THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 19, 1995 TAG: 9511180266
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 255 lines
This letter is in response to the letter in the Currents dated Oct. 22 by Frank Harte.
I've read in the Currents about the lighthouse prism vs. the carousel for the Children's Museum. I am a 17-year-old who has volunteered at the Children's Museum for four years. The museum is meant to teach kids while they have fun.
All a carousel does is go around in circles. There may be principles on how it works but all the kids would like to do is ride it. It doesn't teach them anything.
A lighthouse prism would show the children what was used so that ships wouldn't crash into the rocks at night. The lighthouse prism may be an antique that you can't touch, but you can't touch the trains that are in Mike's Trainland either, and kids still enjoy them.
Someone wrote last week that ``. . . maybe the City Council needs to spend a few days with children of all ages to see what they like to do with their time.'' I think that is a good idea, too. From what I've seen, children enjoy doing things where they can move around and play, not just sit there. My friends and I, who are all teenagers, also enjoy going to the museum and would rather have the lighthouse prism.
I've also noticed that, not only children enjoy the museum, but so do the adults who take them there. It's their chance to act like a kid again and have some fun. To them a carousel would just be a waste of time. They could always go to an amusement park to ride a carousel. You can't learn from a carousel, but you can learn from a lighthouse prism, which has already been donated to the museum.
Gabrielle M. Charbonneau
Woodbaugh Drive
Chesapeake
Nov. 2, 1995 Make room for both
Should a carousel or a triangular prism take stage front in the Virginia Children's Museum atrium? The carousel would be an active, alive feature. However, the carousel location on the second floor would be incompatible with the hands-on-science laboratories proposed for the museum's second floor.
Secondly, the street level view of the carousel would be a ``horse's feet first'' partial view.
What to do? As a former city/urban renewal planner I suggest we use the old management class exercise trick of . . . looking outside of the four dots to complete the box!
1.) Install the prism to shine forth ``scientifically'' from the atrium.
2.) Remove the existing ``McDonald's playground'' thing from its Middle Street mall location and replace it with the carousel in an enclosed 1 1/2-story glass structure. At night, as well as during its daytime use, the lighted slowly turning carousel would bring this section of High Street to life, providing the viewer with a close-up eye-level vista!
Miles ``John'' Winters
Ward Terrace
Nov. 7, 1995 Move Norcom's circle
Well, citizens of Portsmouth, the dream is finally coming to life. The building of the new I.C. Norcom High School has finally started to materialize. I was at the recent ground-breaking ceremony and I like what Bernard Griffin said about ``. . . this being neither a black school or a white school. It's a once all black school being built on the site of a once all white school which makes it an integrated school.''
I am reaching out now to David Sanford and the Norcom Alumni Association to have the circle that is located in the main corridor of Norcom to be upraised and placed in the new school. That circle is a tradition at Norcom. When I was a student at Norcom, no one was allowed to step in that circle, whether it be a student, the principal, the staff or an outsider.
Also, I would like to commend the members of the American Legion Post 190 for their outstanding support of Shea Terrace Elementary School. They are Shea Terrace's Partners in Education and they are striving to be role models for these children. My hat goes off to William Dozer and Carl Lewis, who are truly interested in our youth of tomorrow.
DeBorah Sweatt
Yorktown Avenue
Nov. 14, 1995 Thanks, Mary Burroughs
This letter is written in honor of a dear friend, teacher and role model, Mary E. Burroughs.
Mrs. Burroughs taught in the Portsmouth Public Schools for more than 40 years and we were fortunate to have her as our first grade teacher in 1957. Mrs. Burroughs was truly a teacher ahead of her time. Using teaching techniques that are popular now . . . then, Mrs. Burroughs never held any of us back. She always encouraged us to do our best and her sweet smile and calm voice took care of the discipline in her classroom. She was truly a role model - a teacher who modeled the profession in her dress, conversation and overall demeanor. She had a way of making us all feel that we were her favorites.
Through the years, Mrs. Burroughs kept track of our careers. We are fortunate that she had the privilege of meeting and encouraging our children. We are also fortunate that in 1983 (Currents, Dec. 26-27, 1983) that we were able to surprise her at a luncheon given in her honor. She was later honored by the Portsmouth Delicados for being an outstanding teacher.
On Oct. 10, 1995, Mrs. Burroughs was called to eternal rest. We had visited her two days earlier. At her services we reminisced as we saw and spoke with retired teachers, who like Mrs. Burroughs trailblazed at Chestnut Street, Green Street, George Peabody, and Riddick-Weaver elementary schools during the '50s and '60s. These teachers were phenomenal. Our hats go off to them, also.
As a final tribute, we would just like to say thank you to Mrs. Burroughs. We loved her very much. Had it not been for her training, there may not have been a director of accounting, director of rehabilitation, enterprise zone manager, and a personnel director.
Doretha Harris-Brooks
Wendy Horton Hunter
Miriam Jackson Jiggets
Talitha Y. Talley Bring shopping downtown
I think it would be nice to either put a Value City department store or a Dollar General in the Woolworth building in downtown Portsmouth.
We already have enough art centers, antique stores and restaurants downtown. We need some place where people can shop. There are plenty of senior citizens who would love a place like that, especially the ones who live downtown and don't drive.
Bring something downtown that will bring decaying downtown alive.
There's not a decent place downtown to go to to buy anything.
