THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 14, 1994 TAG: 9408120223
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: RANDOM RAMBLES
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 83 lines
This is a story about two artists who lived in Waverly. One worked with wood, the other with ground beef.
Waverly, if you don't know, is a community a hoot and a couple of hollers down U.S. 460 West. I have a vague memory that years ago the AAA folks considered it a speed trap. However, its immediate past and current claims to fame are Miles Carpenter and the Cootsieburger.
Carpenter was a nationally known wood carver who did work of museum quality. Like, for instance, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Williamsburg. When I met and interviewed him in 1980, people were paying between $3,000 and $4,000 for his work. He was a folk artist who carved in a primitive style rich with wit and whimsy.
A few of Carpenter's pieces are preserved in the Miles Carpenter Museum in Waverly. The museum is in the white frame house that Carpenter's family moved into in 1902.
That's where I stopped recently. That's what got me to remembering my brief but rewarding acquaintance with Carpenter and the Cootsieburger.
Let me detour from Carpenter to tell you about the burger. It was created by Arthur Russell Dunnington, who ran a combination service station and restaurant in Waverly. Dunnington's son, A. Russell Dunnington, is a doctor with offices in Great Bridge and Virginia Beach, and I am indebted to Dr. D. for recalling the origin of the name, the ingredients and the initial price.
The doctor's dad was the youngest of seven children growing up in Bowling Green. He was early labeled ``cute.'' But ``cute'' became ``cutesy'' became ``Cootsie,'' and the name stuck. So when Cootsie Dunnington invented his ground beef masterpiece, it was, of course, christened the Cootsieburger.
The ingredients were ground beef, chili, cheese, pickle, mustard, onion and ketchup. Dr. Dunnington occasionally worked for his dad as a waiter, and he says the original price was 65 cents. My stomach still sends happy signals when I think about the one I ate the day I talked with Carpenter.
He and Dunnington are linked because Carpenter used to be a regular for coffee and soup at Dunnington's. Like a lot of other Waverly residents, Carpenter would come by every day to sip and snack and catch up on the latest local news. And Carpenter told me that if he ever got to feeling uppity about his artistic recognition, he could count on the guys at Dunnington's to take him down a peg.
That may have been, but Carpenter was a unique character for sure. Consider how I first saw him. This was a guy 91 years old driving a car down 460 with a good-looking young blonde sitting next to him.
When he stopped, I found out that his lady friend was a life-size wood carving. Joke on me, and Carpenter laughed a big, hearty, young man's laugh. His face lit up with a wondrous smile.
When the newspaper photographer got there a little later, I whispered to him about that smile. ``Get him to do it again,'' the photographer said. Nothing worked until Carpenter told me that he got $300 for wooden pieces carved and painted like watermelon slices. They were often chunks of wood that someone else had thrown out.
``You mean,'' I said, ``you take an old piece of junk wood and cut it some and paint it and sell it for $300?'' His laugh was uproarious and his following smile was two miles wide. ``That's right!'' he said with delight glowing in each word.
But there was no comedy about the intricate artistic skill of his serious pieces. I especially remember the four-and-20 blackbirds baked in a pie and the Adam and Eve riding a snake. He told me in a slyly amused voice that Adam and Eve were strategically covered with fig leaves because they had ``everything they were supposed to have.''
Dr. Dunnington remembered a couple of neat stories about Carpenter. One was the time he was invited to Richard M. Nixon's White House and left his hat. He was later tickled to report that it had been mailed back to him. And the doctor told me that Carpenter made small watermelons to be given to each of his pall bearers when he died.
That was in 1985. Now the museum keeps him in memory. I wouldn't say it's worth a special trip, but if you pass through Waverly, it's right at the stop light. The hours are 2 to 5 p.m., Monday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There's a nice guide named Helen Sprague, who will be glad to show you around.
Sadly, Cootsie is gone, too. He died in 1987, and his store and burger departed with him. And, by golly, the Cootsieburger was indeed art in its own way. Gourmet? Heck, no. Good? You bet. by CNB