Publisher's Notebook

The obituaries column in any newspaper, including ours, tends to be pretty sober and sobering.

But from the obits in the Richmond Times-Dispatch yesterday, here’s one that will make you read it twice.

A guy who was 67 passed away. The obit says he “was beamed up by Scottie Friday, August 27, 2010, after a long courageous battle with cancer.”

A serious Trekker? Maybe, but once you learn his name you understand.

His name was Danny Kirk. His nickname: “Captain.”

From the Headlines I Wish I’d Written Department:

Some headlines are so bad, they’re great. The award today goes to the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal likes to feature an offbeat human interest story at the bottom of its front page. Today’s entry is about art of butter sculpting, in particular the butter carving competition at the Minnesota State Fair.

The headline: “When It Comes to Butter Carving, There’s No Margarine for Error”

It’s late August, so here’s a back-to-school item.

Every year since 1998, Beloit College in Wisconsin has released the “Beloit College Mindset List.”

This list provides a rundown of the cultural touchstones that have shaped the year’s entering freshmen.

It was started by a Beloit humanities professor, Tom McBride, and a former public affairs director at the school, Ron Nief, as a way to remind faculty to be aware of dated cultural references (i.e., such as that joking that “Francisco Franco is still dead.” A guaranteed blank stare).

What has shaped this year’s college kids? For starters, most of this group doesn’t know how to write in cursive, they know Fergie as a pop singer, not a princess, and their computers always have had a CD-ROM drive.

For the rest of the observations, take at look at the Beloit site for the Class of 2014.

These people will be hiring you someday.

There’s a famous scene in the 1992 thriller “Basic Instinct,” starring Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas.

No, not that scene.

This exchange takes place a bit before the part where Stone crosses and uncrosses her legs. Stone, a wealthy socialite, has been hauled into the police station for questioning about ice-pick murders she may or may not have committed.

She disdainfully answers the cops’ questions, then lights a cigarette. The cops rush to say she can’t do that.

“What are you going to do, arrest me for smoking?” Stone asks coolly.

I thought of that scene yesterday when I saw the reports that 13 people in Falls Church had been charged with violating the commonwealth’s ban on smoking in restaurants.

According to state officials, the 13 are the only citizens who have been charged with breaching the ban, which took effect Dec. 1. Nine were people who allegedly were smoking and four were allegedly enablers, i.e., people who allowed smoking in a restaurant.

The Falls Church busts came as part of a police “crackdown.” But how hard are those cops, or any others, cracking? These are the first reported perps since last December. The Associated Press story has a telling detail: “Responding to months of complaints, police charged…”

The complainers apparently have been complaining for months and finally, just finally, the cops did something about it.

Apparently most restaurants have gotten with the program. State inspectors have visited more than 23,000 restaurants since Dec. 1. A full 97 percent are in compliance.

Maybe the cops in Falls Church and other places believe they have more important things to do than “arrest someone for smoking.” Plus, the penalty isn’t very much – you can be fined a mere $25 for lighting up in a restaurant.

But the law is there, championed by former Gov. Tim Kaine and passed by our General Assembly. The prediction here: Anti-smoking activists and other people who hate smoking in public will be militant, demanding full compliance from the 3 percent who don’t enforce the ban. The cops will be feeling even more heat on this.

So what would Sharon Stone do? I’m guessing people would pay good money to see what the cops would do, if Stone fired up a cigarette here then asked her question.

Anyone who went to Their Majesties’ Royall College or who otherwise spent much time in Williamsburg knows about Sal’s by Victor, the landmark Italian restaurant at the Williamsburg Shopping Center on Richmond Road.

An electrical fire destroyed Sal’s a year ago, and owner Victor Minichiello just reopened in his original location.

But in the interim he operated out of La Scala, a nearby joint which he later leased to a couple called the Salihs. The lease included a noncompete that forbid the operation of an Italian restaurant on the site within six months of Sal’s reopening. Minichiello recently filed a $1 million lawsuit against the Salihs in an effort to protect his business and enforce the noncompete.

According to The Virginia Gazette, the suit suggests the Salihs saw the success of Sal’s and wanted to open a similar business.

The parties may be in the process of working things out. The couple took “pizza” off their main sign. And the Gazette reports that as of last week, the Salihs’ business had a sign that read:

Scala’s Restaurant
Seafood, Greek and More

Nothing Italian about that.

Mrs. Salih said the couple was renaming their place “Salih’s Greek and Moroccan Restaurant.” Nothing Italian about that either. If it all works out, Minichiello said he would withdraw the lawsuit.

Here’s a nugget, so to speak, that I gathered last weekend on the drive home from Pittsburgh (where my daughter is attending grad school this fall):

Did you know that they used to mine gold in Northern Virginia?

There’s a sign along Highway 17 in Fauquier County commemorating that fact, not far from Goldvein.

A little Internet research, and I learned they used to mine a lot of gold in Northern Virginia. A couple of quick facts:

There used to be gold mines and prospecting sites all throughout Virginia in the 19th century, more than 300 at one time or another. Serious mining began in 1804; the last time gold was mined commercially was in 1947.

The 200-mile-long gold streak starts roughly in Fairfax County and runs through many of the Northern Virginia counties, more or less follows Interstate 95, then veers southwest to the North Carolina border.

Thomas Jefferson allegedly was the first to discover gold in the Old Dominion. TJ supposedly found a big nugget in Fauquier County and set off a minor rush.

Virginia was the major producer of gold in the country until the glittery stuff was discovered in California in 1849. At that time, many prospectors ditched Virginia and headed west.

The Franklin mine in Fauquier was one of the biggest and most lucrative mines, producing more than a million dollars’ worth of gold between 1825 and 1860. That’s pre-Civil War dollars. During the war, Union forces destroyed a number of mines in an effort to cripple the Confederacy economically.

Best names of mines: The Bull Neck Mine in Fairfax, the Rough and Ready Mine in Buckingham and the Rattlesnake Mine in Stafford.

There is a museum commemorating Virginia gold mining at Goldvein. On Sept. 11, Goldvein is hosting a Jubilee, with activities that include, yes, panning for gold.

Lake Anna State Park in Spotsylvania includes the site of the old Goodwin gold mine; the park offers mine tours, panning and historical info on mining there.