DO YOU REMEMBER WHEN STEAMBOATS departed from piers all over this region, for Baltimore, Richmond, New York? When ferries ran between Portsmouth and Norfolk? Between Norfolk and Cape Charles? When trains pulled into the station on East Main Street? When electric trains left daily for the Oceanfront, and trolleys for Ocean View?
For that matter, do you remember the Ocean View Amusement Park? The 'Rocket' roller coaster, the Ferris Wheel when it faced the bay? Doumar's when it was in Ocean View? The Rosele (pronounced ROSE-ah-lee) Theater? Florence's Drug? Do you remember the hurricane of 1933 and how it ripped up the boardwalk? The separate beaches for African Americans?
Do you remember when you could buy fresh Lynnhaven oysters from the back of a pickup truck on Shore Drive? When, sometime in the mid- 1950s, a freighter ran aground near what became the Duck Inn? Hundreds drove out to watch, and an enterprising fellow named Chick opened a hot dog stand.
Do you remember when Norfolk and Portsmouth were much bigger cities, with almost nothing but truck farms surrounding them? When Princess Anne, Norfolk and Nansemond counties were virtually all farmland punctuated by vast acres of woods? When Wards Corner was a gas station owned by a fellow named Ward?
Memories are fragile things, vanishing each time one of us fades from the scene. Yet they are the fabric of the rich history that inhabits this region.
Local history is not just great battles or presidential visits. It's your stories. Your photographs. Your photographic memories. Your memoirs, published or unpublished.
Let's not let them die.
What's your memory of what it was like in Hampton Roads during the war years, when your brother or your sweetheart was over there? Did you pass the time by meeting friends and strolling with your baby carriages on the old boardwalk at the Beach? Before they went and after they returned, did you dance at the Navy Y? Or at the Cavalier when the big bands came to town?
How about your memories of working at the USO, at the shipyard?
Do you remember how important high school football was in the 1940s and '50s after Foreman Field was built, the rivalry between Maury and Granby high schools, the Thanksgiving Day parade?
'Fall in the air, sweaters and football,' recalls Fred Bashara, who encouraged me to write this. 'That's what a small town Norfolk was. It seemed like the whole city followed one football team or another.'
After the war, with the GI Bill under their belts, thousands took flying lessons and the region was a checkerboard of small airfields: near the present Southern and Janaf shopping centers and DePaul Hospital. Creeds and Pungo had Navy practice fields. Operations at Norfolk Municipal Airport were taken over by the Army Air Corps during the war.
Do you remember in the 1930s, when the Charity Red Jackets became the most feared semipro baseball team in the Tidewater League? When the Norfolk Tars won four minor league titles in a row, or when Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto and Whitey Ford took to the field? When the Tidewater Tides and the Cubs played in Portsmouth?
In another era, what was it like graduating from high school during the draft and realizing you might soon be fighting in some remote jungle? Or graduating from high school and discovering the world as you knew it was changing, that a career was a much bigger option and divorce a greater likelihood? That new laws guaranteed you the right to better education, better jobs and access to the voting booth?
These are not my stories, dear readers, but yours. If you remember, as Uncle Sam used to put it, I want you.
Drop me a line.
Paul Clancy, paulclancy@msn.com
www.paulclancystories.com These were some of the stories reported by local papers the week of July 19:
1984
Portsmouth city officials study the possibility of building a 70,000-seat stadium and attracting an NFL team away from another city or establishing a franchise in the USFL.
The Gwaltney plant in Portsmouth announces it is able to produce 2.7 million hot dogs a day operating at full capacity. Beef, chicken and a combination of beef and pork hot dogs are produced by the plant's 156 employees .
Ocean View residents protest city plans to maintain a bus terminal within the triangular intersection at Granby Street and Ocean View Avenue. The chairman of the Ocean View Coordinating Committee says bus stations are notorious for harboring undesirables .
1959
The Norfolk Health Department reports that the weekly tests it conducts on the rat population have proved that the city remains free of typhus. Norfolk has not had a human case of typhus since 1951, and a typhus-infected rat has not been discovered for more than two years.
To celebrate Space Day, the Norfolk Recreation Bureau displays replicas of Vanguard missiles, flying saucers and spacemen at city playgrounds.
The commanding officer of the naval hospital in Portsmouth states that the new $18 million hospital building will not have any murals or other artwork because of a lack of available funds for such extras .
1909
A Norfolk police officer breaks all arrest records to date. Officer McLean has placed more than 959 prisoners in the city jail, averaging 80 arrests a month for the year.
A shortage of bricks stops the construction of dozens of buildings in Norfolk. Contractors hope to finish their buildings before fall and are voicing their complaints to their suppliers.
City superintendents from cities across Virginia meet in Richmond with representatives from the Bell Telephone Co. in hopes of devising a plan that would put a telephone in the home of every progressive farmer in Virginia.
- Compiled by Jakon Hays, news researcher
CAPTION(S):
Carroll Walker | Virginian-Pilot file PHOTO
Dancers soak in the atmosphere of Virginia Beach's Oceanfront resort, the Cavalier Hotel and Beach Club, in the 1940s.
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