorney, Marshall Mundy.

Read the rest of the column here.

Read my previous column about Cuc Cao and the $1,590 repo job here.

Leah Baker and her daughter Ashton Trescott. STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS | The Roanoke Times

Early in September you may have read my column about Leah Baker and her daughter, Ashton Trescott, who is 18 and has Down syndrome.

It was about Ashton's recent diagnosis with early onset Alzheimer's disease. The story was picked up by the Associated Press and appeared in newspapers in Washington, D.C., Norfolk, Chicago, Arkansas and Tennessee, among other places.

Now, Ashton has been nominated to the homecoming court at Hidden Valley High School in Roanoke County. Students are voting on those nominees this week. The results will be revealed at halftime of Friday night's football game at the school.

Diana Osborne, a mom of a student at Hidden Valley, writes:

The senior class got word on Ashton and came together and voted to have her on Homecoming Court and also got word out for everyone to vote for her for queen. I know my daughter has missed seeing her at school and she, along with her classmates are really hoping she gets queen.

Go Ashton!

Here's a story guaranteed to strike fear into the hearts of most men, and cheers of 'you go girl!' from most women: The female victim of a wanker waver at an outdoor bar on a Greek island tossed hooch on his you-know-what then set it on fire. Ouch!

"A 26-year old Greek woman has become an overnight national hero after setting fire to the genitals of a 23-year old drunken Briton who allegedly tried to sexually assault her in a crowded bar.

...According to a police statement issued last night the incident occurred at a club in the notorious coastal resort of Malia, which is dominated by young Britons seeking all-night revelry.

It alleged the Briton took down his trousers and started waving his genitals at a number of girls. He then specifically "forcefully fondled" the 26-year old Greek woman, asking her to take hold of his genitals.

After asking him to stop harassing her, the police said, she poured the alcoholic drink Sabucco on his genitals (an Italian brand type of Greek ouzo or French Pernod drink).

This again allegedly failed to stop his advances, so the woman seized a lighter and set fire to the alcohol-drenched genitals, local press reports said."

The answer to the question on your mind is: second-degree burns.

So what do you think, folks? Did the guy deserve it? Did she do the right thing?

Post a comment below! Bad puns are encouraged.....