EMERALD ISLE

 THE MESMERIZING RHYTHM OF THE OCEAN

It was late afternoon before we finished the one-hour drive from New Bern to Emerald Isle. The scenic flavor of the area was baked with tall verdant pines and prickly scrub brush that lined the road leading to the rental where we'd be spending the next week. As with any good spatial design even in nature the approach to Emerald Isle ticked all the right boxes. The entry began through the narrow tunnel of pines and brush giving way to

the Cameron Langston bridge rising sixty-five feet above the bay and then falling as fast as the first hill on a roller coaster taking your breath away with dread on the way up and exhilaration on the way down.

The house JoHannah had rented was a duplex with five bedrooms and three baths on two levels nestled right into the dunes along the blue-green ocean. The first order of business once we arrived was deciding who got first pick of the bedrooms. It was still early enough in the vacation that we were all initially magnanimous with everyone going "Oh no, you choose first".

The prime bedrooms were the two queen-size bedrooms with sliding doors opening up to the ocean on the lower floor. The least desirable were the two bedrooms with twin beds on the opposite side of the lower floor with windows facing the street, the parking area and both regular and recyclable trashcans. The remaining fifth bedroom that was never advertised in the listing was located on the second floor isolated off the kitchen. It was without a spectacular view but had the most privacy and its own bathroom. Our twenty-five year old daughter took that one. The parents flipped a coin for the two prime bedrooms leaving JoHannah and Adam's son, Roby, to occupy both twin bedrooms simultaneously giving him four single beds to choose from each day and night. Once all this was sorted out and we had all unpacked the next big decision to be made was who would compile the grocery list and then who would go for the wine.

A good beach vacation consists of little need for major preparation, a lot of naps and the constant and most important discussions of what you're going to eat at least three meals in advance. We pretty much accomplished all three criteria. We had a full week and only one "sorta maybe well we might want to see it" thing on our list to do. Oh I almost forgot, for some of us a must do was to get the best tan we could so we could make all our friends and any strangers who crossed out path back home as jealous as possible of an October tan. Some of us would succeed others not so much.

I don't think when we planned this trip that we had really thought through the logistics of time and climate. We had picked the last week in September, not because we looked into what kind of crowds or weather to expect, but our only criteria was that it fit into our calendars. Luck sometimes seems to follow us around. This was one of those times. 

The weather couldn't have been more accommodating: Blue skies with temperatures in the upper seventies and low eighties dousing us with a perfect amount of sun and cool breezes; not too hot and not too cold, a light wind to keep the sand flies from their ability to land and bite and a few sporadic clouds to give us a bit of relief every so often. The forecast never once included that dreaded four letter word, the bane of any beach vacation: r a i n.  Not a drop of water fell from the sky. The only drops we had to contend with were from the splashing of the ocean or our own tears of joy at seven remarkable days of leisure.

The end of September also meant school was in session so the family crowds were by and large gone with only a few families of small children too young for school getting in the way of their beach vacations. Other than the local fishermen or some retired couples the beaches were peppered so sparsely you could almost get away with sunbathing in the nude if you wanted to. Fortunately none of us were of a mind to want to do that.

With a full kitchen and six people, two and a half of whom are legitimate gourmet chefs and the rest of us pretty good sous chefs willing to double as eager bus boys, eating at home was by far the best restaurant on the island. 

The sound of waves, something between a crash and a lullaby depending on the separation of your ear and the ocean can either smack you with its power or sooth like a parent's comforting nursery song. The mesmerizing rhythm of the waves carries a hypnotic ability to tune out distraction.

This is the sense I found myself most in love with on Emerald Isle. For hours I sat on the shore with nothing more to do than stare at the rolling repetition of the ocean's cresting last gasps turning into a blinding mirrored surface of the sun's reflection before becoming nothing more than wet sand.

Sometimes the quality of nothingness is just what you need.

I didn't mind leaving the scraped knees and busted lips to the rest of crew that needed to test their metal body surfing and boogie boarding in a fight with a power way greater than their own.

The sound of the ocean's tinnitus is what I liked best about Emerald Isle.

THE OUTER BANKS HERE WE COME!

