Settling the debate of who's a `come here' in Tidewater Virginia. (It's not easy ...)

When Cultures Combine

'Come Heres And From Heres'

April 19, 2004|BY MATT SABO msabo@dailypress.com | (804) 642-1748

Natives and newcomers try to decide how long a person has to live here before shedding the 'outsider' label.

It is a vexing question, its answer fraught with rampant speculation and, of course, influenced by one's genealogical ties to the great commonwealth of Virginia. The state constitution is no help. Local ordinances do not address it. A Google search turned up no definitive answer.

Judy Schick bravely tries to answer it anyway.

"Mmmm, I'd say the only way you can be a 'been here' is if you've been born here," she says.

That's it then. All you "come heres" who are looking to shake loose your outsider status have something to shoot for. Birth a kid wherever it is you've landed, and your progeny won't be a "come here."

Or maybe not. Schick is waffling after thinking about this problem for a minute.

"Well," she says, "I don't know that there's an answer."

Schick was born in New Jersey and arrived in Mathews via Indianapolis after she and her husband took a liking to the Virginia shoreline. She concedes she's 100 percent "come here." She even started the "Newcomers Club" in Mathews, where "come heres" flock like mosquitoes to flesh. The club has 48 members.

But isn't there a way to change from a "come here" to a "been here?" How long would that take? A decade? Twenty years? Fifty years? Having a momma who's a native?

"Never," says 56-year-old Tommy Darden, who runs rustic Darden's Country Store in Isle of Wight County. Getting to Darden's would be hard for most "come heres." It involves taking a left, two rights, a left, a right and then another left (or was it a right?) - all while negotiating narrow back roads and dodging locals wandering out to the mailbox across the road.

"To me, personally, when you're a 'from here' is when you know the back roads from here to there," says Mark Rowe as he cradles a midday beer at Harpoon Larry's off Mercury Boulevard in Hampton.

Rowe is a 38-year-old Floridian just two months into his Peninsula residency. He says people shouldn't fret about the labels because it all depends on the individual. Rowe claims to know the back roads -- at least to Harpoon Larry's -- and considers himself a "from here."

Darden actually agrees after he warms to the subject. "It's really hard to say. Some people seem to fit in and some people don't fit in," he says.

Some "come heres" move to the Virginia countryside and want streetlights, garbage pickup and curbs. They're "come heres" through and through, Darden says. Others fit right in. They stop by the store to chat and haul their garbage to the dump in the back of a pickup, or SUV probably. They're OK.

About this time Dean Stallings joins the fray. The 46-year-old, sixth-generation Isle of Wight farmer stopped by Darden's for a ham sandwich, iced tea and pack of Marlboro Lights.

"Come heres" drive ATVs through his cotton and corn fields and think it's their back yard, he says. They're not OK. A "come here" will "be on that list forever," Stallings says.

Of course, there are exceptions. Bonnie Lewis is checking out art in Mo Stuff in Bena, in the heart of Gloucester's Guinea. She was born in Wicomico in Gloucester County, moved away for 30 years, then came back. Doesn't that make her a "come here" with an asterisk? Or is it a "from here" with an asterisk?

Neither, she says. "I'm grandfathered."

Perhaps there's some scholarly research that can lay to rest this issue. Wouldn't you know it, the University of Virginia has a "come heres" specialist.

Daphne Spain, chair of the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning at the university's School of Architecture, wrote "Been-heres Versus Come-heres: Negotiating Conflicting Community Identities" in 1993. It's a study comparing Kilmarnock in Lancaster County to Philadelphia's Queen Village. In sum, rich folks moved into both places and changed the communities. They probably demanded garbage pickup.

Spain could see a change in status, though. Folks who arrived after Kilmarnock was "discovered" were "come heres." Those who had arrived before weren't. Others in the small, historically tightknit communities who had lived there for generations traced "come heres" back to two generations.

"No matter how long the family stayed," Spain says, "if their family wasn't from there it wouldn't matter."

The last word is left to Urbanna, on the watery fringes of Middlesex County. At Catman Cats, a boatbuilding outfit down on the water, Felix Herrin claims a person can be moved off the "come heres" list into "been heres" status by the authority of an authentic "from here."

