THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 24, 1996 TAG: 9603220269
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: Medium: 92 lines
When traffic slowed down on busy Sandbridge Road in late afternoon in summer, locals knew it was Pappy McClanan heading home.
``He never drove over 25 miles an hour,'' said Louis Cullipher with a chuckle.
Everybody down in old Princess Anne knew McClanan's tan and brown pickup truck with the ``Pappy'' license plates, he said. Cullipher, director of the Department of Agriculture, was reminiscing fondly about Walter Fleetwood McClanan who passed away last week at 91.
On those summer days, Pappy, as he was known fondly by almost everyone but his contemporaries (They called him ``Fleet.''), would be driving home from Baybreeze Farms. He was heading for his home on McClanan Lane, named after him. Baybreeze is a fresh fruit and vegetable stand at Sandbridge and Newbridge roads owned by his grandson Steve Barnes. Long after Pappy could get around only on a walker, he was still driving that truck to run errands for Barnes, to eat and chew the fat at Margie and Ray's Grocery, to visit with nearby farmer John Cromwell or just to watch the world go by up at the Baybreeze Farms stand.
The pickup truck with the blue-eyed gentleman with his leathery, craggy face and farmer's tan sitting in the front, his walker back in the truck bed, was a familiar sight to folks who shopped at the stand. They may not have known who Pappy was but they were accustomed to his presence in the parking lot.
``He always kept me company,'' said Pam Vanostrand, who has worked at the stand for more than a decade. ``He was there every day. I considered him a grandfather.''
Pappy would park his truck under the shade of a big walnut tree out in the corner of the parking lot where he could catch the breeze from all directions. ``Plus,'' Vanostrand said, ``he could see everything that was going on.''
Pappy liked to know what was going on over at Margie and Ray's Grocery, too. He ate lunch there most every day for 30 years, Ray Blanton said.
``We had a special chair for him,'' Blanton went on. ``It was a soft chair that said `Pappy.' We sat it behind the counter where he could sit and see everybody when they came in.
``Pappy,'' Blanton added, ``he was just a fine person.''
Folks will miss Pappy's old familiar face with its ever-present smile, but they will miss so much more, too, noted Cromwell. Pappy was one of the last of his breed, a lifetime farmer in old Princess Anne.
``He went by the old rhythms,'' Cromwell said. ``He had farmed with a mule, so to speak.''
Cromwell and ``Pap,'' as he called him, liked a cultivated field, something that's not seen much these days. Now weeds are controlled by chemicals rather than with a plow.
``Pappy always liked a clean field,'' Cromwell said.
There was many a day when Pappy would show up and park under a big oak tree on the farm where Cromwell was working and relive the days when he was out tending the land. Cromwell would take Pappy with him when he went shopping and seek his advice about purchasing equipment.
``Come on, Pap, I got to run to the Napa Store and we'd put a five-gallon bucket in the truck so he could step out on it,'' Cromwell said. ``We rode many a mile and bought a lot of equipment in our time.
``Pappy was a gentleman,'' he went on.``They don't make men like that any more.'
P.S. FLIGHT OF FANCY, a slide program on butterflies and butterfly gardening, are the topics at the Hampton Roads Chapter of the Virginia Native Plant Society meeting at 3 p.m. today at the Central Library. Joyce Russell of Kilmarnock, who writes a nature column for the Rappahannock Record, will speak. The public is invited.
THE PINE TREE SEEDLINGS that your third-graders are bringing home from school these days are being distributed by the Virginia Beach Council of Garden Clubs. The council hopes you'll plant the trees over spring break in honor of Arbor Day coming up next month.
THE FIRST BABY EAGLE of the year has been born at Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, reports refuge volunteer Reese Lukei. Lukei knows at least one eaglet is in the nest because of the female's feeding behavior, but he won't know if there is another until the youngsters are big enough to lift their heads above the nest. This is the third year that eagles have nested at the refuge after an absence of more than 30 years. MEMO: What unusual nature have you seen this week? And what do you know about
Tidewater traditions and lore? Call me on INFOLINE, 640-5555. Enter
category 2290. Or, send a computer message to my Internet address:
mbarrow(AT)infi.net. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Everybody down in old Princess Anne knew Walter Fleetwood McClanan's
tan and brown pickup truck with the ``Pappy'' license plates.
McClanan, known as Pappy or Fleet by his friends, was a lifetime
farmer in Princess Anne, who died last week at 91.
by CNB