THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 5, 1995 TAG: 9511010047
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 129 lines
THE SUNSHINE spills out of the morning sky all over Amos C. Sparrow's front porch in Virginia Beach. He's sitting there, as always, in a metal and dark blue vinyl lawn chair.
To his right is a plowed field planted with collards that, right now, are covered with heavy, silvery morning dew.
To his left is a patch of dappled green woods.
In front of him, beyond the lawn he's decided he's too old to mow, lies a stretch of Princess Anne Road.
A truck rolls past and the driver honks the horn.
``Hey there, boy,'' Sparrow hollers. His arm juts from his gray suit jacket as he waves a hand toward the road. He squints through his bifocals, can't make the fellow out and doesn't have time to worry about it.
Somebody else honks from a passing asphalt truck.
``Hey there, boys,'' Sparrow says and waves again.
Sparrow waves at passing cars in the morning, in the evening, regular as clockwork. People driving past dart looks over at his little house. They don't know him, not even his name, but heading to work or back home, they check to see if he's sitting there, as always, his friendly, answering wave sending them on their way.
``I always wave to him,'' said Dianne Sergeant, who lives a couple of miles down the road. I feel like I know him because I always wave to him.''
Receiving Sparrow's daily salute has become a pleasant ritual.
``When I drive past, I'm always rushing to get somewhere,'' said Jeanne Daill, a resident of a nearby neighborhood. ``But seeing him always reminds me to slow down and watch life go by. He kind of enters your life by waving at you. And he's making someone happy. When I have a miserable day he lifts my spirits.''
And when Sparrow isn't on the front porch as usual?
``I worry about where he is,'' said Daill. ``And like today, I went past two times and forgot to look and I thought, oh . . . ''
Not to worry.
``I sit out here most days,'' Sparrow says, ``if it's not raining or too cold.''
In the summer, the porch roof keeps him cool. About now, in fall, the sun rises over the trees at an angle, warming the cement under Sparrow's feet and his 85-year-old shoulders.
``I built all this on here,'' he says, tapping a foot on the porch of the house that used to belong to his grandmother and was left to him, ``And I built some rooms on out back. I didn't ever call her grandma. I called her mama. She raised me from a baby on up, 'til I got big enough to get married.''
When Sparrow explains he's from here, he means from right here, from as nearby as his finger can point.
``I've lived across over there,'' he says, gesturing beyond the trees. ``I've lived across over yonder and I've lived down the road a-ways.''
Sparrow takes his eyes from the road and looks at his visitor as if to measure a reaction to his next words, ``I was born in 1910.''
He was born in a little house that sat between where a Catholic church and city park exist now on Sandbridge Road. His grandmother and, once he was old enough, Sparrow himself, worked on many of the surrounding farms.
``We worked in sweet potatoes, white potatoes, corn, beans, peas, whatever was in,'' he said. Eventually, Sparrow and a sister grew up. She moved to New York. He married; his wife died nine years ago. Now he has two children - a son and daughter - eight grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren, and three great-great-grandchildren.
So many offspring that keeping them straight confuses even him.
``They grow so fast. When they come, I look at 'em and tell 'em, Who is you?'' he says, laughing.
``Hello there,'' he shouts, waving at a car honking as it heads south. When he was younger, Sparrow, still tall and lean, used to run to places that weren't far enough away to require a car.
``I could run down to the bridge down there'' to fish, he says. Spot was his favorite catch.
``Hello, boys,'' he yells at a honking navy blue truck with two women inside.
Sparrow contemplates the whoosh, whoosh of traffic passing in front of his house.
``I used to like to drive,'' he says, telling of 31 years he spent driving dump trucks and tractor-trailers at NAS Oceana before he retired. He recalls with some pride that he'd never driven a tractor-trailer before he was asked to, but learned how right away. He delivered ``oh, all kinds of things,'' he says, waving a hand as if to say it doesn't matter after all this time. He does remember, however, that he liked to stay busy, not like some of the drivers he worked with.
``They'd drop off something and then pull up and then. . . ,'' he says, closing his eyes and letting his head drop forward onto his chest as though he were napping. ``But not me. I always liked to be going.''
``Hey there, go on,'' he shouts, with an admiring look at a passing wrecker, sparkling with polished chrome.
A white delivery truck with an odd-shaped side window cruises by.
``That's the second time they've been by this morning,'' Sparrow murmurs. ``Sometimes I don't think they work. They ride too much.''
He used to drive all over in his own car until one day he got lost and had no idea where he was. ``Gave it up,'' he says. ``Sold my car.''
Eventually, he sold his tractor, too. Sparrow and his wife used to rotate vegetable crops out of the field beside the house. A neighbor tills and plants it now.
But Sparrow still appreciates the chance for a trip on the road.
``I sit here most days. If somebody comes along and says, let's ride, I ride,'' he says.
He's lost in thought when a car passes by, the driver tooting the horn over and over until Sparrow finally waves. ``Hello, boy,'' he yells.
Another driver honks.
``Was that a lady waving? Sometimes I don't know, I just throw my hand,'' he says.
By midmorning, the lulls in traffic get longer.
``Listen,'' Sparrow says, cocking his head to the side in the silence. ``You can hear 'em coming.''
Seconds later, two cars pass in front of the house.
The sun is bright now and warmer. Sparrow pulls his chair close to the house into the shade and pulls the purple ballcap off his head. He passes a hand over its shiny skin, and waves his cap at a car honking on its way down the road.
``Hello,'' he calls. ILLUSTRATION: COLOR PHOTOS BY JIM WALKER/The Virginian-Pilot
Amos C. Sparrow hails passing motorists from the front porch of his
home in Virginia Beach.
``I sit out here most days,'' says Sparrow, ``if it's not raining or
too cold.'' The retired truck driver lives in rural Virginia Beach,
where he was born 85 years ago.
by CNB