THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 12, 1995 TAG: 9502100174
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 130 lines
Tuesday, Jan. 31
7 p.m. - Virginia Wesleyan College.
In The Grille, a dining center on campus, a blond-haired college student placing her order obviously has been taking no-fat eating to its limit.
``I'll have a BLT, with no bacon,'' she says. ``Put it on non-toasted white bread, with no mayonnaise. I'll have a salad, too.''
The brunette behind her, holding a bag of mesquite barbecue potato chips and a Coke, looks to her friend and asks, ``What's the purpose?''
- Holly Wester
Thursday, Feb. 2
4:30 p.m. - Virginia Beach Boulevard.
A bearded guy driving a white pickup reminds drivers of love, peace and hair grease with the bumper sticker: Old Hippies Never Die. They Just Flashback.
- Holly Wester
Friday, Feb. 3
6:30 p.m. - Farm Fresh parking lot on Laskin Road.
With the weekend upon them, Chip Chapman and his son stop by the Farm Fresh to stock up on a few goodies.
The shopping list is a real diet buster: root beer, chocolate milk, Tostatos and Oreo cookies. There are a few essentials, like milk, but mostly it is the stuff that makes calorie counters wince.
Chapman, a salesman for a company that sells franchises, pays the bill, and, with his 11-year-old son in tow, happily heads outside. He opens the door to his Mercedes, puts the groceries in and is about to slip inside when the door suddenly slams shut.
``I turned around and I was looking down the barrel of a gun,'' Chapman says later.
A man in a sweat shirt with a stocking cap pulled over his face, barks, ``If you don't give me your wallet, I'm going to kill you and your son right here!''
Chapman fumbles for his wallet.
``Does it have money?'' the robber menaces. ``It better have money.''
Chapman gives the man the wallet. The man backs off, turns and runs across a field next to a nearby barbecue restaurant. Chapman runs inside and the police are called.
After the squad cars arrive, their blue lights flashing, a helicopter circles overhead, a white search light illuminating patches of the Oceanfront. Police officers take statements and a technician dusts the Mercedes for fingerprints.
Just then, a police detective announces they have a possible suspect at the Cherry Motel. Will Chapman help the police identify the man? Chapman hesitates. He is not sure about coming face to face with the man who moments ago threatened to kill him - and his son.
Chapman thinks through his responsibilities. Then he agrees. The police drive him to the motel, even though it's within walking distance of the grocery store. An officer brings a man outside and presents him to Chapman, asking if this is the robber.
Chapman's mind races, recalling the event, reconstructing what he saw, comparing memory to the man before him. At last, he decides the man is not the robber.
Chapman returns to the grocery store and, with his anxious son, eventually goes home.
``It was incredibly horrifying,'' he says later. ``When they brought that guy out to meet me, oh, I just didn't want to be there, especially when I'm delighted he did not shoot me.
``You know, I see this kind of thing on TV all the time and wonder what it's like,'' Chapman says. ``I certainly know now.''
And, he wants other people to know it could happen to them, too.
- Tom Holden
Sunday, Feb. 5
1:30 p.m. - Le Chambord restaurant.
During a baby shower, a soon-to-be mom named Kim begins opening gifts brought to her by female family members and friends. This will be her first child, a little girl named Madeline.
``Tear the paper carefully,'' says an experienced mother of one. ``You should use it to line the baby's drawers.''
``Which drawers?'' the beautiful blond-haired guest of honor jokingly asks. ``You know first-time mothers ask a lot of stupid questions!''
- Holly Wester
Monday, Feb. 6
2:30 p.m. - Post Office at 24th Street and Atlantic Avenue.
Fielding Tyler, director of the Life-Saving Museum of Virginia across the street, is in the post office picking up museum mail.
He is regaling postal workers and patrons about the two whales in the ocean that he and his staff had been watching all morning.
``They were feeding right off the station, about 400 yards offshore, Tyler says.
``They were circling for about four hours. ``The water is so shallow that they were turning up the mud and you could see the pattern in the water.''
Hundreds of birds also were hovering around the whales, he adds. Some birds ate so much, they ended up just sitting around on the water, too full to eat any more.
``Looks like the cold weather isn't sending the whales south this year,'' comments a patron.
``Not this winter, it hasn't!'' Tyler says.
- Mary Reid Barrow
Tuesday, Feb. 7
7:30 a.m. - North End.
A hawk sits atop a TV antenna. Its talons are grasping tight both to the antenna and to a hapless bird it has captured for breakfast.
The big hawk is ripping into its meal and feathers begin wafting to the ground. The bright yellow of a cedar waxwing's tail feathers and the shiny red of its wing tips gleam in the morning sun.
- Mary Reid Barrow
3:15 p.m. - Stop light at South Independence Boulevard and Lynnhaven Parkway.
A bumper sticker on a green Honda Accord stopped at the intersection reads:
``Have a nice day . . . unless you've made other plans.''
- Bill Reed ILLUSTRATION: Photo by L. TODD SPENCER
Nice day for a swim?
More than 150 hardy souls ran into the Atlantic Ocean for the
third-annual Polar Plunge, a fund-raiser for Special Olympics. It
was 39 degrees with winds gusting up to 24 mph on the beach at 5th
Street. In comparison, the water temperature was mild 43 degrees.
The event raised more than $22,000 for Special Olympics. Most people
ran in, got wet and ran out within seconds. But these two - Rustin
Clifford and Michall Thompson - outlasted everyone, spending several
minutes in the goosebump-inducing surf.
by CNB