THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 8, 1995 TAG: 9510060165
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: By Susie Stoughton
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
First of all, I tried to explain to Don Cox, his source was none too reliable.
Alvin Harris, I'm sure, does a bang-up job of treating tummy aches, healing all sorts of hurts and curing whatever ails you. But when it comes to counting noses on Main Street of his hometown, he'd likely multiply by four the number of eyelets on each visitor's shoes.
Trusting Harris to estimate the crowd at Franklin's Fall Festival last weekend is about like asking the Pillsbury Dough Boy what's the best cookie.
Harris and Cox would probably tie for first place as the area's ``best cheerleader.'' Harris toots the town's horn loudly every chance he gets, while Cox promotes the community quietly in the background.
Cox, this year's Fall Festival chairman, had run into his friend as the festival was winding down.
How many people had meandered up and down Main Street and Second Avenue - a pedestrian mall for a day, perusing arts and crafts displays, licking up funnel cakes and cotton candy, watching grandsons do karate and just having fun?
``In excess of 15,000,'' the good doctor told him.
``I would agree with him this time,'' said Cox, vice president of Franklin Building Materials and a seasoned pro at throwing parties.
And quite an event it was.
We had driven past countless fields of cut-over corn to the area we know as the ``mecca of small-town friendliness.'' Why, even some teenagers were having fun!
We munched on the Kiwanis Club's barbecue, sitting on a curb with Robert and Lane Meredith, friends we hadn't seen for a long time.
We bought an entry in the Chamber of Commerce's ``Lucky Ducky River Race'' from Nancy Brown, Ann Carson and Teresa Beale. They didn't exactly promise our ducks would win, but they guaranteed they'd make a splash.
We took home an iris plant that Janet Hudgins promised would bloom before our day lilies and a clump of corkscrew willow that Jo Ann Gatten assured me would look great just plopped into a vase. We chatted with other gardening friends, then walked to the other end of Main Street, where we watched Sandy Lupton's smiling 4-year-old son, Gray, ride a pony.
Everywhere, folks were having fun. But Cox refuses to take all the credit.
Give it instead to people like Paul Kaplan, he said. Kaplan, the Police Department's D.A.R.E. officer and vice chairman of the festival, and his wife, Joyce, have helped for a number of years.
Or thank Ann Williams, who lined up the food vendors. Many Fall Festival committee members have done their jobs for years. They deserve the credit, Cox said.
But some were newcomers, like Hoyle Greene, who organized a tremendous display of police, fire and rescue equipment.
By late afternoon, we were weary and stopped for a soft drink at the Black Achievers booth. We'd be back soon, we promised friends we hadn't seen in a while. All day, we had repeated that promise.
And recently, there was another promise.
Two weeks ago, I told of visiting in Courtland with Ed Manry, who gave me a copy of a story about himself but made me swear not to read it before writing my own.
It took considerable willpower not to peek.
Manry, you may remember, just observed his first birthday of the second century of his life. He had hoped to go fishing to celebrate. Last week, his niece, Katherine Harville, said he had managed to dip his pole into a pond that day. But the next, he and a friend slipped away to one of the Suffolk lakes for a bigger outing.
I had not understood why her uncle wouldn't let me read the other story, written by Pat Thompson in the Children's Home Society newsletter.
Her story partially helped explain Manry's connection with that statewide agency. He loved children and along with the rest of the family in the big old farm house, he had helped raise an orphaned niece and nephew years ago.
A telling anecdote, but I had promised the feisty centenarian, just as I've promised friends in Franklin to keep in touch.
And after all, those promises should be made for keeping. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by SUSIE STOUGHTON
Chairman Don Cox directs festival activites by cellular phone.
by CNB