www.roanoke.com

You might have noticed something different on the gateway of roanoke.com this afternoon.

It was a small change, at first glance -- aesthetic, maybe. One word has replaced two in the tabs, and nothing looks too terribly different at the outset.

But spend a minute or two at roanoke.com. Mouse over the tabs at the top of the gateway. See the news updates, the bracket challenge, today's calendar events and our latest Virginia Tech video. Then hover your cursor over the new tab -- the one that used to say "About Roanoke" -- and you'll notice something just a little bit different.

"Community," it's called. A word that's been hanging around the newsroom a lot lately. It's making itself comfortable, settling in, drinking all the coffee and forgetting to brew a new pot.

Hang out with the community tab for a while, and you'll find news from your area, the latest stories about the place where you live and -- if your address lies within our core coverage area -- even a homepage for your corner of the Roanoke or New River valleys.

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Tommy Rhodes, a 69-year-old Roanoke resident, copes with a form of dementia called neurodegenerative frontal lobe brain disease, which strikes the front of the brain, the hub of intelligent thought. His wife Linda cares for him.

Roanoke's senior population is among the largest per capita in the nation, mirroring the demographics in Miami and St. Petersburg, Fla.

For the past several months, photographer Josh Meltzer and reporter Beth Macy have listened to the concerns of area aging experts, health-care providers and caregivers. The first two installments of the occasional series "Age of Uncertainty" will debut in The Roanoke Times on Saturday, March 15. The online portion of the story was posted to roanoke.com on Friday, March 14. You can visit it at http://blogs.roanoke.com/ageofuncertainty/.

In addition to the stories in the paper, the site features documentary-style videos of the two subjects, Tommy and Linda Rhodes and the Rev. Bill Wingfield caring for his wife, Kathy. Videos also tell the stories of the local Meals-on-Wheels program and the cost of staying independent at home.

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