Roanoke Times via Roanoke.com

I've spent the better part of an hour reading over old blog postings by Roanoke Times metro columnist Dan Casey. He writes about typical regional/local stuff - city hall, processing fees, lost puppies picked up by good people, ticked-off Roanokers, the Texas Tavern, drive-thrus in coffee shops. He is to the paper now what Ed Shamy was when I worked there back in the '90s.

You know, in the previous century. 

Shamy intimidated the dickens out of me. A shy little editorial assistant fresh out of college, why, I'd  rather run naked down Church Avenue than transfer a phone call to Shamy personally. Shamy wrote about the same sorts of regional happenings with gusto and took a lot of heat from anybody who disagreed with him. I always agreed, of course. But I think ticking people off was part of the glamour of his job. It had to be fun to get such a rise out of folks. It was probably part of the job description.

So, Dan writes - puts it out there. And people respond.
There's this girl named Suzie. 
Suzie is always right, apparently.
Rightly conservative, vehemently right. And she knows it.
She disagrees with Dan.
She has friends who back her up.
And there are the ones who like Dan.
Gdad comes to mind.
A little more lefty, a whole lot nicer.
Also Contrasuzie. Isn't that a hoot? Can you guess whose side she's on???

I found myself reading this soap opera of sorts. The characters' names had changed, but I remember the setting. City Hall is right across the street from the paper's building. Texas Tavern is a hop away. The art museum is down the street. Oh, I felt like I was at home. The people's names may be different, but their voices weren't. They were the same voices that made up the discourse of a city with a newspaper out to share, expose, rally, and even entertain.

I read the Hartford Courant here in the most expensive state in the country, and I just for the life of me can't find a single interesting column that makes me look forward to the next. There's no hometown feel to it. I dare say if I lived in Hartford proper, I'd not feel it. I can't feel the relationship between the paper and the people. Maybe I'm jaded because I don't know where Hartford City Hall is. Or because I never worked at the Courant or got skered by one of its writers.

Maybe it's just that the Roanoke Times was such a part of my life back in the day. Not only did they actually let me write a wee bit when I worked there (I'll never forget that first byline!), but I also met my husband at the Times. And I realized that I wanted to be a teacher after writing for its NewsFun section for elementary kids. Even when I'm stressed, I have nightmares that I haven't put the weekly calendar of events together for the Extra section, and so it won't publish and the entire page will be blank(!)

So I feel a taste of wistfulness when I read it online. It makes me wanna go home. There's an undeniable connection there. One that I reaches out to me in cold, distant Connecticut.

Now pardon me while I go see what Contrasuzie and Gdad are up to.