The long view
Regarding “Downtown Mall finally gets a new lease on life” [Government News, May 12]: I would rate it SUPERB! I have never seen men work so hard and accomplish so much in my 88 years of life. They were always polite and always very hard working. I salute them.
Easter Mary Berryman
Charlottesville
What a bummer!
For a while I actually thought J. Tobias Beard was learning both about wines and being a writer [“What would Bukowski drink?” The Working Pour, May 26]. This bum wine article is as bad as it gets. I am not sure what he is trying to say. Bums usually do not want to work. I would not put “bums” and those losing jobs today due to economics in the same article.
To start, he could have done more research instead of just Googling bumwine.com. “Bums,” if we must use that term, drank Gallo wines long before 1957 when Thunderbird was introduced. The wines of choice for “bums” were Muscatel and White Port. Gallo invented Thunderbird not for “bums” (unless they were ski bums) but for the youth market. The wine was originally lemonade and White Port. Yes, it was cheap and it was as high (if not higher) in alcohol than Muscatel or White Port and it mixed well with tomato juice.
Thunderbird also unintentionally pointed Gallo toward the bottom of the market and although it has taken them a long time to erase that bad wine stigma, the family laughs everyday while making their bank deposits. Long before Seattle established the Alcohol Impact Areas in 2001, Gallo, in 1989, asked distributors not to sell any of their fortified wines in low-income areas. The problem with Seattle is that Washington is a control state, and, of course, the producers have no control in control states.
Stan Rose
Albemarle County
Count me in
I enjoyed Sam Witt’s article immensely [“Who cares about poetry, anyway?,” May 26]. He probably answered his own question. Poetry is a dying art that is still an essential one. I have to write. It is a lifeline and when I stop I will die. The following are two important examples of mine:
In Thy Darkest Hours
Shine on, eternal fire—burn
Alone amid the void;
If none should love thee, thou must yearn
That someone sees thy Joy.
When night’s vast desert frames thy soul
An island in the darkest sea,
Then a star must shine alone
Ere that lovers look for thee.
Stained Glass
Washed in light, yet stained to screen
The light within, without;
I pray the Lord will wash me clean
Thru’ death & darkest doubt.
I traced His love in a rainbow’s curve–
I find it when I search.
I feel it when I’m made to serve
A window to the Church.
F. Carroll Harrison
nightingael@yahoo.com