Truckin' on the Western Branch

WEST NORFOLK Walter William “Willie” Hodges In an old brick building in West Norfolk, Walter William “Willie” Hodges stashes memories on shelves and tucks faded dreams into corners. Big Band jazz from 60 years ago plays softly in the fledgling museum as Hodges harks back to when the music was topping the charts and West Norfolk was a vibrant community with Virginia Chemicals, a train depot and the old drawbridge. Hodges owns Hodges and Hodges Enterprises, a marine contractor based on Shipwright Street in West Norfolk. He is also the initiator and curator of the new, yet to be named, West Norfolk museum. He grew up in Portsmouth’s Parkview and Hodges Manor. Before he graduated from Churchland High School in 1961, he worked after school on the then new Downtown Tunnel—smoothing dirt in trucks and monitoring the pumps in the holding pits. Hodges said, Dad was a painting contractor—rode his bike to work with a ladder on his shoulder and paints in the bike basket. He worked for A.B. Greene and painted a lot of the old farm houses. Then he bought a 1954 panel truck and finally worked in maintenance at Maryview. He loved that job. Churchland was its own little place with Speers Restaurant the big place, and then the Trucker Burger and Mr. Quick’s. We weren’t allowed to leave school for lunch but we did anyway. I hung out at Rodman’s and The Circle and had a ’53 Ford with Hank Lauterbach. His father, Henry Lauterbach, helped us out. Henry loved us—gave me a corner of his shop rent free to work in. Everybody went to Henry’s shop to hang out.

Willie Hodges in the new museum. Image by Sheally

After a few other career ventures, Hodges found property in West Norfolk for H & H and a place to rent as a marina.

“Everybody stopped by to hang out and drink beer but we weren’t getting any work done,” he said. “So we started the Elizabeth River Yacht Club on the second floor of Scale o’De Whale.”

The Scale o’De Whale had flourished under several different ownerships and chefs, but late in November 2002 the beloved restaurant burned, taking with it 50 years of celebrations, intimate dinners and marriage proposals. The Virginian-Pilot journalist Ida Kay Jordan wrote about one man who surprised his bride-to-be with a diamond ring presented on a cream puff swan.

Image by Sheally

Joan Skrobizewski: “Best thing about the community is the bonding, our relationship with friends we’ve had since we came here.”

Russ Kirk: “You grow up telling the truth and you don’t know why.”

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Image by Sheally