Greetings from Ocean View - Wake of the flood

Around 8 o'clock in the morning on Thursday, Sonja Hobin was busy trying to block the wind coming in through her air conditioner when she heard yelling outside. She woke up her husband, grabbed her cat Maggie and boarded the inflatable boat that the fire department had unloaded on 5th Bay Street. The water was already creeping up the steps of her house. "They gave us just a few minutes to get out," she said, "It was scary." But not as scary as the unknown she faced once they had evacuated.

Over the weekend, Sonja went to the Ocean View Assembly of God, a church she had visited only once before, and told them she needed help. The next day, she huddled in prayer with seven mostly strangers who had arrived to help pack and load her belongings onto a U-Haul.

The group of fellow Pentecostals, who proudly stated their Navy ties, stayed with Sonja through the day. "They've been work horses," she said, "It's been a real blessing to have all the help." Despite overwhelming moments and fits of tears, she said, "I know God is in control and the Bible says He's gonna work it out for good."

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Greetings from Ocean View - Una casa nueva

When a first-timer walks in, Jorge Romero, 26, sees the look of amazement. They usually come in to buy a phone card or wire money, but they get lost in the shelves of everything else. "You look for things that remind you of home," he said.

When people are away from their families, traditions get lost. "If you live by yourself with a group of guys," Jorge said, "you're not going to put up a Christmas tree." So, he tries to stock and decorate Jessy's Tienda y Taqueria accordingly, the store acting as the neighborhood's surrogate matriarch.

Three or four times a year, Antonio Hernandez and Sergio Tampa drive their box trucks up from Mexico. As they unloaded, the strip mall sidewalk on East Ocean View Avenue became a showroom of figurines, tamales steamers and piñatas. Jorge looked over the assortment before placing his order. The baby Jesuses are new inventory for Christmas, but the others are mostly standard fare.

The Hispanic community here is a transient group in an already transient area. They come up for work and usually plan on going back, he said. But saving money in this economy isn't easy. And when babies come, "They unintentionally start setting roots here. Nothing ever goes as planned." Jorge moved to the U.S. with his family when he was 8. But he doesn't imagine going back to Mexico City except to visit. "My life is made here," he said.

What originally started as a door-to-door family venture has now been in its current spot for 6 years. As a kid, he and his brother dreaded the weekends when they would have to help schlep merchandise around from town to town. Now with a business degree and two years without his father's help, Jorge said, "I realized this is what I was made for."

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Greetings from Ocean View - The genie and the sumo wrestler

The oddest thing may have been that they didn't seem so out-of-place. In a neighborhood whose name itself is intrinsically contradictory, surrealism is to be expected. Tethered by an iPod, the genie and the sumo wrestler made their way along Shore Drive, from their home on 13th Bay to McDonald's.

Stepsisters Kaitlyn Blaney (left) and Sonya Self, both 10, often take this walk for exercise. So on Halloween, they decided it would be funny to make the trek in their costumes. Plus, it would help kill time until the day got dark enough for trick-or-treating.

"The legs are so big, they rub together," Kaitlyn said as her stepsister plodded along. People honked and yelled from their car windows, but Sonya seemed more concerned with trying to climb over the curb. They had another costume, Sonya said, "a big fat gorilla one. But it popped."

"We decided to be a genie because they're smart and they like to play tricks on people," Sonya explained of their joint decision. They stopped on the bridge to look down at the water and wave to the boaters below. Though it was cumbersome, the sumo suit was clearly the attention-getter. Kaitlyn turned to Sonya and asked, "when we get to McDonald's, can we switch?"

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Greetings from Ocean View - Blending in

Sun or shine, Melinda Sikora's clients keep her busy from Valentine's Day pretty much through the fall. For those who live in Ocean View, she said, after the tanning starts there's no going back. "Once their legs are out, they're out."

Custom airbrush tanning is a process popular with brides, bodybuilders and "all the people you see on Dancing with the Stars." Dihydroxyacetone, a derivative of sugar cane, causes a chemical reaction that changes the skin's color. When sprayed on, the coloration can last a couple of weeks, depending on the skin's natural exfoliation process and the rigorousness of the sunless bather's personal hygiene.

Growing up, Melinda always felt like Casper, with skin as white as the walls. In the summers at the pool with her friends, she had to wear a hat and a T-shirt. "They all looked thin and great in their clothes and I just looked red." She opened Sun Buni Brown 5 years ago.

