THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 25, 1996 TAG: 9602230141
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: Long : 131 lines
Thursday, Feb. 15
6:45 p.m. - Dunwoody subdivision.
Carrying nothing but her wallet, a woman dressed in tight black jeans and a gray blazer is ready to get into her car when a mother and son across the street interrogate her from their front yard.
``And where are you headed, young lady?,'' asks the young man.
``On a date,'' she says, grinning ear to ear.
``What happened to the guy coming to the girl's house to pick her up?'' the mother questions.
``Oh, that all changed with the women's movement,'' the younger woman answers. ``Now we can get in our cars and leave if our dates stink!''
- Holly Wester
Friday, Feb. 16
4 p.m. - City Treasurer's office at 19th Street.
It's two days after the deadline for displaying new city automobile stickers, and despite the cold and the ice/snow of yet another winter storm, late decal buyers are out in droves. Their line spills down the sidewalk and along 19th Street. Some are fortunate enough to carry umbrellas. Those who aren't are covered in a mantle of white.
- Melinda Forbes
5:45 p.m. - Food Lion at Kempsville Plaza.
It's rush hour at the grocery store. On top of that, snow has already begun to fall - again.
Shoppers appear to be stocking up for another snowbound weekend. Each cashier's line snakes around in front of the next grocery aisle.
``You're making the money today, Don,'' a regular calls out to the manager, who is too busy bagging groceries to even look up from his work.
- Mark Young
Saturday, Feb. 17
9:30 a.m. - 26th Street.
While making a snow fort, a 9-year-old girl looks across the street and realizes that the people at the corner house are completing a big, fine snowman.
The girl looks up at her father and demands, ``Daddy, stop what you're doing and get started on a snowman.''
- David B. Hollingsworth
Noon. Oceanfront beach.
Snow crusts the upper beach, but low tide has left behind a wide glistening wet flat of sand down near the water.
Waves break over a sand bar offshore, then ripple in to break once more on the beach itself. A sharp northwest wind picks up the wave crests. The frothy crests appear to ``fence'' in the calm water between the beach and sandbar with spume.
Gulls, seemingly thousands of them, rest calmly on the water, between the fences of spume. Occasionally, the gulls peck at the water as though there might be some sort of a meal floating by, but for the most part, they just float. Off and on, one lifts off, only to land in the water again a little farther down the beach.
For as far as the eye can see, there are birds and almost all of them are ring-gilled gulls. No other species appears to have found this haven of sorts on a cold morning after an even colder, snowy night.
- Mary Reid Barrow
Tuesday, Feb. 20
3:40 p.m. Glenwood subdivision.
A boy and a girl, about 12 or 13 years old, approach a woman who's walking her pug next to the golf course.
``Suki! Hi Suki!'' they cry, crouching to pet the curly-tailed pooch. Suki revels in the attention.
``You used to walk her past our house everyday,'' says the boy. ``We haven't seen her for a long time.''
``Yeah, I know, but I had a baby
two months ago,'' replies the woman. ``And poor Suki, she's feeling a little put out. I can only walk her when her Daddy comes home from work. The baby is taking all of Mommy's attention and Suki is not real happy about that.''
The girl, who's stroking the appreciative Suki, makes a suggestion.
``Oh, can we have her?'' she asks. ``Is she housebroken? We really want a dog but my mom says it has to be housebroken.''
The woman laughs.
``Yes, she's housebroken, but we're not ready to give her up,'' she answers. ``But I'll keep you in mind, OK?''
- Pam Starr
3:45 p.m. - Dam Neck Road.
Because of his ball cap, a white-haired, bearded man in glasses can't prove the license plate of his blue pickup truck to be true. It reads: OL BALDY.
- Holly Wester
Thursday, Feb. 22
2:30 p.m. - The north end of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel on the Eastern Shore.
A group of residents from Chesapeake Beach, wearing white hard hats and toting cameras, walks a construction site at the water's edge on Fisherman Island where the new parallel span to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel is being built.
Huge concrete supports rise from the sand. Cranes hoist and move long steel supports. Construction workers scurry about.
It's part of a grand tour by bridge-tunnel officials to educate the residents about the project that will come to their beach sometime this summer.
``We don't want this at Chick's Beach,'' says one resident.
``I'm going to tell you the truth,'' says Paul A. Burnette Jr., director of maintenance. ``It will be there.''
``Yeah, along with the people and the big trucks,'' says another resident.
``And the noise,'' adds another.
Burnette assures them that steps have been taken to minimize the disturbance to their lives:
Actual construction on land at Chesapeake Beach will probably last about two to three months.
There will likely be about 48 hours, spread over a number of weeks, of pile driving on land.
And access across the beach, through the construction area, will be provided.
The citizens leave feeling better. They're laughing and joking. They even stop to take group pictures with bridge-tunnel officials.
- Debbie Messina ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by D. KEVIN ELLIOTT
Erecting a wall
Brooklyn Jesz, 9, shares a laugh with her Big Sister, Katherine
Stone, Tuesday night in front of the Wall of Love in the lobby of
Virginia Beach City Hall. The Wall of Love is a series of 3-foot by
3-foot metal plates that will be signed by Big Brother and Big
Sister founding members, past and present board members, and big and
little ``siblings'' It's being done to commemorate the Hampton
Roads' organization's 25th year. Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera
Oberndorf kicked off the effort to get people to sign. She was a
founder of the Big Sisters program before it merged with Big
Brothers. The complete Wall of Love will be unveiled in April at a
gala event.
by CNB