THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 5, 1995 TAG: 9503030149
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Susie Stoughton
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Holding on to history can be a headache, as folks over in Branchville can tell you.
Some, like Richard Dickerson, say it's downright annoying.
Dickerson is one of several residents of what may be the tiniest town around who have run afoul of the law in the big city for not displaying a town decal.
Metropolitan cops just don't understand how things are done in the Southampton County hamlet.
Dickerson's pickup has a decal - just like the other 75 or so vehicles in town. But instead of affixing a sticker on their windshields, Branchville drivers display a tin tag with their license plates.
Others from Branchville have been stopped by cops in Hampton Roads. Some have been able to explain on the spot.
``Still, it's embarrassing,'' said Mayor Arthur B. Harris Jr., who works at Union Camp Corp. in Franklin.
He rarely strays far from his rural roots, maybe going as far as Suffolk to visit his daughter's family. But he's concerned about his neighbors.
``I've been hearing of more and more people being stopped,'' he said. Police could help by looking in more than one place for stickers, he said.
All South Hampton Roads localities have the same color decal and due date to make it easier for cops to spot expired stickers.
Southampton County treasurer David Britt put it to the town fathers - and mothers - this way: Get on the band wagon, or you could end up on the paddy wagon. Town council members - who have about 10 percent of the town's registered vehicles - pondered the problem and decided to keep on doing things the way they'd always done them. They went along with the due date and color for the decal that sticks onto their tin tag much like the decal on a license plate.
Harris, who has a 1939 version of the tag for the year he was born, said, ``I know it goes back further. It's something we've been doing for God knows how long.''
Besides, they felt it was too much trouble for some of the town's elderly residents to scrape the decals off a windshield and put on a new one.
But Dickerson knows the troubles that come with tradition. He had parked in Norfolk, and a cop left a ticket on his windshield where he thought a sticker ought to be. Dickerson, who farms in Branchville about an hour-and-a-half's trek from Norfolk, drove back twice to clear his name.
``I told them I was from Branchville,'' he said. ``And they said, `Where's that?' Then I had to go get my receipt to show them I had paid my tax.''
He doesn't blame the police, he said.
``The police are attuned to looking on the windshield,'' he said. ``So if they see one `sans sticker,' naturally they are going to stop it.''
``The town council is ossified in this case,'' he said. ``They say it's always been done that way. But it's time for Branchville to change. Heck, we're getting water and sewers. We're moving up in the world.''
The other Southampton County towns use windshield stickers, as does Windsor in Isle of Wight. Only Branchville and Smithfield still have tags.
The town council hopes they can keep the tags, Harris said.
``If it's something we can live with, we would like to stay where we are,'' he said. ``We're just a little bit different. Well, maybe we're dinosaurs.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MICHAEL KESTNER
Mayor Arthur Harris shows his town's version of a city sticker - a
tin tag displayed with their license plates.
by CNB