This year Martha planned ahead and reserved two tickets for us. This is THE off-season event for New Bern and was well-attended by happily-chattering local people and a few fortunate outsiders like ourselves.
While we were waiting for the doors to open, a man with a very loud voice stood at the top of the steps and shouted out:
"Give me an O!"
"O!" every body cheerfully shouted back.
"Give me a "Y!"
"Y!" And so on. "OYSTERS!!!"
When the doors were opened, we found plenty of the advertised comfort foods inside: shrimp and grits, jambalaya, clear Cheseapeake-style shrimp soup; everything was delicious! But the big excitement, we discovered, was the oysters, which were being consumed loudly and voraciously in a big heated tent out the back door lined with many long tables. A man stood with arms folded at the entrance to the tent handing out a rolled liner napkin and an oyster knife, and inside the tent oyster-consuming New Berners appeared to know exactly how to use them, lined up elbow-to-elbow at the tables, prying open oyster after oyster, slurping out the contents, and noisily dropping the empty shells into bins beneath the tables. It was chaos, but delightful laughing chaos. It has been a long time since I have eaten oysters - I am remembering, vaguely, a fire at the beach during my college years, oysters thrown carelessly into it, closed eyes, and the quick slimy swallow.
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