 Wysłany: Sob 3:36, 14 Maj 2011 Temat postu: The unfillable shoes of Bill Brill |
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| A friend's mother used to tell a story about the time she got busted for possession of lightning bugs.,Ed Hardy Panther and Roses
This was when there was no television and there wasn't much for children to do in a small town but go to the Saturday matinee at the movie theater. Our heroine was and still is the lively type and on one of these childhood excursions to the movies, she came up with the idea of a little prank. She smuggled a jar of lightning bugs into the theater and after the lights went down, the cartoons finished, and the credits on the main feature rolled, she turned the bugs loose. This caused quite the stir among the paying customers, as you might expect. The theater manager got involved. Our heroine was subsequently apprehended. Parents were summoned. Things did not end well for the junior entomologist. I was reminded of that story early this week because I too have been from time to time guilty of causing an uproar for sport just to see what the reaction might be. One guaranteed method over the years in just about any setting that involved New River Valley athletics was to utter two one-syllable words: Bill Brill. If there was a Virginia Tech fan present, and there always is in these parts, the reaction would be certain. Eyes would narrow, voices would rise, knuckles would whiten. To many Hokies lifers, any mention of the former Roanoke Times sports editor would send them sputtering into a rage-fueled stream of invective. When I finished laughing, I'd assure the furious that no, Brill really doesn't have it in for Tech. This may or may not have been precisely true, but in any event, Brill needed no defense from me or anybody else. An opinion columnist's job is to opine. Brill died Sunday at age 79. He'd been retired from our paper for 20 years and living -- and still writing -- in Durham, N.C., but I daresay that there are still many in these parts who will never forget him, pleasantly or otherwise. Even though we worked at the same paper for 10 years and, being from a Roanoke newspaper family, I had known him since I was a child, he and I weren't close. Still,Ray Ban 3029, I liked him tremendously and admired him as much as anybody I've ever known in this business. |
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