2015 Strides: Around the clock in Suffolk

Sunday, Feb. 22, 2015

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Around the clock in Suffolk

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

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Ready for the tones.................... pg 9

Noon

A spot on Midnight Always of lunch....................... pg 11 the call........................ pg 29

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Takin’ out the trash..................... pg5

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Building one another up.................. pg 6

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Two-hour parking limit............... pg 8

Friend of the Animals................. pg 12

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Workin’ at the car wash............... pg 13

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Tea for two … or three.................. pg 15

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Spinning into fitness.................. pg 17

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Angels of the highway................ pg 18

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Fast-paced work in eatery............. pg 20

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On patrol on the streets of Suffolk......... pg 21

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Pet care, anytime, day or night................ pg 23

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Lights, projector, action!......................... Pg 24

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Stopping for a rest on a rainy evening...... pg 26 Tending customers at the bar.................... pg 27

A good night’s sleep............... pg 30

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Awake and feeling perk-y............. pg 31

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Lighting the way late at night................ pg 33

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Baking and praying before dawn breaks.... pg 34

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Preparing for spiritual growth........... pg 35

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‘This is when the fun begins’........... pg 37

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Morning on Lake Meade................ pg 38

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

Around the clock

S

uffolk might not exactly be The City That Never Sleeps, but pick just about any time of day or night, and you’re likely to find there’s something happening somewhere around the city.

Most folks are familiar with the things that take place around Suffolk from sunup to sundown: commerce, education and recreation are among the main things that keep the people of this city busy during the day. But much of what happens at night — and during the wee hours of the morning — is a mystery to those who aren’t caught up in the midst of it all. And even the daytime activities and jobs sometimes hold their secrets.

This special section celebrates the 24-hour cycle of life in Suffolk. Our writers drew assignments to cover a variety of people, jobs and events throughout the day (and night) and then to share the experience with our readers. All of us were surprised at some aspect or another of the part of the day we normally don’t see, and we all came away with a new measure of respect for the folks who keep Suffolk running, whatever time of day it might be.

We hope you’ll enjoy this look at a life around the clock in Suffolk.

— Res Spears, Editor

Making headlines for 142 years Suffolk’s source for news and information.

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

By R.E. Spears III EDITOR

S

R.E. SPEARS 111/ SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Alfred “Bubba” Copeland has been picking up the trash in Suffolk for 17 years.

eventeen years into his gig with the city, Alfred “Bubba” Copeland still tries to treat every day as if it’s his first.

Sitting behind the right-hand-side steering wheel of a Suffolk trash truck for 10 hours a day, four days a week, it would be pretty easy for him to get complacent about his job. But complacency easily turns to carelessness, and carelessness can get someone hurt — or worse.

“I try to act like it’s my first day,” the 47-year-old says as he scans his mirrors for the eight-second mechanized process of picking up a can from the side of the road, lifting it above the back of the truck, dumping it and then putting it back on the ground.

“I don’t want to get too comfortable,” he adds. “It’s a very simple job, really — picking up cans — but things can happen in an instant.”

Today, Copeland is driving one of the longest of Suffolk’s nine garbage routes — the one through the Chuckatuck, Crittenden and Hobson areas. It’s a route where houses are generally spread out, and there can be relatively long segments of driving in

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between cans.

ESPN radio keeps him company, but he never allows his attention to shift from the road, the mirrors or the video screens monitoring cameras watching the hopper and the space directly behind the truck.

Children are a major concern, he says. “You’ve always got to watch out for kids, because this truck excites kids. There’s one young man that’s … out there (watching the truck) every week. If they can be happy for a few minutes, that’s fine with me.”

Copeland empties one can, maneuvers the big claw to set the can back on the ground, locks the claw into place and is moving the truck on to the next stop almost before a passenger realizes the cycle is complete.

He’ll do the same thing at 800 to 1,200 homes a day, depending on the route he drives. On this spread-out route, he says, he’ll use about 45 gallons of fuel.

Stop the truck. Use the joystick to extend the pneumatic claw. Grab the can with the claw.

Lift it. Dump it. Put it back on the ground. Lock down the claw. Move on. And repeat.

Watching the camera to see what he’s dumping (he once had a transmission fall out of a can, causing a massive noise when it landed in the metal hopper), he considers what most folks must think about what he does.

“This is not no brain surgeon’s job,” he says.

“It’s just picking up trash. People looking at trash might look at it as a bad job, but I love it.”

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

By Titus Mohler STAFF WRITER

O

n the first and third Tuesday of each month, visitors to the fellowship hall of Nansemond River Baptist Church during the 9 a.m. hour will hear rejuvenation in a simple sound — voices in conversation.

The voices belong to women in various stages of motherhood who are participating in a biblically based parenting program called Mom to Mom. “Our purpose here is to encourage and equip moms,” said program co-coordinator Emily O’Halloran of Suffolk.

According to the NRBC website, Mom to Mom is designed around the concept found in Titus 2:4 of older women teaching and encouraging younger women in their relationships with their husbands and children.

“The Mom to Mom program is a video-driven series, so our meetings vary as far as structure,” O’Halloran said.

They run from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., and include childcare for all children in up to the eighth grade, as well as a homeschooling room where children of moms who homeschool can work during the meeting.

As a January session progresses, O’Halloran explains how they tend to go.

“There’s usually breakfast, either a craft or a speaker — today it’s a craft — and then there’s a video that’s usually some type of encouraging message for moms, a little lesson, thing to ponder, stuff like that, and then we break up into discussion groups from there to

build relationships,” O’Halloran said.

“I get adult conversation and friendship with like-minded moms that have the Christian faith,” said Lauren Pulsifer of Carrollton, as she holds her 1-year-old daughter Madison Joy. Pulsifer is a mother of two with another on the way.

Becca Stevick of Suffolk agreed: “You get fellowship of other mothers, which is really important. I have two young children and one more on the way, so just to be around other adults who have adult conversations is very valuable to me at this point in my life.”

Her husband is in the military, “so sometimes when he is away, I don’t have the chance to be able to interact with other adults much,” she said.

Pulsifer’s husband, also in the military, is gone for a year. “It’s just nice to have people to lean on,” she said.

As some moms gather around the crafts table to see what project O’Halloran has arranged for them, Peggy Wade of Suffolk, one of the elder mothers, or mentor moms, shared what she likes about Mom to Mom. “The Bible says that older women are to teach younger women, so it is an act of obedience, but I was surprised to learn that they give me at least as much as I give them,” she said. She later added, “I love to see how they interact with each other and find so much support and help as friends.”

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TITUS MOHLER/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Caroline Ennen, left, and Emily O’Halloran fellowship during a meeting of the Mom to Mom program at Nansemond River Baptist Church.

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

By R.E. Spears III EDITOR R.E. SPEARS III/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Wanda Mixson has heard all the excuses people give to avoid parking tickets.

