Arbor Day 2000
Goin Travelin'
We’ve been traveling, but not the backroads as I would like. I love to see the people working on their yards and their houses and see the flowers they grow. We were so ambitious to visit relatives and friends that we traveled the interstate highways.
Still, the trees on the mountainsides were just coming into leaf. The crinkled young leaves showed myriad shades of delicate light green. The hills were a patchwork of greens, white dogwoods, redbuds and occasional dark green cedars. What a feast for the eyes!
We checked in our son Mark and his family, my sister Bailey and her husband and Percy’s brothers. We were delighted when his brother Byrd showed us the nest of a Carolina wren in a shopping bag in his garage. He has ordered meal worms which he puts out daily to nurture the mother bird while it is still too cool for many insects.
We enjoyed a visit with John and Joan Groce, another Heidelberg retiree. They helped us tour a splendid Rodin sculpture exhibit which included one hundred and twenty five pieces including the Thinker and the Kiss at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, North Carolina.
The weather turned cold and threatening as we drove down the narrow islands of the Outer Banks, so we stopped at a motel which had rooms right on the beach. Our room was on the first floor but that was up steep steps above the sand. The building stood on pilings driven down in the sand.
It was too cold to sit on the rocking chairs on the porch and watch the waves. The Atlantic was in an angry mood. The waves rushed up the beach, surging not more than twenty feet from our building. Their sounds were like a giant inhaling and exhaling. The roof rumbled. There was a spatter of rain drops. We felt a little like the Three Little Pigs with the wind huffing and puffing at our building on its spindly stilt legs. The building shook with strong gusts of wind. It was a like being in a scary movie, a little frightening, but we relied on the predictions of the weather forecast. “No more than thirty mile winds.” The sounds became soothing and we had no trouble going to sleep.
The Outer Banks are truly shifting sands. Last year, in 23 days, the Park Service moved the Hatteras Lighthouse 2900 feet inland to keep it from being undermined. It is now 1600 feet from shore. When the lighthouse was built, it was over 1800 feet from the ocean, and certainly seemed safe enough. Hurricanes Dennis and Floyd struck soon after the move was completed and caused much damage to the pines from salt spray.
Over on Ocracoke Island, crews spent much of the winter moving the dunes back on the ocean side of the single narrow road that runs the length of the island. During Hurricane Dennis with its 100 mile winds, the villagers of Ocracoke saw two to three feet of water cover even the highest elevations on the island, and that was only seven feet above sea level.
This year we visited the British Cemetery. During World War II, the attacks of German submarines became so bad that Great Britain sent the H. M. S. Bedfordshire to defend our shores. The subs were torpedoing an average of one merchant ship a night by March l942. The British ship was sunk and only four bodies were ever found. They are buried in the British Cemetery, their names unknown. A British flag flies above the cemetery, and a ceremony is held each year on May 12, the date of its sinking.
We were happy to spend two evenings with our friends, Jane and Bill Wickham, who were also visiting Ocracoke. As always we enjoyed talking with the villagers, walking the beach, fishing a little and eating fresh seafood. But have you ever lived with a tease? One morning I tried to rouse Percy to go and see the sunrise over the ocean. It was still dark, maybe 5:30. He sleepily asked,
“Do you see that lightning bug up there in the corner of the ceiling?”
I saw nothing but then there was a pink flash.
After about 30 seconds, there it was again.
“How could a lightning bug get in here? He certainly is flashing his light in vain. There’s only one.”
As I watched, there was a certain regularity about the intervals between flashes.
“How come it’s pink? I’ve never seen a pink light from a lightning bug before.”
Finally it became a little lighter and even my near-sighted eyes could see that the light was coming from the smoke detector. He won’t let me forget how he fooled me that morning. Others can testify to his taste for preying on the gullible.
We started home on Saturday before Easter and we planned to attend Sunrise Service at the Moravian church in Winston-Salem. This service has been held continuously since 1772 except for one Easter when rowdy drinkers interrupted the service. The next year no liquor was served after Good Friday and the service proceeded.
We joined a crowd of people, men and women, young and old, and children before five o’clock. The traditional service started at six and we had front row standing room. Once the service started, the crowd was solemn and still. Brass bands were stationed at various places near the church, and first one and then another could be heard playing hymns. After a recital of the meaning of Easter to Christians, we all quietly walked to the cemetery called God’s Acre while the brass bands continued their intermittent playing. Finally as we faced the sunrise, the bands were all gathered together and we heard and sang the benediction. The crowd, which numbered around 10,000, quietly filed away.
– Mary