DATE: Friday, August 1, 1997                TAG: 9707300146

SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER      PAGE: 02   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:  102 lines

TOWN TALK

Hope for Justin

This fall, young Justin McComiskey will have eight days of chemotherapy and spend 100 days in the hospital. He'll lose all his hair, experience nausea, vomiting and skin rashes.

He and his mother can't be more thrilled.

McComiskey, 14, is scheduled to receive a cord blood transplant at Duke University hospital. Finding a match for a cord blood transplant, as with bone marrow transplants, is rare. McComiskey has been waiting for several years, said his mother Linda McComiskey.

The Clipper wrote about Justin, and the blood drive his family organized for him, earlier this year. That blood drive did not find a match, but a national search did.

A cord blood transplant, which uses umbilical cord blood, is a relatively new procedure that could help him fight off a rare disease called Hurlers Syndrome, a form of MPS or muccopolysaccardosis. The disease causes an excess of connective tissue. He now breathes through a tracheotomy tube because of the extra tissue in his throat, and he walks with a limp because the disease has deformed his legs.

Justin will be the first person to receive a cord blood transplant for Hurlers Syndrome, his mother said. He has already had 24 surgeries.

The transplant will allow Justin to lead a more normal life, Linda McComiskey said. His legs will straighten out. His heart and liver will return to normal size. The puffiness in his face and neck will disappear. And he might even be able to breathe without a tube.

``He'll always be a special person, but this will let him live,'' Linda McComiskey said.

- Liz Szabo

Happy landing

The giant-scale, remote-control racing event held July 18 at Fentress Naval Auxiliary Landing Field brought in a disappointing turnout of pilots. But that didn't dampen the spirits of those in attendance.

The 30 or so members of the Tidewater Radio Control Club were having a great time at their event - the first of its kind on the East Coast. The men - who hail from throughout South Hampton Roads - relaxed in the shade and yukked it up as the replica planes from up and down the coast flew overhead.

Case in point: Club member Bob Tabler, who was announcing the races.

In the midst of one of the Formula One races - the fastest class flown on Friday - one plane's engine sputtered out.

Tabler responded over the public address system: ``I'm happy to report that the gentleman who landed his plane down wind that the pilot was uninjured.''

- Lewis Krauskopf

Purloined pups

In the they'll-steal-anything-that-isn't-tied-down-department, we see that according to the weekly crime report made available by the Chesapeake Police Department, a residential burglary was reported in the Washington Borough on July 4.

What did the intrepid thief or thieves steal? Nothing less than two Rottweiler puppies.

Police should be on the lookout for massive purchases - or thefts - of puppy chow in the South Norfolk area. Let's hope the puppies are recovered soon. If those pooches are raised by their new illegal owners, they could grow up to be mean and vicious.

- Eric Feber/Deloris Moyler

Inferiority complex

Chesapeake is one of the safest cities for its size as far as crime is concerned according to FBI statistics. It has THE best economy in Hampton Roads. Residents are proud of its innovative public schools. It's one of the fastest growing cities in the country.

But nationally, Chesapeake is the Rodney Dangerfield of cities. It doesn't get any respect.

Take what happened last Friday morning about 8 a.m. on the very popular NBC morning program, ``Today.''

During the show's national weather roundup, it reported what happened here Thursday afternoon, thanks to that pesky resurgent storm Danny. The program showed the now-famous videotape of the water funnel near Harborpark and it surveyed the damage that Danny caused in South Norfolk.

Finally, a ``Today'' reporter mentioned that most of the damage occurred in Chesapeake, ``a little town outside of Norfolk.''

Say what? Oh well, let's just think of Chesapeake as one of the best kept secrets in the country. Besides, if word got out, everybody would want to live here.

- Eric Feber/Susan Smith

Black-out blues

Thursday afternoon as tropical storm Danny made its whirlwhind appearance through Hampton Roads, shoppers packed into the local Farm Fresh. Some shoppers were just typically shopping for the weekend, but others were following the batten-down-the-hatches routine, which includes stocking up on bread, batteries and water.

As hurried shoppers exchanged storm updates and scrambled to fill their carts, the sky grew darker, the trees flailed and the rain pounded the pavement.

Suddenly with a blink and a tremor, the lights went out, and for a second not a rattle of a cart or the cha-ching of a register could be heard.

``All Right!,'' exclaimed one excited bag boy, who probably had an instantaneous vision of getting off work early. With that, two shoppers with brimming carts, eyed each other, and they must have had the same thought.

``You want to take him down or shall I,'' one asked the other.

But because of the store's emergency generator, shopping and sales continued, and the bagger returned to sacking bread and milk in the dark.

- Susan Smith

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