THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, December 21, 1994 TAG: 9412210013
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By MAC DANIEL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 139 lines
THE LUNCH COUNTER at the Nansemond Drug Co. in Suffolk was jammed. One stool remained open, scrunched between a woman working on a pile of fries and a guy in bib overalls gripping a cheeseburger deluxe.
The front door opened, and a businessman, dressed in a suit and bright green tie, cautiously eyed the empty stool.
``Anyone sitting here?'' he asked.
``Just you,'' replied the guy with the cheeseburger.
When his food arrived, the businessman timidly asked his neighbor for a napkin.
``Might as well make it two please,'' said the businessman. ``We are at the Nansemond.''
``You're gonna need more than two,'' the guy replied, putting down his burger and handing the businessman a stack.
In most places, the exchange would have ended with a mumbled ``thank you'' - or would never have taken place. At the Nansemond, it turned into an animated conversation.
A half-hour later, the two men ended their meal, joking about common friends.
They left the counter together - once the waitress gave them a pad and a pen to ``write up your own damn checks.''
Nansemond Drug is in the heart of this so-called ailing downtown, surrounded by stores that have changed names more times than locals care to recall.
If the city of Suffolk has a core, this long, linoleum lunch counter is it.
The hallowed spot sits beyond the racks of greeting cards, lighter flints and candy. The dozen well-worn stools and a lone wooden booth here have served as the town's soul for three generations.
It's almost impossible to remain silent at the Nansemond. As the lunchtime crowd grows and the 18-inch-wide counter fills, customers sit elbow-to-elbow.
The waitresses, who are also the cooks, work less than 2 feet away, flipping burgers while dishing out dollops of harassment to the regulars. The customers fling it right back.
The counter serves as a place to see friends, rest a minute and get in touch. The food may be fast, but this is a place to go slow.
When a regular walks in the door, the waitresses go into action. By the time the customer hits his seat, his order is generally waiting on the counter.
``If they want something different,'' said manager Peggy Hopewell, ``local etiquette calls for the customer to yell from the doorway, `I don't want that!' ''
``Usually,'' she added, ``it's too late.''
Peggy, who has been running the store since her husband, David ``Doc'' Hopewell, suffered a stroke in 1993, holds court from the last stool on the right, the one within arm's reach of a shelf filled with antacids.
The Hopewells bought the brick store in 1974. They are only the third owners in its nearly 90 years of operation.
The Nansemond is a place where you can fill a prescription and eat a pimento cheese sandwich in one stop. Although it has all the accouterments of a modern pharmacy, the Nansemond still makes and markets its own bottles of vanilla extract.
At the counter, the lemonade and orangeade are fresh-squeezed. The milkshakes are real. The waitresses know if you're on a diet. And if someone forgets to give you your check, no problem. Just tell the cashier up front what you had. She'll ring you up.
``No matter how many drug stores were here, no matter how many restaurants were here, we came here,'' said Helen Weintrob, 76, who has ``gone down to the Nansemond'' all her life. She comes every day with her husband, Herman, for a tuna salad plate and a Diet Coke.
If the place were open Sundays, said Helen, she'd be here then, too.
``It's home to us,'' she said. ``It's comfortable.''
Betty Brantley comes to the Nansemond ``just to sit down and chat, find out what people are doing, who's sick and who's not.
``I certainly don't come here just to eat.''
The 73-year-old owner of Betty's Travel Service was the sole occupant of the booth last Saturday. And when waitress Gloria Dolsberry delivered her tuna salad plate, Brantley shot her a stern look.
Before a word was uttered, Dolsberry quickly pulled a bag of potato chips from a nearby rack and placed them on the table.
``See?'' said Brantley, ``She read my mind.''
``I didn't read your mind,'' Dolsberry replied. ``You just always get chips.''
Brantley once mistakenly beat the check at the Nansemond. When she got home, she quickly called the store. ``No problem,'' they told her. ``We'll get you when you come again.''
``You think you could do that in New York?'' Brantley asked. ``They'll kill you before you get out the door.''
The original building, located at the current site on North Main Street, was torn down years ago. Nansemond Drug Co. moved across the street for 30 years. Then the owners rebuilt at the original location and moved back.
Peggy Hopewell still keeps a tattered, palm-sized notebook that holds some of the pharmacy's original recipes for turn-of-the-century cure-alls.
There's a bedbug solution, an elixir for foot odor and a recipe for metal polish. Back in the days when it was legal, Dr. E.C. Joyner's nose and throat spray called for six grains of cocaine.
Regulars recall a time when, between Sunday school and services, children from three nearby churches would rush to the Nansemond for hot chocolate and candy.
After church, local women, dressed in Sunday finery, would socialize over Coca-Colas while rocking white wicker baby carriages in the aisles.
Dolsberry, 44, worked the lunch counter for 10 years before taking two years off to care for her mother. She's been back a half year now.
And despite her reputation for having an acid tongue, she admits it's the people and the unique camaraderie that she cherishes most. They remind her of the days when she cooked, served food and pumped gas at The Lovely Inn, a restaurant and service station that her father ran near Route 460.
``This is what I really enjoy doing,'' she said, looking around to make sure none of the regulars could hear. She began to whisper.
``I simply enjoy communicating with the people,'' she said. ``They're sweet.''
Then, speaking up for all to hear, Dolsberry said: ``This is what I really enjoy doing - meeting all these clowns.''
Guffaws all around.
The stools at the counter are filled with many ghosts, said Peggy Hopewell. ``It's all so sad,'' she said, ``when the regular customers pass away, there seems to be an empty spot where they used to be.
``But then others come in, and it starts all over again,'' she said. ``It's pretty wonderful.
``You know,'' she said, ``in this era of modernization and everything becoming impersonal - social security numbers and everything else - it's a good thing to be able to go somewhere and talk and eat and act like a human being.
``It's nice to go somewhere,'' she said, ``and be a person.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color staff photos by Beth Bergman
Alice Cross, 10, was told by her grandfather, left, that she could
eat anywhere after she appeared in her high school play. She chose
"the Nansemond."
Above: John D. Eure, left, and Jack Nurey chat over coffee at the
Nansemond. Right: Waitress Cynthia Riddick listens to a customer, as
Mary Mason finishes her sandwich.
by CNB