Things you probably don’t know about my past - Roy Kelley

My friend Debbie Reynolds has challenged ActiveRain bloggers to write about ten things from the past that are probably not known by other members. The idea is to get to know more about the bloggers in the ActiveRain network. This challenge should encourage some of us to record our personal history to pass on to family members.

I was born in Portsmouth, Virginia and was raised in Cradock, one of the first planned communities in the country.  Cradock was planned by the federal government, during World War I, as a community to house workers that would be employed at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. As a boy, I rode my bike through every street in Cradock. I enjoyed the Saturday cowboy movies at the Afton Theater and my favorite lunch at Red’s was two hot dogs, with everything, and a Coke for a quarter.

In those days, we rode the bus to go to downtown Portsmouth and I took the bus for swimming lessons at the Portsmouth YMCA on High Street. After the swimming lessons, I would go to the one of the downtown movies.

I attended the local public schools but the most important part of my education was at home. My parents owned and managed rental properties for over thirty years from the family residence. I quickly learned about tenant relationships and how to maintain rentals. We did our own property maintenance, with assistance from part time workers. When I was old enough, I was cutting grass, learning how to clean and paint and moved furniture and appliances as needed.

My father took me everywhere as he managed the family business.  I learned how to buy furniture at estate sales as many of the apartments were rented furnished. My father took me to the bank when he arranged financing and I knew the bank officers from a young age. Knowing how to finance investment properties was a very valuable lesson.

I went to Cradock High School where I was active in the Photography Club. A friend and I set up a dark room in one of the family investment properties and developed our own photographs. In those days, we purchased film in bulk and rolled it ourselves.

My father was a Norfolk County police officer during and after World War II so I was always around guns and knew about gun safety. I would take my rifle for practice when we visited our family farm that was operated by and aunt and uncle.

A wonderful experience of my youth was the opportunity to compete in the junior rifle club events at the Navy range at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. A Cradock resident was my mentor and instructor. As I became more skilled, we were able to travel to many rifle tournaments on the east coast and to Canada. Those were exciting trips.

Our family vacations during the summer frequently took us to Duck, North Carolina. My father and some friends owned a strip of land from the sound to the ocean and a hilltop cabin on the sound. The area is now developed but in the early days, there was just much sand and water. There was a five mile unpaved road along the sound to reach the vacation house.

One of our Cradock neighbors was an avid fisherman and he took me out with him on many fishing trips. I also went surf fishing with a cousin as soon as I was old enough to drive our family pickup truck.  The canvas coved bed of that Ford truck also become a sleeping area for camping trips.

We knew all of the neighbors and my father seemed know everybody we met. Our family doctor worked from his home office that was two doors away. I earned a few dollars by cutting the lawns for neighbors.

My first job was summer work for Norfolk County. I maintained the clay tennis courts in the park across from our home. Another part of the job was to clean and fill the swimming pool, in the same park, that was open daily for children in the area.

During one of the summers while I was in high school, I worked at an upholstery shop in downtown Portsmouth. During the summer after my high school graduation, I worked as an automobile salesman for the Packard dealership.

Well, I have covered many more than ten things that you did not know about me and I haven’t even talked about my college and law school days at the University of Virginia.

Things you probably don’t know about my present – Roy Kelley

 Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden IMG_8743

Photograph by Roy Kelley using a Canon PowerShot G11 camera.

Roy and Dolores Kelley Photographs