New Bern

Last week, Martha read a copy of Michael Ondaatje’s Divisadero that was here in the condo with some other books.  Penciled faintly on the back leaf she found this quote:  “The past is always carried into the present by small things.  So a lily is bent by the weight of its permanence.”  Perhaps this verse came to a thoughtful reader and he or she jotted it down so as not to forget, as I sometimes do.

Most days we have seen this egret standing only three or four feet from the margin of Fort Macon road, and we have wondered why he is standing so close to the road rather than out in the salt marsh just a few feet farther back.  A little research told me this was a great egret (as opposed to a small egret or an intermediate egret), for it stands at least three feet high.  We slowed to a stop to take a picture, and although it stood calmly enough as cars whizzed by just a few feet away, it suddenly became alarmed at a stopped car, and rose up on his huge white wings and soared away over the marsh.  The next day it was back again in the same place.  I am sure this is not an unusual site for locals, but it thrilled us to see such an elegant birds, standing so casually by the side of the road.

Today, we drove to New Bern for the day, a city that we love to visit and less than an hour’s drive on US-70, which is not the most picturesque of roads.  It passes through Havelock and then Cherry Point, where the Marine Corps Air Station is located, and it seems to be the same kind of road you see in many parts of the country, especially near military bases, lined with a depressing succession of storage buildings, pawn shops, vape stores, and tattoo parlors.  There is an especially noteworthy strip shopping center on the way where there is a pawn shop at one end and a church at the other. 

But once you cross the wide, curving bridges into New Bern at the confluence of the Trent and Neuse Rivers, suddenly you are in a different world, with historic houses, a pretty little downtown shopping area, and beautiful churches.  Our lunch destination was a place we often visit, Morgan’s Tavern, located in an old converted livery stable with rough brick walls, high ceilings, and many little dining areas scattered about.

 

Lunch was Morgan’s famous tacos – shrimp for Martha and mahi for me – and their excellent Morgan’s IPA, made in partnership with St. George Brewing Co. in Hampton, VA.  It occurs to me that part of the mission of this blog may be to make the reader's mouth water.

Then we went our separate ways, Martha to shop in the many shops on Middle Street and Craven Street while I wandered up and down the downtown area looking at the pretty houses, some of them built in the early 19^th century.  

New Bern is also the “The Birthplace of Pepsi Cola,” invented in 1893 by Caleb Bradham and introduced as Brad's Drink.  But just down Pollock Street from Brad’s place is a far more beautiful building, Christ Church, an Episcopal church built in 1871 around the brick shell of a previous church built in 1824.  The church especially prizes a silver communion service given by King George II, which I once viewed on a tour of the church by a friendly docent.

I have a wonderful memory of sitting on a bench there two years ago taking notes for a poem (which will be published in due course):

My practice of gratitude has led me here today
To the churchyard of Christ Church.
A haze of bright morning fog buffed away
Into brilliant clarity, reflecting everything
Around me:  this venerable old magnolia
Under which I sit, its liquid jade leaves,
The burning stained glass windows behind me.

Tryon Palace is the biggest attraction in New Bern, and we have visited it and its formal gardens (beautiful even in the winter) on many previous visits.  The palace is a reconstruction of the original (destroyed by fire in 1798), formerly called Governor's Palace, the official residence and administrative headquarters of the British governors of North Carolina from 1770 to 1775 and North Carolina’s capitol until after the revolution.  George Washington reportedly danced in the palace, and there is an oil painting on display showing him in formal dress surrounded by the nobility of the era.

Here is a photo of the palace from a previous visit (we chose not to visit it again this year).  It is a graceful structure, one of the few buildings of this era designed by an architect.

I made my way eventually to the North Carolina History Center, which also serves as the headquarters for Tryon Palace tickets and information.  The History Center is one of the finest I have seen and I toured it last year as well.  The exhibits are extensive, and cover everything from the environment of the central coast area and how it was settled to the production of naval stores (turpentine, rosin, and tar) and the resulting destruction of the Long Leaf Pine forests, fishing, and agriculture.  It does not shy away from the history of slavery, “the peculiar institution.”  There are heartbreaking displays of advertisements for a slave auction, as well as ones offering a reward for the capture of escaped slaves.  It was a dark time in our history.

