Notes From My Travel Diary: Emerald Isle, NC

I grew up in this little beach town. When you think of North Carolina, most people don’t think about islands, but that that’s where we lived -- Emerald Isle, North Carolina. Tourist flocked there every summer. The locals were mostly fishermen or cashiers or waitresses at all-you-can-eat buffets. But my father was a potter. He didn’t leave the trailer most days. He didn’t have to. The UPS man dropped off boxes of clay. My dad threw this clay in the work studio. Of course he didn’t really throw the clay, but that’s how he said he made the cups and bowls.

There was two sheds in the yard. One for tools, the other for the kiln. The kiln looked like a brick igloo with afterburners. They fired the clay so folks at craft shows could buy it. Dad kept throwing pottery until it filled the studio. A big show made the house go buzzz. You know the feeling you get the closer to Christmas? Anyway, he’d pace around before a firing, filling the kiln with all the uncooked pottery. One time the kiln blew up, but it didn’t really blow up like you think. The pottery just looked retarded. Mom talked about the poorhouse.

The kiln rumbled low and steady in the night. Outside, the shed is a big jack-o-lantern, glowing tangerine between the planks. Inside, my father was a maestro, tuning pyrotechnic gauges, stoking the dials of that thousand-degree symphony. His face look orange like an Oompa Loompa, except he got a moustache that curls up. My dad is five foot nine, weighs a hundred and forty pounds. But his tan Woolrich vest makes him look heavier.

One time a police come by, asked if dad was hiding a side entrance to Hell in there. Our across-the-street neighbors, a family of fat morticians, never batted an eyelash, but a mainlander renting a trailer up the road expressed his concerns.

            

 “That thing runs on gas? If that thing explodes…” the man trailed off, his eyes fixed toward the kiln. 

 “Well,” said my dad. “It hasn’t happened yet.”

 “The whole goddamn neighborhood would BLOW!” 

 “Blow?” my dad echoed, as if that was the last thing a gas-fueled contraption would do. “That’s not gonna happen.” 

              

The man didn‘t argue. The struggle in his face said it all: 

Gas oven + Hippie Potter = Boom. 

The man reminded me of a house cat. Maybe he paced all night, downing wine coolers with a shaky hand, peering through the blinds every five minutes to the glowing shack that, given half a chance, would level the entire neighborhood. Inland folks had apocalyptic scenarios: Shark attacks, hurricanes, exploding kilns. I could jump off the roof with an umbrella, or lean too far back in my chair if I wanted to. 

Dad said “just don’t do it at your grandmother’s.”

*

We're Chugging Right Along

I've published another story on the Matador Network called Hitting the Skids on Emerald Isle. 

"A lot clearing business, a man named Brian, and life in a trailer — 

C Noah Pelletier describes growing up in a family of Beach People."

Nick Rowlands, editor of Matador Life, did a great job working behind the scenes with this story.

If you haven't checked it out yet, you can read it here.

And please leave a comment!!

On the Water's Edge

They only came to Emerald Isle in the summertime.  Weekend traffic stretched past the bridge out to Cape Carteret.  No leaving the island those days.  The license plates said NEW YORK, MARYLAND, OHIO -- places I had only heard about on television.  And the people had strange accents, too.  My sister and I practiced mocking them on rides home from the grocery store.  “Yankees,” my mother called them.  The Yankees ate at the restaurants us locals didn’t go to.  And just like their cars, the Yankees lined up outside of that grease trap, Jordan’s, every night for all the deep-fried sea life they could eat.  We could smell the commotion across the street from our porch.  I tried to imagine what went on in there:  “Hey, one of youz deep fry my napkin!” From a knot in the fence, I could see the cooks urgently smoke around a filthy screen door. 

Golden girls and grumpy old men strolled the beach at sunset, their oxford shirttails flapping behind them like Old Glory.  Our family would walk down to the Bogue Inlet Pier to watch the rod ’n’ reelers.  Their catch of the day, garnish really, floated belly up in catch buckets.  My parents would urge me over to each one.  I once saw a flounder as large as my chest.  

 You couldn’t go bare footed on the pier.  There was a red line painted on the wood.  Past that line, the fishermen didn’t give a squat about their hooks.  They balanced their priorities in this order:  Smoking, drinking, and fishing.  There was a sense of camaraderie between the anglers, and it was never more apparent than when somebody hooked up.  “Give ‘em hell!”  They’d shout down the line.  They didn’t give a squat who heard them, neither.  This was their domain.   

And, if the Yankees wanted to come out and watch a man with creature blood jellied upon his waders, well, why not put on a show?  In those moments when the rods curled down toward the sea, locals and tourists could stand side-by-side, forgetting our differences -- if only for a moment -- as we watched man exercise his dominance over Mother Nature.