W

anda Mixson has pretty much heard it all.

There’s something about seeing the parking ticket between windshield and wiper that just sets some folks off.

“People call me the parking Nazi,” says Mixson, one of Suffolk’s two part-time civilian parking enforcement officers. “Yeah, me and the taxman, we’re best buds.”

She’s heard just about every excuse: “I’m not from here.” “I’m waiting for my wife” (in a fire lane). “But I’m on my honeymoon.” (He must be pretty cheap to honeymoon in Suffolk, she says.)

And she’s seen just about every bad behavior.

“I’ve had people throw their parking tickets out the window,” she says, and once, a guy “tried to run me down” as he pulled away with his shiny new parking ticket.

And you think you have difficult customers.

“I have bad days,” she says. “But then I think, ‘I could be stuck in an office and have to deal with all that drama.’ At least I get to be outside.”

Mixson, a Charlston, S.C., native has been in Suffolk since 1993.

She was Suffolk’s first parking enforcement officer and marked her 11th year in the job this month.

After all that time, she’s concluded — remarkably — that her favorite part of the job is the people she meets: people

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from different states and other countries, people who stop her for directions and even people who strike up conversations while she’s writing them a ticket.

Carrying a chalk stick and bundled against a bitterly cold wind at 10:30 a.m. one day in January, Mixson sets out across the courthouse parking lot, headed for the two-hour parking spaces, where she has marked tires during a previous round an hour earlier.

She marks the tire, marks the pavement and marks the tire in a second spot in a sort of parking code that helps her keep track of how long someone has been parked in a space.

Then she moves to the next car, which is already marked from the earlier visit and is not yet beyond the two-hour limit.

She works her way quickly down the line and heads for the intersection of North Main and Washington streets. She’ll circle the block, coming back up Market Street, checking handicapped spots in public and private lots along the way.

Two people rush out to see what she’s doing when she stops at their vehicles. One young woman gets to her car just as Mixson has pulled out her ticket book. She’s relieved when Mixson sends her on her way with a warning. It’s a bit of good public relations, at least.

“I think most people think I’m just an evil person that enjoys ‘making your day’” Mixson says as she walks on. But she tries to take the bad with the good.

“Somebody will say, ‘How was your Christmas, Wanda?’ and then I’ll walk 10 steps and hear, ‘Did you write me that ticket, you b----?!’

“Some people act as if it’s personal.”

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

By Titus Mohler STAFF WRITER

T

he atmosphere at Fire Station No. 3 on White Marsh Road is relaxed during a late morning in January, a steady state created by the firefighters on duty that is likely borne out of discipline.

They have reached a certain comfort level with the unexpected.

“There’s not a typical hour for our job,” said 29-year-old fire medic Doug Carter.

There is a general plan for the 11 a.m. hour, a trend, but it is subject to change.

“Usually either before lunch is training or taking care of all of our business needs, depending on what is going on,” Carter said.

Continuous training is important for firefighters, and they have a room at the station where they can watch training videos and have roundtable discussions about how to handle different scenarios. Elsewhere, they also can simulate situations they might encounter on a call.

Something that can change the landscape of the firefighters’ mornings is their involvement in city programs to serve the community.

Early in the hour on this day, several firefighters have the fire engine in the driveway and are spraying it down.

“We wash our trucks every day,” Carter said.

“We try to keep them clean. The fire station and our trucks — we try to treat them as well as we would treat our own house, because this is our home. It’s our home away from home.”

Carter and his colleagues work seven 24-hour

TITUS MOHLER/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Fire medic Doug Carter of Fire Station No. 3 displays his gear; to the right is the station’s ladder truck.

Strides 2015 | 9

shifts in a 21-day period, which ends up being 56 hours a week. They eat, sleep, shower and unwind at the station, though the latter happens only in the evenings.

Cooking duties are shared, and Carter said whoever is cooking for the day will spend a lot of time in the station’s kitchen.

Toward the end of the hour, that room is bustling with activity in preparation for lunch.

But if the tones sound, announcing a call, the order of the day changes instantly, and the morning’s preparations pay off just as quickly.

Firefighters are assigned to vehicles — the engine, the ladder truck or the ambulance — each with his own set of responsibilities.

Depending on the day, Carter could be assigned to any of the three. On this day, his assignment is to ride in the back on the ladder truck. A driver and one of the station’s two officers would complete the truck’s crew on a fire call with the other vehicles.

Once on scene, “I’m going to be with my officer, and we’re going to be doing primary searches and looking for life hazards and stuff like that,” Carter said.

Though his occupation is rife with the unexpected, Carter appreciates it for the things he has come to expect from it.

“There’s no other job where a mother will hand their child to you without question without knowing you, there’s no other job that you see people at their best and their worst, there’s no other job that can be as physically demanding or mentally draining,” he said. “It means a lot to me to serve the community.”

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

Matthew A. Ward STAFF WRITER

“D

o you want a drink? You don’t want a juice?”

It’s noon at Suffolk’s newest school cafeteria. With such gentle prompts, Kerry Cole, its manager, helps a steady flow of Pioneer Elementary first-graders select a nourishing lunch.

Cole has been with Suffolk Public Schools for seven years. She was also cafeteria manager at Southwestern Elementary, one of the two schools Pioneer replaced.

“It’s definitely a lot different,” Cole says of the kitchen, “because I’ve come from probably the oldest school to the newest school.”

Back behind Cole, Mary Blanchard and Barbara Gatling are spreading sausages on trays that will be slid into a stainless oven. Most appliances and surfaces are stainless steel — all the easier to clean and sanitize.

Blanchard is a 22-year veteran

of Suffolk Public Schools. Before starting at Pioneer when it opened last September, she was at Forest Glenn Middle for eight years and Lakeland High for 14 years.

A running joke among Pioneer cafeteria staff is that Blanchard is kin of every second student. She tallies them to set the record straight once and for all: three nephews and four nieces.

“It’s family here for me,” Blanchard says, and she isn’t talking just of her nieces and nephews.

Pretty soon, the ladies are taking a 15-minute “break” between the first-graders and the secondgraders. “We’re getting things ready for the next classes to come in,” Cole explains.

Today’s menu includes chicken sandwiches, chicken salad, mashed potatoes, steamed collards, juice and the ever-present milk.

There’s never enough milk for growing bones.

“They say breakfast is one of the

Noon

MATTHEW A. WARD/ SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Clockwise from above: Mary Blanchard prepares food for the oven; a smiling Carolyn Dean; and Kerry Cole rings up students.

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most important meals, but lunch is pretty important too,” Cole says.

In her own way, Cole is also an educator. She teaches the kindergartners what juice is and what milk is, and helps them make big decisions — like which one they’ll take.

