Common Ground

• Greetings from Ocean View - Bat's cave

  Every Sunday, his mother's white Lincoln circles slowly behind the Ocean View Senior Center. Particularly around the holidays, Sunday is the day that inspires the most generosity. Friends come to share a beer with him at the picnic table; his mother drops off a little money, a sandwich or a [...]
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  Posted: December 04, 2009, 10:56pm EST
  

• Greetings from Ocean View - Hear 'em talkin'

  "Well, a lot of people were talking. 'I don't see Nucklez no more. [...]
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  Posted: November 28, 2009, 5:29pm EST
  

• Greetings from Ocean View - Wake of the flood

  Around 8 o'clock in the morning on Thursday, Sonja Hobin was busy trying to block the wind coming in through her air conditioner when she heard yelling outside. She woke up her husband, grabbed her cat Maggie and boarded the inflatable boat that the fire department had unloaded on 5th' [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 11:20am EST
  

• Greetings from Ocean View - Una casa nueva

  When a first-timer walks in, Jorge Romero, 26, sees the look of amazement. They usually come in to buy a phone card or wire money, but they get lost in the shelves of everything else. "You look for things that remind you of home," he said. [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 7:33pm EST
  

• Greetings from Ocean View - The genie and the sumo wrestler

  The oddest thing may have been that they didn't seem so out-of-place. In a neighborhood whose name itself is intrinsically contradictory, surrealism is to be expected. Tethered by an iPod, the genie and the sumo wrestler made their way along Shore Drive, from their home on 13th Bay to McDonald's. [...]
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  Posted: November 07, 2009, 8:36pm EST
  

• Greetings from Ocean View - Blending in

  Sun or shine, Melinda Sikora's clients keep her busy from Valentine's Day pretty much through the fall. For those who live in Ocean View, she said, after the tanning starts there's no going back. "Once their legs are out, they're out." ' [...]
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  Posted: October 31, 2009, 11:05am EDT
  

• Greetings from Ocean View - First home

  Steve Hornbeck, 24, and Kelly Leitzke, 23, met almost two years ago, on the day after Christmas. And "ever since then we've been together," Steve said. He can't really explain it, but he knew that being with her was "some kinda way I'd never felt before." ' [...]
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  Posted: October 23, 2009, 3:04pm EDT
  

• Greetings from Ocean View - Red Rooster

  If someone were to bring all the self-taught artists together, from around the world, Paul Trice said he'd be named No. 1. "I betcha a dollar I'll win. Let 'em prove me different." ' [...]
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  Posted: October 17, 2009, 3:08pm EDT
  

• Greetings from Ocean View - Dreamtime

  "Dreamtime" is the word that the Australian aborigines use to refer to the time of creation. Both widowed and trying to build a new life together, it was a fitting name for Jim and Bev Borberg's first boat. "It was our time of creation," Jim said. [...]
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  Posted: October 10, 2009, 9:37am EDT
  

• Greetings from Ocean View - The Death of the Park

  History typically dies slowly. It crumbles, sags or fades. Not often does it go up in a ball of fire for a Made-For-TV movie. But so was the fate of the old wooden roller coaster at Ocean View Amusement Park. People say it took three tries to bring her down. [...]
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  Posted: October 03, 2009, 5:55pm EDT
  

• Greetings from Ocean View - Food for the community

  Jacqueline Johnson and the others at the East Ocean View Community Center see the same faces pop in every couple of days, looking for something to take home from the garden's latest harvest.  If the families who live nearby can't afford fresh fruits and vegetables at the grocery store, Johnson' [...]
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  Posted: September 25, 2009, 2:26pm EDT
  

• Greetings from Ocean View - An unusual couple

  A sparkling green shell-shaped brassiere was draped over her chest. Her golden locks almost seamlessly matched her yellow coat. She was a vision not unlike the mermaid statues sprinkled throughout the city. And Zoe, a 5 year-old Labrador, played the role with ease. [...]
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  Posted: September 18, 2009, 3:26pm EDT
  

• Greetings from Ocean View - Waning days of summer

    [...]
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  Posted: September 12, 2009, 3:24pm EDT
  

• No grit

  No sand, no grit – Ray Williams guarantees it. It’s what draws seafood lovers to take the first hard right onto Old Cherrystone Road after turning at the Cheriton light off Route 13, and follow it to its picturesque end on the creek, where R.W. Seafood’s crab shack leans slightly [...]
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  Posted: September 06, 2009, 9:47am EDT
  

• Pearl's dance party

  Dance parties and folks over 90 are not usually associated with one another. Pearl H. Glassman doesn’t care. She and six of her dearest friends waltz, foxtrot, and samba on her 95th birthday anyway, as they have each year since she turned 92. They dance one at a time with [...]
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  Posted: August 29, 2009, 11:00pm EDT
  

