Saturday, November 21, 2009
How lucky we were that Dad landed here
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Tom Gasparoli
Gasparoli is a former journalist who is now in media relations for the state of Virginia. He lives in Richmond.
My picture of the Roanoke Valley has become so much clearer over the last month, 30 years after I graduated from Andrew Lewis Middle School, got some more education and then moved away to live and work in many other cities as a reporter. I compared them all to Roanoke, of course, because Roanoke was all I knew.
When people asked, I would say the valley was "noncontroversial," but I realized later that was probably because nearly everything I did as a journalist was controversial in one way or the other. I didn't pay much attention to the news while growing up here.
I used to say the Star City was middle-of-the-road, because, well, it is, isn't it? Since I left, I've seen liberal and I've seen conservative -- and Roanoke is somewhere in the middle, as a whole. Is it apolitical? Maybe there's some of that. But I didn't pay much attention to politics growing up.
I said Roanoke was gentle, because I couldn't remember a person besides the bully up the street in Windsor Hills who wasn't gentle to me during my childhood. Fortunately, he moved, because that kid was out to get me. Gasparoli. Who's named Gasparoli in these parts? I must be trouble.
I was. I was occasionally a good bit of trouble for these parts. But you can't blame my name, because my dad was the least troubled or troublesome man I've ever known.
In fact, Robert "Bob" Gasparoli was noncontroversial, middle-of-the-road and gentle. Just like Roanoke.
Now I get it. Roanoke was basically my father and mother for me and probably for my three sisters, too. If your parents raise you well, you don't notice much else outside your house, yard, neighborhood and school. You didn't notice because your parents protected you, provided for you and got you ready for the storms and the sun you would encounter in life later on.
I was lucky, I tell you. Roanoke felt like a soft but enveloping breeze because that's the kind of world my folks created for us.
The more I think about it, though, the more I see that the Roanoke Valley was a soft breeze for my father, as well. It was the perfect fit. Along with several hundred other families, Dad came down from Schenectady, N.Y., more than 50 years ago to open up the General Electric plant on Virginia 419/Electric Road in Salem.
So many of them loved it. That was not what many were expecting, I think.
My dad, an inveterate engineer, had a plan since he was about 10 years old, and that was to have one wonderful wife, one great house, a few healthy children and one job with one reliably successful company. He got it all. He won the jackpot.
The area opened its arms to Bob and Joan Gasparoli and their covey of kids, and said: "This is who we are. We welcome you."
I now see that noncontroversial meant solid and respectable. I see, with the benefit of adulthood, that middle-of-the-road in the valley meant: "We don't use labels; we listen to what we feel about you."
And after these many years, I see that gentle meant: "We are your family, too."
A place I once thought a bit boring I now see as beautiful. It gave Bob Gasparoli a home, so he could become all he wanted to be. He then touched so many others over so many years. He extended Roanoke's reach -- that's what the valley taught him.
Dad passed away on Oct. 4. His 89th birthday would have been just last Monday.
We all miss him so.
But I can say this now without hesitation: Roanoke was and always will be my home, too. And as my dad was, I couldn't be prouder. It just took me awhile to come around.
You don't know how lucky you are. Or then again, maybe you do.
