Twenty-eight years. It's been twenty-eight years since I last put foot on the North Carolina Outer Banks and I'm excited to be going back for a short visit to see how things look and to present my two books to locals and others at a presentation in Kitty Hawk the week after next. But as I plan my trip back and think about my youthful memories against the backdrop of how dramatically it has changed, I have mixed emotions about how I'll feel when I get there. Will it be a mix of happiness and sadness? Will it be my realization that I was once young and am now just old? Or will it be an opportunity to put closure on my concerns and just be happy to hopefully dip my toes into the cold water since I have always loved the changing moods of the ocean there so much? There's only one way to find out and that will come when I arrive.
I know, however, that I will look forward to meeting and talking with people, some of whom I may know from the past or to put a face with a name of a loyal follower of my writing. It will be fun sharing experiences about the old beach that I still call Nags Head for all of Bodie Island. And I guess that I got that habit from my mom, a native Outer Banker who said back in the old days that's how it was known to anyone who didn't live there full time. As a school kid, if you were going to the Outer Banks from my Virginia hometown it was simply, you were going to Nags Head.
I have a number of things I want to do in my short stay beside my visit at Muse Originals OBX, a fine shop in Kitty Hawk. I want to take a gander at Bodie Island Light, where my great grandfather was Keeper. I want to see just how much Jockey's Ridge has been pancaked over the years and will probably want to walk up whatever is left. Then, there is a cousin who I hope to see and talk with. And, of course, I want to take a walk on the beach and I'm sure it will bring back memories of my youthful past. Simple things, nothing fancy, but probably my final farewell since I doubt I'll ever be back. But regardless of how things affect me, I will continue to write books and post about the place, because it is just somehow part of my soul.
The pictures shown I put up in a slide show so you can see with me just how it has changed for me. The change was well underway on my last visit in 1991, but I know now that it is much more than I could have ever dreamed. I recognize, however, that it is a different time and times change just like all of us get old. If you look at the pictures, they are before and after pictures of similar locations to one another to show the difference. The first set, picture one is a shot of Nags Head from above, the first in about 1953 the second recent. The second set shows my family's cottage and the Culpepper cottages as the appeared from the time I was born until I graduated high school and the family cottage was sold when I went to college out west. Notice that both our cottage and the Culpepper cottages and home (now under different ownership) look remarkably like the way they were in the late 1940's when they were built. Notice all the large construction around them now. They were wide open sandy areas or dunes back then. And the last set, first the ferry which is similar to that which we used to cross Oregon Inlet, the only way to get to Hatteras Island. The second picture is of the first bridge, the Bonner Bridge which was finished in the early sixties and was done at the end of my youth. It has now been replaced by one much, much bigger.
Yes, my friends, times do change and we of the budding old codger generation know that it is inevitable. Perhaps I wish they had planned better so that some unforeseen circumstances could have been prevented, but it's time for someone else to worry about that. I will, however, always voice my opinion, but not to create anger just to say my piece which I try to base on sound, common sense logic. We all do that from time to time. But I do know one thing that is a given. That beautiful Atlantic Ocean is not going to change. It will always be there and it will do what it is going to do. We can't stop it, only delay the inevitable for a short period at best, and if we don't realize our limitations and its power, we are all in big trouble.
I hope to see some of you in Kitty Hawk in just two days less than two weeks and wish you all a most blessed day.
I know, however, that I will look forward to meeting and talking with people, some of whom I may know from the past or to put a face with a name of a loyal follower of my writing. It will be fun sharing experiences about the old beach that I still call Nags Head for all of Bodie Island. And I guess that I got that habit from my mom, a native Outer Banker who said back in the old days that's how it was known to anyone who didn't live there full time. As a school kid, if you were going to the Outer Banks from my Virginia hometown it was simply, you were going to Nags Head.
I have a number of things I want to do in my short stay beside my visit at Muse Originals OBX, a fine shop in Kitty Hawk. I want to take a gander at Bodie Island Light, where my great grandfather was Keeper. I want to see just how much Jockey's Ridge has been pancaked over the years and will probably want to walk up whatever is left. Then, there is a cousin who I hope to see and talk with. And, of course, I want to take a walk on the beach and I'm sure it will bring back memories of my youthful past. Simple things, nothing fancy, but probably my final farewell since I doubt I'll ever be back. But regardless of how things affect me, I will continue to write books and post about the place, because it is just somehow part of my soul.
The pictures shown I put up in a slide show so you can see with me just how it has changed for me. The change was well underway on my last visit in 1991, but I know now that it is much more than I could have ever dreamed. I recognize, however, that it is a different time and times change just like all of us get old. If you look at the pictures, they are before and after pictures of similar locations to one another to show the difference. The first set, picture one is a shot of Nags Head from above, the first in about 1953 the second recent. The second set shows my family's cottage and the Culpepper cottages as the appeared from the time I was born until I graduated high school and the family cottage was sold when I went to college out west. Notice that both our cottage and the Culpepper cottages and home (now under different ownership) look remarkably like the way they were in the late 1940's when they were built. Notice all the large construction around them now. They were wide open sandy areas or dunes back then. And the last set, first the ferry which is similar to that which we used to cross Oregon Inlet, the only way to get to Hatteras Island. The second picture is of the first bridge, the Bonner Bridge which was finished in the early sixties and was done at the end of my youth. It has now been replaced by one much, much bigger.
Yes, my friends, times do change and we of the budding old codger generation know that it is inevitable. Perhaps I wish they had planned better so that some unforeseen circumstances could have been prevented, but it's time for someone else to worry about that. I will, however, always voice my opinion, but not to create anger just to say my piece which I try to base on sound, common sense logic. We all do that from time to time. But I do know one thing that is a given. That beautiful Atlantic Ocean is not going to change. It will always be there and it will do what it is going to do. We can't stop it, only delay the inevitable for a short period at best, and if we don't realize our limitations and its power, we are all in big trouble.
I hope to see some of you in Kitty Hawk in just two days less than two weeks and wish you all a most blessed day.
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