• Currituck Carver

  Chandler Sawyer is strictly a Currituck-school carver. He admires the folk-art quality of the wooden ducks produced in the first half of the 20th century, before store-bought plastic decoys, when hundreds of hunters in Currituck County fashioned their own simple decoys out of juniper. [...]
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  Posted: August 23, 2009, 9:40am EDT
  

• Woodard's Pharmacy

  The soda fountain at Woodard’s Pharmacy is a place where many Hertford, NC residents feel at home. The booths painted Carolina Blue and walls bearing UNC memorabilia and legendary Hall of Fame pitcher Catfish Hunter pictures, generations of Carolinians have come for the legendary pimento cheese, “dressed” ham sandwiches, gigantic scoops [...]
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  Posted: August 14, 2009, 10:39pm EDT
  

• Warped Living

  David and Haley Jane talk shop at the back of the bus at the end of the day. [...]
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  Posted: August 08, 2009, 11:24pm EDT
  

• Weekend warriors

  An hour before show time, there are no names in the dressing room, just workers. “Names” are professional wrestlers who’ve made it big, have been on T.V., and “workers” are everyone else. Names show up later, closer to match time. Workers are fighting their way up, or are on the [...]
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  Posted: August 01, 2009, 10:03pm EDT
  

• Hangar Happenings

  Half a dozen powered parachutes serenaded from the skies as Sandbridge tourists, retired aviators, and neighbors from just down the road gathered at the Military Aviation Museum for its first Hangar Movie Night on July 15th. Into the museum’s Navy hangar they filed, settling into chairs set up in front [...]
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  Posted: July 25, 2009, 12:54pm EDT
  

• Going it alone

  Ron usually goes it alone. He has been homeless for the better part of three decades, because, according to him, he has no skills, never made it through school and just can’t get anywhere. “Everybody is on the street for a reason,” Ron says, who doesn’t want his last name [...]
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  Posted: July 18, 2009, 10:12pm EDT
  

• Breakfast and banter

  Once Margaret DiGirolamo knows what you eat for breakfast, she doesn’t forget. A regular customer left the area for five years, then showed one morning and ordered his usual. She served it up, no questions asked. Margaret is the owner/operator of Margaret’s Hot Dogs, tucked away in a strip mall [...]
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  Posted: July 11, 2009, 2:22pm EDT
  

• 48 acres

  Jim Bright figures at the end of his days, he may be worn out, but he won’t be rusted out from sitting still. At 67, he and his wife Anne run their 48-acre family farm by themselves, with the help of only one hired hand. [...]
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  Posted: July 05, 2009, 9:32am EDT
  

• Night hoops

  .” [...]
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  Posted: June 27, 2009, 3:47pm EDT
  

• Oyster Watch House

  The waters of the Eastern Shore seaside were once lousy with “oyster pirates,” a term still in use today for those who ransack beds, making off with market-sized oysters planted and tended by others. Oyster Watch Houses were erected in the late 1800’s to combat the marauders, after the state [...]
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  Posted: June 20, 2009, 10:35pm EDT
  

• Young Yogis

  Organized sports start early in lives of many youngsters, and can become for them what American culture can be for their parents – competitive, hectic and sometimes stressful. [...]
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  Posted: June 13, 2009, 9:46pm EDT
  

• Laziest Lounging and other moments

  This may look like a girl and her dog, sitting on a couch under a tree at a ball field, but it’s not. It’s an actual heat for the Best Couch Potato competition at the 3rd Annual Best Friends Dog Show, a rarely seen moment in dog show history. The [...]
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  Posted: June 07, 2009, 8:51am EDT
  

• A walk in the park

  There is a little piece of Virginia Beach you can have all to yourself, if you don’t mind a walk in the woods first. The spot is on the Osprey Trail, roughly one-and-a-half miles from 64th Street in First Landing State Park. From 64th Street, take the Long Creek Trail [...]
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  Posted: May 30, 2009, 9:31pm EDT
  

• A Greening

  Marcie Dodd shares a laugh with makeup supervisor Joyce McGilberry as she is made up as Elphaba at Chrysler Hall. [...]
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  Posted: May 24, 2009, 9:32am EDT
  

• Seldom Scene

  Welcome to the first column under the new theme - Seldom Scene. I will be exploring the nooks and crannies of Tidewater in hopes of finding out-of the-way places, glimpses of hidden worlds and people, vanishing traditions and trades, and anything else surprising that I run across. [...]
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  Posted: May 14, 2009, 9:51pm EDT
  

