THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608020171
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: 42 lines
GOOD GUYS: A group of Navy men from the USS Mount Whitney at the Norfolk Naval Base made a lot of folks out at Fairway Park mighty happy Wednesday, when they came to Portsmouth and cleared off a vacant lot at the corner of George Washington Highway and Alabama Avenue.
Joan Daw, a 50-year resident of Fairway Park, said the lot was extremely overgrown and the owners wouldn't clean it up. She said the neighbors have been complaining to the city, the owners and a real estate agent - all to no avail. But they hadn't reckoned with the Navy.
Seaman David Devanna, a young man stationed on the Mount Whitney, lives in New Gosport, the Navy housing area near Cradock. He passes the lot every day and he too was concerned about the way the corner looked. He decided to do something about it.
``He talked to his shipmates and 13 of them came over here and cleaned it up,'' Daw told me. ``I think it's wonderful that these young men did this. I think they should be recognized.''
WOMAN WINNER: Jennifer Moore, a 27-year-old Norfolk racing sailor, is the first woman to win the Hanbury Cup awarded annually for the best time in the Cock Island Race.
Moore, skipper of ``Tantrum,'' said she's been racing four years and bought her own boat a couple of years ago.
Women who crew on sail boats often are called ``racer chasers'' and Moore said she was tired of being in that category.
``So I just went out and bought a boat,'' she said.
BOOK OF LORE: ``The Trials and Triumphs of the Downtrodden'' by Raheema Turner Shabazz is described as a book of stories and poems covering 100 years.
The book is subtitled ``A look at the ills of society, the effects of those ills and the reactions of the victims.''
Shabazz said some of the material was handed down from generation to generation and other stories and poems stem from present-day realities.
The book is about justice, she said, and topics include lifestyles of the poor and unknown, spousal and child abuse, the generation gap, modern stress, diverse form of discrimination, education, homosexuality and treatment of the elderly.
The volume is available from the author. by CNB