It was an especially mild day in New Bern, and we arrived separately back at the car at about the same time and started heading back, past all those tattoo parlors and vape stores, through Morehead City and across the bridge to Atlantic Beach.  Martha suggested we stop for appetizers at a place called Full Moon Oyster Bar just across the bridge, which she had been reading about on Facebook.  It looked like a run-down place, with rusting metal siding and a neglected-looking deck area which we imagine must be crowded during the summer months with diners sitting outside watching the sunset over Moonlight Bay, which was lined with boat slips and colorfully-painted summer homes.  

But appearances are deceiving, and we were welcomed by a friendly young man and two young women who quickly made us feel at home.  The special of the day was Blue Cheese Grilled Oysters for a dollar apiece and they were delicious.

Then we ordered the crab dip – from a “secret recipe” – accompanied by a loaf of fresh bread, served with complimentary potatoes and cole slaw.

We had been the first to arrive, but as we sat at the bar people started to come in, and before long the place was filling up, many of the customers welcomed as locals who knew the food and the staff.  We will be coming back to this place again!

I love secret recipes.

Beaufort

It’s hard to believe that we have been here for almost two weeks.  I posted on January 6 that we were Settling In, but now it seems as if we have been here a lot longer.  I have been unable to sleep past 7:00 a.m., when light begins to filter into the bedroom through the vertical blinds, and sunrise (7:15) unfailingly finds me out on the dune-top deck for my morning Tai Chi.  I was surprised to find the walkway and deck coated with ice Tuesday morning, even though the temperature was only 39 degrees. 

And there has been a brisk northerly wind on one or two mornings recently when, let us say, my Tai Chi was completed expeditiously. 

I have run six times so far this year, completing a total of 12 miles, many more than I would have logged in Highlands so far this year, which Friday night saw its first snow of the year – not very much accumulation, but a lot of accidents reported on Facebook, mostly the sort caused by out-of-town SUV-drivers who believe that their huge, All-Wheel-Drive vehicles are invulnerable until they reach those slick places where the locals know to slow down.  We have also been to the fitness center, where Martha took a yoga class and I worked out on the many varieties of free weights and machines they have there.  And on Saturday, we attended “Bend and Brew” yoga at the Crystal Coast Brewing just down the road, a yoga class that concludes with a free beer and some time to socialize afterward.  We have also attended church twice at the friendly and welcoming First United Methodist Church here, which has a wonderful Pastor, Powell Osteen, whose sermons we have enjoyed for eight years now.

The stack of books and New Yorker magazines which I had been accumulating for some time now has also significantly shrunk in size.  Martha is on her fifth or sixth book already, and I am making headway, too, finishing all of the New Yorkers last night and putting some of my books aside for special attention, as a wine aficionado might put aside a special bottle, a reserve vintage, to savor on a special occasion.  The televisions (there are four of them, one in each room) have remained off.  And I have been working on some poetry, too.  Thursday morning, a thin red sunrise appeared fleetingly in a chink in the clouds on the horizon and then vanished for the rest of the day.

 
What light there is is ambient light,
and I have seen this kind of light
leak through the occluded dawn,
thin and red, standing out here alone
on the edge of a dark continent
that still sleeps, that waits to greet
whatever may happen to appear
on the horizon at the chosen time. 

We have not gone on many day trips yet, but Thursday we decided to drive across the bridge to Beaufort, one of our favorite destinations.  The pretty waterfront town has been named by USA Today and Southern Living, among others, one of the prettiest small towns in the country.

We stopped first at Fishtowne Brew House on Turner Street, where we enjoyed a very good beer, sitting out front on this cloudy but unseasonably warm day watching locals and visitors stroll past.  Then we split up, Martha heading to the waterfront to visit some shops on Front Street while I went the other direction, to the Old Burying Ground on Ann Street, which I never fail to visit when I am here.

 
The Old Burying Ground contains graves dating to the Civil War and even to the Revolutionary War, and the Historical Society gives tours and distributes an interesting brochure about those who are buried there. 

Vienna Dill (1863-1865), a two-year-old, was buried in a glass-topped coffin because her father could not bear to see her sealed away.  When vandals desecrated her grave one night, she is said to have disintegrated.

