THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 25, 1996 TAG: 9605240080
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE ADDIS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 100 lines
ON A HOT Saturday afternoon, the most precious chunk of real estate in America might be 70 square feet of steamy, oozing asphalt - if it lies anywhere within easy walking distance of a beach.
It might be Virginia Beach, or Ocean View Beach in Norfolk, or Nags Head Beach in North Carolina, or Vero Beach in Florida, but the situation will not vary: Each year, more people will try to get there, and you can bet that none of them is riding the bus.
Find a remote atoll in the Pacific, where the island has two vehicles, and there will be just one legal parking spot. Both will be trying to back into it at the same time.
Thus it is in Virginia Beach, where new rules and parking venues greet the tourists this weekend. They are described in detail in the attached artist's rendering. (I personally know of one space that's not on the map, but I'm not going to tell you where it is. I might need it if friends visit.)
The parking map is complex, and artfully drawn, the product of rational minds. The places where you may rest your car, legally and cheaply, seem numerous. They might seem less so at street level.
Some streets, you will find, are composed exclusively of bus stops, fire hydrants and loading zones.
Here is as immutable a law of nature as has evolved under the rule of man: Any place you might find attractive already has been found attractive by most other humans. And all of them left the house 10 minutes before you did.
That means they are in line ahead of you now. And there are precisely as many of them as there are parking places, which means you will be left to circle the block for the rest of your natural life. Over and over, 'round and 'round, as the air temperature in the car begins to match the water temperature in the radiator. Your proud, gleaming automobile is now two tons of scorched sheet metal, a sun-glazed albatross that will never set you free.
Your adorable 3-year-old's pleas - ``Are we there yet, Daddy?'' - do not sound so cute now. Nor does your wife's helpful ``There's one over there,'' as she points to a space you've already scouted three times. You know by now that it is taken by a motorcycle, a Harley-Davidson in full dress, hidden between two Chevys.
And you know that the guy who owns the motorcycle has taken a full space just to taunt you. You, specifically. He's out there right now, relaxing at surfside, a tall, chilled drink in one hand and an ocean breeze cooling the sweat from his brow.
And he is laughing at you as you circle the molten tarmac. You believe this because you have been driven mad by the noonday sun.
In your madness you might be tempted to simply pull the car onto some lawn a couple of blocks from the beach and tell yourself, ``It'll be fine. They won't mind.''
Trust us, they mind. It will not be fine. In point of fact, the car might even be gone when you get back. The natives have had their begonias crushed by one too many sport-utility vehicles over the years, and they are not amused. They have fought back with zoned neighborhood parking privileges, and if you don't belong there, they will root you out and cast you aside like a bad dandelion.
I know your madness because it was once my own. I only defeated it by buying a home at the beach, with private parking spaces stitched so tightly into the deed that a dozen probate lawyers couldn't free them with a fistful of writs and a case of dynamite.
Those spaces are mine, all mine - or so I believed.
Most people, I have learned, view anyone who lives near a beach - even a miserable wage-slave like me - as a capitalist blood-sucker, probably a cousin of the Tsar, whose parking spaces are open to some form of Leninist liberation by the proletariat.
There's plenty of street parking nearby, but day-trippers seem to prefer the convenience of the spaces assigned to my home. (Their reasoning: ``Hey, whassa problem? You aren't using that space right now.'' My response: ``Right, buddy. And you're not using your microwave right now, either. What's your point?'')
At the end of the day, they've even been known to unreel my hose, turn on my water and wash their car. (Their reasoning: ``All that sand and salt is bad for the finish, y'know. We didn't think you'd mind.'' My response: ``Oh, no, I don't mind. And you won't mind carrying my water bill home between your molars, will ya?'')
The final arbiter in this madness is a guy who trolls the city streets in a flannel shirt and a Washington Redskins cap, with a tow truck wrapped around his ample hips. A cop with a summons book is a mere irritation, a pointer-dog to the true street hunter: It is the guy in the 'Skins cap who decides at the end of the day who has stayed angelically between the white lines and who has left his car astride a sinner's length of yellow curb.
He is the God of All Medians, and he is vengeful, and he does not work cheap. Ignore those signs and you'll learn his price for hauling your trendy little minivan to the Holy Land, which is a compound just down the block.
So study this map, learn the rules, and pay the piper. Forget finding a legal place at a meter or a curb, they don't exist. Get to the lots early, pay whatever they're asking. It's cheaper in the long run.
Then you can settle into a beach chair beside the guy with the Harley, and the two of you can share a cold one and laugh together about that candidate for sunstroke, that sorrowful madman who's still out there circling the block. ILLUSTRATION: Map and illustrations by JOHN EARLE/The
Virginian-Pilot
SOURCE: City of Virginia Beach
Research by NANCY LEWIS
KEYWORDS: PARKING VIRGINIA BEACH<` by CNB