Laverne Jones
Princeton Place
Nov. 14, 1995 Yes to merry-go-round
Ida Kay Jordan expressed John Winters' idea about the proposed merry-go-round in the Sunday, Nov. 12 Currents.
I've mentioned this to friends on numerous occasions, especially after visiting Hampton.
Portsmouth needs the merry-go-round as a singular attraction, for young and old. How nice it would be to be able to ride it without entering the museum.
We could also take a look at the sign Hampton has at the mall by the merry-go-round and space center. It has a map and directory for the local shops and restaurants. Visitors and residents, alike, could be assisted in learning what downtown Portsmouth has to offer and directions to get there. This is not a costly item and one that would benefit many.
Maybe our city fathers will take a drive and see how nice an attraction Hampton has and provide Portsmouth with an additional attraction.
Mary E. Micklos
Replica Lane
Nov. 11, 1995 Sick in Washington Park
Striving for a life of opportunity or poor health: this passage of concern confirms that the health status of residents here in Washington Park, especially our youth, is continually deteriorating. The imposition which this entire lead situation has placed on our community has no doubt proven to be a very frightening and costly experience.
We certainly appreciate our city's numerous unsuccessful and costly attempts to clean up the lead here in our community; however, over the past 20 years of effortless clean-ups, why not expend that same spending toward ensuring our community a bona fide way out - safetywise.
It was very startling to see how many kids in Washington Park are constantly experiencing the same life- and health-threatening problems. Hundreds of parents are concerned about their kids here. The impact and foil physically and mentally, both short- and long-term exposure have given leeway for us, once again, to seek help. After speaking with several health officials from school, local health centers and people or the regard to the health of one being exposed to lead, whether low or high levels have inspired us to make aware once again of the overall effect this lead is having on our people.
The majority of kids in Washington Park suffer with constipation, fatigue, headaches, irritability, anemia, respiratory infections, instability, various concurrent sickness, low IQ scores and some illnesses that are unexplainable by their attending physicians.
True, the illnesses could be coincidental of any sick individual in general; however, at the same time, those symptoms are a constant trend with our kids here in Washington Park. How are our kids supposed to function normally in school or anywhere else in society? A rhetorical question, I suppose.
Our kids go to school from day to day sick, hurting, in physical and mental pain on account that our city has and continues to let them suffer with no remorse.
Please help give our kids what all doctors ask ourselves as parents to do . equal chance. Don't start them off wrong . . . and then put the blame on us later.
Cheryl Artis
Green Street
Oct. 25, 1995 No credit at lunch
My daughter is an eighth-grader at W.E. Waters Middle School. When I came home from work Oct. 25, she informed me that she had lost her lunch money and when lunchtime came, she asked the cafeteria ladies if she could charge her lunch only to be told, no, with no explanation.
My daughter doesn't owe any money to this school nor has she made it a habit to charge her lunch. I find this to be a form of child neglect. For all the children who do owe money or have a habit of losing their lunch money, the parents should be contacted so the problem can be solved.
Let's not make the children go hungry all day as punishment. I will bet that not all the lunches were sold that day and that food got thrown away and yet I know of one child who went without.
Kimberly D. Wyatt
Jacquelyn Drive
Oct. 26, 1995 Too much interference
In response to Herbert R. Snelling's letter of Oct. 15, I feel I must finally speak up and defend the police officers of Portsmouth.
What Mr. Snelling doesn't realize, as well as most of the community, is that the so-called indifference and negative attitude of the Police Department is not what he makes it out to be. The real problem with our Police Department is that it is stretched about as thin as it possibly can be. This is due directly to the interference of the City Finance Department.
Due to reasons beyond their control, or understanding, the city government, including the City Council and city manager, have decided that in response to the recent lawsuit brought against the city by the majority of the Police Department concerning overtime pay, it is now mandatory that any officer who should accumulate hours beyond the number specified in a given pay period is required to take those hours off (as in take time off). As a result of this requirement, on most days, evenings or nights, the average shift is at least two men short, sometimes more. This means that at least two areas of the city are not covered.
The direct result is plain and simple - there are not enough officers on duty to adequately patrol and protect our city. The officers that are on duty either do not have the hours accumulated to take, or, as is most often the case, can't take their time because there are already too many officers off.
The officers that are on duty are so busy that it is absolutely impossible to answer calls for assistance in a timely manner. Also, the officers who ultimately cannot take their overtime off wind up losing it all. Now, how's that for a thank you for a job well done? The city of Portsmouth absolutely refuses to pay the police overtime.
What I suggest to Mr. Snelling to help the Police Department as well as the community is to help the Police Department to get the city government to stop trying to run the department. That's what the police chief is for. Secondly, Mr. Snelling should fill out a ride-along form and patrol with an officer one evening. What an eye-opening experience! I know, I have done it. Maybe then he would see for himself how dedicated these people must be to their jobs.
Just because a police car sits outside of a house in a neighborhood, it doesn't always keep those who do not belong there out, especially when the officer who resides in that house is made to take the time off resulting in the shortage of manpower. This directly affects the response time to a call for assistance, as well as an increase in the number of crimes that are committed or unsolved. There is an increase statistically in the number of victims while more criminals go unpunished. This is all due to a city government that has not only proven it cannot operate on its own and succeed, but must interfere with a department that worked much better in the past when the chief was allowed to do as he saw fit without the worry of retaliation or retribution from those within his own department or from those above him.
Susan Burkett
Portsmouth
Oct. 18, 1995 by CNB