Monday, December 01, 2008
Wanted: your best holiday memories
Tom Angleberger
The New River Valley-based reporter answers your questions Mondays in his column, What's on Your Mind?
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Readers, it's the most wonderful time of the year, by which I mean it's time for another Christmas poll.
In previous years, you've chosen the best Christmas songs, movies and commercials. But this year's best of Christmas poll could be the best yet.
Because this year I'm combining the poll with one of your favorite activities: strolling down memory lane. It's sort of like Ask the Readers meets Happy Holidays.
What I want you to tell me about is the Best Part of Christmas in Southwest Virginia. And we'll have two categories, past and present.
I'm looking for public Christmas activities that others may remember too. So I'm afraid Granny's featherbed is out.
Maybe you remember taking your kids to see the Towers Mall Santa. Or visiting Blacksburg's Smithfield Plantation and finding it decorated for a Colonial Christmas.
Maybe you like bundling up for the Salem Christmas Parade and cheering for the baton-twirling tots and Valleydale pigs. Or you remember the time they had a giant, lighted sand castle at Valley View Mall.
As you can see, my memory only goes back so far. That's why I'm counting on you, readers, to tell me about Christmases as far back as you can remember.
Now don't just write in "Hotel Roanoke." I want to hear your stories about visiting the hotel or the Christmas tree farm or wherever you've chosen. Let me know if you went there as a kid or if you took your own children there or both. And let me know why you've picked it. (And, of course, include your full name and location.)
As always, e-mail is the best way to participate. Send your stories and maybe even your photos to tomangleberger@yahoo.com.
If you'd rather send me a letter, that's fine too. Send them to Tom Angleberger, c/o Roanoke Times, P. O. Box 2491, Roanoke, VA, 24010.
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Q: I have an old perpetual calendar that was used to look up any date from 1776 to 2000. I've looked for another that will work now that we are past 2000 but can't find one. Can you help?
-- Linda Saunders-Spade, Salem
A: I can't help you, but I know someone who can.
A very brainy guy named Justin White has made perpetual calendars and put them on the Internet for free at calendarhome.com/free.
His simplest calendar gives you the right calendar for any month of any year from 1911 to 2016.
But his most amazing one is a 10,000-year calendar. Though not very useful for planning your week's errands, it does allow you to look up any date beginning with the year A.D. 1 and going into the future for another 8,000 years. What day of the week will Christmas be on in the year 2099? Friday, of course. Pretty amazing to pack that much information onto a single piece of paper.
The most useful item at the site is a program that does all the work for you. Just tell it which year you want and it will generate a calendar for you to print out.
(If you don't have an Internet connection, visit a library. Many of them let you print documents for 10 cents or so per page.)
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Speaking of "free," have you heard that money is not really the "root of all evil"?
When I used that phrase a few weeks back, about a half dozen readers caught my mistake and let me know about it.
"You have misquoted the quote," John Wampler told me.
I hate to misquote anybody, but misquoting Apostle Paul seems downright sinful. So let me put the record straight.
"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows," reads 1 Timothy 6:10 in the King James version of the Bible.
If you've got a question on your mind, e-mail it to woym@roanoke.com or leave it on my voice mail at 777-6476 (please be sure to speak clearly and spell your name). I'll need your name, location and phone number or e-mail address.
