THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 6, 1995 TAG: 9507040124
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: John Pruitt
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
A few years back, when Harry Stapleton was being transferred from the Suffolk office to the Norfolk office of The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star, no one had any doubt about where his farewell party had to be held.
If it had been someone else, it might have meant reserving a room, or at least several tables, at a restaurant of fancier choices. It would have been an appropriately sedate setting for saying goodbye, at least.
Not this time. It was Harry's party, and we were going to do it his way. So off to The Confectionery on West Washington Street we marched, even if some of us were a little more accustomed to ritzier settings, even if we didn't find the country background music from the jukebox all that appealing.
That tells a lot about Harry Edward Stapleton, who died June 22, after a battle with cancer. He retired several years ago.
It bespeaks simplicity and loyalty. And it says that Harry's manner drew people to him - even to The Confectionery which, despite its devoted clientel, was as foreign to the Ghent-attracted yuppie group populating this newspaper staff at the time as quiche to a sweaty ironworker.
Harry loved simplicity. A hot dog and a beer were about as fancy as he wanted to get, and he said The Confectionery had great hot dogs and cold beer. That was good enough for him, and most of us just took his word.
When that restaurant burned down, Harry transferred to the M&M, over on Pinner Street. When he got home in Suffolk at lunchtime or in time for an evening or weekend beer, he took his place there.
He never talked about loyalty to these places, but he was devoted. He knew the regulars, and they knew him.
After learning of Harry's critical illness, and particularly after hearing of his death, I turned back the pages of memories and recalled several incidents:
When the newspaper moved into its new quarters last year, I came across a photograph dating to the years when a farmers market was conducted under the downtown overpass.
Harry liked agriculture and covered it for years. He was one of the few laymen I ever met who knew the difference between quota and surplus peanuts - and the only journalist I ever knew who cared.
For years, a picture by staff photographer David Hollingsworth had been taped over Harry's desk. It showed a toothless man gumming a tomato, its juice momentarily defying gravity. The man's grin told you it surely was the best fruit he'd ever tasted.
But it was Harry's caption that brought so many smiles through the years: ``Man Eating Tomato.''
Not long after Harry won $100,000 in one of the Virginia lottery games, I happened on him and his wife, Ruth, in the grocery store.
I wondered aloud what he'd been doing with all that money, and Ruth began a litany of how he'd given this much to this one, that much to the other. You'd think he was a millionaire, the way he acted, she said.
And what did Harry have to say about all this? Well, it certainly hadn't changed him. And besides, Ruth was doing all the talking, just the way it had always been.
Several other times, I encountered Harry buying lottery tickets. As he said: hey, lightning can strike the same place twice . . .
Some years back, when son Todd was small and my hair hadn't lost its color to age and heredity, we drove by the office and saw Harry outside, puffing on a cigarette. I waved, and we went on.
Down the road a bit, Todd still had Harry on his mind. ``How long are you going to work at the newspaper?'' he asked. I didn't know, I said. Why?
``Well,'' he asked, ``will you work there as long as that gray-headed man?''
And I said time would tell. by CNB