The brogue is especially interesting because it sounds a bit like a British cockney accent. Many of the original settlers in this part of North Carolina and the Outer Banks came from England in the 17th century, and as the DVD explains, "The remoteness of the Carolina Outer Banks and inland waterways helped to create a distinctive regional dialect in which older features of English were preserved and new features developed independently from mainland English." Speakers on the DVD would say "hoi toide" instead of "high tide," as if they were Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady.
I had a close encounter with the brogue today when I stopped by Parker Honda in Morehead City to have a headlight replaced. In the waiting room, FOX news was on the TV, and Donald Trump was in the midst of delivering a speech at the American Farm Bureau Convention in New Orleans. We did not intend to bring Trump on Sabbatical with us, but it is difficult on Day 24 of the longest government shutdown in history - and amidst daily news reports of corruption, incompetence, and possible collusion with Russia at a magnitude never seen before in my lifetime - not to keep up with the mess on our phones and our computers. I watched in horrified fascination as Trump segued from his disastrous farm policy to his even more disastrous border wall. There was only one other gentleman in the room at that time, occupied with his cell phone, and I asked him if he was watching this; he said no and I found the mute button (I could not seem to find the power button). As others wandered into the waiting room, they assumed that the muted TV was standard policy, I suppose. I played on my phone and most of the others did, too.
Then two men about my age or a little older, who seemed to know each other, came in separately and sat down and began talking, and I realized they were speaking the Carolina Brogue. In a wide-ranging conversation which I listened to in fascination, the loss of Mom and Pop stores in the Beaufort area where they apparently grew up was bemoaned, the large amount of traffic these days even this time of year, and as expected the general laziness of young people nowadays. "Oi'd not even want a big yard; couldn't get any young-uns to rake the leaves." The rambling talk turned to fishing; both men had apparently spend a good deal of their lives out on the water.
"Can't find them menhaden anymore."
"Nope."
"And them bay scallops 'er scarce as Christians."
"Ain't no fish now like 'er used to be."
"Ever had shad roe? Ain't nothing better 'n a shad roe an' a sweet tater."
"Oi had many a loggerhead in my day."
"They put yer in jail now fer that. Federal croime."
"Had me some gator tail once."
"Ain't never had none, that nor snake neither."
Martha told me later that I had missed a real opportunity; I could have been recording the entire conversation on my phone. Instead I was writing it all down; I guess they thought I was playing some game on my phone like those lazy young people do. At last the young lady at the service desk came and told one of them that their car was ready. "Did you pay fer it, too?" he said.
"No sir, I didn't have your wallet," she came back with a smile.
"You got some man's wallet," he said, and followed her out of the room. In a little while he came back, partly to say farewell to his friend (and the rest of us, whom he seemed to realize were an interested captive audience). He stood in front of the muted TV for a long time, and I thought he was going to express a political opinion. Instead he simply said, "That's a clair picture that is. Oi remember Oi had me a TV about that size (he held his hands out in the size of a breadbox). We were under these oak trees with moss and had a little antenna, and that picture would flip, and flip, and flip."
Oi remember those days, too! But this day was an especially good day as well. Characters like these are scarcer than Christians.
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