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A few weeks ago I was at Davenport’s Barber Shop in Ocean View on Granby Street near the Pretlow library. On the wall they had some unusual old photographs of early Ocean View and Willoughby Spit. I quickly got my camera out and took a few pictures to add to our Wallace Room photograph collection. Of course, I asked permission from my friend Barber Jimmy Flasky.

Memories are wonderful with the power to retain and recall fond information of past experiences of long ago. I like to say my memory is like a computer that holds a large capacity of information. I sometime wonder how I can recall so much data.

On the barbershop wall was a photograph of a restaurant that I used to visit as a small child. I had never seen a photograph of this old restaurant. As I stood looking at this old photograph, memories started to come back to me. The place was called Trails End Restaurant owned and operated by William Pearson. This was a landmark in Willoughby Spit for many years.

During the early summer months in the 1950s, my family always made a few trips to Trails End Restaurant. We would have lunch and then go to the beach which was within walking distance. Dad always parked the car in the restaurant parking lot. As a child I remembered the delicious hot dogs Dad would order with a coke in a bottle. The coke always had a paper straw. How my family knew about this place, I really do not know. Trails End Restaurant is long gone, but there are a few folks like me that remember this old place. Today in its place stands the Willoughby By the Bay, a nice modern seafood restaurant.

It is rather baffling what one remembers as a child of 5 or 6 years old. While waiting for my hot dog on a bun, someone would put in a coin into the juke box. I remember the top hit of the day by Doris Day called “How Much is that Doggie in the Window". As I gazed at this picture, I remembered our family pet, a dog named Spot, a black and white dog from the SPCA.

One particular day I remember Nina Forrest and her son Billy were there along with my brother Gene and his friend Seibel Barrett, all local Edgewater boys, joining us for lunch. All were good swimmers. My older brother Gene and his friend Siebel would swim and touch the old sunken WWI submarine that was embedded under water in the sand and swim back to shore very quickly. I remember this old sunken ship quite well, for it had something to do with stopping erosion. To a little fellow around 5 years old it was scary. Years later I learned that this old sunken ship was not a WWI submarine, but a ship called Springham that was left there to rot. I also remember getting sunburned while making sand castles with some of the local boys my age. All this was before the Hampton Roads Bridge tunnel was built in 1958.

Childhood memories are the best. And it’s amazing how an old photograph can bring back so many lost memories of long ago. And all this flashed in front of my eyes as I stood in Davenport's Barber Shop looking at an old picture of Trails End Restaurant, a neat place in Willoughby Spit.

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Robert B. Hitchings is a seventh generation Norfolk resident, graduating with an Associate's Degree in Biology from Old Dominion University and BA in history from Virginia Wesleyan University. During his studies he was awarded a scholarship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, England, and he was an exchange student at Brooks-Westminster College, Oxford, England. From 1999-2014 he worked as head of the Sargeant Memorial History Room at Norfolk Public Library, and since then has headed the Wallace History Room at Chesapeake Public Library. He is also the President of the Norfolk County Historical Society, and for six years was a columnist for The Virginian-Pilot. Robert may be reached at nchs.wallaceroom@gmail.com