In the main section of the cafeteria, Olivia Jordan Miller, who is in kindergarten, passes judgment on her lunch: “It was good, and it tasted good,” she says. “I ate chicken and potatoes and milk and juice.”

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By Tracy Agnew NEWS EDITOR

I

t’s 1 p.m., and Chief Animal Control Officer Meghann Lanier speaks into her radio and then backs the large animal control truck out of its space at the Animal Care Center on Forest Glen Drive.

With enough space in the back for eight animals — two large ones and six smaller ones — it’s a monstrosity that’s tough to learn to drive. But having worked for animal control since 2005, Lanier has it down pat.

Her first stop is the call she’s just received on North Lloyd Street, where a citizen complains there’s a dog tethered and unattended in the backyard.

On the way there, she chats about her typical day. Since she’s the chief, it typically involves “paperwork and more paperwork.” But she’s shorthanded today, so she’s fielding some calls.

If she had to guess at the department’s most common call, it’s dogs running at large. But she and her officers respond to anything involving an animal, whether it’s a companion animal, exotic pet, livestock or wildlife.

She arrives at North Lloyd Street, radios her arrival, gets out of the car and walks TRACY AGNEW/ SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Chief Animal Control Officer Meghann Lanier comforts a dog found running loose near College Drive.

Around the Clock in Suffolk

down the street far enough that she can see into the backyard. She spots the German shepherd tied up.

After knocking on the door, she hears from the resident that it’s not his dog. It belongs to the former resident, who is in the process of building a kennel at his new place.

She assigns one of her officers to follow up later, after the dog’s owner gets off work.

For now, she heads to the College Drive area to respond to a call of a lost dog found by a group of kids. She checks the dog’s Norfolk SPCA tag, calls them to get an address, and returns the dog to its owner a few blocks away from where it was found.

It’s a couple of fairly typical calls, but she’s had her share of wild ones. She once responded to a Whaleyville home where the owner was keeping an assortment of monkeys, including baby chimpanzees and a large primate in an outdoor enclosure. At a vacant home one time, she found a gecko and a tagu — a large South African lizard — abandoned by the former resident.

It’s all in a day’s work for Suffolk’s animal control officers.

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

Matthew A. Ward STAFF WRITER

W

henever it isn’t raining and the temperature is 38 or above, Main Street Car Wash is a hive of activity.

In the distinctive old Texaco filling station opposite Cedar Hill Cemetery, the business will usually scrub, shine and often vacuum and detail anywhere between 35 and 45 vehicles on such days, according to manager Marshall Donaldson.

Marshall Donaldson and his nephew, Phillip Donaldson, are bringing a deep shine to a black Chevy Suburban. The nephew says he enjoys the job, which he’s been doing for three months.

“Anything’s better than nothing,” he says philosophically.

Phillip Donaldson says he used to get tired when he first started; after all, the job has its physical demands. “But the second and third time, you get used to it,” he adds. “You adapt to the cold, and you adapt to the heat.”

The Suburban’s owner, Fontella Hall, emerges out the front door of the old Texaco, thanks the two Donaldsons and climbs behind the wheel of her clean ride.

It’s her first visit to this particular car wash, and she says she’s pleased.

Working alongside the Donaldson duo on the next car, a

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Ford Expedition getting the works — inside and outside — for $20, is Larry Harrell, the youngest of the three.

He’s been working at the car wash about eight months, he says. “I find it exciting,” Harrell says. “I enjoy it.”

Harrell likes cars, and the nicest car he’s seen through Main Street Car Wash is a 2014 Corvette.

“This is my first job,” he says. “It keeps me out of trouble and I’m earning a living.”

Mary Howell, the owner of the Expedition, sits inside the building, her attention focused on a crossword puzzle.

“I’ve been coming here a while,” Howell says. “I started coming when it had a previous owner, probably within two years ago.”

She doesn’t get her car cleaned as often as she should, Howell admits, but she tries to do so at least once a month.

She said says has gotten to know the staff by face, but “they don’t do a lot of talking, and I don’t want to interrupt them.”

Marshall Donaldson says he’s always looking for more keen workers.

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MATTHEW A. WARD/ SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Marshall Donaldson works up a shine.

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

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Matthew A. Ward STAFF WRITER

I

nside downtown Suffolk tearoom Stillwater House early in the afternoon, two ladies are seated at a first-floor table.

Pam DeVansier and Linda Nash, the former from Chesapeake and the latter Suffolk, are friends of 15 years. They try to meet monthly to catch up on the news.

Today, the main topic is Nash’s impending nuptials. She speaks of her future husband lovingly, giving him top points for indulging her fascination with British television series “Downton Abbey.”

“He got the first two seasons and he’s already ordered seasons three and four,” Nash says.

“He’s a good

Around the Clock in Suffolk

man,” DeVansier suggests.

“He’s so kind, and he’s so thoughtful,” Nash confirms.

Well dressed on a cold day, the ladies also chat about mutual friends and how they spent the holidays. All over hot tea in china cups — a rare sight in the South.

The gentle, soothing music of a plucked harp hangs in the air. It’s a CD, not the real thing — one of many ways Stillwater’s owner Diane Kippes creates a whimsical, pampered atmosphere that ladies can escape to. Men come along, too, but fewer of them do so.

Up a winding, narrow staircase in the old 1850s house, waitress Amy Ford treads carefully with a pot of hot tea, china cups, and some kind of delicate sandwiches, all laid out on a painted tray.

She sets the tray down on a table before Zachary Grymes, home visiting from Virginia Tech, and his mom, Pattie Cartwright, off from work and treating her son.

As they sip their tea, the caffeine helps sustain a conversation that in turn will have to sustain mother and son through the coming

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months, for it’s their final tête-àtête before Grymes returns to his lectures and his books.

Phone calls, texts and Facebook are all well and good, but none compare to the conversation that unfurls over afternoon tea.

Another college send-off is taking place at another table nearby. Mom Lisa Tiffany and older sister Crystal Tiffany have brought Heather Tiffany, who’s about to resume her studies thousands of miles away in Wyoming.

“It’s a girls’ day out before she returns,” Crystal Tiffany says.

The three women have dressed for the occasion, wearing sequined velvet coats, period jewelry and hats adorned with feathers and flowers and trimmed with lace.

“We were going to come in costume, but we came in normal clothes and our most extravagant hats,” Crystal Tiffany quips.

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MATTHEW A. WARD/ SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Ladies from the Tiffany family – Heather, mom Lisa, and Heather’s sister Crystal – raise their china cups, pinkies duly extended.

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

TRACY AGNEW/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Mike Santoro leans into his work on the spinning bike at the Suffolk Family YMCA.

By Tracy Agnew NEWS EDITOR

A

t 4 p.m., Andrea McHugh clocks in for her shift at the Suffolk Family YMCA and heads up the stairs to the cycling studio.

