THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 27, 1996 TAG: 9607270215
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: 52 lines
Dropped by the other day to pay respects to Arthur Ashe Jr. or, to his statue on Richmond's Monument Avenue, ``the longest straight street in the world,'' studded with bronze likenesses of Confederate heroes - and now, Ashe.
First, a plumed Jeb Stuart rides north, half turned in the saddle to scout the east. When snow flies from the north, it coats his left profile in white, dividing him in two parts, so that laughing Jeb becomes a harlequin on horseback.
Next, Robert E. Lee, on a pedestal so high his noble brow is against white clouds in the sky, the only warrior looking south, away from the foe and toward his people, whom he chose to serve after the war as president of little Washington College in Lexington, saluting education.
Jefferson Davis stands amid a colonnade beneath a spire, holding out his right hand, filled with snow after a prankish storm, as if saying, ``See! It snowed.'' Youths hang a smudge pot on the outthrust palm.
Stonewall Jackson on Little Sorrel looks north as always to the foe.
Matthew Fontaine Maury, head bowed beneath a globe of the Earth, ponders, charting the Gulf Stream, ``There is a river in the sea!''
How strange that Ashe, gentlest of men, should have been the center of dissension amid protests that he, dressed in sweat clothes, which, after all, was his uniform, should be aligned among Civil War leaders.
But Lee turned attention to the future with education. A gentleman, he once wrote, not only can forgive, he can forget. And he advised ``to let the past be but the past.''
On a pedestal, Ashe holds in his left hand a tennis racket and, a little higher in his right, a book, two tools of schooling.
It was almost impossible for anybody to hate Arthur Ashe.
Surely none has been more patient, calm, composed or dedicated to principle than Ashe, reasoning his way to oppose injustices, pointing out his own errors in a game when the referee missed them, an adult amid brash brats on the court.
Since his statue was installed, there has been steady visitation, amounting to a reception at his feet.
Four children in bronze, gazing up at him, are being joined by a moving extension of statuary in real people of all races, colors, ages, conditions looking up to the man in the enveloping folds of the soft sweat clothes.
Interest in Ashe brings the parade into the present, embracing many more people, reinvigorating awareness of all the figures.
Among them on my visit were Stephen Vanias, fourth-grader at Tuckahoe Elementary, doing a biography of Ashe, and two great aunts, Mary Mike Andre and Elli Bacas.
What did Stephen think of the statue?
Not taking his eyes off it, he said, ``Pretty cool!'' by CNB