Lisa McAllister (pictured) doesn't lay out at all now; she gets sprayed every three weeks. Twice crowned Mrs. Ocean View, Lisa first tried airbrush tanning three years ago while preparing for a beauty contest. Melinda's got her own solution, Lisa said, "she's perfected hers so it's not gonna be orange."

A client, usually naked, stands in a corner clutching two plastic balls to prevent her naturally pale palms from getting sprayed. With slow turns and arms outstretched, the process looks a bit like a tailor's fitting. A few minutes under a hairdryer and a little powder at the end help prevent smearing.

A tan can make muscles look more defined, or make someone look thinner, Melinda said. She blends hers with the season: light in the winter and going a shade darker as the summer wears on. "When you look in the mirror, you're the one who has to be satisfied," she said, "I never had a tan until this."

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Greetings from Ocean View - First home

Steve Hornbeck, 24, and Kelly Leitzke, 23, met almost two years ago, on the day after Christmas. And "ever since then we've been together," Steve said. He can't really explain it, but he knew that being with her was "some kinda way I'd never felt before."

Steve was laid off from his job last December and had a hard time finding steady work. They were staying with family members, crowded into a house that had become home to seven people until he was able to land a job cutting grass and doing other maintenance work for the city.

They found their place in Ocean View in time for their son Allen's first birthday. Nowadays,  their living situation is "so much less stressful." A photo of three of them is taped to the outside of Steve's laptop computer, a testament to the family he's building. On a warm day after work, he leaned against his car, the computer propped in front of him, searching the Internet for the next family addition -- a dog to bring home.

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Greetings from Ocean View - Red Rooster

If someone were to bring all the self-taught artists together, from around the world, Paul Trice said he'd be named No. 1. "I betcha a dollar I'll win. Let 'em prove me different."

Paul Trice, known to a few as "Bobby," but nowadays mostly as "Red Rooster," is fairly new to Buckman Avenue, but certainly not to Ocean View. "I was born in Monkey Bottom, darling," he said gesturing off to his left towards an area mostly swallowed by the Navy in the 1940s.

Despite cranky neighbors (they're just jealous, he said) and a city inspector who dropped by recently, Red Rooster, 77, is determined to turn his rented home into a house of art. The wall in the works now is a mural from the movie "The Little Mermaid." Stucco is the hardest to paint on, he said: "It's like painting on a frog that's full of warts."

On weekends, he drags out paintings to the edge of yard. Some are political, like his depiction of the 2008 news conference when an Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at President George W. Bush. He also painted an homage to Princess Diana and one to his pool partner from Rosy's, his favorite watering hole. But mostly he paints places nearby. "You live in Ocean View," he said, "you live in God's country."

Red Rooster figures if a Monet painting of water lilies can fetch $40 million, his painting of the 9/11 attacks should get at least $1 million. That's why he hopes to travel to New York City next September to sell his work. "You stick around me, baby, you'll learn a few things."

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Greetings from Ocean View - Dreamtime

"Dreamtime" is the word that the Australian aborigines use to refer to the time of creation. Both widowed and trying to build a new life together, it was a fitting name for Jim and Bev Borberg's first boat. "It was our time of creation," Jim said.

The couple met nine years ago on a friend's sailboat. Bev enjoys the weekly Little Creek races but prefers week-long sailboat cruises, when they rendezvous with other couples each evening. When she wants to share her email address with someone they've met, she has a stack of "boat cards," business-sized and complete with a picture of their boat.

For a retired naval engineer, it's the creation - and the challenge - that Jim likes most.  Back in 1963, he said, "there were no sailboats in Guam, so I built one." Although he's sailed in many places, the Chesapeake Bay is "one of the best places in the world."  Jim's not doing the construction now, but the Little Creek races are challenge enough, particularly when the wind is light. 

Crew members waved hello as they skirted past each other toward the red buoy which marked the invisible starting line. "Little creek racers! little creek racers!" the voice of the race committee called across the radio before dictating the course. "Thirty... Fifteen..." Jim's daughter, Ronda, counted down the seconds as they hovered and waited. "Ten...Five..."

A half a mile off the Ocean View shoreline past the tall, pastel block houses of East Beach, a dozen tiny white triangles glided across the horizon.

(The races are organized by the Little Creek Sailing Association, a division of the Broad Bay Sailing Association. For more info, visit http://www.broadbaysailing.org)

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Greetings from Ocean View - The Death of the Park

History typically dies slowly. It crumbles, sags or fades. Not often does it go up in a ball of fire for a Made-For-TV movie. But so was the fate of the old wooden roller coaster at Ocean View Amusement Park. People say it took three tries to bring her down.   In the 1960s, Joe Leatherman was the "scissor person" at the park, helping trim the ends of wristbands on Bargain Days. He'd also run quarters, clean the glass on the pinball machine, and do most any odd job suitable for an 8 year-old.