Sporting 22 new red spinning bicycles, the studio is already starting to fill with early birds for the 4:15 p.m. class. They stretch, chat and pedal slowly while they wait for McHugh to get everything in order.

Once she has changed her shoes, decided on her playlist and set up the music, the lights go out and the fun begins.

McHugh calls out encouragement as the intensity dials up throughout the hour-long class.

“I know it hurts — that means you’re doing it right,” she calls out. “The better version of you is on the other side of this.”

While the spinners — all 12 of them in this particular class — are able to do the class at their own pace, for the most part, McHugh encourages them to use their individual dials to turn the resistance on the bike up.

She also counts cadence at certain points to get everybody pedaling at the same rate.

As The Prodigy’s “Breathe” — that song with the lyrics “psychosomatic addict, insane” — plays, sweat begins to discolor clothing and even puddle on the floor, seen in the

glow of a strand of lights around the ceiling as well as the light coming in the open door.

McHugh directs her class to stand on the pedals, sit back down, hover over the handlebars, dial the resistance up and down and more.

“Be generous with the dial,” she yells over the music. “It only makes you better.”

Mike Santoro pumps an arm as he pedals while the other hand holds onto the handlebars.

“She’s really good,” he says of McHugh. “She really pushes you.”

It’s a bit of an odd time for an exercise class, at least if you’re a morning person, but McHugh said most of her regular attendees work at a school or at the nearby hospital and want to burn off the day before they go home.

Others — like McHugh herself — consider spinning a good cross-training discipline for their main passion, running.

“It’s a good cross-training thing,” she said. “But whatever gets you moving and gets you out the door, it doesn’t matter what it is.”

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By Matthew A. Ward STAFF WRITER

C

hanging tires, offering gas, dropping traffic cones, striking flares — it’s all part of the job for safety service patrollers like Earl Clanton.

“Every day is different,” says Clanton, motoring down I-664 in North Suffolk in a GMC Sierra truck.

The Virginia Department of Transportation started the Safety Service Patrol program in the late 1960s. The main objective of patrollers like Clanton — a father of two who’s been doing the job for more than three years, after 20 years in the Marines — is to alleviate congestion around incidents.

Incidents can include collisions, debris and disabled vehicles.

“You get the opportunity to help people,” the 43-year-old says. “Something as simple as giving someone gas or changing a tire on a lonely night.”

This Monday afternoon, Clanton’s patrol area spans from Effingham Street on I-264 to Bowers Hill, then up I-664 to the southern terminus of the Monitor Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel.

Clanton stays under the speed limit, eyes peeled for motorists in distress.

Soon, he pulls over behind a car stopped on the shoulder. The driver is offered free gas, but he declines, telling Clanton he doesn’t want to anger his father, who is going to the trouble of bringing him some gas.

Clanton switches on his flashing lights and blocks traffic as the man pushes the Nissan

Around the Clock in Suffolk

to the bottom of an exit ramp.

“If state troopers were here, he’d have to take the gas or get a ticket for running out of gas on the interstate,” says Clanton, who explains that he always tries to be polite, even when folks decline the assistance they obviously need.

“If you are the sensitive-type, you don’t need this job,” he says.

Clanton is one of 14 patrollers on the Southside, which also includes one foreman and an assistant foreman, VDOT spokeswoman Jennifer Gwaltney says. They work three shifts: a.m., p.m. — which Clanton is on during rush hour — and nightshift.

They work five days a week. Clanton starts at 1 p.m. and finishes before 9.30 p.m.

Driving about 300 miles daily, how many times he stops and services he performs depends on the day, he says, adding a typical Monday would see four to six stops and maybe two services.

The truck carries LED and combustible flares, personal protective gear, a jack, 26 traffic cones, Oil-Dri for fluid spills, gas cans, air compressor, broom, shovel, jump starter and various other items.

“About 99 percent of the people are very grateful for having us out here, and it shows every day,” Clanton says.

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MATTHEW A. WARD/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Wearing his personal protective gear, VDOT safety service patroller Earl Clanton strikes a flare.

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

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TRACY AGNEW/ SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Desi Reffitt cuts cornbread at Harper’s Table around 6 p.m. one February night.

By Tracy Agnew NEWS EDITOR

S

erving food in a busy Suffolk restaurant is a fast-paced job, and it’s only for folks who really enjoy it.

Among those people are Desi Reffitt and Whitney Sacdalan, two experienced servers who work at Harper’s Table on North Main Street. They named the pace among their favorite parts of their job.

“I like interacting with people and meeting new people,” Reffitt said. “And I like the fast pace.”

Around 6 p.m., that pace really starts to pick up. There’s usually plenty of business up until around 9 p.m., she said.

“We try not to rush people out of here,” Reffitt said.

Earlier in the shift, the servers take care of plenty of tasks. Upon their arrival at the restaurant, they make coffee and tea, polish the silverware and glasses on the tables, make sure the bathrooms are clean, vacuum and sweep, ensure there are enough condiments and cut lemons for the night, fold napkins and more.

The silverware at Harper’s gets polished three times between being washed and being presented to a guest, Reffit said.

“It’s a lot of polishing, but it’s one of the most important things,” she said.

They also have a meeting to learn about any new wines or dishes and learn anything special going on for the night.

The servers sometimes have set zones, but on less busy nights they simply alternate tables. They rush back and forth taking orders and bringing food but also perform kitchen tasks like cutting cornbread.

Sacdalan said it’s fun to learn about the many different career options involved in the restaurant business, including “mixologists,” who study alcoholic cocktails at the molecular level, and sommeliers, or wine experts.

Both Reffitt and Sacdalan have been serving for six or more years, moving from chain eateries and small diners to higherend restaurants like Harper’s.

“It’s a career choice for a lot of us, one that we’re proud of,” Reffitt said.

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www.suffolknewsherald.com

By R.E. Spears III EDITOR

A

s they stand in the lobby, Shane Sukowaski is chatting with the man about chickens.

Sukowaski would like to have a few hens laying eggs for his family, and the man sells hens.

Maybe they can get together at some point so Sukowaski can buy a few.

But first the man will have to get bonded out of the Western Tidewater Regional Jail. Sukowaski brought him there for processing after the man surrendered himself at Suffolk police headquarters for outstanding warrants. The prisoner and the police officer shake hands as the former is taken to be searched by jail officers and the latter prepares to head back to his squad car to police his sector.

“As long as they stay cordial with me, I stay cordial with them,” Sukowaski says. “Everything we do is just business until you put your hands on me.”

His business is law enforcement. Theirs might happen to be law breaking. But keeping the “just business” attitude helps keep things from getting personal.

Police officers never know when a positive interaction with someone — even someone they’ve arrested — could benefit them in the future.

Maybe that person sees the officer getting assaulted on the side of the road and comes to his aid. Or maybe he helps the officer in a future investigation. One just never knows, Sukowaski says.

