THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 27, 1996 TAG: 9607270001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A13 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Kerry Dougherty
LENGTH: 74 lines
Eat your own cooking long enough and you come to believe you're a lousy cook. It takes a stranger - or an old friend - coming to your kitchen to point out how good your food is and how pleasant the place where you cooked it.
It's the same way with the place you live. It's easy to grouse about Hampton Roads, to list the things wrong with this little corner of Virginia and overlook the things right with it. You've heard it as many times as I: no professional sports, no public transportation, too much humidity. Supposedly a Hampton Roads intellectual is someone who watches Charles Grodin instead of Oprah.
We all read the sorry news this week that salaries here are about 88 percent of the national average - and dropping.
We know that big businesses routinely pass us by for the greener pastures of Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham. No one is sure why. An economic development type who visited the newspaper this week posed a rhetorical question to the editorial board: Why, he asked, did Richmond get Pittston (coal company) and Norfolk got PETA?
You listen to this stuff long enough and pretty soon all you can see are potholes and problems.
But my eyes were opened to the beauty and even civility of Hampton Roads when an old friend of mine visited two weeks ago.
Twelve years ago we were roommates in Dublin, Ireland: two journalists sharing a quaint house in the lovely rolling hills outside Dublin. In 1984 I came back to the States. We vowed to write, phone, attend each others' weddings (if they ever happened) and make as many transatlantic visits as were humanly possible.
Like most relationships, our friendship didn't progress the way we had planned. The letters came furiously at first, then dwindled to the annual Christmas card. We married at inconvenient times for each other to attend. She promptly had five children, I had two.
With our young families, demanding jobs and accompanying cash-flow problems, there never seemed to be time or money for either family to board a plane and visit. We'd all but given up hope of seeing each other while any remnant of our youth remained until the television station she works for in Dublin arranged for her cover the Olympics in Atlanta.
She left Ireland early to spend a few days with us in Virginia Beach. As luck would have it, she blew into town a few hours ahead of Hurricane Bertha.
Despite the appalling weather and dire predictions she was beaming when I found her by the luggage claim.
The airport as wonderful, she said. No hassles, easy to find her bags. A quick stroll to the parking lot and we were speeding toward Virginia Beach.
As we crossed the Lesner Bridge she gasped at the beauty of the Chesapeake Bay roiling with whitecaps under mounting storm clouds.
She liked my house, my children, my husband and our neighborhood. By the time we said goodnight life seemed sweet.
The next day dawned clear and dry, with the kind of breathtaking weather that follows every hurricane. As we walked to the beach she marveled at our litter-less streets and the polite drivers who waved us across Atlantic Avenue. Despite some heavy North End erosion, the beaches were snowy white and the scores of surfers riding the heavy surf added to the euphoric we-dodged-another-bullet atmosphere.
We sunbathed, swam in the warm ocean and later ate fresh seafood in a Boardwalk cafe. That night we took in a Tides game and it was perfect: a cool, dry evening and the home team won. As we drove home she wondered why Europeans can't generate such a friendly, family atmosphere at their sporting events.
``No hooliganism ever at baseball?'' she asked incredulously.
Just before she left we took a last walk along the ocean: ``You're so lucky,'' she sighed. ``There's only so much coastline in the United States and here you are living so close to one of the prettiest stretches. Even though you Americans don't get much time for your holidays, every day off is like a holiday when you live near the beach.
``It must be wonderful.''
Despite the potholes, it is. MEMO: Ms. Dougherty is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB