Kudos to all involved in the Dec. 12 unveiling of Asheville’s first public charging station for photovoltaic-powered electric vehicles.

BioWheels-Asheville and its partners deserve much praise for offering a viable future for driving on sunshine, rather than depending on oil from foreign suppliers who sometimes are enemies of America.

Plugged in at the event were a Tesla, a Volt, two Leafs and a hobbyist’s 1970 Jeep conversion.

By Cecil Bothwell

In the late 1970s, a friend of mine moved to Tucson, Ariz., where he took a job with a roofing contractor. Over the next 10 years he became a hot-mop expert, endlessly repeating the process of installing layers of tar paper, steaming liquified asphalt and gravel.

Working on top of buildings in southern Arizona in summer heat, carrying buckets of stinking molten tar and spreading tons of gravel is about as unpleasant a job as I have ever done. And I did it, joining him on a couple of jobs when I traveled there in the early ‘80s.

When I worked with Terry, he told me that I was the first Anglo he had seen on a roofing job, other than himself. The Mexicans he worked with, day in and day out, had often commented on that fact as well. At least in those decades, no white person cared to do that work, although it paid well and there were plenty of roofs, new and old, that needed mopping.