Sukowaski’s evening shift begins at 2:45 p.m., and there’s no telling what will happen from one minute to the next. That’s how he likes it.

This shift started with a grand larceny investigation that was suddenly interrupted when Sukowaski was called to provide backup for an FBI arrest.

Five hours into the shift, he has left the jail, has checked Lake Meade Park and is headed to Riverview, where break-ins have been a recurring problem.

“This is one of those neighborhoods where you drive around and people actually thank you for driving around,” he says.

Not all neighborhoods — not even all of them in Suffolk — are that way, and nobody seems to forget the potential for danger that’s involved in the job.

“We try not to focus on the negative of what can happen,” he says, but traffic stops, home visits

Around the Clock in Suffolk

and even driving through neighborhoods are all done with a keen awareness of what’s happening around him.

This is a job in which just about anything could happen next, even if much of what happens is somewhat more mundane than what one might see on television.

At a trailer where he’s called for a domestic disturbance, he plays the part of relationship counselor and suggests the older gentleman involved try to get the lady involved to stop drinking alcohol. It’s a home officers have visited before, and one leaves with the impression they might well be back again.

“Luckily I enjoyed sociology and psychology when I was in school,” Sukowaski quips.

Passing a car on North Main Street without its lights, he pulls the young driver over and learns that she didn’t know how to turn her bright lights off, so she decided to turn the headlights off entirely. He gives her a warning and a headlight lesson.

“I see more negative attitudes toward police than positive ones,” he says. Maybe the positive encounter with the young girl, who was shaking when he first approached her window, will make a difference. She had certainly calmed down by the time he left her.

“Every so often, when you’re out and about, somebody will say, ‘Thank you,’” he says.

And sometimes, you can even chat with your prisoners about the best hens for laying.

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R.E. SPEARS III/ SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Suffolk Police Officer Shane Sukowaski tries to make sure things don’t get personal when he’s on his rounds.

22 | Strides 2015

Around the Clock in Suffolk

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By Matthew A. Ward STAFF WRITER

“M

aximus Aurelius Kittymus” — or Max for short — is getting ready to go home after a visit to The COVE Center of Veterinary Expertise.

About 8:30 p.m. at the 24-hour emergency and specialty animal clinic in North Suffolk, Max greets his mom, Michelle Parnell, and grandma, Susan Szychulda.

Before leaving, they’re receiving instructions from licensed veterinary technician Tammy Weatherly on how to treat the 7-year-old feline.

“He’s in kidney failure,” Parnell explains.

“He was diagnosed on Saturday with chronic kidney disease.”

Max’s appetite had dropped away, according to Parnell, along with his weight and energy levels.

“He was going in for an appointment he was overdue for, and they ran some blood work.” That, Parnell says, is how her cat was diagnosed. She hopes he might live another year, but beyond that, the prognosis isn’t good.

“It’s not going away,” Parnell says. “We are trying to maintain some quality of life until it gets the best of him.”

The COVE treats pets referred by primary care veterinarians and also specializes in emergency situations.

This particular Tuesday evening, the clinic has three patients. There were five more throughout the day, ER clinician Gabrielle Mueller says.

“I have been here when we have had 15 inpatients,” Mueller says. “Weekends are very busy,” when primary veterinarians are mostly closed.

MATTHEW A. WARD/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Michelle Parnell and Susan Szchulda give some loving to “Max,” a feline with some health problems.

Around the Clock in Suffolk

Mueller works from 5 p.m to 7 a.m., two days on, two days off. She does that for two weeks and then has a full seven days off, “to recharge and have a little bit of a life.”

“I like stress, to a certain extent,” Mueller says.

“Everything’s different on a daily basis … anything from a dog with an ear infection to a dog hit by a car with broken legs and internal trauma. I thrive on seeing different things.”

Working alongside Mueller and Weatherly are Dana Younger, another licensed veterinary technician, and Katy Negroni, a veterinary technology student.

Back in the consultation room, Weatherly shows Max’s earnest-looking humans how to hook up the drip to give him plasma.

“Some people use their laundry room and arrange it up high,” Weatherly says. “The higher it is, the faster it will flow.”

Parnell says, “I thought I would be scared to take him home — you guys have been taking such great care of him.”

“But now I’m excited to take him home,” she adds.

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

By Titus Mohler STAFF WRITER

T

TITUS MOHLER/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Regal Harbour View Grande 16 general manager Morris Barnes holds up an iPod that gives him a live breakdown of everything the theater is selling.

he ideal conditions for watching a movie on the big screen do not materialize automatically near the end of a long day without some diligent preparation first at Regal Harbour View Grande 16.

As the 9 p.m. hour arrives, arrangements for a day’s final series of moviegoers are under way inside Suffolk’s only movie theater.

“This is kind of a good regrouping period,” said Morris Barnes, the theater’s general manager.

He explained how each day at Harbour View Grande is divided up into four different sets of showtimes. The first set runs from about noon to 2 p.m., the second runs from 3:30 to 5 p.m., the third from 7 to 8:15 p.m. and the fourth from 9:30 to 10:30 p.m.

The third set is usually the busiest. Barnes said that around 9 p.m., his staff is restocking concessions, cleaning empty theater rooms and checking restroom supplies to ensure readiness for the day’s final set.

The shifts of some employees are also ending during this time. The last set typically requires fewer workers, since it normally involves fewer moviegoers, but Barnes noted attendance varies.

“Sometimes you’ll just have those night movies,” he said, referring to films that generate no business during the day, but draw a crowd late.

Barnes said the 9 p.m. hour is defined by more adult clientele, and “a lot more couples come.”

“This is the more mature hour, I guess would be the best way to put it,” he said.

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Barnes, who has around 10 years of experience as general manager, said his home base while on duty is with his staff out on the floor, being visible and making sure everybody is doing what they are supposed to.

Though the theater’s employees still have important duties to perform, it is also important to note one of their duties that no longer exists — being a projectionist.

Referring to the projection room behind the back wall of a theater room, Barnes said, “There’s nobody up there now.”

A visit to the other side of the back wall reveals a spacious, relatively quiet and largely empty warehouse-type environment, with self-contained Sony 4K digital projectors pointing into their respective theater rooms.

Completely absent are the employees who used to load film into projectors. Movies are now typically beamed into the projectors via satellite feed, queuing up automatically based on a schedule Barnes sets.

He said a visit to the projection room would customarily be required only to turn the projectors on and off or to address an issue, like a worn-out filter or burned-out 4,000-watt bulb.

While life for a theater employee is different these days, by March, it will also be distinctly different for moviegoers at Harbour View Grande, which has begun renovations in four of its theater rooms to replace all existing seating with luxury recliners.

The theater will remain open for business as a phased, six-month renovation will update every room in the same way.

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By Matthew A. Ward STAFF WRITER

W

hy are all the engines still running while the cabins are deserted?

It’s 30 degrees out — that’s why.

No engine, no heater. And the cabs aren’t deserted.

Drivers are sleeping in the back, heavy curtains shielding them from the blunt metallic glare of sodium lights at Miller’s Neighborhood Market and truck stop on Route 460.

When they’ve been off the road long enough to be legal, they’ll be back on the road again, quickly, burning diesel to all compass points, with their loads of Perdue chickens, pallets of cement and riding lawnmowers.

In a light rain that will soon turn to sleet, the rigs with their engines running are parked in neat rows, from one side of the asphalt expanse to the other. From the Miller’s Neighborhood Market and Tony’s Famous Grill all the way to the woods and field down the back.

Here and there, a car is nestled among them, Lilliputian against the Brobdingnagians idling and motionless in this land of highway-eating leviathans.

From where have they traveled to this truck stop alongside U.S. Route 460, to charge tanks from the high-flow pumps and re-provision with Coke and potato chips? Where did they come

Around the Clock in Suffolk

from to stop and sleep here?

From the same places whence they’re bound — all compass points. For visitors to this lonely outpost, all roads have led to it.

They want to be back behind the wheel and home to their families — or whatever the case may be — pronto. But they settle for 10 hours, 10 days, six weeks.

They’ll set their eyes back upon the long road forever ahead, taking it a mile at a time.

“I usually stop here and go to sleep, but I’m actually trying to beat the weather tonight with all that snow and everything coming in,” says one trucker at the pumps.

He’s hauling some of those Perdue chickens.

From Salisbury, Md., he’s bound for Petersburg.

Four hours — a short run tonight.

Brakes hissing, another truck hauling Perdue chickens — apparently these are everywhere — eases to a stop at the next bay down.

Somewhere along one row of the idling rigs, a strip of orange lights snaps on above a 100-gallon diesel tank. Another strip of orange lights above the windshield follows close behind, then a tired pair of headlights.

There’s another hiss as the parking brake is released. Naptime is over. The wheels are rolling again.

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MATTHEW A. WARD/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

At a truck stop on Route 460, big rigs bed down for the night.

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

By R.E. Spears III EDITOR

A

t 11 p.m. on a rare Friday night without a band playing at Baron’s Pub on North Main Street, there’s a table of eight or so in the lower part of the restaurant, and conversations can be had at normal volumes.

But at the top of a small set of stairs, the bar area is busy and crowded. High tables are full, and many of the barstools are occupied. Each time the door opens at the entrance from Market Street, more people trickle in and head up the stairs.

By midnight, with just two hours before the pub closes, there’s a cozy camaraderie among the late-night denizens.

That’s the way bartender Jamie Curtis likes it.

“Most of the people who come in here at night, I know who they are, and I know what drinks they want, and sometimes I know what they’re ordering for food,” she says in between filling those orders. “I’ve met a lot of friends here.”

A nearby customer, overhearing Curtis’ conversation, pipes up: “Are you my friend?” Another, sitting beside the first, has a ready reply: “Did you tip her? Then, yes.”

Curtis has been working at Baron’s for nine years, seven of them behind the bar.

It’s her longest restaurant gig ever, a fact she puts down to the “homey” feeling at the pub. “Baron’s is more laid back than

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anywhere else,” she explains.

Curtis has found it necessary to cut back on her Baron’s hours, though, as she has been studying to be a certified surgical technician through the Sentara College of Health Sciences. She expects to graduate in May. The medical job will bring a level of stability she needs with a toddler at home, the Portsmouth resident says.

Meanwhile, on Friday and Saturday nights, she’s serving from behind the pub’s long wooden bar — mixing drinks, pouring beers and, mostly, engaging customers.

Joe Doyle, a Baron’s server who has just finished his shift, is nursing one of those beers. “I’ve worked at a few restaurants, and she’s one of the best, most interactive bartenders I’ve met,” he says.

“If she was mean, we wouldn’t be chillin’,” quips Dustin Rosenbaum, a customer holding down the corner of the bar.

Curtis seems a little embarrassed by the attention and thinks carefully for a few moments when asked what advice she’d offer customers visiting her — or any — bar.

“Always be nice to your bartender,” she says. “If you come in with a nasty attitude to us, we might not want to be nice to you.”

Her customers on this Friday night seem to have the strategy down pat.

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R.E. SPEARS III/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Jamie Curtis has made many friends during her time as a bartender at Baron’s Pub..

28 | Strides 2015

Around the Clock in Suffolk

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By Tracy Agnew NEWS EDITOR

T

TRACY AGNEW/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Below, Kaitlin Rainey waits for calls during her shift at Suffolk’s E-911 center. Above, a bank of frequently-used phone numbers on the computer for dispatchers to call.

he call-takers and dispatchers who work in Suffolk’s E-911 center have an understanding about the “Q word.”

“You don’t say the Q word in here,” said dispatcher Tracy Pierce at midnight recently.

The word she’s referring to, of course, is “quiet.”

It was, indeed, fairly quiet when she spoke those words. The five staff members in the new E-911 center on this midnight were monitoring a medical call regarding a fall, an officer who had found a wanted subject during a traffic stop on South Main Street … and not much else.

There’s another naughty word in the E-911 center — “bored.” And though she doesn’t utter the word, dispatcher trainee Kaitlin Rainey is clearly bored enough to stretch her headset cord to a nearby table and grab some disinfectant wipes to clean her work station.

The dispatchers avoid words like “quiet” because as soon as they say it, the quietness dissipates.

The midnight shift actually starts about 30 minutes prior to midnight, when the dispatchers and call-takers have roll call and spend a few moments with the outgoing shift learning about what’s been happening on the street during the evening shift. This midnight, the dispatchers learn about that traffic stop and a man reported missing from Portsmouth, which that city had called in earlier.

In the new E-911 center, which is far more advanced than the one

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dispatchers moved from in January 2015, it’s never truly quiet thanks to the bank of television screens on the wall.

Several of the screens show the computer-assisted dispatch system that keeps track of officers, rescue crews and calls throughout the city.

Others show cameras on roads and government buildings throughout the city, which can be changed depending on what’s happening.

One screen is always tuned to national news, and often another is tuned to the Weather Channel.

“We’re up to date on what’s going on, should there be a developing story that can affect our area,” Sgt. Sandy Springle said.

While they’re not answering or dispatching calls, the workers chat about television shows and all manner of other subjects. But when an officer

Midnight requests a check for “33s and 73s” — in other words, Suffolk warrants and out-of-city warrants — on a 20-year-old he’s just stopped, they’re all business.

Once Gloria Harper, who’s working the police administration channel, replies in the negative, they’re back to talking about TV. Katie Gray, who is working the fire/ EMS channel and monitoring the rescue workers who responded to the fall, says the midnight shift can be quiet but ramps up quickly when something happens.

