THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 9, 1996 TAG: 9602080153
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Over Easy
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines
At a few minutes past noon, a week ago last Friday, my cousins Charline and Bebe arrived at Norfolk International Airport on a plane from Bangor, which was towing behind it a very large chunk of northern New England winter weather.
Last Saturday evening at 5:50, they left on another plane, one of the few to get out of Hampton Roads that day, on the first leg of their return trip. They promised me they were taking their ice, snow, sleet and low temperatures with them.
They lied.
And gloated about it.
``You should have seen the beautiful view we had of New York when we took off from Newark,'' Bebe, the younger of the two cousins jabbered when she called me at 10:30 that evening to let me know they had arrived safely.
``What do you mean beautiful views?'' I asked. ``You were supposed to tow this stuff out of here. Take it back to Bangor where it belongs, where they know what to do with it. What happened?''
She put her hand over the phone. Even so, I could hear her mother in the background. ``Tell her we did take the bad weather, but the pilot cut it loose as soon as we got over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and the north winds must have pushed it back in,'' Charline said.
``I heard that!'' I yelled. ``Good try, but I'm not buying it. I don't think you ever had any intentions of taking it with you.''
``Shoah we did,'' Bebe said, lapsing into her infrequently used Down East accent. ``It's just that the pilot wouldn't cooperate.''
``And how was the weather when you got to Bangor?'' I asked, shall we say icily?
``Clear as a bell,'' she gloated. ``No snow and 2 above.'' Just then Charlie the Lhasa came in from the yard.
``There was no snow because you left that here, too,'' I told her as I watched a growing puddle of melting white stuff form beneath my four-footed dust mop.
``The pilot said they were just a few flurries, nothing to worry about,'' she assured me.
At 9 the next morning, I called them back. Charline answered.
``You know those flurries Bebe said you left behind?'' I snarled.
``There's a solid 6 inches of them on my back porch, and they're still coming down.''
``Guess we're lucky,'' she said, her voice even huskier than the night before. ``The sun's shining here.''
``I don't want to hear it,'' I snapped. ``I've lived here for nearly 40 years, and I can never remember seven days out of eight without sunshine.''
It was like we were kids again. We're cousins, but our relationship is more like that of sisters. She's the big one, I'm the little one. She gets to tell me what to do. I get to ask her to fix everything for me.
The relationship has matured somewhat over the years. I sometimes get to tell her what to do (she doesn't usually do it, but I get to tell her anyway). She sometimes asks me to help her fix things. (I'm not as good at fixing anything as she is, but it's nice to be asked.)
The reason for their unusual winter visit to Virginia Beach was to help me celebrate a birthday I was desperately trying to forget. Bill and my mother (a devious pair of co-conspirators if there ever was one) had other ideas. By the time they got done with their planning, more than a dozen out-of-town relatives had descended on town to help with the celebration.
The party was on as miserable and rainy a January Saturday as Hampton Roads has ever known.
The next morning, the sky was blue, the sun was gold and the waters of the bay sparkled as we gathered at a Shore Drive hotel with a half dozen out-of-town cousins for a leisurely brunch.
``Welcome to winter, Virginia Beach-style,'' I gloated to Bebe.
It was the wrong thing to do. By evening, the sun had disappeared, the imported front had moved back in and parked for the week.
As I write this on Sunday afternoon, the sun has finally reappeared in Virginia Beach, twinkling away from a million ice crystals and the now-8 inches of snow are doing hundreds of dollars of damage to the 22 years of landscaping that surrounds our house.
Back in Bangor, Charline and Bebe are basking in snow-free sunshine in the superheated, radiator generated air of their 100-year-old house with its floor-to-ceiling south-facing windows and its blank wall to the north. Falling temperatures are predicted for here. Falling snow is in the forecast for there.
By tomorrow, there probably won't be much difference between the two cities. ``We're thinking of making a winter trip to Virginia Beach an annual affair,'' Bebe told me last night.
Like any big sister, the woman always did enjoy driving me crazy. by CNB