Faith fights flesh

It’s funny how you become so used to quirky things that are part of your area’s culture that you are surprised when people from out-of-town find them too bizarre.

Like honky-tonk advertisements. “They’re everywhere,” says my daughter Angie, who drove up U.S. 460 from Roanoke to Bluefield. “You can’t escape them. It’s going to be interesting when Mason [her five-year-old] learns to read.”

One billboard stands beside the road as it winds up out of Pembroke in Giles County. Its black background is emblazoned with psychedelic words that tell how far you are from Southern X-Posure, a big, barn-like place located 30 minutes away in Princeton, W.Va. When you get to Princeton, you see that Southern X-Posure is visible from two major highways: Interstate 77 and U.S. 460. “One sign says they have buses to pick you up. You don’t even have to park your car in front of the building!” she says.

“Don’t other places advertise their ... uh ... insalubrious business establishments?” I ask.

“No,” she says. And if they do, it’s toned down. A lot of Roanoke people complained when one opened on Franklin Road. I think they had to change the name of the place from Girls, Girls, Girls to something more respectable, and the girls had to put on more clothes.”

I scan my memory for a Bluefield uproar; I don’t find one. What I do find is a billboard, out-of-sight of U.S. 460, but within spitting distance of it. The sign, standing near the entrance to Mercer Mall, sports a cartoonish, big-haired woman smiling broadly at the words “Eye Candy” and at an arrow pointing to a location down a side road.

“You can’t see that club from 460,” I say.

“Maybe not, but you can see the new one beside Kmart in the house that used to be a gift shop. And it’s right next to the road.” Her tone says that these places, even in large cities, aren’t on main thoroughfares. They are, at least, one street over, forcing you to drive or walk to get to them.

“Um ... I did notice that change of occupants one day last week,” I say. “It’s on the West Virginia side, though. They must have different laws in Virginia. And we do balance the honky-tonk billboards with religious ones. Surely you must have noticed those,” I say, defending my region’s moral character with proof that faith is fighting a battle with flesh.

“Don’t you recall the one that asks people to remember the rapture and to prepare for it? What about the one that says in big black letters that peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of God? And churches of every denomination from Pentecostal to Greek Orthodox dot the hillsides on both sides of 460. Add to that all the religious channels we have on cable TV and the advertisements with choirs singing hymns and inviting everyone to Sunday services,” I say with my Take That! attitude.

When she counters with “Yes, what about those TV commercials?” I know I have lost. She’s not our first visitor to get big-eyed and say, “I’ve never seen a local TV station show strip-joint commercials before.”

Mason may not be able to read the billboards yet, (nor the local newspaper that also carries the advertisements), but he does watch TV. What if he sees, if we are not there to change the channel, a teasing camera moving slowly from high-heeled shoes to a torso, covered with some clinging, sparkly material, on up to sultry eyes and pouting lips. It’s an invitation that the sexy woman seals and mails with a sensual toss of her long, blonde hair.

“That’s hideous,” Angie says. “You have to have a sense of humor to deal with it.”I hope she laughs when I tell her that the same gentlemen’s club advertises on the local radio station during Virginia Tech football and basketball games.

It’s a peculiar cultural thing.