THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, April 13, 1995 TAG: 9504130398
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
To receive the first Outstanding Achievement Award last night, the Friends of the Old Dominion University Library plucked from the ODU faculty an eminent professor emeritus, Alf Mapp Jr., who wrote his first manuscript at age 5.
Since that first effort, he has written nine books, co-authored five and done 800 articles.
That doesn't count his career with the Portsmouth Star as editorial chief and The Virginian-Pilot as columnist in ``The Pilot House.''
Most recently Mapp has written a two-volume, prize-winning biography of Thomas Jefferson.
Venues as diverse as Chinese universities and, last week, Connie Chung on CBS' ``Eye to Eye'' have invited Mapp to talk about Jefferson.
CBS used less than two minutes of Mapp's critique of ``Jefferson in Paris, '' an error-ridden and highly romanticized new movie about Jefferson's sojourn in France as American ambassador.
Mapp, who retired three years ago from ODU to write full time, is focused on a project inspired by a question raised during 23 interviews across the country after the publication of his books on Jefferson:
Why do you think there was so much creativity during the founding of the United States?
``That convinced me there was a lot of interest in the question, and it interested me, anyway,'' he said Wednesday in one more interview.
The work will be both anecdotal, as he draws on the makeups and adventures of various founders, and analytical as he shows how each represented the spirit of the times. He has developed a list of 17 characteristics they had in common.
``Perhaps it will be worthwhile for us in our times to explore some of the things that produced creativity then,'' he said.
As a child, Mapp took part in lively exchanges at the dinner table with his father, superintendent of schools in Portsmouth, and his mother, an elementary school teacher.
His first book, ``The Virginia Experiment,'' a history of Colonial Virginia, was published in 1957 before he graduated from the College of William and Mary. It has never gone out of print. He took courses as well at Old Dominion.
Emboldened by The New York Times' acceptance of one of his articles, Mapp left The Virginian-Pilot to free-lance.
In 1961, he applied to ODU. The English and history departments sought him, and, obligingly, he taught in both.
He roamed as well, now and then, to lecture in the pastures of the humanities department, and he ventured one semester into the rarefied heights of the philosophy department.
``Mapp,'' a colleague said, ``is all over the map.''
That manuscript that he produced at age 5?
He depicted a parade of insects in which each one had a role that sprang from its natural habits.
The child's creativity flowered in the work of the man. ILLUSTRATION: Alf Mapp Jr., ODU professor emeritus, has written nine books and
done about 800 articles.
KEYWORDS: INTERVIEW by CNB