Dan Casey is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.

dan.casey
@roanoke.com
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Dan Casey

Recent columns

• There's a slip twixt cup, lip for Roanoke coffee shop owner
• 82 years of food fit for the King
• At work, on floor, in life: Rick Schmitt had all the right moves

• Column archive

Read Dan's blog

• Has Rick Santorum let the dogs out against Mitt Romney?
• Pistol-packin’ Ariz. lawmaker wants to ban classroom cursing
• Caption This! (Would you buy pizza from this AG?)

Never let it be said that readers of The Roanoke Times are shy about expressing their opinions.

You folks have been burning up my phone lines and stuffing my inbox with scorn and praise on a variety of topics lately.

Nothing matched the onslaught following Sunday's column about the Texas Tavern, which can best be summed up as "love the place, dislike the food."

Responses came from all directions. Some defended the food. Others chastised me for unnecessary harshness in my criticism of the "chile" and the Cheesy Western.

The most passionate came from Karl Ford, who defended almost everything on the menu in 985 blistering words (which was a lot longer than the column).

His chief point was that dumping on the tavern on its 80th birthday was too mean.

The column was "one of the most abhorrent, totally uncalled for pieces of journalism I have ever read," Ford e-mailed. "I am still seething, trying to figure out your purpose."

Jim Bullington, the restaurant's former owner, was more restrained, but no less peeved.

"I don't think you have to be vicious to express an opinion about someone's products," Bullington wrote.

His e-mail concluded with this: "Prediction: The Texas Tavern will be around long after you are gone."

The column also seemed to tap a well of readers who've felt inhibited from saying anything bad about the Texas Tavern (I am beginning to understand that feeling).

"I've always been afraid to admit that I honestly do not care for their food," wrote Andrea Williams of Northwest Roanoke. "So I give you kudos for stating your views on the great Texas Tavern in this town."

"The way people talk so favorably about it, you just can't bring yourself to tell them the truth," wrote Steven Vacca of Christiansburg.

"FINALLY, somebody has the courage to mention the emperor's lack of clothing, or in this instance, TT food's lack of taste," Debi Bourne of Salem posted on my blog.

Many readers loved the tongue-in-cheek column in which this Yankee purported to explain why Southerners don't shovel their sidewalks.

One of them was Johnny Angell, a Franklin County tobacco farmer, who laughed all the way through it and was still chuckling as he left this voice mail message:

"I think maybe some of the Southern hospitality has done started rubbing off on you. You stay here long enough, we'll turn you into a genuine Southern hillbilly."

Others hated it, though for different reasons. Some Northerners felt slighted by my use of the word Yankee.

"You leave us Northern people alone," said Michael Silver of New Castle. "We pay your wages. We actually read the paper."

Did you catch that Yankee elitism, folks?

In an e-mail, English teacher Margo McCord took me to task for using dumbed-down phrases, such as "Yankee Kurt has been bitching" and "they don't mean jack."

"You sounded like a D-level student in a Virginia Western [Community College] composition class," McCord chided.

But she later granted me just a bit of literary dispensation when I pleaded guilty to "channeling my inner Ring Lardner," a reference to the American humorist and short story writer. He's one of my favorites.

Another column that prompted much mail was "Gun lobby full of holes," which took to task HB 79, a bill that would close Circuit Court gun permit records to public inspection.

That would prevent the public from learning after the fact whether a mass murderer held a Virginia-issued concealed handgun permit. Such information is inconvenient for the gun lobby.

Gun owner Leon Jester of Roanoke wrote: "I'm appalled by the idea of making public records secret. If one doesn't want to have one's information on the public roster, one shouldn't apply for licenses that are public record."

Leon, the only problem with your argument is that it makes sense. There is little of that in the General Assembly these days.

Incidentally, the House of Delegates passed that bill Tuesday, 87-10. Every delegate from Western Virginia voted for it.

Thanks for all the mail, folks. Please keep it coming.