As a teenager, he would ride "The Skyrocket" with his friends. The slap of his fingers helped wear down the paint at the bottom of the "Do Not Stand Up" sign that warned riders about to crest the first hill.

Now he volunteers at the Ocean View Station Museum. Joe may be the unofficial expert of his childhood playground. On Saturdays, he plays DVDs of old park footage for people who visit. "The first time I saw this I about cried," he said while introducing one nostalgic clip.

The park opened in 1899 and sailors helped lift it to its heyday during World War II. For a time, it was hailed as the "Coney Island of the South." Volunteer staff and those who wander in from the Pretlow Branch Library lobby stand around the exhibits and swap stories.

There's the story of Rosa Le Darieux, a flag pole sitter who in the summer of 1933, had to descend from her perch after more than two days, an hour short of breaking the record, because a hurricane was bearing down.

There's the one about the drunk sailor thrown from the coaster in 1958. He landed on a parked car and survived.

And maybe the oddest of them all, the story of the woman who spent two summers buried in a crate. She claimed it was to protest teenage drug abuse of the late 1960s, but Joe said she was hired by park owners. A peek at her cost 25 cents. Joe would help lower food down to her in a basket.

With the advent of huge theme parks like Kings Dominion and Busch Gardens, the park slipped from its reign. It closed to the public shortly before its demolition in 1979 for the filming of "The Death of Ocean View Park."

(The folks at the museum are always looking for volunteers to expand their hours. For more info, visit http://www.ovsm.org/)

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Greetings from Ocean View - Food for the community

Jacqueline Johnson and the others at the East Ocean View Community Center see the same faces pop in every couple of days, looking for something to take home from the garden's latest harvest.  If the families who live nearby can't afford fresh fruits and vegetables at the grocery store, Johnson said, "people know they can get good food here."

At least once a week, kids help with the arduous task of keeping up the garden. In the five years since its inception, the two plots bordering the parking lot have grown into a source of education, civic service and free food.

On a recent morning, Leslie Carter, 11, harvested beans from a plant she helped grow from a seed. Nya Tolbert, 8, (pictured) and Leslie wandered up and down the tidy rows, and scoured the garden for red tomatoes. Nya picked a small one and popped it in her mouth.

"They nasty?" asked Leslie.

"No, they're good when they're fresh," Nya responded.

The center sits next to Pretty Lake, two long blocks off East Ocean View Avenue past a dense collection of not-so-pretty apartment buildings. Most children who help in the garden live in walking distance of the center. Johnson said the kids she works with get "a bad rap because of the stigma of East Ocean View."

The East Ocean View Community Center Children's Garden was the brainchild of Lenwood Snead, who was looking for a different way to educate the kids. "He got tired of hoop dreams and them cussing," said his wife, Juanita, who still volunteers on a regular basis since her husband died this past spring.

While they have had problems with neighborhood vandalism in years past, they've been lucky this year. "The more they understand what the garden is for, the less likely they are to do something to it," Johnson said.

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Greetings from Ocean View - An unusual couple

A sparkling green shell-shaped brassiere was draped over her chest. Her golden locks almost seamlessly matched her yellow coat. She was a vision not unlike the mermaid statues sprinkled throughout the city. And Zoe, a 5 year-old Labrador, played the role with ease.

"This is what happens when your children leave home," said Dianne Steele, who lives in Pinewell by the Bay in Ocean View. "She's good, she puts up with me."

Zoe's companion Barney, an Old English bulldog, was a first class boatswain's mate. 38-short, according to his owner, Linda Husbands, a neighbor of Steele's who tailored it from an actual navy uniform. The couple were competing in the "Most Unusual" category, one of five in the Dog Days of Summer festival contest at the Maple Avenue Dog Park in Ocean View.

"They're boyfriend and girlfriend in real life," Steele told the three judges with clipboards in hand. The leashed pair stood obediently together, slack-jawed and with tongues hanging out.

Proceeds from the $25 contest entry fee were raised to fence the new park. A dog park is useless without a fence, the people agreed. It was something for them all to look forward to, as they headed back home empty-handed. Zoe and Barney were an unusual couple, indeed, even if they didn't win the prize.

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