THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 8, 1996 TAG: 9608080001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A19 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: PATRICK LACKEY
LENGTH: 73 lines
Suffolk's 1,100 fire hydrants look like - fire hydrants.
Shouldn't they? you ask.
Well, no harm is done when they do, but a great opportunity to put Suffolk on the map is being missed.
As you may know, Suffolk is home to Planters Peanuts and also to one of this country's most-recognizable marketing creations, Mr. Peanut.
And did you know that a fire hydrant can be painted to resemble . . . yes accompanying sketch by Samuel A. Hundley, a former Suffolk resident.
Imagine the national attention that would be paid to Suffolk if all its fire hydrants were painted to resemble Mr. Peanut, who turned 80 this year. We're talking network television and The New York Times - the kind of coverage money can't buy.
Wherever Suffolk residents vacationed, they'd hear, ``Wow! You're from Suffolk! That's the city with the Mr. Peanut fire hydrants.''
Painting the hydrants to look like Mr. Peanut was first suggested in a column last month by staff writer Linda McNatt in the Suffolk Sun, The Virginian-Pilot's community-news section for that city. Once the hydrants are painted and national renown is gained, hold the parade in her honor. She can dress like Mr. Peanut.
McNatt noted in her Sun column that Hershey, Pa., has street lamps shaped like chocolate kisses. Eleven hundred Mr. Peanut fire hydrants would be more spectacular than that.
The point of McNatt's column was that Suffolk needs something to get it moving. McNatt left the city more than a decade ago to cover neighboring Isle of Wight County for this paper. She recently returned to cover Suffolk, only to find too few changes for the better and some changes for the worse.
Suffolk, with about 50,000 residents, has twice the population of Isle of Wight, but maybe half the cooperative spirt. McNatt was struck during 10 years in Isle of Wight by its citizens' eagerness to work together for all manner of causes.
For example, the county has a Christian Outreach program in which different denominations and races actively cooperate to improve their community. Isle of Wight was once a predominantly Quaker county, and many slaves were freed there early in the 19th century, long before the Great Emancipation. Today, McNatt said, the racial division too often found in Suffolk is largely absent from Isle of Wight.
``Every time I visited Suffolk from Isle of Wight,'' McNatt wrote in her column, ``I noticed that nothing was happening here. It still isn't.''
She would like to transfer some of the county's can-do, cooperative spirit to Suffolk.
She would begin by painting fire hydrants to look like Mr. Peanut. It should be a community operation, with everybody pitching in.
Presently different Suffolk fire hydrants have different-colored tops to indicate to firefighters the size of the water mains the hydrants are connected to. No problem. Mr. Peanut could have different colored hats for different-sized mains.
The original Mr. Peanut was created in 1916 by a Suffolk high-school student named Antonio Gentile. Planters Peanuts awarded Antonio a $5 prize. Later an artist added the distinctive monocle, top hat and spats. Mr. Peanut kept the cane. In different years, the monocle has been on different eyes.
What's needed now is for the city of Suffolk or the city's division of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce or some service club to sponsor a fire-hydrant-painting contest. If the winning Mr. Peanut design were simple, volunteers might help with painting the hydrants. I`d volunteer a couple of days for a cause so worthy as adding cooperative vitality to Suffolk.
The cost of painting the hydrants might be covered by private sources. I'm good for 10 bucks. I'd buy the postcards sure to follow, showing the Mr. Peanut fire hydrants.
Norfolk has crape myrtles. Virginia Beach has beaches. Suffolk needs fire hydrants that resemble Mr. Peanut. MEMO: Mr. Lackey is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot. by CNB