The Virginian-Pilot
                             THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, September 25, 1994             TAG: 9409230255
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN              PAGE: 04   EDITION: FINAL 
                                             LENGTH: Medium:   60 lines

SUN SPOTS SLICES OF LIFE IN WESTERN TIDEWATER

THURSDAY, SEPT. 8 1:30 p.m.: A downtown Suffolk office

A decade's worth of yellowed newspapers, dog-eared pictures, outdated reports and obsolete memos have been stuffed into trash cans as the company prepares to move to a new location.

Out back, the garbage bins are overflowing. There's no place to pile the remaining mounds of mess until the morning trash pickup.

Sheril Davenport in the city's Public Works Department has persuaded Carlos Ward, trash detail supervisor, to dispatch a special curbside collection.

The trash just needs to be stashed beside the street.

As two employees wheel the heavy, gray containers across the parking lot, one can topples off its dolly and spills its guts across the sidewalk. Papers float in the breeze, envelopes scatter across the pavement and coffee grounds splat on the concrete.

``You look like you could use a little help,'' says a mailman who walks by just as the women manage to reposition the can on its rolling platform.

They thank him for his offer as they scurry to retrieve the wayward contents and stuff them once again into the containers.

- Susie Stoughton MONDAY, SEPT. 12 6 p.m.: Isle of Wight

A maid cleaning in the Circuit Court gets an unexpected surprise as she cleans near the courtroom's side door: a 12-inch baby copperhead.

Upon discovering the snake, the woman walks down the hall to get help at the Sheriff's Department.

Deputy B.O. Gayle, armed with a plastic dust pan, tries to hit the snake. The dust pan breaks, and the snake, taking offense at the strike, coils up to strike back. With that, Gayle leaves the offended snake but returns - with a sledgehammer. One blow does in the intruder.

And the snake is removed from the courtroom.

- Jody Snider WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 14 1:45 p.m.: In front of a downtown Franklin office

The woman is carrying a large, black IBM Selectric typewriter across the street to her car, the machine's cord trailing behind her, as another woman walks by on the sidewalk.

``Is that what you call a `portable typewriter?' '' the second woman asks.

- Susie Stoughton ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II

Mobile messenger

This driver shares several opinions as his Volvo wagon heads down

North Main Street in Suffolk. Now you know his views on abortion,

politics, family and religion.

by CNB