The British Officer (1700s), a sailor in His Majesty’s Navy, insisted on being buried standing up at attention, which is how they buried him.

Not far from the British Soldier is a grave containing sailors who froze to death when the Crissie Wright was wrecked in January of 1886.  It is marked by only three or four bricks. 

 
“Cold as the night the Crissie Wright went ashore,” is a phrase still used around this part of the coast.  It is said that all hands were lost except for the ship’s cook.

And why did he alone deserve to live?
Trembling in his bright icy salvation
While his shipmates, one by one, were
Lowered into a common grave in the
Old Burying Ground under the live oaks,
Slipping and sliding on frozen ground.

And, my favorite grave of all (and that of many others), The Girl in a Barrel of Rum (1700s), who (the story goes) begged her father to take her to London.  He promised to return her to her mother’s arms, but she died on the voyage home, and her father brought her body back in a barrel of rum.  Her story strikes a chord with many, who to this day decorate her grave with little dolls, flowers, and stuffed animals.

And according to one account, the story doesn’t end there. “There are those who say that the figure of a young girl can be seen running and playing between the graves in the Old Burying Ground at night.  They say that the tributes left on the young girl’s grave are often moved about the graveyard at night, often found sitting balanced on top of other gravestones or in places they couldn’t have moved to by just the wind.”

The Old Burying Ground is a spooky place at night, as we discovered a couple of years ago when the Historical Society was offering night-time tours.  So it was a relief to pass through the wrought-iron gates and wander down to the waterfront, where I eventually met up with Martha.

These yachts were so beautiful!  I can almost imagine living a simple life on one, going from place to place like a wandering Ulysses and tying up in pretty little ports like Beaufort.  Except that we have seen boats like these tossed about and smashed in the aftermath of hurricanes, and winds and seas so high that small craft warnings are common on the weather forecasts out here.  

 And then there is sea-sickness . . .

There is Always Something to See

There is always something to see on the beach.  This year, we have not yet discovered as many interesting shells as last year, or especially 2021 when the $18 million "Morehead City Harbor Dredging & Concurrent Beach Nourishment" project was underway.  Silt was dredged from the Morehead City Harbor, a State Port and the deepest one on the East Coast, and deposited on this beach, along with many, many interesting shells.  So far we have found only a couple of tiny whelks, the smallest I have ever seen I think, and some olive shells.  And yesterday I found this blue crab washed up by the tide, so whole and intact that I thought it might still be alive, and not yet discovered by the ever-watchful sea gulls.

It is almost exactly one mile each way from the condo to the Oceanana Pier just west of here, closed this time of year but elbow-to-elbow with fishermen during the season.  The first quarter-mile of that is from the building out the walkway and across the very wide, flat beach, which this time of year is usually deserted but which we usually find temperate enough, although we sometimes have to don windbreakers and gloves.

I think I always take this photo of the waves breaking under the pier, so this time I decided to post a video instead.

Saturday was a perfect day for running, and I had planned ambitiously to increase my mileage from three to six miles, always a bit of a risk at my age since I have not been completing any “long” runs for some time.  I say “long” because six miles several years ago would have been a short run, and my weekly mileage this week (twelve miles) would have been an ordinary long run.  Still, as I have said previously, I am the runner I am right now, and six miles is where I am right now. 

I did some laps in the parking lot of the Picnic Area, and then ran on the bike path all the way to the Fort.  It is a good, safe route, although sometimes cars go a little faster than they should on East Fort Macon Road.

Along the way are the familiar signs that we are now accustomed to seeing, marking our progress to the Fort.  First there is the “Union Artillery Placement” sign, marking the place where on April 25, 1862, Union General John G. Parke’s forces bombarded the Fort with heavy siege guns for eleven hours, aided by the fire of four Union gunboats out in Beaufort Harbor.  The Fort defended itself against the gunboats, but the Union guns hit it 560 times and it was forced to surrender.  The placement is on a little knoll, not even high enough to be called a hill, but a good vantage point to set up guns only a half-mile from the Fort.  

The next sign, just before reaching the gate to the Fort and opposite the Coast Guard Station, is a sign marking the location of Blackbeard the Pirate’s ship the Queen Anne’s Revenge, sunk in 1718 about a mile out to sea.  The wreck was found relatively recently, in 1996, and there is an interesting exhibit at the Maritime Museum in Beaufort which includes relics from the notorious pirate's ship.

