THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 2, 1995 TAG: 9506290086
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REAL PLACES
SOURCE: BY KERRY DOUGHERTY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
FROM HIS PERCH on a wooden stool beside the cash register, Howard Travis has been watching the world whiz by since 1973.
That's the year he came into the family business, the T and T souvenir shop in Cheriton on the Eastern Shore.
Travis' view of the world is somewhat obstructed, however, by the country hams strung like Japanese lanterns in front of his butter-colored clapboard shop and the faded plastic pennants snapping in the breeze.
``You see it all here,'' Travis says, folding his arms, nodding toward the door. ``That's America out there.''
Out there is Route 13. A ribbon of rural highway running north to south, slicing through Delaware, Maryland and Virginia's Eastern Shore and through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.
For some, manning the cash register along this desolate stretch of highway would be a season in purgatory. But the ramshackle shop with its shelves stocked with cigarettes, shotglasses and sparklers allows Travis hours of solitude to contemplate human nature.
And he says some of the most curious aspects of human nature can be found in Yankees.
``I've had New Yorkers come in here and look at pecans and ask what kind of little brown eggs these are,'' he says, rolling a few fat nuts in his tan hands. ``I had one guy drive all the way back here with his pecans. He was eating them with the shell on and he said they had gone bad.
``Let's see, I've had Northerners ask where the peanut bushes are, and are there any you-pick-em peanut places,'' Travis says, shaking his head.
And then there are those hams.
``I have to just about cook them for 'em,'' Travis says. ``Northerners have no idea what to do with a good Virginia ham.''
``For New Yorkers, I tell them it's a little like proscuitto. Then they understand.''
But it's not just Yankees providing comic relief up here on the Eastern Shore.
Last month a confused Portsmouth man stopped in and asked Travis how far it was to Newport News.
``Imagine, it cost him $20 for a wrong turn somewhere,'' says Travis, referring to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel toll. ``He had no idea where he was.''
And come June, Travis is bothered by another kind of regular: news reporters.
``Every year about this time some television reporter comes up here and takes pictures of all the fireworks, talks to me, and then they go back and run something about how dangerous they all are,'' Travis says, with resignation. ``You going to do that?''
No, sir.
Fireworks occupy a good portion of the back of Travis' shop, and account for a healthy part of his sales. They are all legal in Northampton County. Travel to other parts of the state with them, however, and they could get you a night in the pokey.
There was a time when Travis trafficked in illegal fireworks, he admits. But no more.
``It isn't worth it,'' he says. ``But as a businessman, you've got to sell them if the stand above you or below you (on the highway) is selling them.
``But I bought both of those shops, so everything we're selling around here is legal now.''
Travis' wife manages one of those shops. They've hired help to run the other. Neither of the Travis' two grown children has gone into the family business.
Travis says customers come in and try to persuade him to reach under the counter for bottle rockets and M80s - quarter sticks of dynamite that were popular on the black market about 20 years ago.
``I don't have them,'' he says. ``Honest.''
So Travis just points them to the sparklers, fountains, smoke bombs, snakes and lady fingers in their colorful wrappings.
``When people come in here asking for illegal stuff I tell them they're better off buying some of these and staying out of the emergency room on the Fourth of July,'' he says.
The last week of June is usually one of Travis' busiest, as Northerners and Southerners alike stock up on Fourth of July supplies. This year is no exception.
Travis says his little business boomed throughout the gas crisis of the 1970s and weathered several recessions.
Selling cheap cigarettes helps. And Travis says souvenirs are recession-proof.
``Most Americans feel their two-week summer vacation is their God-given right,'' he reckons. ``Nobody is going to take that away from them.
``And they've got to bring back a little something from their trip,'' he says, smiling. ``That's what I'm here for.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photos
MOTOYA NAKAMURA/Staff
Howard Travis has worked at the T and T souvenir shop for more than
20 years. Fireworks, below, are one of the shop's staples that lure
travelers off U.S. 13.
by CNB