Monday, September 15, 2008
Reader needs token answer
Tom Angleberger
The New River Valley-based reporter answers your questions Mondays in his column, What's on Your Mind?
Recent columns
Q: I found an old token recently. The front seems to say that it was issued by a group called Downtown Roanoke Inc. The reverse offers 30 cents toward parking, bus or cab.
Do you know anything about DRI or about when these tokens were in use and how they were distributed?
-- J.P. Morgan, Christiansburg
A: This is the sort of question I often save for Ask The Readers, but since Downtown Roanoke Inc. is still in operation, I figured I could track down the answer myself. I was half right.
The token is from a former incarnation of Downtown Roanoke Inc., the group that now promotes downtown Roanoke's dining, shopping and activities.
"Prior to 1986 when DRI became a special tax district with a different mission," explained Executive Director Bill Carder, "DRI was mainly a group that controlled downtown parking."
Carder wasn't able to pinpoint the date beyond narrowing it down to "anytime from the early '60s to 1985."
So, I'll throw this one back to you, readers. Do any of you recall receiving the tokens? If so, when and where?
I don't mean to sound like a young whippersnapper, but I find it hard to imagine anyone getting excited about a 30-cent-off token.
Q: Who's the man singing on the ads for Valley View and River Ridge malls?
-- Marilyn Humphreys, Salem
A: Believe it or not, that beautiful voice urging you to "Treat Yourself" really does belong to that handsome face.
It's Matt Belsante, a Nashville, Tenn., artist, who was chosen to appear in TV and radio commercials across the country for CBL Properties, which manages more than 75 malls, including Valley View and River Ridge.
Belsante has a new album out, "Blame It On My Youth," as well as a previous album of Christmas songs. Both are available on iTunes and Amazon.com. Visit his Web site to hear more of his music for free or sign up for his fan club.
Or, if he is able to follow in the footsteps of that other mall-spawned star, Tiffany, we may get to hear him on the radio -- and not just singing commercials. His smooth Sinatra-influenced sound would be a welcome change.
n n n
It's never good to get an e-mail from a reader that reads, "Well, well, well."
It means they've caught me out on a limb sticking my neck out.
In this case, the "well, well, well," came from reader Arthur Hill.
You may recall that, after I recently played down the role of speculation in driving up gas prices, Hill had written to let me know that he was unimpressed with my answer. But I stuck to it.
Then Hill spotted the news that major league speculation had indeed been uncovered. So I can't blame him for gloating a little.
The Washington Post reported on a company called Vitol. "At one point in July, the firm held 11 percent of all the oil contracts on the regulated New York Mercantile Exchange."
According to the Post, regulators had mistakenly thought Vitol was an energy trader when it was really "more of a speculator." The Post went on to calculate that 81 percent of NYMEX oil contracts were connected to speculation.
So, I'll admit that I may have been wrong to place as much trust as I did in my source, an oil expert at the Department of Energy.
Perhaps Hill was right when he likened my reliance on the DOE to asking the fox guarding the henhouse.
Got a question? Got an answer? Call Tom Angleberger at 777-6476 or send an e-mail to woym@roanoke.com. Don't forget to provide your full name, its proper spelling and your hometown. Look for Tom Angleberger's column on Mondays.