It is sobering to run in this place where wars were fought, where men on both sides in the Civil War were killed, and where pirates were fended off.  Rounding the final curve, along a white fence, cannons on the ramparts above point out over the harbor, still fired from time to time (although without any cannonballs) on special occasions.

At the end of the Fort’s parking lot is a huge pile of Christmas Trees, which are collected here to eventually be distributed out along the nature trails on the beach side of the Park in order to stabilize the sand dunes.  Just as I always do, I stopped in front of the big pile of trees and simply stood there for a minute, inhaling the fragrance. 

 
The three-mile return trip to the condo was not completed without some walking breaks, but it felt good to have increased my mileage, which for me is the best way to get back in racing condition.  We have identified a 5-K race on February 4, one month from now, and it is good to have a goal at the end of gradually-increasing mileage and some speed sessions.  We have run the race, the Cocoa 5-K (held in conjunction with the Carolina Chocolate Festival) in all of the kinds of weather conditions that are possible in early February – rain, freezing cold, and strong winds – and we won’t know what to expect this year until a day or two before the race.  Let us hope for fair skies!

El's Drive-In

We normally have lunch in Atlantic Beach here in the condo rather than in one of the very good restaurants that we have discovered in the area over the years.  But last Tuesday we had still not accumulated enough provisions, so we stopped for lunch at a place that is an institution in Morehead City, El’s Drive-In.

There are a lot of things about the tiny, non-descript brick building out on Arendell Street just past the hospital that are unique.  First of all, “El’s” is short not for a woman named Ellen or Eleanor but for Elvin Franks, who opened it in 1959 when I was not yet old enough to drive, let alone drive in.  Notice, too, that it is a “drive-in,” not a “drive-through” as most places are these days.  That means that there is no window to approach as at other fast-food places for ordering and picking up.  Instead, customers simply pull into the large parking lot in front of the building, which is completely unmarked, and in which other vehicles are always parked, fanned out randomly facing the building, an arrangement that baffled us when we first came here.  After a very short wait in the car, a woman – there are usually only two working – approaches your car and takes your order, jotting it down on a tiny pad, the kind that would have been used in most diners in this country for the past fifty years.  When the car in front of you receives its order and drives off, you simply pull forward and take its place.  It’s an admirably efficient arrangement.

One by one, the orders are somehow filled from the tiny brick building, which has no inside seating but apparently a kitchen that expands in some mysterious way to accommodate all of the food that passes through it every day, and that is a lot of food.  Out in the parking lot are everything from beat-up pickup trucks to late-model SUVs.  Somehow, the women work together to ensure that no car pulling into the parking lot goes unnoticed, and in due time your order will be hustled out to you in a plain brown paper bag.  A woman in a black sedan who did not know the unwritten rules of El’s pulled in the parking lot in front of everybody else, looking confused, and backed her car up several times, trying to find the correct place to orient herself and not block anyone else.  Eventually she caught on.

The observant customer might notice, too, the sign on the front window that says No Credit or Debit Cards, exactly as a transaction would have been in 1959, except no sign would have been necessary then.  No prices are shown anywhere on the sign, but the bill is always less than expected.  A generous tip is customarily added to the bill.  More than fifty years ago, I worked one summer at a Steak ‘N Shake in Winter Park, FL while attending college – it was one of those places where orders are taken in the same way but delivered on a tray that fits onto the partially-open driver’s window – and tips were greatly appreciated. 

What did we order?  One of the Spécialités de la Maison:  shrimp burgers, hushpuppies, and coleslaw.  The shrimp burger is fried shrimp, coleslaw, and cocktail sauce on a bun, and some  aficionados claim they originated in this area, either in Beaufort or perhaps in Salter Path at another El’s-like drive-in called the Big Oak.  It is very good!  Martha makes a healthier version by using grilled, blackened shrimp instead of fried.  We will have it often for lunch, hopefully (if the weather is nice) seated at the little bistro table on our balcony.

