Community Support Initiatives
– Providing food and assistance to families in need since 1993.
– Operating a store where qualified individuals can choose items for free.
– Offering various volunteer opportunities and ways to support the community.

Youth Fundraising Activities
– Friend’s grandson’s baseball team conducting leaf removal as a fundraiser.
– Donations-only service, teaching youth the value of earning money.
– Seeking neighbors who might need yard work services.

Neighborhood Social Events
– Planning a winter soup gathering for neighborhood residents.
– Seeking ideas for fun social events like ‘game nights’.
– Appreciation for the successful appetizer event.

Community Property Enhancements
– Board initiative to improve common areas and make them more attractive.
– Planting low-maintenance greenery in various locations.
– Pleased with the overall appearance of neighborhood yards.

Capital Reserve Fund Amendment
– Proposal to amend covenants regarding new homeowner assessments for capital reserve.
– Changing the fixed $250 fee to an amount set by the board of directors.
– Aims to build the fund to cover HOA liabilities and avoid broad-based assessments.

Board Member Elections
– Two board members’ terms expiring this year.
– Larry Hurt and May Wenge willing to serve another term.
– Nominees approved for a three-year term starting January 1st.

Budget and Mailbox Updates
– No due increase anticipated for 2026, with a monthly due decrease.
– Mailbox numbers replaced with durable 3D decals from a small business.
– Pleased with the improvement over previous peeling decals.

Community Safety and Maintenance
– Encouraging residents to report suspicious activity to county police.
– Leaf removal contract specifies mulching, not collecting, for better soil.
– Discussion pending on HOA’s continued obligation for gutter cleaning in 2026.

Streetlight Concerns
– Complaints about new stark white streetlights replacing amber ones.
– Residents finding the new lights excessively bright.
– Seeking contact information for the county to address the issue.

Miniature Graceland
(Roanoke Notes, November 6, 2025)

There’s a little patch of Roanoke that hums softly with the ghost of Elvis, not through jukebox speakers or velvet paintings, but through plywood, shingles, and love. Tiny Graceland still stands, or maybe leans, out there on the edge of Don Epperly’s old yard, the grass curling up around its miniature white columns and blue trimmed chapel.

Don built it back in the eighties, one small imitation at a time, Graceland’s gates in miniature, the birthplace in Tupelo recreated with devotion and a steady hand, a landscape of memories small enough for squirrels to tour. They say he started after visiting the real Graceland, came home and decided that the King deserved a Virginia echo. It grew into a neighborhood landmark, a shrine to both Elvis and the sheer stubborn joy of making something just because it should exist.

Now it sits quiet, weather-silvered. The plastic flowers have gone pale, and the paint has given itself back to the seasons. The Salem Garden Club tends it here and there, keeping the spirit alive even as vines try to crown the place with green. Every now and then someone pulls over, camera in hand, smiles, and whispers a “thank you very much” into the breeze.

Tiny Graceland isn’t a tourist trap or a spectacle, it’s a memory of belief, scaled down but not diminished. Don’s gone now, but his heart’s still parked there, somewhere between the tiny chapel and the tinny strains of “Love Me Tender” that once drifted from a boombox on the porch.

If you pass by, slow down. Look close. The King’s still there, just smaller, kinder, and maybe even closer to heaven.


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#roanokeva #TinyGraceland #Elvis #Virginia #RoadsideAmerica #minigraceland

🕰️ November 6 – Time’s Uneven Footsteps in Roanoke

Some mornings, the air over Mill Mountain feels like it’s holding its breath. The clock on the star says one thing, but the crows circling above the Roanoke River seem to mark another hour entirely. Down by the farmers market, the world hums in coffee sips and shoe taps – a fast, modern tempo – while in the old cemeteries up on the hill, you can almost hear the tick of moss growing over names, slower than a sigh.

Time here never runs evenly. On Brandon Avenue, it sprints – deadlines, buses, traffic lights flipping red before you’re ready. But out near the greenway, by the cattails and the ducks who couldn’t care less about minutes, it ambles. You can walk for what feels like hours and find the light hasn’t shifted an inch.

Maybe it’s the mountains. Maybe they bend the seconds, fold them like warm laundry. Or maybe Roanoke just keeps its own sort of calendar –  one where the seasons overlap, where October ghosts still wander through November fog, and where the same church bell seems to ring both too soon and not soon enough.

Tonight, the clocks will insist it’s late. But standing under the soft hum of the Star, watching the valley’s lights drift like embers, you can feel how the moment stretches – a slow, generous kind of forever.

(current mood: clocks made of fog and songbirds)