THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 21, 1994 TAG: 9407190145
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: In The Neighborhoods
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Welcome to Davenport's Barber Shop. Did you remember to bring your biggest home-grown tomato?
If it weighs more than 2 pounds, 15 ounces, it can dethrone John Haney's best tomato of the season.
The throne is a scale set on top of a bank of candy machines. Haney's tomato reigns from there, king of the vine.
The contest - 10th annual, more or less - was the idea of barber Hubert Davenport, a shaper of Ocean View heads for 30 years.
Don't try too hard to figure the connection between haircuts and tomatoes. There isn't one, save for the day Davenport decided to make his more boastful customers prove their tomato bragging rights.
``I just wanted something for the local folks. They were bragging about their tomatoes so much,'' he said. ``I get plenty of nice tomatoes out of it, too.''
Davenport likes his tomatoes with salt and pepper, as part of a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich. With about 30 contestants every summer, he gets his fill.
He'd get the best pickings of other fruits and vegetables, too, if his customers had their way.
``Why, they've tried to encourage me to have other contests,'' Davenport said. ``One time a fellow brought a cucumber in here - that thing was 27 inches long.
``Some fellow brought a turnip in here one time. That thing was so big it looked like a cantaloupe.
``I've had watermelons brought in here. One weighed 54 pounds.''
But Davenport declines. ``If I held other contests, I would have so much going on I couldn't keep up with all the bragging,'' he said.
Good point. Stories of some Ocean View tomato growers rival those of neighborhood fishermen.
``Some claim they have tomatoes so big they have to bring them in on wheelbarrows. Some say they need a truck to bring theirs in. But they never brought one in yet,'' Davenport said.
They're all after the record of Irving Dixon of West Ocean View, who weighed in with a 3-pound, 4-ounce tomato four years ago.
A white, cardboard poster taped to a barbershop mirror proclaims ``Beat Dixon if you can.''
Between sketches of a grinning tomato and a smiling scale is a photo of Dixon with a tomato. But the picture is a cruel tease. This tomato is tiny, as if to lull challengers into overconfidence.
Dixon is a tomato grower with humor. His 1994 entry - a 2-pound, 2-ouncer - came with its kid brother, a tomato the size of a fingernail.
But Davenport's seen stranger tomatoes: a square tomato from Florida, tomatoes with little noses stuck to them and a tomato the shape and color of a lemon.
There are tomato pranksters.
Someone hung red balloons at the back of a tomato crop belonging to a man away on vacation. When the man returned, he rushed to the barbershop, telling Davenport ``I got the biggest tomatoes I've ever seen in my life. I know they will win the contest.''
``I told him, `Well, bring 'em down,' '' Davenport said. ``When he got back, the balloons had deflated. He had to come back up and tell me his neighbors had played a trick on him.''
Davenport's contest runs to Sept. 1. There's a $20 first prize; $15 for second, and $10 for third. The barbershop is at 9627 Granby St. MEMO: Comment or suggestion for Mike Knepler: please call 446-2275 or write
The Compass, P.O. Box 449, Norfolk, Va. 23501.
ILLUSTRATION: Photo by BILL KELLEY III
Barber Hubert Davenport weighs a tomato at his Ocean View shop.
by CNB