Settling In

We have been here four days now and have settled in to a relaxing routine structured around the weather, the tides, and sunrise and sunset.  The weather has been wonderful, highs in the upper 50s and on Wednesday 70 degrees, about 20 degrees warmer than Highlands.  We know that more seasonable (i. e. “colder”) weather is on the way, but for now we are getting out of doors as much as possible. 

With the exception of Wednesday morning, when thick fog moved in from the ocean, I have watched three sunrises from the dune-top deck, all of them completely different.  Even before it makes its appearance over the ocean, the lavender-rose light is refracted all around the horizon, which is a beautiful phenomenon. 

It is hard to explain to most people who are not familiar with this area that we face south over the ocean, not east as one does in Kitty Hawk. 

Because of this orientation, we can watch both the sunrise and the sunset from our dune-top deck.  The sunsets are especially spectacular and I expect that in due time I will post some photos in this blog.

For our first morning here, I had entered an event in my iPhone’s calendar:  GO FOR A RUN!!!  And that is exactly what we both did.  We have a lot of choices for running routes here, all of them flat and interesting.  The condo is only a mile from Fort Macon State Park with its pristine beaches, nature trails, and historic exhibits, as well as welcome restrooms.  It is about two-and-a-half miles to the Fort with a wide bicycle path most of the way, which makes for a great five-mile run.  If the tide is out, we can run a little farther and come back on the beach.

We often complete a shorter three-mile run to a Picnic Area halfway to the Fort, where there are restrooms, beach access, and a long enough paved parking lot aisle that we can run intervals there, back and forth from one end to the other.  That’s where I went this week, coming back on the beach.  At low tide the beach is wide and flat and perfect for running, and there is little that can be compared to running with the Atlantic Ocean at your elbow, scattering up the flock of seagulls that is usually parked on the beach and watching the sanderlings skitter away on their tiny stick legs.

Last year, we noticed that some new benches had been installed just below the dunes, and there was a plaque on the one just outside our condo remembering Matt Cobb, who had died in 2021. 

He was born the same year as I was, and I never fail to pause on the way back from a run and think about this man and his well-spent life.  That verse on the plaque  - “Be young, be foolish, but be happy!” – I vaguely remembered, and a Google search found that it was a song by the Tams from the Sixties, apparently a favorite of Matt.  I even found a YouTube video of them performing this hit song of 1968, including a dance routine reminiscent of the Temptations and so many other African-American musical groups of the era, and each of them seemed to be wearing, of course . . . a tam. 

Be young, be foolish, but be happy
Be young, be foolish, but be happy
Don't let the rain get you down, it's a waste of time
A waste of time
Have your fun, live everyday in the bright sunshine
The bright sunshine

Kitty Hawk

Morning at the Kitty Hawk Pier.  I went out onto the beach for my morning Tai Chi, and together with two dozen or so other early-risers watched a gorgeous sunrise.

Then I walked on the beach a little, looking at shells, and came upon this jellyfish that had washed up with the morning tide.  We look forward every day here to what the ocean delivers every morning on the incoming tide.

 
I thought I saw some dolphins leaping out in the calm surf but was too slow to take any photos.  Martha, watching from the balcony of the hotel, said that she definitely saw them.  We met in the Aviator Bar and Bistro for breakfast, which featured a large replica of the 1903 Wright Brothers airplane and contained menu items like The Orville and The Wilbur. 

It was a pleasant and relatively short drive from Kitty Hawk to Atlantic Beach, and we arrived in plenty of time to take care of all of the essentials for making life comfortable here for two months – a stop at the Friendly Market for Shrimp Chowder and a trip to the Food Lion down the road to begin stocking the pantry.  It was good to be here again in our familiar condo building overlooking a swimming pool (closed for the winter) and the walkway to a dune-top deck where I enjoy my morning Tai Chi most days.  

There are not many occupied units here this time of year, but I try not to be self-conscious about being on display for those few who are year-round residents.  A couple of years ago one of them (Sharon) met me one day and said, “Oh!  You’re the Tai Chi Man!”

We went down to said dune-top deck after sunset with two glasses of Prosecco, courtesy of the Food Lion, had a little toast, and gave thanks for safe travel.

