Fish House Lies and Other Matters

The weather in Atlantic Beach has been warm enough for running on most days except for occasional rainy or windy conditions.  I have generally been able to run three days a week, and on the days when I can’t run we have been going to the fitness center or to a yoga class on Saturday mornings called “Bend and Brew.”  It is held at Crystal Coast Brewing just down the road a mile or so where the “bend” is rewarded with a “brew.”  I have found that yoga, aside from its mental benefits and the opportunity to socialize over a good craft beer, helps with core strength and balance (although Martha has far better balance than I do).  Here is a group photo from two years ago taken by our instructor after a class composed of both younger and older participants.

I posted some photos of sunrises a few times, but the sunsets are equally impressive here, and as I mentioned both can be seen from the dune-top deck because the ocean is south-facing.  Here is a typical example from last week, reminding me of Emily Dickinson writing, “It’s all a common glory.”

Long after the sun actually disappears into the ocean, the light is often reflected up into the sky for as long as an hour afterward.  While preparing dinner, we often find ourselves going onto the deck and saying, “Ooo, look at it now!”

And dinner reminds me that we have also been preparing a lot of fresh seafood, as well as the occasional visit to Full Moon Oyster Bar for a taste of those particular delicacies which are now in season.  Blue Ocean Market across the bridge in Morehead City has some of the best crab cakes and Hatteras-style chowder around, and also fresh scallops that Martha has learned to prepare perfectly.  Here is an example from last week.

She posted a photo on Facebook, saying “I love it when I get the perfect sear on fresh scallops!” and there were a lot of envious comments, one of them from restaurateur Debbie Grossman, owner of Fresser’s Courtyard Café in Highlands, who said, “Perfection my friend!”  That's a new recipe for roasted cauliflower on the plate, too, by the way.

We always find a lot of interesting activities (besides eating) out here.  We are members of both nearby Fort Macon and of the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island.  The latter also has a presence in Morehead City in a beautiful old house on Arendel Street.  Last Sunday we visited the Harkers Island Museum to hear an interesting talk by a local character named Heber Guthrie, who regaled his small audience with funny tales of hunting and fishing on the island for “as long as he wanted to talk.”

We arrived at the comfortable “living room” area of the museum in the afternoon and found a small audience of six in attendance, all of whom knew each other and seemed to live very close to the Museum.  We learned about different types of fishing nets and different types of guns, and Heber told some amusing stories about catching “jumping mullets” and shrimp.  He also talked about shooting a wider variety of birds than I thought was possible (or legal), including robins, preferably cooked in a pie with rutabaga, potatoes, and onions.  In fact, he said he used to regularly bring a dozen robin breasts to his teacher in elementary school (to curry favor, I suppose), which she gratefully accepted and put in the fridge for dinner that night.  “If it flew low enough, it was dinner,” he said.  It was a hardy lifestyle, and money and food were scarce during the off-season.  

 Sing a song of sixpence
A pocket full of rye
Four and twenty robins
Baked in a pie.

There are eight churches on Harkers Island, he said, a small place even today, and at one time it was said to have more churches per capita than anywhere else in the country.  Wikipedia confirms that "Established churches and religious organizations on Harkers Island include the Church of Christ of Latter-day Saints, Free Grace Wesleyan Church, Grace Holiness Church, Harkers Island Pentecostal Holiness Church, Harkers Island United Methodist Church, Huggins Memorial Baptist Church Parsonage, the Lighthouse Chapel (non-denominational), and the Refuge Fellowship Church (non-denominational)."  That's some diversity!  Heber said it was a question on Jeopardy one time.  “If anyone from Harkers Island goes to hell, it’s their own damn fault.”

After Heber’s talk, we went outside and took a short walk on one of the trails which wind through the shady maritime forest and around Willow Pond.

There was a "Ducks Unlimited" hunting blind on the edge of the pond, and it reminded us of the duck hunting stories Heber had told us.

Inside there were openings for the hidden hunter to watch for ducks to land, perhaps lured by one of the hand-carved decoys on display in the Museum.  We saw no ducks, but there was an egret out on the pond, which we would not have shot under any circumstances.  Although who can say what poverty, hunger, and local custom might persuade a person to eat?

On Thursday, we braved the cold rain that had moved in for the afternoon and attended another Core Sound event in a series called Parlor Talks, held at the Museum Store and headquarters at 806 Arendel Street. 

The historical house is a treat in itself, with its entry hall, high ceilings, and winding staircase to the upstairs parlor, where we spent a very amusing hour listening to Harkers Islander Chris Yeoman present “A Tribute to Fish House Liars.” 

Heber was in attendance and participated in the lively talk from time to time, and I was inspired afterward to buy two books in the Museum Shop that Chris, a retired teacher and talented raconteur (“I had to look that word up,” he quipped) referred to, written by Sonny Williamson, an old-timer who passed away a few years ago and recorded many of these stories for posterity.  Over the next two nights, I read with great amusement Fish House Lies and Jumpin Mullets and Collard Greens.  I was impressed, although I’m not sure that I can live up to Sonny and, next time we sit down to dinner, say the prayer he recorded in the latter book:

Serve up
Spare not,
Slap it in ye,
While hits hot.