THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 19, 1996 TAG: 9605170250
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Random Rambles
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 81 lines
Frank Portlock told me about the family surrey with the fringe on top and the cow he milked every morning before school. The late Anne Old told me about when Battlefield Boulevard was a dirt road and the doctor mixed his own medicines.
Wonderful stories. Wonderful memories. Spoken snapshots of the past that are truly community treasures. That's why I'll be glad to lead a round of applause for whoever at Chesapeake Parks and Recreation came up with a notion called ExtraOrdinary Stories.
Seniors are being asked to contribute to a collection of written reminiscences of such events as serving in a war, life during the Depression, a first car or even a unique relative. You can get more information about the project by calling the Senior Center at 543-9211, Ext. 620.
OK, I'm prejudiced about this stuff. I'm a history buff. I love reading or seeing or hearing how people lived in the old days from the Civil War on through World War II. I wallow in books of antique photographs like a happy porker in a puddle.
A historian who can write well, like Bruce Catton or Shelby Foote, glues my nose to the printed page. And if someone like Frank Portlock or Anne Old says, ``I remember when. . . '' I turn up my hearing aids so I won't miss a word.
Some of you may chalk it up to my geezerhood. Granted, I frequently can't recall where I last laid my car keys, but that's not why I tune into yesteryear. I like knowing where we've been so I can get a better handle on where we are and where we're going. It's been said a lot better than that. ``What's past is prologue,'' for instance, or ``Those who do not learn from the mistakes of the past are condemned to repeat them.''
You want a clue to the hate some Irish folks feel for England? Check out the 1840s when Ireland suffered killing famines and uncaring absentee landlords. And I have talked to at least a couple of black civic leaders who worry because young blacks don't know enough about the burdens of segregation their parents and grandparents carried.
And if you ever wonder why lots of older folks are skittish about debt, maybe it's because they lived through the Depression. Read about it or get them to tell you about it. It left some scars that never healed.
Letting seniors pass on without gathering their memories is erasing the past; letting it slowly fade like the ink on old postcards in the attic. That's why I applaud ExtraOrdinary Stories.
Pictures of the past particularly intrigue me. Think about the magic of a photograph. An instant in time has been captured and preserved. There it is, 10, 20, 100 years later. Robert E. Lee forever stalwart and tall. Lillian Russell eternally blonde and beautiful. Small towns before they became big cities. Dirt roads and Model Ts before there were interstates and Corvettes.
As I write this, I'm looking at a picture of me when I was 10 years old. That's 57 years ago. Boy, would I love to have no more than half of the wavy hair carefully brushed back for the picture. Of course, not every old photo is happily beheld. A friend of mine who was a retired Army colonel squirmed every time he considered a family portrait that showed him at 2 years old holding a lily in one hand.
Almost as vivid are the words of many an oldster fishing through the past for choice bits of life. Like Frank Portlock describing how a boy would stand under a tree in the yard of his elementary school blowing a bugle while the kids marched in.
And boys skinny-dipping in the Elizabeth River and diving under the water when a passenger boat came by. And going for a ride in the family's first car, a 1912 Buick. They carried a five-gallon gas can with them. No service station on every other block.
And the time he got a wagon for Christmas that his goat could pull. He couldn't wait for his parents. He brought the goat into the house, hitched him up and went out through the cellar door.
Anne Old remembered a blacksmith's shop at what is now Cedar Road and Battlefield Boulevard in Great Bridge. The blacksmith's wife made coffin linings, and she gave Anne and her playmates scraps of cloth for doll clothes. And studying the three Rs in a one-room school. There was a hill there and a well with a trough to water horses. It's Hillwell Road now.
Of course, not every interview I did with an oldster was a success. My favorite may have been the time a 105-year-old having a confused day asked me a question. ``Are you,'' she wondered, ``older than I am or younger?'' by CNB