STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS | The Roanoke Times
Jason Hall, a mechanic for eight years (two of those years with VDOT), sprays the floor in VDOT's Rocky Mount repair shop as Leon Prillaman, assistant district equipment manager, sweeps on Thursday, October 22, 2009. The shop closed its doors the next day. Hall will continue working for the department of transportation at its Martinsville location.
Football fans at the William Byrd/Northside football game on Friday night (October 16) sat in the rain and watched the game in rain gear in an attempt to shelter themselves with various colorful umbrellas. I asked myself, "What's wrong with these people?" as I stood in the mushy wet grass, my socks soaked and my feet cold.
I was there to photograph the game.
The only other reason I could possibly imagine to be there in that rain might be if my son was on the team. He's not. He's only 10 years old.
"Do all of these people have kids on the teams, cheerleading squads or the bands?" I thought. Quite possibly. That had to be the reason they were tolerating the miserable cold and dampness.
Otherwise, there's something I don't understand. But despite my discomfort, it looked quite pretty.
STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS/The Roanoke Times
Most people think you just put a couple of seeds in the ground and get pumpkins.
"It's not that simple. There's always something to worry about," said Dan Brann, a farmer, who is retired from the Virginia Cooperative Extension. Brann relies on special fungicides and a well-managed irrigation system.
Brann started with a home garden, a lawn mower and trailer. He and his young daughters sat at the end of their Christiansburg driveway and sold the pumpkins. One year a man from North Carolina bought a pickup load and said, "If you can grow pumpkins of this quality, I'll buy a trailer load." This was the first of many trailer loads to follow.
Brann and Chuck King have partnered for 10 years growing pumpkins for the wholesale market on 25 acres. They will produce about 40,000 pumpkins that they sell primarily to Walmart stores in the area. Brann appreciates their willingness to support local growers.
Joan Wolf, who works at the farm, cuts each pumpkin from the vine, one at a time. She started cutting pumpkins when her son was young and she wanted to teach him how to work. He grew up and left home, and she continued.
"Joan has a pattern about cutting. She's figured out the lay of the land, and the direction of the sun. It's a system; a method," King said. "We have to slow her down so we can catch up."
By Sept. 17, the first loading day, Wolf had cut between 5,000 and 10,000 pumpkins in less than a week. A makeshift pumpkin brigade of 15 Virginia Tech agriculture fraternity brothers tossed the 10- to 15-pound pumpkins like basketballs from the field to the tractor-trailers. It's a workout. The agriculture fraternity house earns a contribution by working 15 hours each year. They arrive midafternoon and work until the orders are filled, often as the sun is setting. "Every year one gets rotten and someone sticks their hand through it and it's not pleasant," said Spencer Arey, 19.
-- Stephanie Klein-Davis
A fireworks display followed Saturday night's game at the Salem Ball Park after the Red Sox played the Kinston Indians of North Carolina on August 15, 2009.
When they were high school sweethearts, it was the Starlight Drive-in in Christiansburg.
Now Wayne and Leigh Ann Davidson are parents in their 40s living in Forest.
On a recent Friday night, they packed their truck with blankets, a cooler full of drinks and snacks. Their daughter, Ashlyn, and her friends Anna Carter and Morgan Tomlin, each 15, came along to the Mayberry Drive-In Theatre & Diner. It's the first summer season for the theater, located in a field along White House Road in Moneta, near Smith Mountain Lake.
A stream of headlights illuminated the gravel road to the ticket booth and its flashing neon sign. People bought tickets and took directions: "Turn your radio to 88.9 FM to hear the movie, drive around the diner and don't park in front of anyone."
By 9:30 it was dark. Only the glow of cellphones cast light on the faces of Ashlyn and her friends as they text-messaged during the showing of the newest Harry Potter movie.
The movie drowned out the sounds of summer insects; the projector beam overpowered the flashes of fireflies.
Wayne and Leigh Anne Davidson gave the truck bed to the teenagers and sat in lawn chairs beside the truck. No cuddling, no steamy windows.
Ashlyn and her friends were as impressed as teenagers get: "Yeah, it was OK," they said in unison. "The milkshakes were good."
Ashlyn's parents were more nostalgic. "It was a good summer experience," Leigh Anne Davidson said. "It was as good as the Starlight."
-- Stephanie Klein-Davis
Stephanie Klein-Davis has been with The Roanoke Times for 22 years.
Summer Moments will publish each Monday through the end of August. Got an idea for the photo column? E-mail natalee.waters@roanoke.com.
