THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 21, 1995 TAG: 9512190100
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER SMITHFIELD
LENGTH: Medium: 63 lines
In December 1945, thousands of American soldiers were returning to the States, to their first Christmas at home after years of war.
But a young man named James Chapman was experiencing his second Christmas away from home, on an island in the South Pacific.
Yet a mother's love, and a fruitcake, reached far across the United States and across the ocean to that lonely island to bring Christmas joy to her young son's life.
After the shock of being drafted in the early fall of 1944, his senior year in high school, Chapman, now 69 and mayor of Smithfield, was still just a boy, the only boy in a family of five children.
He vividly remembers traveling to neighboring Windsor to catch the bus to Richmond and then traveling to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, near Chicago.
``At that time, they were taking everybody they could find. I had just turned 18.''
He spent that first Christmas away from home at Great Lakes. And he recalls that in February 1945, he shipped out of Treasure Island, Calif., bound for the South Pacific in the last months of a war that would finally end that August.
But most of all he remembers that first Christmas in the Navy, when he was lonely, far from home.
``Spam was the name of the game,'' Chapman said, chuckling. ``The war with Japan was officially over. There wasn't a whole lot going on, just some snipers. But the one thing I remember is the Spam. We had it for breakfast, dinner and supper. It was Spam, Spam, Spam.''
The outpost's cook did the best he could, Chapman says. Once, he even made a Spam cake. ``He put raisins and pineapple in it. It was real good - if you were hungry.''
Then, just a few days before Christmas, Chapman recalls, a package from home arrived.
``I will never forget this. It was a fruitcake, this beautiful fruitcake from my mother. I sat down and shared it with all the guys. I remember cutting the slices real thin, hoping I'd have a little left over.''
There was no fruitcake left on Christmas Day.
``I remember we all got up early, played ball, sang Christmas carols. Then, about 5 o'clock, we all just kind of drifted back into our tents, and everything got real quiet. Finally, we talked about girlfriends, about what we would have been doing if we'd been home.''
Chapman recalls that he talked about his mother and his grandmother, how they were always so protective of him, the only boy. He talked about how he would probably be in church with his family.
``I'll never forget that fruitcake. And you know, I never have been able to find anybody else who bakes fruitcakes like my mother.
``And I've never eaten Spam since.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MICHAEL KESTNER
James Chapman, now the mayor of Smithfield, remembers Spam, Spam and
more Spam.
by CNB