Arriving in Tidewater

 

                                                           Arriving in Tidewater


                                                  From the Mountains to the Sea


My first visit to Tidewater took place when I was about four years old. My father didn't get any paid vacation leave, but he managed an occasional trip out of town on a weekend. He had managed to leave work a bit early on Friday. My mother had prepared everything, including a meal we could eat on the road, so by the time he had washed and changed clothes we were ready to leave before 4:30. A long drive along a mostly two-lane Route 460 brought us to Suffolk by about 9:00, where we spent the night in a tourist cabin. We set out early on Saturday morning for Ocean View with an air of anticipation that grew to real excitement as we approached the water.

So far, my impression of Tidewater amounted to a slight sense of disorientation due to the flatness of the land. I could no longer look out the window and see a familiar mountain for reference. But now, as we drew near the ocean, I could actually smell the salt water. Then we could catch glimpses of the ocean between the houses. Finally, as we came to Ocean View Ave. the vast expanse of water came into full view – not a calm mirror of the blue sky, but a roaring wave after wave rolling in, building up, and breaking, with the white lines of cresting white caps stretching off into the horizon. With the car windows down, we could hear the crashing of the waves breaking on the beach – completing the thrilling experience of scent, sight, and sound generated by the ocean.

When I moved here in the summer of 1955, I rented a small cottage in Hampton near Langley Air Force Base, where NACA was located. It was not close enough to the bay to smell the saltwater or to see and hear the waves, but that expanse of water made its presence felt in other ways. First and foremost was the humidity which, along with the heat, made some summer days almost unbearable for someone raised in the drier climate of Roanoke valley. On the other hand, occasionally a sea breeze would kick, and hold the temperatures lower than the inland temperatures. But when that sea breeze became the powerful wind of a coastal hurricane, the experience was something entirely new to me.

There were also more subtle sights and sounds that defined Tidewater in those early days, weeks and months of my life here. For example, sometimes when I could sleep with the windows open, I would awaken in the middle of the night and hear the deep low moan of a fog horn, which, I am convinced, is the loneliest sound in the world.

Also, there is a beautiful sight at the coast, which frequent beach-goers take for granted. When you look out over the water on a sunny day the sky gradually changes color toward the horizon – from deep blue to light blue, a slight tinge of green, white, yellow, orange, red, and purple, as the refracted light is depleted of its shorter wavelengths. There is nothing to match that scene in a mountain environment, where no horizon is in view.

In Hampton Roads no place is free from noise for a reasonable length of time; or from the threat of noise for any length of time. Airplanes using a commercial airport generate a moderate sound level which is limited by law, but those laws don't apply to military aircraft. Consequently, every movie, concert, sermon, lecture, or casual conversation is liable to interruption by deafening sound. When I first moved here jet planes were rare, and the relatively moderate noise level of propeller airplanes was more a matter of interest than annoyance, so newcomers to the area would often stop to watch an aircraft fly over, sometimes to the amusement of those who had lived in the area for some time.

One other characteristic of the area was the variety of residents. Because of the proliferation of military bases in the area, nearly every neighborhood included personnel from all parts of the USA, here on assignment. My colleagues at NACA included engineers from many states, as well as post-war scientists from Germany, Italy and England.

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