“Day shift is more steady,” she said.

Tonight, it’s a quiet midnight at the E-911 center. But just don’t say that word.

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

Matthew A. Ward STAFF WRITER

P

MATTHEW A. WARD/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

For the sake of his health, Anthony Freeman, a patient at Virginia Neurology and Sleep Centers, surrenders to the oblivion of sleep.

Polysomnographic technician Nikki Futrell monitors Freeman and other patients

olysomnography isn’t just a word in the spelling bee finals. For staff and patients at a sleep clinic on Bridge Road, it’s much, much more.

It’s a little past 1 a.m. at Virginia Neurology and Sleep Centers, and 44-year-old Anthony Freeman is one of six patients having a polysomnography.

He had asked his doctor for a referral after his wife told him he stops breathing during the night.

“The result I have is severe sleep apnea,” the Portsmouth City equipment operator said by phone after the study. “I stopped (breathing) between 90 and 94 times.”

Watching the exploits of Will Smith in “Hancock” helped usher Freeman into sleep’s oblivion by about 10:30 p.m.

The machines he is tethered to relay a constant stream of data onto one of six screens flickering in front of polysomnographic technicians Clanita Wilson, Nikki Furtrell and Danielle Blevins, as well as clinic manager Karol Smith.

Though it is the morning’s early hours, aided by caffeine, the technicians are fully alert to the uneven rhythm of their patients’ slumber.

Video footage in one corner suggests Freeman is dead to the world, but everything else on the screen shows he isn’t sleeping quite so peacefully.

“They have a mask on their face and

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there’s positive air going through it,” Smith explains.

“All night long, the technicians control the pressure until things look good.”

The monitoring starts at 10 p.m. or soon after and runs through 5 a.m. Each technician monitors two patients.

“Later in the night, hopefully there will be nothing,” Smith says, referring to the lines dancing across the screen. “It will be clean.”

It’s all about finding the optimum level of oxygen saturation in a patient’s bloodstream and keeping the airways open, she says.

Wilson says she works four days a week, and the hours can be tough. She used to work for another clinic, she says, and didn’t get a decent night’s sleep for three months after leaving that job.

“I started working again, and on days off you are up at night and sleeping during the day — just like you are at work.”

Smith says she was a technician for several years before becoming a manager, and now she can’t seem to readjust her body clock.

But it’s all for a worthy cause. With his CPAP (continuous positive airways pressure) machine, Freeman says he’s sleeping better than since he was 18.

And, perhaps more importantly, so is his wife.

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

By Tracy Agnew NEWS EDITOR

A

TRACY AGNEW/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Lynn Boykins, right, works with employee Richard Carroll at Massimo Zanetti at about 2 a.m.

t 2 a.m., most folks in Suffolk are asleep, but not the 70 or so people who work the graveyard shift at Massimo Zanetti on Progress Road. The constant smell of roasting coffee is perking them right up.

Supervising most of them is Lynn Boykins, who has been working for the company for 25 years. He has worked his way up to become one of the night shift supervisors — there are several for different crews who rotate nights.

“I kind of oversee the whole plant,” he said, adding that about 49 of the nighttime employees report directly to him.

Boykins believes in leading by example, so there’s rarely a night when all of the employees don’t see him at one point or another. When he’s not setting the schedule or making sure everything is in line for the day shift, he’s usually moving to the plant’s different stations and working alongside his employees for a few minutes at a time.

“That’s the best way to get the

Strides 2015 | 31

most out of your employees, is to have them see you working just as much as they are,” he said.

But he can’t be everywhere all of the time, and sometimes he has to attend to administrative duties.

When his shift begins, he spends a while checking inventory and jobs that need done against the current capacity of the plant, including employees and machinery.

Once everything is rolling, he has time to spend with his employees. Around 2 a.m., though, he usually takes a “lunch” break and starts making sure everything is in line for when the day shift reports at 7 a.m.

Boykins said it wasn’t too hard for him to adjust to working the night shift, although the first two or three months were rough. He also doesn’t find it difficult to stay up during the day when there’s something he wants to do or when he just wants to spend time with his family, which includes a wife, two kids and a dog.

“On my days off, we spend a lot of time together,” he said.

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32 | Strides 2015

Around the Clock in Suffolk

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

Strides 2015 | 33

PHOTO BY TROY COOPER

Downtown Suffolk at night.

By Tracy Agnew NEWS EDITOR

I

t’s too late for most night owls and too early for most early birds.

There’s not much going on except for police officers on patrol, firefighters waiting for the alarm to sound, factory workers on the night shift, security officers keeping watch and roughly 89,000 other people sleeping, or at least trying to.

In most places, only the lights are the silent sentinels breaking up the darkness. Whether they’re the

street lights, stop lights or lights on downtown businesses, these lights guide the way home from a latenight party; they keep tabs on the police officers and firefighters who have to be out; they stand watch over the innumerable stretches of road and the animals who might cause a hazard for the handful of drivers.

Even in the darkest part of the night, when Suffolk’s side of the earth seems farthest from the sun, there still is plenty to light the way.

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34 | Strides 2015

Around the Clock in Suffolk

By Titus Mohler STAFF WRITER

S

usan Glover enjoys being up before everyone else is working.

“It’s peaceful,” she said.

As the owner and operator of Simply Susan’s Bakery and Café on 149 N. Main St., she puts the early morning hours to good use, and specifically enjoys the setting.

“There’s a whole world that I get to glimpse into before the world wakes up, before humanity wakes up,” she said.

She was referring, in part, to the presence of rabbits and deer in her neighborhood almost every morning during the warmer months. But as morning progresses, and she comes in to work, she provides her own contribution to this pre-dawn world.

She fires up the oven in the back of her shop, but it’s more than just that.

“When I’m back here by myself, I put on my Christian music,” she said, noting that this early morning hour is also a time she uses for prayer.

In terms of work, it is an hour that “kind of allows me to get an organized handle on the day, so then the rest of the day seems to fall into place,” she said. “If I didn’t have this hour, I could probably do it a different hour, but I’m just more clear-thinking in the morning than I am in the

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evening.”

“I feel like if I can get a few things made and started here, I want them to be fresh in the morning,” she continued.

Almost every morning, she makes scones and turnovers.

“My four o’clock hour is usually (spent) on those, unless there’s an order that I have to get out real fast,” she said, in which case, she would be multi-tasking.

She said she makes two dozen scones and a dozen turnovers each morning. She will also typically make cookies and cupcakes.

The variations possible in all of these baked goods mean that, depending on the morning, she may be greeted by a diversity of scents, including lemon, blueberry, apple cinnamon, and butterscotch.

Scones in particular allow for a great deal of creativity.

“They’re kind of an empty canvas,” she said.

