ORAL HISTORY: Last Words from David Mitchell
David Mitchell today (13 years after his remarks transcribed here). Photo courtesy Marion Naar
April 21, 2014
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Cape Charles Historical Society has for more than a decade been recording oral histories of the area’s earlier days. A grant from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities enabled 15 interviews to be transcribed, and the Historical Society has made this one available for readers of the Wave. All the transcriptions may be read at the Cape Charles Museum.)
David Mitchell speaks April 12, 2001
PART 5
[Audience]: “When you were in the ball club and traveling, did you go on a bus? Did you sleep on the bus?
Oh yes, we had a bus. We always had hotels that we would go to stay in. I had a kind of hairy experience coming out of Upstate New York. We played up in Utica and Ithaca, New York. We were coming down from there and what happened, the bus had broken down in New York and we had to hire a limousine to take the team, there were 18 heads. Coming back, the left front tire blew on this limousine and we were coming down this mountainside. And the driver hollered, “Don’t nobody touch it!” He was afraid someone would grab the wheel and try to steer it. We came to a stop right to a guard rail and nobody got hurt, didn’t even scar the car or anything, but that was something that lived with me for a long time, because if we had gone over . . . . There was a 50 or 75 foot drop down there and I guess all of us could have been killed or get broken bones or something.
We were staying in a hotel in New York on 7th Avenue, I can remember a young lady that had been down here visiting and all she was talking about was this Glass house in Cape Charles. It’s the house right across from where Raymond Spady lives, that was new at that time. Somebody described it to her as the Glass House and so she wanted to see it. So this lady was visiting my friend’s girlfriend and this particular night we were going out and I didn’t have a date, so they asked me if I would mind taking this girl along. I said fine.
After taking her out that night, I took her out the next day and showed her the sites, the farm, the houses and different places. And she enjoyed it so much, that she told me that if I was ever in New York, to please come by and see her. She told me about her boyfriend and everything. [Read more…]
Tuesday Service for Delma Virginia Lewis, 90
April 21, 2014
Delma Virginia Lewis, 90, wife of the late Cecil T. Lewis, Sr., and a resident of Cape Charles, passed away Sunday, April 20, at Heritage Hall Healthcare in Nassawadox.
A graveside service will be conducted 2 p.m. Tuesday, April 22, at Redbank Baptist Church Cemetery with Rev. Randy E. Lewis officiating. Flowers will be accepted or memorials may be made to Hospice and Palliative Care of the Eastern Shore, 165 Market Street, Suite #3, Onancock, VA 23417.
A native of Machipongo, Mrs. Lewis was born June 8, 1923, the daughter of the late Allen E. Outten, Sr., and the late Alice Catherine Richardson Outten. She was a homemaker and member of Cape Charles Baptist Church. [Read more…]
FRIDAY 4/25: ‘Born Between the Bombs’ Seminar at ESCC
The next Science and Philosophy Seminar of the Eastern Shore of Virginia is “Born Between the Bombs” at 12:30 p.m. Friday, April 25, in the Lecture Hall of the Eastern Shore Community College, 29300 Lankford Hwy., Melfa. [Read more…]
FRIDAY 4/25: Voices of the Shore Benefit for Boys and Girls Club
Voices of the Shore, a benefit performance for the Boys and Girls Club, will be held Friday, April 25, at 7 p.m. at the Franktown United Methodist Church. [Read more…]
SATURDAY 4/26: Trash to Treasure Contest at Kiptopeke Park
CLICK to view poster with full details.
WEEKEND: A Storm A-Brewin’
WEEKEND: A STORM A’BREWIN’
Bay Avenue resident Darin Alperin took this very grey photo from his front yard. “There was a storm rolling in and you could see the clouds moving in with the colder temperatures. As the cloud reached our house the temperature dropped 10 or 15 degrees. It cannot be seen in the photo, but the cloud in the front was actually a rolling tube,” he explains.
EDITORIAL: Election Manipulation
A CAPE CHARLES WAVE EDITORIAL
April 15, 2014
The photo at right of an anonymous poster outside the Post Office asks, “Will the Wave try to control the Town election?” But until now the Wave has been almost silent on the May 6 election for mayor and Town Council. When the eight candidates filed, we published an impartial story listing their names and brief bios. We intend to let the candidates tell their own stories, and invite them to write a few paragraphs on “Why I’m Running for Mayor” and “Why I’m Running for Town Council” to inform our several thousand readers.
But in this hotly contested election there are already signs (pun intended) of manipulation. And not for the first time – the November 2012 special election for a Town Council seat was shamelessly manipulated by the town power structure, taking advantage of the good name of Arts Enter as the “sponsor” of a candidates forum. In fact, assistant town manager Bob Panek masterminded that forum, and although his name did not even appear in the list of volunteers, like the Wizard of Oz behind the curtain it was Panek who selected questions from the audience and decided to whom they would be asked. All the while, he displayed a sign in his yard for candidate Steve Bennett.
In this year’s election, Council incumbent Joan Natali was first off the line in blanketing the town with campaign signs, and no one complained. But later when opposition candidates David Gay, Deborah Bender, and Lynn Mitchell-Fields began matching the Natali signs with their own, the town took action, and most of the signs were confiscated by the Police Department under the excuse that they were not allowed in the right-of-way (even in front of private residences). Ironically, Natali was responsible for that town regulation, enacted in reaction to the “Community Center YES” signs of a previous battle.
Next comes the curious question of the “second” candidates forum sponsored by Cape Charles Rotary. Following the town staff’s manipulation of the previous forum mentioned above, the non-political Citizens for a Better Eastern Shore (CBES) agreed to host a forum for Cape Charles candidates. CBES has a long history of hosting candidate debates, and most recently held two forums for County Supervisors and School Board candidates in last November’s elections. At that time no one seemed concerned that a CBES forum might not be enough. [Read more…]
EXTRA! Gazette Omits Lenora Mitchell’s Candidacy
Click on image above to enlarge
CAPE CHARLES WAVE
April 14, 2014
Attention Cape Charles voters: Lenora Mitchell-Fields has NOT withdrawn her candidacy for Town Council in the May 6 elections.
The town’s official publication, Cape Charles Gazette, inexplicably omitted Mitchell’s name in its April 14 edition headlined “2014 Is An Election Year!”
The story states that “five candidates are running for Council,” and then lists five names. But in fact, SIX candidates are running for Council.
Reached at her store, Mitchell was asked by the Wave to guess which candidate the Gazette had left off its list. Her first guess was Deborah Bender, who was once referred to by Mayor Sullivan as the “Barking Bender,” perhaps due to her history of public comments at Town Council meetings. But Bender’s name was not the one omitted from the Gazette.
Lenora Mitchell has her own history of criticizing the Town when an official injustice has been committed. When the town sold the basketball court, parking lot, and old school to a developer for conversion into apartments, it stipulated that the property could not be made available to low-income residents — despite the developer’s intention to receive over $1 million in state and federal assistance for renovating the building. [Read more…]
