Cornershot

To submit a CornerShot

The Roanoke Times welcomes CornerShot submissions from its readers. Here are the guidelines:

Length: about 200 words
Topic: CornerShots can run the gamut, but we generally prefer unique and clever observations on the human experience.
No poetry, please.
Email your submission to extra@roanoke.com with your full name and hometown and “CornerShot” in the subject line. You can also mail submissions to Kathy Lu, CornerShot, The Roanoke Times, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, VA 24010.
Submissions are subject to editing.

1. Britney Spears spotted at Lynchburg restaurant

2. One person injured in Friday night shooting in Roanoke

3. Roanoke resource officer's quick action saved young girl

4. East Carolina poses new challenge for Virginia Tech football

5. Lowe's tapes may hold clues to Roanoke woman's death

6. William Byrd stuns Salem in football win

7. Roanoke County electrical short quiets 5 Wheeler radio stations

8. Captive in Roanoke County describes harrowing time with angry friend

9. Concert review: Timeless Willie Nelson plays to appreciative crowd

10. History says this one will matter for Virginia Tech

Richard Duncan | A reader in Salem

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

So we didn’t win the record Powerball jackpot, and the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes isn’t looking too likely either.

What would you do if you actually won such a huge amount of cash? (I’d pay all my bills and taxes, until the money ran out.)

The late, great Homer Bast of Roanoke College used to tell us students that a million dollars was so much money for an individual that, unless you were trying to be wasteful, it would be hard actually to spend it all.

Of course, that was in the days when gas was a quarter a gallon, steak 98 cents a pound, a movie ticket was 50 cents, and a new Ford or Chevy cost a few bucks under $2,000. I guess a million just isn’t what it used to be.

Someone once said, “money is like manure — no good unless you spread it around.”

With a boatload of winnings, we could sure help stimulate the local economy, or really make a difference to a charity or endowment. Or maybe like Tevye, the everyman character who sings “If I Were a Rich Man” in the classic musical “Fiddler on the Roof,” we would finally have time to sit and read and pray, and answer questions from the learned men who would come to visit us because, as the song says, “when you’re rich, they think you really know.”

At the end of the song, Tevye wails a final question that we would all personally like to know the answer to before the next big lottery drawing: “Would it spoil some vast, eternal plan if I were a wealthy man?”

Saturday, September 14, 2013