“We’re going to do lemon and chia seeds today, something a little different.”

Glover’s shop has certain items that people have come to expect, but outside of those, she said customers “like us to explore and try new things.”

And while someone might be dreaming of a new thing in their sleep, she might be busy baking it.

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TITUS MOHLER/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Susan Glover readies her bakery’s forward display case for the day.

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

Strides 2015 | 35

Preparing for spiritual growth

By Titus Mohler STAFF WRITER

T

he opportunity for Christian men to gather together during the week to study the Bible, talk about life and help hold each other accountable in their spiritual walks is a valuable thing.

To create such an opportunity during the busy workweek — particularly in the morning — can be challenging. But a group of six men from Westminster Reformed Presbyterian Church meets each Tuesday morning with some help from The Plaid Turnip, a restaurant on 115 N. Main St. “We open up early just on Tuesdays for them,” said Grace Ann Lewis, one of the restaurant’s servers. “The owner set it up for them.”

Around three years ago, Plaid Turnip owner and manager Ed Beardsley came to an arrangement with an associate pastor from Westminster to let a men’s group meet on Tuesdays in the restaurant at 6 a.m., an hour before it usually opens.

“I get up about four o’clock every morning, so I’d just gotten used to coming in early,” Beardsley said. “I guess they knew I was in early.”

He later added, “I guess it’s not easy to find space to meet at 6 in the morning.”

Rick Page, who is part of the group, said, “Some people have to be work at a certain time, and if you can get in here at six and be out by seven, then most people can be at work.”

He noted he is aware other places in the city are open early, but indicated The Plaid Turnip has an ideal environment for the men to meet in. It is quiet, allowing them to sit down to the side, while not being closed off to curious patrons, whom they invite to join them.

To make this environment available, Beardsley and Lewis move their schedules up a bit.

Lewis is expected to be in to work by 6:15 a.m. on most days, but on Tuesdays, “normally I’m here at 5:30,” she said, while preparing for the group’s arrival during the 5 a.m. hour on a Tuesday in January.

“I just make coffee and tea,” she said.

Beardsley is the cook, and accommodating the men’s group means Tuesday is added to a couple of other days in which he gets to the restaurant around 5 a.m. rather than around 5:45.

He used to get up before 4 a.m. on Tuesdays, but “I’ve gotten used to what they order, so I kind of can modify that just a little bit, because a lot of times I don’t get out ‘til seven or eight at night, so that makes a long day,” he said.

He noted the arrangement is no big imposition for him or anybody that is working, and he has agreed to it, and arrangements with other groups, because “the community does a lot for us, so I don’t mind helping when I can.”

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TITUS MOHLER/ SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

During The Plaid Turnip’s early Tuesday opening, server Grace Ann Lewis waits on a men’s group from a local church..

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Around the Clock in Suffolk

Strides 2015 | 37

‘This is when the fun begins’

By Titus Mohler STAFF WRITER

M

any would shudder at the prospect of waking up before dawn every weekday to usher dozens of potentially cranky and difficult middle school students from their homes to school.

But 24-year-old Michael Scott, driver of bus No. 116 for Suffolk Public Schools, is not one of the many.

“I was raised that if you don’t love your job, then you won’t enjoy your job,” he says. “I love my job, so I enjoy my job. I tried to get away from driving a school bus. It only lasted maybe a couple months. I was right back.”

And what has kept him coming back since he started the job, right out of high school in 2008?

“I don’t know. I guess it’s the kids,” he says. After being prompted, he adds, “I do like driving a big school bus.”

His young passengers are the focus of everything he does on the job.

Just before 6 a.m. outside the main office for Suffolk Public Schools’ Transportation Department, Scott begins a detailed, 20-minute inspection of his bus designed to ensure safety for the students.

He goes under the hood, walks around the bus and checks a wide variety of things inside the bus. He tests things like tire pressure, the radio, the brakes and the vehicle’s complex system of lights.

If something mechanical were to fail inspection, he would call for a mechanic from across the street, who would “come over and replace it immediately,” he said.

Scott says what he enjoys most about this hour of the day is “just the mindset of getting yourself ready for the whole day. It’s quiet as of right now.”

As he starts his route, heading to his first stop, he says, “This is when the fun begins.”

“The first people with the school system that our students see every morning is their bus driver,” he says, and he makes an effort to be positive, greeting his passengers with a “Good

morning” as they climb on board, unless they have previously requested to be left alone.

Some stops are door-todoor, others are at corners, with students waiting. He has a couple of no-shows, but it does not merit a call to dispatch, because the students had established they would get to school another way in the morning.

Scott has no memorable bus stories from this hour. “This early in the morning, they talk a little bit, but they’re still asleep,” he explains. “The more eventful stuff happens in the afternoon.”

Toward the end of the hour, the din of student chatter grows.

“I’m usually wishing I was still in bed,” 13-yearold Malique Citizen says of the 6 a.m. hour.

“They’ve got you waking up really early to get on a bus to go to school, so it’s a kid’s nightmare.”

As he nears his drop-off at Forest Glen Middle School, Scott says he rarely takes time off, and he talks about the positive relationships he is able to form with his young passengers.

Whenever he does miss a day, he says, the day he returns to the bus, his riders’ greetings are always the same: “Where were you at yesterday?

We missed you.”

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TITUS MOHLER/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Michael Scott pauses for a photo during his pre-dawn, pre-route inspection of the school bus he drives.

38 | Strides 2015

Around the Clock in Suffolk

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Morning on Lake Meade

R.E. Spears III EDITOR

A

wake! shouts the sun, Peering through trees stretching their limbs in the

dawn.

Awake! bark the gander and the goose, Rousing their downy troops for a groggy march to the water.

The chicks stumble and bumble down the hill While mother and father scan the sky for danger.

Arise! croaks the heron, Stretching skinny legs and stepping into the water Like a matron in gray testing the pool temperature.

To sleep! Mutter the bullfrogs, Putting away their horns after their nighttime serenade And now seeking shelter from the great bird now stalking amongst the reeds.

Wake up! grunts the turtle, Struggling to get its footing on a slippery log rising from the lake.

Depart! cries the mist in the last still moments of the day, Swirling in unseen currents above the still waters And waving farewell to its sister, the dew, Who silently bedazzles the grass nearby.

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Let’s go! whispers the electric motor, Pushing the little aluminum boat

into the lake.

Breakfast! beguiles the bright yellow fly As it plops into the shallows at the end of a line cast by the fisherman, Holding a rod in one hand and a steaming cup of coffee in the other.

Wake up!

R.E. SPEARS III/SUFFOLK NEWS-HERALD

Clarence Wright, left, and Frank Creasy of Chesapeake spend a quiet morning fishing from a boat on Lake Meade.

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40 | Strides 2015

Around the Clock in Suffolk

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