THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 20, 1996 TAG: 9610180206
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
LENGTH: 133 lines
Tuesday, Oct. 8
7:45 p.m. - The Dunwoody subdivision.
The electricity is out in this General Booth Boulevard neighborhood and at least one customer is unhappy.
``I want to watch the baseball game,'' a woman whines, watching the black sky from the front windows. ``I'm bored!''
``Well, what did you do when you were a kid, before you had a television?'' asks her daughter, who is studying by candlelight.
``Oh, that was easy,'' Mom says. ``We went to our neighbor's house and watched their TV!''
- Holly Wester
Friday, Oct. 11
8 p.m. - Peabody's.
In the ladies' restroom, a voice from one stall uses unique phrasing to ask a common question to the occupant of the next stall.
``Can you spare a square?''
- Holly Wester
Saturday, Oct. 12
1 p.m. - Great Neck Road.
Traffic is backed up on Great Neck Road at Cape Henry Hardware. Owner Phil Wellman is outside directing traffic. Cars are in line waiting to park, but the lot is full and so are the church and office parking lots nearby.
The cause of all the commotion is a kite signing by Marguerite Stankus, designer of the Dove of Peace and Love kite that was flown in opening ceremonies at the summer Olympics in Atlanta.
A line of folks with armfuls of kites are waiting for autographs. That line snakes through the store and out into the parking lot, too.
- Mary Reid Barrow
1:30 p.m. - Pembroke Meadows Elementary School.
Kids and parents are enjoying the festivities at the Fall Fun Fest, sponsored by the PTA and SCA.
In the cafeteria, people are scurrying around the different booths waiting to redeem prizes, participate in the cake walk and purchase slices of hot pizza.
The pizza line is long, but moving fast. In line stands vice principal ``Mr. Knott.'' A mother who has just realized her 2-year-old son has lost his helium filled balloon, asks the administrator if he will mind getting a chair and reaching for the balloon that's high in the air.
With a smile, he turns to her and says, ``Let's use the ladder over there.''
He steps out of the pizza line, first asking his son not to lose their place, gets the ladder, climbs up and retrieves the balloon.
As he hands the balloon to the mother the crowd looking on cheers!
- Patty Jenkins
2:20 p.m. - Rock-a-Bye Baby.
A mother is carrying her baby boy around the secondhand store, sifting through racks of infant clothes. As she turns a corner, her son and a little girl about the same age, being carried in her mother's arms, come face to face.
The 10-month-old girl smiles at the bald, blue-eyed boy, leans in and kisses him on the mouth. The two moms laugh, but the boy, 8-month-old Benjamin, looks startled and begins to cry. The other baby quickly tries to kiss Benjamin again, as if to soothe him.
``Aw, his first kiss,'' Benjamin's mom says with a chuckle. ``I'm going to write it in his baby book when we get home.''
- Pam Starr
4:30 p.m. - Cape Henry Hardware.
Marguerite Stankus, who was supposed to sign her kites from noon to 2 p.m. at Cape Henry Hardware, finally finishes autographing the last of hundreds of kites that were sold that day.
``When it comes to crowds, she draws somewhere between the Pope and Colin Powell,'' says store owner Phil Wellman.
- Mary Reid Barrow
Sunday, Oct. 13
5:30 p.m. - North End.
A young man is sashaying down the feeder road, twisting this way and that, on a piece of equipment that looks like a skate board.
Only it's not. It's a snake board, he says.
Action on a snake board looks a little like roller skating. With two independently mobile parts joined by a bar, the snake board allows him to keep moving down the road without having to keep pushing off the ground with a foot.
- Mary Reid Barrow
Tuesday, Oct. 15
7:25 p.m. - Lynnhaven Parkway and Holland Road.
A yellow Mach I Mustang with a black racing stripe and Missouri plates pulls up to a red light next to a Mitsubishi Galant. The Galant's admiring driver rolls down his window and motions to the man.
``Hey, there's a big car show coming up that you need to be in,'' he says, waving a blue flier.
The Mach I driver turns down his radio and accepts the flier with a surprised look.
``Really?'' he replies. ``Sounds great. I was wondering where all the muscleheads were around here.''
The other driver laughs.
``Oh, yeah, there'll be a lot at this show,'' he assures, as the light changes to green.
The Mach I driver waves with a ``thank you'' and roars off into the darkness, a yellow blur on the highway.
- Pam Starr
Thursday, Oct. 17
8:30 a.m. - 325 Aragona Blvd.
Seconds after they walked out the door headed for school, Robin Hicks' three children, Vernon, 6, Adora, 9, and Vanessa, 10, run back into the house shrieking.
``Mommy, mommy,'' they scream, ``someone stole our gorilla.''
Hicks and her roommate Dawn Vollman's elaborately decorated front yard has been trashed. A 6-foot-tall gorilla has been stolen, a giant light-up pumpkin is gone and so are the masks worn by several dummies that were scattered about the yard.
``They left the dummies, but they were just clothes stuffed with straw,'' says Hicks. ``They took their masks and the big, expensive gorilla.
``This yard was really decorated for Halloween,'' Hicks says soon after the theft is discovered. ``I mean it stops traffic.
``I would love to get our stuff back. I would love it if someone would come forth and say, `I know who did it.'
``But I really want people to know how what they did really upset three little kids.''
- Melinda Forbes ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by DAVID B. HOLLINGSWORTH
A couple has the beach around 3rd Street to themselves as they take
advantage of the Indian summer weather the area has lately enjoyed.
Meanwhile, a huge pipe spews sand that has been dredged from Rudee
Inlet onto the beach. The dredging is part of a project to restore
the eroded Virginia Beach Oceanfront. by CNB