THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 30, 1996 TAG: 9603290054
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 85 lines
YOU HAVE TO feel sorry for Robert Hardy Jr., a young man who lost $350 at the 7-Eleven store on South Plaza Trail in Virginia Beach without playing the lottery.
Robert is a double-leg amputee who sometimes uses a wheelchair and also gets around on artificial legs.
On Feb. 22, he had cashed his paycheck to pay for a trip to Denver, where he was to compete in a wheelchair basketball tournament.
He walked into the store at about 6:30 a.m. and made several purchases, including coffee.
``I had my hands full and somehow got confused and left the wallet on the display case attached to the counter,'' he said.
Robert works for BIS, a business graphics studio next door to the 7-Eleven.
While at work, he realized his wallet was missing and hurried back to the store.
There was no wallet. The person behind the counter wasn't the same one who had waited on him.
Since then the store's management has allowed Robert to look at its surveillance tapes. He says the tapes show a man taking the wallet from the display case and walking away with it after talking to the clerk behind the counter.
The man with his wallet got into a car whose license plate can be seen through the window but not clearly, Robert said.
Robert and Southland Corp. - owner of 7-Elevens - have a disagreement about his problem. Southland says the clerk behind the counter never saw the wallet and would have put it away, holding it for him, if he had.
``We have a policy of saving things for customers, and sometimes even return the items to their homes,'' said Margaret Chabris, public relations manager for Southland in Dallas.
Chabris said seven field consultants for 7-Eleven, including the regional manager, have viewed the surveillance film and see no evidence that the clerk knew the wallet was atop the display case. But they have agreed to let Hardy use the film and enlarge the frame showing the license plate if he likes.
If you witnessed the wallet's disappearance, Hardy would like for you to phone him at 463-9683. He says the wallet also contained a snapshot of his 1-year-old son, taken right after he was born.
``That was the most valuable thing in it,'' he said.
Remember, you read it here. . . . Henry, the rooster who is the official mascot for the Oceana Naval Air Station, could be the last of his line.
The black and shiny blue rooster lives in a wooden box outside the station's pass and decal office.
Petty Officer Thomas E. Walker Jr., a supervisor at the pass and decal office, says there have been roosters serving as the official mascot for about 20 years. All descended from a rooster named Henry.
``The first Henry came from the station's stable area,'' Walker said. The present Henry's father died in 1993, when a pair of dogs attacked him from behind without warning. That Henry was buried with honors near a base fire station.
The present mascot is a proud, strutting, fighting cock.
``He's very well mannered except for an occasional toiletry problem,'' Walker said. His father was far more flamboyant, Walker explained, often wandering out in the street and stopping traffic passing the guard shack just for the heck of it.
The current Henry spends more time outside his hut than his sire and often roosts in nearby trees. The pass and decal office employees, including Walker, feed him cracked corn.
The mascot also likes to eat cheese crackers, Walker said.
Walker said Henry's father mated with a couple of hens named Cleopatra and Henrietta.
``I don't know which one was Henry's mother,'' he conceded. But he added that hens have been brought over to visit Henry many times, in the hope that Henry would mate with them. Those attempts met with no success, he said.
``How do you explain that?'' I asked.
``He's just picky, I guess,'' Walker replied.
If you have any suggestions that would help Petty Officer Walker in his effort to make Henry a father, lemme know. I'll pass the information on to him. ILLUSTRATION: RICHARD L. DUNSTON /The Virginian-Pilot
Henry is the mascot for the Oceana Naval Air Station.
by CNB