Most of you guys may not know that I was born in Norfolk, Virginia in 1957. While any town or city can be "Home", Norfolk always had a problem being that, "small town in the shadow of the US Navy".

Looking back 60 years, it may have been the best place in the whole USA to call Home. Norfolk nests in that peculiar "Bermuda Triangle" of land set between Chesapeake, NASA at Langley and Virginia Beach.

Maybe I'm looking back because of this virus event, but it dosen't really matter. Because I think you guys would love the people I knew when I was a kid eventhough Norfolk was a racially segregated city during my early years.

Remember my friend Jerry, the Comicbook King? (He looked just like David Ruffin, above, during our high school years) You guys would never know there was any segregation because Jerry, and the other Navy kids, were so into the worlds of science and travel and history - our conversations covered every subject imaginable. Norfolk's population was from all over the USA and I'm sure, just like me, all the kids in my neighborhood benefited from all that diversity, even in the Land of Dixie.

And just like David Ruffin, I "Walked Away" when it was time for college because I wanted to see the USA for myself and experience other ideas and points of view.

Only now do I wish I had a time machine that I could take everyone at Retro-Daze back to the Tidewater Area of the 1960's and the 1970's - to experience the people and places I remember so well.

All I can offer is David Ruffin's 1975 song, "Walk Away From Love". Whenever I need to return to my past I listen to this song - and everyone I knew and all the places I used to visit, appear before me again as if the last 60 years never happened!

Maybe if you guys listen, you can see and hear all the wonderful people of color that I used to know who looked to the future with hope - that all you younger guys, of all colors, would live in a limitless future. 

I think growing up we all want to escape in some capacity, then when we've had our fill of the world, settle back in to comfortable surroundings. My hometown has changed so much I don't really miss it sadly.

Hey V-man,

I'm in one of my moods today because this virus event is shaping up into a real disaster in Seattle. The teachers union is preparing to strike should the Governor and OSPI try to open public schools in September.

I'm escaping into the past cuz that's what I always do when I see trouble ahead.

i kinda have a love/hate relationship with virginia, i grew up in the chesapeake area and made some great friends as i turned 8, but the crime rate that's happened over the years has left me with a distaste of returning there. currently i'm staying in the gloucester area, living near farmland and in a closed in culdesac with only a few houses close to mine, my family and i thought about moving back to ohio, or possibly tennessee where most of my mom's side of the family live.

My town was once a town you could be proud to call home, but now with the crime and everything, it's an embarassment, I hope to move to Savannah, GA one these days. Of course, I don't know if things there are any better.

My town has become the new Atlanta and that's saying something.

Benjanime wrote :

i kinda have a love/hate relationship with virginia, i grew up in the chesapeake area and made some great friends as i turned 8, but the crime rate that's happened over the years has left me with a distaste of returning there. currently i'm staying in the gloucester area, living near farmland and in a closed in culdesac with only a few houses close to mine, my family and i thought about moving back to ohio, or possibly tennessee where most of my mom's side of the family live.

-end quote

Gotta tell ya Ben, when I go back home the whole area has really fallen down. My old neighborhood died years ago. What you might find interesting is all the planning by Norfolk city officials to energize the civilian parts of town - some of which started back in the mid-60's!

Back in 1970 when Military Circle Mall opened, local and state government wanted to stop the typical pattern of dying cities where young people leave, crime gets out of control, and people with money run to wealthier areas like the Virginia Beach Hilltop area. 

What no one wants is the fate of Military Circle Mall to spread to the entire city.