Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 25, 1993 TAG: 9304250141
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ROB EURE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Plantation life, segregated lunch counters and primogeniture are good examples.
And, quite possibly, so is the annual Wakefield Ruritan Club Shad Planking.
This is the annual gathering of white men from Southside Virginia - a short drive to the country from Petersburg, where some of the boys met in a firehouse in 1954 to hatch massive resistance.
By legend, the Shad Planking was a place where the old Byrd Machine bosses trotted out their new, fair-haired boys for viewing by the courthouse gangs fromSouthside. Since 1945, it's been held in a pine woods outside Wakefield, where the boys mill, drink and pick through the bones of a slab of shad, an oily, salty bay catch known for its roe, not its meat.
In the early years, the Shad Planking, held in the spring to coincide with the run of the fish up the James, was a tough ticket. "If you weren't from Wakefield, you had to be somebody or know somebody to get one," says Steve Haner, a Republican operative.
All that has finally, blessedly changed. Doug Wilder, then a state senator, was one of the first blacks to attend in the mid-1970s, about the same time a female reporter from The Washington Post crashed the affair to see if they would really dare to kick her out.
Everything else changed rapidly.
Portable privies were brought in. TV stations come with their big satellite trucks, as do area rock radio stations. The Ruritans, who sponsor the event, sell commemorative hats.
And the tickets are available to anyone. Use a Visa or Mastercard, and call the 800 number.
This year, the Ruritans even hired a publicist, whose helpful hype included a list that misspelled and misidentified a dozen of the politicians invited to make short talks through the years. Former Gov. Mills Godwin, a godfather of the old crowd, was listed as "Godwyn" each of the six times he spoke. Harry Byrd Sr., the man who built the machine that fostered this kind of event in Virginia, was listed twice after his death in 1966. Those speeches were made by Harry Jr., who followed his father in the U.S. Senate.
Political candidates, lobbyists and some businesses now routinely open little hospitality tents, giving away beer, bourbon, peanuts, chewing tobacco.
But the event itself has become an empty shell. It borders on the absurd to see today's attendees, mostly yuppies from the cities, out to view a relic of something we are happily beyond.
The free pouches of Redman ran out last week, but they mostly went to planking participants who would take them home as mementos. Two chubby brothers, dressed ridiculously in suits at a muddy party in the woods, huddled with about half a dozen beer cups to have their picture taken beside a car with a special alcohol safety license plate.
How long will those treasures remain valuable keepsakes?
For the old-timers, now vastly outnumbered by the sightseeing crowd, it's hardly worth going anymore.
"I'm no believer in segregation or any of that, but this thing sure was more fun back in the days when it was next to a Ku Klux Klan meeting," said one veteran of these events since the mid-1950s. "It had a mystique, you know?"
The mystique these days is pretty much limited to who gets nailed by the state troopers patroling U.S. 460 for speeders and intoxicated drivers on their way home.
It's probably safe for politicians - and journalists - to stop going to this affair altogether, a conclusion reached this year by a couple of the statewide candidates, Democratic Lt. Gov. Donald Beyer and Del. Steve Agee, a Republican candidate for attorney general.
Even the Virginia shad have stopped coming. Our state's stock is so depleted, the fish are imported now from Delaware.
by CNB