THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 9, 1996 TAG: 9606090039
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 68 lines
It was a Harborfest homecoming for a guy who never really left.
Scores of festival-goers kept Frank Lapoli's arm limber Saturday. They stopped by to shake his hand and wish him well after a year of recovery from the burns he suffered in an opening-day accident at last year's Harborfest.
``Normally, I bounce around Harborfest like a butterfly on Saturday,'' Lapoli said.
But this year he was staying by his booth, My Dad's, knowing a lot of people were coming by to see him.
A few of his closer friends are even joshing him a little now, and he can appreciate the humor. ``Some of them ask me when the fireworks are going to be,'' he said.
It was no laughing matter last year when a propane tank failed, destroying Lapoli's tent and sending him to the Burn Trauma Unit at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital with second-degree burns over 40 percent of his body.
When a friend asked him what he had for lunch Friday, Lapoli responded: ``This year I had some red beans and rice. Last year at this time, I was on my second bottle of glucose.''
Lapoli, who describes himself as ``40ish,'' is back at the job he's been doing for years, serving up Italian sausages, fresh-squeezed lemonade, and bread pudding, among other treats.
He and his crew have a great spot, a corner on the Nauticus food court, facing the heart of Town Point Park. They've been busy, with Lapoli doing his share of stirring rice, spilling soup and making customers feel welcome.
But it does get a little too hot for him at times. He'll occasionally grab a small fistful of ice and massage his still-scarred arms and hands, luxuriating in the frigid sensation the ice brings.
``I play dodge ball with the sun,'' Lapoli said as he sought the shady safety of a tree near his booth Saturday afternoon. ``If I stay out too long, I get that tingly feeling like when your arm falls asleep.''
He also wears the strongest sun-block he can find.
Still, things are a lot better for him this year than last.
On Friday, 40 minutes before the festival's noontime opening, Lapoli found himself walking past the spot in the park where the fire occurred, a year ago to the moment.
``I just kind of thought about the whole thing and realized how wonderful it was to be thinking about it and not doing it,'' Lapoli said Saturday.
He can't stand still for more than a few moments without someone stopping by to say hello. Often, they are total strangers. The attention is great and the well-wishers appreciated, Lapoli said, although he sometimes wishes he could put it all behind him. But he knows neither he nor any of his friends will forget that day.
And, in some respects, he's glad for that.
``I'll always be a reminder that this can happen to anybody. Even in their own back yard,'' Lapoli said. ``We are much, much, much more careful with everything.''
In tribute to all the help he received from folks over the past year, Lapoli plans to donate some of the proceeds from his booth to the burn unit at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters.
``I was pretty severe. But as bad as I was feeling, there was this little guy in there - he was about 4 - and he had spilled boiling water all over his chest,'' Lapoli said. ``He was worse. And there were other kids, too. I was lucky.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MIKE HEFFNER/The Virginian-Pilot
From his prime spot near Nauticus on Saturday, Frank Lapoli sells
sausages, lemonade and other treats. Last year, a propane tank
failed and sent him to the hospital with second-degree burns. This
year, between sales, he was busy greeting well-wishers. by CNB