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. 41-vehicle wreck ties up traffic Sunday on I-81 in Rockbridge County

2. Virginia Tech football roster has holes on picture day

3. Medicare penalties hit hospitals in Roanoke, New River Valleys

4. Microfestivus beer event gets downtown Roanoke hopping

5. McFarling: 2 little numbers are a big hurdle for Virginia Tech football

6. DAN CASEY: Copter cost still stirring up dust

7. Arrest made in case of missing Nelson County teen

8. Roanoke farmers markets making local foods more accessible

9. Virginia attorney general's office grows under Ken Cuccinelli

10. Man's drowning is 5th in Lynchburg area

Randolph Walker | A reader in Roanoke

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Going through my clip file recently, I came across a story I wrote on actor William Windom.

I had the good fortune to interview him for an article that ran in a Radford publication, when he was a visiting actor in that university’s drama department.

In contrast to many interview subjects, who worry about how their words will appear in print, Windom didn’t care — in fact, he told me that if I had forgotten to ask anything, I could just make it up. He went so far as to offer a sample fake quote: “Mr. Windom tells me his fondness for alligator meat is unexcelled in the Deep South.”

William Windom died in 2012, after a long and successful career in television, movies and theater.

He appeared in episodes of “Star Trek,” “Murder, She Wrote” and “The Twilight Zone,” but whenever I hear his name, I picture him not as he looked in those shows, but in a white linen suit, on a plantation veranda, amid live oaks draped with Spanish moss, chowing down on alligator meat.

Monday, August 12, 2013