The alarm went off at 4:30.  We had scheduled a Lift for 5:15 to take us to the Madison Regional Airport. We were to fly from Madison to Charlotte, North Carolina and then on to New Bern. I had never even heard of New Bern. You'd think any place with an airport big enough for a commercial plane to fly into would be a metropolis I'd at least heard of. Well, no, I hadn't. I had to confess to myself that maybe I wasn't as sophisticated a worldly traveler as I thought I was. What it did teach me is there is still a good part of the world out there to put in my travel wish book of yet to see places.

 

Air travel is stressful enough without the added issue of Covid.  Add on the Delta variant surge and traveling to places were smoking is still allowed and you have a bit of a heart beating sweaty palm situation. When it was all done we had survived the fear of a double flight, triple airport adventure without having to reprimand any maskless travelers. There were only a few times I had to restrain myself from tapping a shoulder to remind someone that a mask needs to not only cover your mouth but your nose as well. The funny thing was most of the offenders looked like Marjorie Taylor Green. Best to back off.

One of the advantages of flying into a tiny regional airport is the lack of a crowd or lines for anything you need to do. I was expecting a hefty wait at the car rental counter but when I got there the attendant was ready with the keys, a ready contract with a place to sign my name and a big toothy smile with "Hope you'all have a nice time here, ya hear"

Then we were off to meet our friends at their hotel and off to lunch in New Bern before we were all to drive to the rental on Emerald Isle.

New Bern, founded in 1710 by the Baron of Bernberg is a beautiful town, much bigger than I had expected, graced with historic brick and stone architecture and dripping in Spanish moss. After trying unsuccessfully to parallel park and having to get out of the car and let my partner, the all and powerful Rick get in and prove he was way more butch then me by getting the car in the spot a good two-feet away form the curb we had a little time to walk around before our lunch reservation. It was enough to wet our appetite for a return visit before our week on the Outer Banks was to come to an end.

After our visual taste of the town it was time for lunch. Here's where a beautiful quaint town jumped into the exceptional category. We opened the front door of Cypress Hall. It was a walk into a Caleb Carr novel.  A long narrow space, the second floor joists ripped off leaving the entry and bar soaring two stories

ending in a balcony seating area over the exposed kitchen at the end of the hall. I must have twirled in circles as I walked to our table not able to look forward but having to absorb the space in a dizzying three-dimensional three-sixty.

Once we were seated we ordered drinks. Rick ordered a Martini very dry, shaken and not stirred. Johannah went for wine, Adam had a local craft beer, I settled for sweet tea but Emmy showed us all up with a Bloody Mary that was a meal in itself. A swirl of spicy tomato juice and vodka topped with, get this, a skewer starting with a pimento olive, a wedge of Colby, an iced shrimp under a second olive then a folded slice of prosciutto all weighted down with a deviled egg hanging on for dear life. And if that wasn't enough they stuck a pickle wedge in the glass and draped a rasher of bacon seductively laid over the glass's edge. I had no idea of how she could possibly move on from here to an entre.

And now for the food...Adam went for the salmon, JoHannah, Rick and Emmy went for the cheddar biscuits, eggs any style, maple cured bacon and hollandaise sauce but I went full Southern cooking.  I'm not sure what made me choose the meal I went for. JoHannah just shook her head. Rick made a genuine stink face but I still said, "I'll have the fried chicken and waffles". 

When my plate, a gleaming white charger, was set in front of me it created a halo encircling a glisening piece of perfectly fried chicken breast resting on a bed of arugula and beet salad with a side of waffles smothered in maple syrup and cinnamon bun icing. There was little doubt I was going to enjoy every bit of this heavenly crunchy fried chicken. My eyes anticipated stabbing a succulent piece of chicken, swirling it on my fork and sliding it in the icing doing a slow drip of off the warm stack of waffles.  Then lifting the fork with bits of arugula caught in the sticky syrup up to my mouth and instantly transforming me into a sleeveless flannel shirt wearing, chewin' tobacco spitter, Waffle House regular. One bite was all it took.