New Year's Day

A New Year!  New opportunities, new challenges, new achievements.  As a runner – and this blog is ostensibly about running, after all – one of the things I always do at the end of one year and the beginning of another is to review my running log and start a new one.  I have used the same little “Day Planner” for many years now to track my daily mileage, and I always give myself (and Martha) a new one for Christmas.  I keep a running total each week and total it up at the end of the year, and then I record it on a spreadsheet.  My highest annual mileage was in 2005 (1578 miles) and my lowest was this year (477).  I could create a graph of my running mileage showing the gradual decline in mileage, sort of like the Dow Jones Average in free-fall, but readers of this blog might think I was compulsive if I did that. 

I have learned to accept that an aging runner logs fewer miles and slower times.  I will  wryly say, “The older I get, the faster I was.”  I said that to another runner about my age after a race last year and he pointed out, “Yes, but you are exactly the runner that you are right now!”  And that is what I have been telling myself these days.  Also, I note with some amazement that, not counting the unknown number of miles I ran before I began keeping records in 1995 (a decade of “jogging” whenever I could find the time), I have run 32,450 miles so far in my life, about 7,500 miles more than the circumference of the earth.

Not having run more than two miles the previous week due to temperatures in the single digits and my unwillingness to brave such conditions, I was eager to finally get to Atlantic Beach and continue my second journey around the earth!  But we had decided to make one more stop on our way to our destination, and that was a night in Kitty Hawk at the northern Outer Banks, where we spent many vacations, mostly in April, and often in the little town of Duck.  We were looking forward with fond nostalgia to seeing the places we used to run there.  Not having been one of “them drunks” that Lynn was driving home last night, I awoke early, before anyone else at the Hampton Inn except a handful of staff at the front desk and in the breakfast bar.  “Not many people up and about, I see!” I said brightly to the desk clerk.  “No, I think most everyone will be sleeping in this morning,” the young man at the desk said.  I went outside for my morning Tai Chi, and saw that the thick fog of the previous night was breaking off and the sun was trying to shine, an auspicious beginning to a New Year.

There is always something to see along the way if a traveler is paying attention.  Martha spotted this sign at a rest area on US-64 just outside of Washington, NC, which I thought was just remarkable.

A little research on the internet later revealed that the “Prayer of the Woods” has been used in Portuguese forest preservations for more than 1,000 years, and can be found at state parks, national forests, and national parks around the world.  It is translated from an older work, originally written in Portuguese, and first carved in wood in the gardens surrounding the beautiful Castelo dd Sao Jorge in Lisbon. One source identified the author as Alberto de Veiga Simões, a diplomat for Portugal during the first and second world wars who played a key role in helping persecuted minorities escape from the Nazis while stationed in Berlin in the 1940s. The original poem was titled ‘Ao Viandante’ - which translates roughly as: “To the person who passes through this place.”  What a lovely story!  But nowhere could I discover how or by whom this sign was erected in a rest area in Washington, NC, or who Brantley Peacock was.

After a long drive, US-64 took us to Manteo, which is familiar territory for us.  We knew a runner, Dave Cockman, who ran all the way from Murphy to Manteo, a distance of 544 miles, on this road several years ago over a period of two weeks.  He came through Highlands and was accompanied by several of my running friends on his way to Cashiers.  We were staying at the Outer Banks at the time and I met him and ran the last half-mile or so with him and some of his friends as he finished up his journey at Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head.  We have seen Dave at several races since then and follow his ultra-running on Facebook.

We have also run many marathons and half marathons here.  The starting line for the OBX Marathon and the Flying Pirate Half Marathon is a mile-and-a-half from our hotel.  We will never forget the inaugural OBX Marathon in 2006, which we ran mostly in the rain.  Those where character-building races indeed!

We arrived at the Hilton Gardens in Kitty Hawk just in time for dinner.  We drove north on Highway 12 to Duck and checked out the familiar restaurants where we had eaten over the years and they were all closed except one, which had a full parking lot and looked very busy.  But when we returned we found to our surprise that a restaurant was open on this New Year’s Day within walking distance of our hotel, the Run Down Café, a Caribbean-Asian themed restaurant where we had eaten many years ago.

Outside our oceanfront room, the sun was setting over the ocean, and we breathed deeply of the ocean air for the first time in many months. 

Time has its own rules out here.
The hours come and go like the tide,
Rising and falling all day long,
Leaving moon jellies behind on the sand.