THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 9, 1994 TAG: 9409080219
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: BETH BARBER
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
In the good olden days, those folks who slid under the railing on the Boardwalk to join the crowd on the sand would've limboed under that bottom bar and shimmied off to the Temptations' beat.
But that was more years ago than we ever thought we'd be old enough to remember, much less leave our muscles slack. The nice part is, plenty of hands helped the panting and prone to their feet and on their way with the accoutrements of a quarter-century: Kids. Strollers. Beach chairs. Grandkids. Bifocals.
If you remember when and where you first heard the Temptations, your muscles may be slack but your memory's a tack. I don't remember a time when they weren't. I don't remember ever figuring to witness the Four Tops doing Frank Sinatra and the Rolling Stones, either, or the debut of a local Rex Harrison of rock 'n' roll: the guy who, invited onstage, talked his way through ``My Girl'' like Henry Higgins through ``My Fair Lady.''
Monday's was a mixed crowd - mixed in age, gender and race. It was also a mellow crowd. That's a combination - mixed-race and mellow - you don't hear much about. And if it's what city officials hoped for, it's not what they felt compelled to prepare for. I can't speak authoritatively for order, but there sure was enough law.
Yet, on the subject of law and order, this city has faced a damned-if-it-does, damned-if-it-doesn't dilemma: damned as confrontational if it does put carabinieri on every corner, damned as negligent if it doesn't and trouble escalates. A choice between police whose presence intimidates some visitors and visitors whose presence intimidates other visitors is one poor choice.
There's no question that so many cops made some young black tourists nervous. And maybe some of them meant to. There's also no question that the gauntlet of young black men along Atlantic between 20th and 22nd streets on Saturday afternoon made some other visitors uneasy. And from their language and body language, some - not all - in that gauntlet they called the ``meat market'' didn't mind whom they offended . . . except that some of the young black women they were trying to impress seemed offended as well. There are those who say this interplay connotes a cultural difference. Recall spring breaks, Lauderdale, and you have to wonder how much it's a culture of age, and of class, not of race.
The culture of middle age, meantime, was swaying down around Fifth Street, ignoring the banners flying by for Ollie North and health insurance and against Food Lion and drug dealers, and demonstrating that the audience exists for adult entertainment outdoors. So where's that amphitheater? by CNB