Full and satisfied with only the tiniest bit of waffle stuck to my lower lip we all boarded back in our rental cars for the final journey to our destination: a week's worth of sun on the Atlantic coast on Emerald Isle

 

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

 

WHAT I REMEMBER

Rick had gotten up at 4:00am to insure himself time alone in the office to prepare for the day ahead. The morning light was only beginning to bath the New York City skyline over the Hudson as he left our midtown apartment for our office in Chelsea. 

The day before, September Tenth, had been Emmy's first day of kindergarten at Friends Seminary, a Quaker School. Rick, Angelina and myself had taken her to school for that first day. She was still at an age where we could dress her up. The image of all of us standing outside the school, Emmy in a beautiful little dress, the rest of us beaming with pride, a halo of balloons in the background still float in the beautiful memory compartment of my mind. The schedule set up by the school had half of the kindergarten class showing up for a half day on Monday and then the second half of the class coming on Tuesday, September Eleventh. The full class was to meet on Wednesday. This schedule allowed for a larger teacher to student ratio for those first few days in an attempt to make for an easier and warmer transition for the kids just starting out in a new school. Since Emmy had had her half-day on Monday it meant no school for her on Tuesday. A beautiful Tuesday morning in September where the sun was shining and the sky was a rare clear blue.

Our nanny,Angelina, usually showed up between seven and seven thirty in the morning. She'd help get Emmy up and ready. Angelina was a diehard vegetarian and health nut. If it was left up to me breakfast would be a doughnut or a frozen waffle and that's what showed up on Emmy's breakfast plate during the weekends when I was in charge but every weekday morning I was assured Emmy's breakfast, prepared by Angelina, would prepare her for a healthy future. It allowed me to cheat without guilt on the days I had to deal with her morning meal. 

We were in one of our rental phases in 2001 between buying and selling either coops or condiminiums we would renovate and then sell. Our apartment was on the thirtieth floor of a new luxury building on East Twenty-nineth Street. Our view faced north towards the Empire State Building.

Every night Emmy went to sleep with the different colored lights of the Empire State Building softly filling her bedroom as her night light guiding her dreams. When Emmy woke up that morning what she saw was the midtown skyline of New York City silhouetted against that crystal clear blue sky.

Emmy woke as she always did with a smile and an eagerness to greet the day. Angelina had prepared her breakfast. I was getting ready to go into the office. Rick was by now sitting in our office on West Seventeenth Street. From different parts of the city the three of us were just putting our days in order. Angelina had planned for a trip to the park  and then it was off to one of Emmy's pre-school friend's birthday parties later in the day. I wasn't in any hurry to get into the office. It looked like such a beautiful day from outside our windows. It was about 8:50am when the phone rang. My sister back in Wisconsin was on the phone. We almost always reserved our family phone conversations for Sunday evenings. When I realized it was my sister calling outside our normal time a host of bad news scenarios began their marcch into my worrying mind. There was a knot forming in my stomach as all the possible tragedies ripped through my consciousness. The brightness in my, "Hello" dropped it's usual cheerfulness and fell on the handset with the weight of dread.

Bonnie said, "Do you have the TV on?" I told her, "No, I didn't" and I immediately walked over to the TV in our bedroom cradling the phone in between my shoulder and my ear as I picked up my work files along the way. Channel four, NBC, came on with Katie Couric and Matt Lauer on the screen. One of the World Trade Towers was on fire; smoke billowing out and drifting to the south and west. I told Bonnie I would call her back.  I immediately dialed the office number as I shouted out to Angelina to come in to my room. I pointed to the TV, waiting for Rick to pick up. Angelina let out a visible gasp as she realized what she was looking at on the TV. 

Rick's voice came on with our automatic greeting,"Shaver/Melahn Studios".

"Rick, turn on the TV." I could hear him fumbling with the landline as he set down the receiver so he could get to the TV and turn it on. At this point it was still unclear what had happened. The TV anchors were debating whether it was a small plane gone astray or something else having crashed into the tower. "I'll call you back. I'm going to go up to the roof to see if we can get a better idea of what's going on."