• Labor They Love - Discipline Secretary Joy Reinicke

  Discipline Secretary Joy Reinicke. “I can't talk?” asks a Booker T. Washington High School student as he steps into Discipline Secretary Joy Reinicke's office. “Well part of the reason is so that you don't say something that gets you in further trouble,” says Reinicke in a most enduring way. [...]
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  Posted: May 10, 2009, 11:27am EDT
  

• Labor They Love - Talent Agent Sylvia Hutson

  Talent Agent Sylvia Hutson. [...]
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  Posted: May 03, 2009, 9:31am EDT
  

• Labor They Love - Blaine Bare, The Bike Guy

  Blaine Bare, The Bike Guy. [...]
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  Posted: April 26, 2009, 8:45am EDT
  

• Labor They Love - Yoga Instructor Mike Brazell

  Mike Brazell. [...]
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  Posted: April 19, 2009, 9:13am EDT
  

• Labor They Love - Parking Enforcement Officer Carethia Brown

  Carethia Brown. [...]
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  Posted: April 12, 2009, 8:31am EDT
  

• Labor They Love - Lighthouse Keeper Luis Garcia

  Luis Garcia. [...]
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  Posted: April 05, 2009, 9:47am EDT
  

• Labor They Love - Guide Dog, Kenworth

  Kenworth. [...]
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  Posted: March 29, 2009, 8:49am EDT
  

• Labor They Love - Cobbler Booker T. McCullen

  Booker T. McCullen. [...]
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  Posted: March 22, 2009, 7:55am EDT
  

• Labor They Love - Auctioneer Dick Biondo

  Dick Biondo. “Three-dollars, bid four? Three-dollars, bid four? Bid four? Do I have four?” The words flew fast from Dick Biondo's lips and when he saw only one hand up he pointed and yelled: “Sold for $4.00!” The glass vase may have had some wear on it but the proud new owner, a [...]
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  Posted: March 14, 2009, 11:45pm EDT
  

• Labor They Love - Riku Helenius

  Riku Helenius. Riku Helenius puts on more battle armor than anyone else. [...]
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  Posted: March 07, 2009, 5:20pm EST
  

• Labor They Love - Groovy's 'Miss Kitty' Mangold

    [...]
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  Posted: March 02, 2009, 1:12am EST
  

• Labor They Love - Darrell Collins

  Darrell Collins. [...]
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  Posted: February 21, 2009, 4:30pm EST
  

• Labor They Love - Stryker The Clown

  "John Hallman" [...]
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  Posted: February 15, 2009, 4:11am EST
  

• Labor They Love - Ship's captain

  "Robbie Putnam" [...]
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  Posted: February 06, 2009, 7:12pm EST
  

• Labor They Love - Architecting landscapes

  "Bartow 'Pat' Bridges". [...]
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  Posted: January 31, 2009, 5:59pm EST
  

• Labor They Love - I Work for Bush

  "I Work for Bush". [...]
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  Posted: January 23, 2009, 7:16pm EST
  

• A park for Randy

  Phil Custis stands on one of the ballfields at Randy Custis Memorial Park. Randy Custis played his first season of Little League in the spring of 1978, shortly before he was killed by a drunk driver at age 9. He and his teammates competed on a single field behind the funeral [...]
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  Posted: January 17, 2009, 9:59pm EST
  

• Good Care

  Nurse Keith Edwards, R.N., B.S.N., puts a warmed blanket on a sleeping James Hoggard as he sits with his mother in the emergency room. [...]
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  Posted: January 09, 2009, 9:41pm EST
  

• Goodbye to Coach

  Seniors on the team say goodbye to Coach Zumbrum. [...]
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  Posted: January 02, 2009, 10:02pm EST
  

• Guarding the home front

  Since November, two Marines have stood at attention among the Christmas lights on the corner of Pefley Avenue, unwavering in all kinds of weather. They are the nephews of Phil and Laura Maurizio, Cpl. Brent Jones and Gunnery Sgt. Robert Mercure, and their lit portraits stand as a tribute to [...]
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  Posted: December 27, 2008, 10:41am EST
  

• Tunnel Vision

  Samarra hugs her son Isaiah after working a shift at her second job, whiile her sisters watch tv. [...]
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  Posted: December 19, 2008, 9:30pm EST
  

• An ear to listen

  William Duncan, 65, knows what hopelessness looks like. He sees it on the faces of the homeless at Potter’s House and Star of Sea at the Oceanfront, where he cleans the grounds weekday mornings. He knows how it feels; he was one of them. Tools of the trade. [...]
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  Posted: December 13, 2008, 4:57am EST
  

• Lee's Friend

  Susan Lawler has learned a lot from her friendship with Nathaniel Osborne. She’s learned that sometimes it’s just better to listen, that you can’t always say, “Everything will be fine.” She’s recognized you have to celebrate the moment, to enjoy the good when it happens. [...]
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  Posted: December 05, 2008, 9:28pm EST