Truckin' on the Western Branch

J. Robert Burnell Bobby Burnell, artist and sailing enthusiast, was born in 1929. He grew up in Westhaven, then part of Norfolk County, and went to Churchland High for three years before he finished at Hargrave Academy. He taught at Tidewater Community College for 27 years and continues to teach workshops. And he has been in every Cock Island sailing race—an event he considers second only to Christmas .

Principal Frank Beck started at Churchland High in 1945/46 and he was great—never forgot a name. And Carrie Bishop was one of the teachers who taught my mother, me, and my son.

We rode a bus to school, and when the bus failed to show, we walked through West Norfolk to school, deliberately taking our time and showing up just as buses were ready to go home. There were only 300 students at the high school. The lunchroom was in a house next to the school. The football team had 17–18 players—skinny little kids in hand-me-down uniforms from the big guys on the Portsmouth Pirates Dixie League pro football team.

During the war students drove the Ford Model A school buses with a bench on each side and one in the middle. The schools put governors on the buses so kids wouldn’t speed in them. VEPCO ran a streetcar down King St. and across the river to Churchland. My grandfather was a waterman, and I used to have a small hydroplane. I remember that Henry Lauterbach built sailboats before he built hydroplanes and that If Henry didn’t like you he’d tell you to get the Hell out. When I was a kid, I was always painting. Daddy asked me what I wanted to do for a living, and I said an artist. Then he asked me what I wanted to do for a real job. By 19 years old I was married and working for my father in Burnell’s floor coverings on High Street. We lived in Sterling Point. I went to Georgia Tech in Atlanta and worked as a draftsman for Gilbert Spindel, the architect that built a lot of big houses in Sterling Point—all split levels and mostly waterfront. He pushed me into architectural renderings and bought my supplies. I took a three-year correspondence course in architecture, had a construction firm for six years, and built two houses in Green Meadow Point. I need to work with my hands no matter what I do. In 1968 I started painting full time, and my early training influenced my style. I can’t help being precise. I’m a realist in my life and in my work.

J. Robert “Bobby” Burnell and his art

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