"Angelina, we're going to go up to the roof." The building had thirty-nine floors with a roof deck circling the entire top of the building. Angelina had grabbed Emmy. The three of us boarded the elevator and pushed the button for the top floor. When we got off there were about a dozen other people who had gathered on the south side of the roof deck. A couple of people had brought up binoculars. It was as if we were all moving and reacting in a trance. There was no note of hysteria in our conversations. Everything was delivered in a monotone. We stayed only a minute or two before we returned back down to the apartment. When the second plane hit there was no longer any confusion about what was happening. The bright color of the day had been sucked out of everything we saw, Even the TV anchors had turned an ashen grey as they spoke about the numbers of people who might still be trapped in the towers. Then came the report of the pentagon. After that the grounding of all flights in and around the United States began as the nation tried to determine if there were any other planes turned into flying weapons still streaking through the skies. We heard all of this as we stood in our thirtieth floor apartment five blocks away from the Empire State Building. I called Rick again and we decided it would be safer for the three of us to come down to the studio. Even though it was closer to the World Trade Center, the beauty of our view now looked like another target with us quit possibly in the path of destruction. Once we had made a plan it was out the door. Angelina and I grabbed Emmy and we were gone.

We had to walk south to get from the apartment to the office. Every step we took was in the direction of the carnage. Every street corner was filled with people mesmerized by what we couldn't believe was happening. The billowing smoke, the concern for all our neighbors, who did we know that worked there? How many of Emmy's classmates would have a parent who wouldn't be coming home that night? Most people seemed frozen in their steps. Streetlights would go from green to red and back to green again without anyone crossing the street. Most just stood there. As we made our way down Sixth Avenue I realized what a visual anchor the towers where to our view downtown. The clear blue sky still shown behind us but in front of us the sky was being consumed by an acrid black smoke littered with tiny specks of people jumping to their deaths. When we turned the corner onto Seventeenth Street it became like any other day except for the stillness. The street was in whisper mode. The bond of family came with the unlocking of the office door. Everyone was huddled around the TV. Rick moved his arm to envelop us all and we stood there in disbelief as the towers came tumbling down. 

Like a concerned mother, Mother Nature gently blew the tiny pulverized bites of what remained of this tragedy away from our island. We stayed inside the studio waiting for what to do next. We felt safer huddled there getting our information off the tiny TV with its rabbit ears turned to the sky.  This fuzzy picture remained our protector from what was happening just outside our door. It wasn't until much later in the day, when all of the planes left circling in the sky had been accounted for and landed in safety or unfortunate terror that we felt able to return home. When we did leave and when we reached our corner at Sixth and Seventeenth I forced my eyes to look north. I didn't want to see what I knew no longer existed. It was the unreality aspect of a TV image allowing me to go on. If I didn't look south, if I forced myself to only look at the tragedy on a TV screen then I could hold onto the possibility it wasn't real. It only happened like some bad crime drama concocted by actors and writers in a land of make-believe far, far away. Being at the epicenter of this unbearable act of human cruelty branded us like the surviving Jews of Nazi Germany. Like the numbers tattooed onto their arms we bore an emotional scar only those of us at that place at that time in history can carry. The next day as the winds changed and the debris of the day before began to drift over the city. The poisonous smell began to fill our nostrils, the grit of tiny pieces of what had been now touching our tongues, and the searing ache of the misdirected actions of a segment of our brotherhood had forced us to leave for our country home, our haven in the mountains where life still smelled like fresh grass and only the buzzing of bees filled the air. We sat on our porch, our bodies' muscles tied taut with a silent tension watching Emmy play in the yard waiting for news of who we would never see again.

THE MEMORY BOX

WILL THEY HAVE A TANGIBLE HISTORY

When we were in San Francisco several years ago visiting our friends, Adam and JoHannah, Adam happened to play a lot of The Bombay Dub Orchestra. I don't exactly know what Dub means but I fell in love with the ethnic moodiness of the music.

I forgot about it for a long time, but once the trailers for The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel started running the music of the Bombay Dub Orchestra started playing in my mind again. Rick had put the exotic music on his iPod Nano via iTunes. Speaking about iPods and iTunes always makes me feel like I'm talking in some alien tongue. I don't own an iPod and I always thought that other music service Pandora was some character from Greek mythology. I'm too technologically deficient to be considering buying one of those handheld gizmos so I'm not going to be downloading music or god forbid videos anytime soon. So about a week ago I decided it was time to go out and buy the CD before I drove myself crazy with sitars playing havoc with my psyche.