He said this happened to him when his friend Larry Burch told Herrin he's not a "come here" anymore because Herrin has been in Virginia since 1977.

"It has to be bestowed by a `from here,'" Herrin says.

His wife, Tricia Herrin, is standing nearby. She is a real-life "born here" and is caught off guard.

"So he took you from a 'come here' to a 'been here?'" she asks incredulously.

"Yeah."

"I have never heard of that," Tricia Herrin says.

Felix Herrin shrugs.

"I'm still a 'come here' to my wife."

Fighting Ebola Empty-Handed And A World Away

Imagine a world where you can't leave your house because death lurks outside the door. Imagine a world where the body of your neighbor rots in the stifling heat and gathers flies inside her door and no one comes to take it away for a proper burial because surely they would die as well. It's hard to imagine because we can't. It's virtually impossible for us in America to take our mind to a place where life is truly but a vapor, a visible wisp of matter that can be extinguished seemingly in an instant.

This is life across a wide swath of West Africa, where the ebola virus has brought death to the doors of thousands of families in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. We've all read or heard the reports of ebola through media, with the latest alarming news that more than 1 million people could be afflicted with the virus by early next year. My personal knowledge of ebola comes through Rev. Samuel Kargbo, a minister in Sierra Leone who we have been working with in TEN3 (I am communications manager for the Transformational Education Network, or TEN3) to establish one of our computer training outreach classes at his school. Those plans have been put on hold as the ebola crisis deepens in Sierra Leone.

Last week, I received an email from Rev. Kargbo, who thanked me for praying for him and his family. It is a very terrible thing to see neighbors around you dying from a disease, he wrote. So far, he has lost three close relatives who live nearby. There are many dead bodies lying in houses -- four, more or less, in some houses, he wrote.

Rev. Kargbo continues: "The sad thing that has happened is this: since as I told you last the government could not meet the needs of the affected cases, quarantined families, the wife of my relative who died yesterday, his 22-month-old daughter, and two ward children have left the house without being quarantined. Who knows what may happen to the people they come in contact with? We pray that they never contracted the virus, but if they did, then it is obvious they will definitely pass the virus to other people."

Rev. Kargbo describes how the surviving relatives scattered to different parts of the city and country the morning of Sept. 23. He also describes what has transpired over the past two weeks. "Five people have died in connection to the same first victim that died on Wednesday, September 10," he writes. "Two of the women are neighbors who took care of the corpse before burial. We called the 117 number that is given to us and the burial team's number but nobody came to bury the first corpse.

"We (my wife and I) have discussed about how we could intervene but we could not because the lady had left the house this morning before we could send food stuff there. We have called her to come back to the house as soon as possible so that we could share from the little that we have. That is what the Bible says is true religion, taking care of the orphans and widows. As stated earlier, due to several factors, the citizens’ needs could not be adequately addressed in this crisis time, except friends and relatives step in to alleviate the suffering and deaths. One corpse that is said to have died four days before the burial team came to collect it and one infected person were collected three days ago close to our house. We do not want to do that but we have restricted the inflow of children into our compound to play. One way that we could be further involved in helping to save lives, especially lives of those relative who have left for the village, the wife and the baby is by assisting them with food items and restrict their movements for three weeks and see if they will report sick. If any one of them reports sick we will guide them going to the hospital for the test to find out if it is ebola. According to the teaching we receive, early detection and early treatment gives hope to the affected victim to survive."

He closes the email by saying he has temporarily closed his school for three weeks to assess the situation. At that point he will reassess the crisis and determine if the school should remain closed. So far, three of his students have fallen ill, Rev. Kargbo wrote. None of them have ebola, however.

I have asked him how I can help but the situation is so dire and chaotic in Sierra Leone that it doesn't appear there's anything I can do. Except pray. This week, my supporting agency for my mission work, Serving In Mission, has called for believers to have a week of prayer for the end of the ebola crisis in West Africa. Remember people such as Rev. Kargbo in your prayers. Remember the countries of West Africa. Remember Psalm 46:1: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."