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For five years, Pam Forrest-Hurt has played tennis several times a week on the city-owned courts at Eureka Park.

And for five years, she has put up with the declining condition and spotty maintenance of the courts in Northwest Roanoke. The wide cracks that can throw off the trajectory of any bouncing ball that lands on one. The hit-or-miss lighting. The overgrown grass along the fence.

All that is bad enough. But what pushed the calm, soft-spoken woman to her breaking point was the response she received three weeks ago when she called the city and asked someone to please come repair a raggedy net.

What Forrest-Hurt found when she returned to play was a plastic clamp -- about the size of the twist-ties used to seal loaves of bread -- holding the net together.

"That was kind of it for me," Forrest-Hurt said Sunday evening.

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What's happening at Maple Grove Apartments in Roanoke is not a new story.

It's disturbing, but sadly, not new.

The rock-throwing, the window-breaking, the taunting, the fear, the escalating tensions between African refugees and black Americans at the rundown complex in Northwest Roanoke make up the story of humanity.

It is the story of different waves of European immigrants at the turn of the century scrapping among earlier arrivals to find their place in America. It's the story of Boston schools in the 1970s. It's the story of today's virulent call for immigration reform that would build an actual wall along America's southern border.

What's occurring at Maple Grove is the story of what happens when people are intolerant of others who are different.

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PITTSBURGH -- In the elegant LeMont restaurant perched atop Mount Washington, my seat gave me a panoramic appreciation for the hum of a city on a Saturday evening.

Far below, a white ferry churned up the water of the Monongahela River at dusk. The horseshoe-shaped Heinz Field, home of the storied Pittsburgh Steelers, looked like a small but beautiful toy field, with its manicured green field and sunflower-gold seats.

A cluster of hotels and centers of commerce created a steel-and-glass skyline. The lights of PNC Park, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, broke the darkness.

An evening at the LeMont is more than just a dining experience. It is a viewing pleasure.

"From the day we opened, the view has brought them in," said LeMont general manager Alexander Colaizzi, adding, "the food and service keeps them coming back."

So with the benefit of my dinner a few weeks ago at the LeMont, I've come to one conclusion about the proposal for Mill Mountain: If Roanoke is going to develop it, don't go halfway. If we're going to exploit the mountain, let's exploit the heck out of it.

In other words, take out a swath of trees to open up a vista.

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The pair of sweat pants that Amelia Gaines got as a gift a couple of Christmases ago was well-received -- until she turned them around.

Emblazoned across the backside in broad letters was the word "Cheer."

Amelia's mother, LeVita Washington, didn't have to say a word. She let grandma do the talking.

"I don't want anything across their tail," Washington recounted her mother saying of 11-year-old Amelia and her older sister DeAnna, 12.

With that, Amelia's new pants went to Goodwill.

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Multiple sclerosis is a disease on the down low.

The central nervous system disorder afflicts 400,000 Americans and can cause numbness, tingling, blindness or paralysis. But MS patients don't have their own weekend telethon, the way Jerry's Kids do.

It largely afflicts women but doesn't have its own color the way breast cancer does. B-list celebrities such as Annette Funicello and Montel Williams have MS. But they don't attract the public awareness or sympathy that Michael J. Fox does for Parkinson's.

Even many with MS don't talk openly about it.

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I hate backroads. With all those twists, turns and slowdowns for small towns, I can't open up the little buggy. I've never been into scenic routes. I want to get where I'm going.

Last week's wayfaring took me to Pennsylvania, following Mapquest directions that were heavy on the dreaded backroads and finishing up with some interstate. A former colleague who travels annually from Pennsylvania to Virginia suggested that I try her all-interstate route on my return trip. I knew her route would take me out of the way, but I thought I could make up the time because I'd be on the interstate.

Halfway into her alternate route, I realized that my "all-interstate" route would take me more than 100 miles out of the way and more than an hour longer to get home. I was in too deep to turn around, so I kept knocking.

Call me stubborn, but I still prefer interstate driving.

What about you? Are you a backroader or an interstater?

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There will be columns in which I just go off because I find something so incredibly ridiculous. -- Me, May 3, 2005

In my three years of columnizing, nothing comes to mind as more silly than the exercise in civic absurdity under way in Boones Mill.

Blowing up the democratic process over a speeding ticket?

I don't think that's quite what Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he wrote, "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive."

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Don't even think about piling onto city school officials because Roanoke has the region's worst dropout rate.

They didn't earn the dubious distinction by themselves.

When a child arrives at school unprepared, unable or unwilling to learn, don't blame the teacher, the principal or the school board.

It's the parents' fault.

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Anyone downtown in the past few weeks probably has noticed the new "green space" at Campbell Avenue and Third Street.

The half-acre site next to the city jail and behind the courthouse is beautifully landscaped. It contains a wooden arbor, butterfly bushes and paths that lead to sturdy metal benches.

You or I would call it a park. But city officials warn that because the oasis will be temporary, we shouldn't get too attached to it. The city eventually plans to expand the courthouse onto the site.

"Green space," "park," whatever you call it, like any city project in Roanoke, this one hasn't come without some grumbling.

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