The Madison of my college days had been a hot bed of music stores. It was that Woodstock era where everyone owned a phonograph and the songs of Janis Joplin and Patti Smith blared from the smeared smoky windows of college rooming houses. In my head these record stores still lined State Street, but when I returned to the storefronts that housed those historic psychedelic LP record jackets of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones I discovered they had turned into Chipotle Mexican restaurants and GAP stores. Those record stores just didn't exist anymore and just by calling them record stores I've totally dated myself into insignificance.

I got back in the car and headed for the malls where the likes of Best Buy and Barnes & Nobles held what I hoped would be the CDs I'd been desperate to own. In my head these big box stores were all loaded with aisles of CDs with sections like Latin music, Techno and Easy Listening. Not so. The music sections of these big box stores had shriveled to the size of my manhood in the dead of winter.

I decided to wait until I got to New York and I'd buy the Bombay Dub Orchestra's CD there. New York has everything or so I thought. The story was the same as I walked through the Village both East and West.

Tower Records and The Virgin Megastore had turned into American Apparel stores and electronic outlets selling the latest version of virtual books. I was still thinking ten years too late.

It made me realize I just can't do itunes and I'll tell you why. It's out of concern for my daughter and all the other daughters and sons of our generation.  I fear for the future of the cultural heritage of the current youth. They are going to be a generation without a physical trail of memories. Fifty years from now when you go to the Flea Market you aren't going to find orange crates stuffed with the LP jackets or CD jewelcases of the early twenty-first century. There won't be anything tangible to buy, only a bunch of old ipods that you can't operate anymore.

The shoeboxes now filled with creased black and white photographs of our parents weddings and pictures of children running through sprinklers on suburban front yards will be filled with dust and air, empty boxes full of forgotten memories. The ephemera of this generation won't exist.

When Kodak stopped making film I saw the writing on the wall. I was never so thankful that Emmy was born before the demise of real film.

Every photo I've taken of her still exists staring back at me on a real piece of paper. The music I listened to can still be found tucked away in the back of a closet. I may not play it but the technology is still out there. The music my daughter buys with her itunes gift cards only exists as long as she can find it on her current MP3 player. When that form of technology is replaced by a new form, that music won't exist anymore, at least not in any form she can hold in her hand or look for in the back of her closet.

I continue to resist the pleas of friends to get with it and download a piece of music or a new book. I'm sticking to the old ways and hopefully the music we relaxed to, the books that expanded our horizons and the pictures of my little girl growing up will be there for her when she sorts through the artifacts that were our lives.

 

HAMMER TIME

PUTTING ON MY BIG PANTS

This is not your ordinary how-to article although if you want to learn how to drill a hole in concrete this shouldn't disappoint. We've spent the last half of the pandemic working on laying out and establishing our backyard gardens. There's now a potager, a cutting flower garden, a new deck, an oval fire pit patio, an extended grilling area and a refurbished lavender garden all in various states of completion. We've never been the type to start and finish one project before we start another.

Since the raised planting beds had to be built and the surrounding areas had to be leveled, lined and layered with pea gravel before we could start planting we are just now beginning to see some sprouts.  With a very short growing season in Wisconsin this is going to be a race against time to see the fruits of our labor and to see if we are going to qualify as true gentlemen gardeners or paupers from the unexpected cash output necessary to qualify as top echelon gardeners. 

Cultivated gardening is a very civil activity separated in tone and fashion from farming, the hardcore bib overall version of growing crops. Gardening done with kidskin gloves, a straw hat from Saks summer collection and a stylish a pair of Wellies is the mark of  the well tooled hobbyist. Those tools for working a garden are mostly miniature and dainty by comparison to what a farmer uses. The essentials you need are a trowel, a hand rack, secateurs for cutting back the roses and something comfortable to kneel on for the in ground planting or a cushioned stool if you're dealing with raised beds. The heaviest tools a gardener might encounter are a shovel and a spade or a rake for leveling out the pea gravel. Anything beyond that is usually hired out to those whose lives depend on doing the dirty work. There's a vast difference between poking your finger in the dirt to deposit a seed and drilling a hole in the ground to deposit a fence post.

I actually don't like gardening. For me it's just one more responsibility that never ends. Sure the results are rewarding. You've made something grow. You've created a vibrant hairy orange carrot from a little tiny seed, but to get that carrot that you could have bought for pennies at your local Piggly Wiggly you needed to spend hours weeding, fertilizing, nurturing and watering it at a cost well beyond the a supermarket version.  

Gardening has been my partner's passion and wanting to be supportive I've tried to be there when needed, mostly to do what he doesn't want to do or thinks he can't do.  As hard as I've tried to avoid most aspects of this caretaker's role I've still been obliged to take on my position in the rotation schedule of who's day it is to spend the hour it takes to water all these needy little plants. Right now the task has it's positive moments of solitude but once summer moves into full swing and mosquito season begins the task and the difficulty of aiming a hose or toting a watering can while swatting those pesky little stingers will take any joy of gardening and turn it into torture.

I am thankful that Wisconsin does not seem to have the No-See-Um version of blood sucking insects we had at our weekend home in New York's Catskills region. Bites from them would cause me to balloon and fester for weeks. Back in my gardening days in the Catskills I had to purchase a beekeeper's outfit of gloves and headgear to protect myself when outside playing my supportive role as assistant gardener first class. For some reason these bugs had an affinity for me but they left Rick completely alone.

My family, sick of hearing me complain about my assistant garden role, has steered me toward other outside tasks to placate my resistance to the nurturing tasks most gardeners enjoy. I have become the stone layer. I tote the dirt. I layout the footprint for the gardens and then rake and level the dirt base of the gardens and patios before laying the fabric barrier and then spreading the pea gravel and edging the spaces with tumbled granite pavers. For a sissy boy this has been a tremendous boost to my masculine inner identity. But for all this machismo I drew the line when asked to attach a galvanized window well to the house's concrete foundation that would make another raised planter for a painted iron trellis we found at a garage sale. I fought this one tooth and nail, literally. Drilling has never been my forte. A butterfly anchor scares me to death. I had to work really hard to convince myself that my doing this wouldn't bring the house tumbling down, or that we wouldn't end up with my making so many holes in the wall that it would look more like the bullet riddled walls of London during the Blitz. 

The decision ended up being made for me. We couldn't find a handyman willing to come to my rescue unless we were willing to wait till the snow starts to fall.

From there my approach was to go straight to Google to find a tutorial on putting a screw in concrete. You can find anything on Google. I went straight to" See Jane Drill" and I didn't make that up. Nothing like a woman to teach me how to screw. First she showed me my options for screws. There were three kinds: removable screws, permanent sleeve anchors, and permanent drive anchors (the only one meant specifically for concrete).  The drive anchor seemed the logical choice and the least likely to go wrong. I would need to drill a hole, clean the hole out and then pound my screw into the hole securing the window well to the wall. Easy Peasy, right? Eight tiny screws, that's all I'd have to do. I was starting to feel my mojo until Jane pulled out the big guns. The only way I was going get those screws into the concrete was with a hammer drill...a hammer drill. All my confidence dribbled down my leg. 

So here's the deal: it was sink or swim, drill baby drill or succumb to sissydom. I took a deep breath, pulled up my big boy pants and grabbed the hammer drill along with our vacuum cleaner to suck out the drilled dust and a chopstick wrapped with a piece of green tape to indicate the depth of the hole necessary for each screw to penetrate the wall to its maximum length.

I put on my gloves (the worn cloth ones, not the kid glove kind) and started the simultaneous action of drilling and pounding. What a rush! Perhaps a larger man could have held this piece of burning metal without vibrating like a plastic plate piled with jell-o on a two-year-old's lunch tray. The process was to simultaneously drill and pound, then suck the resulting dust out of the hole with the vac until I could stick the chopstick into the hole and have it reach the green tape marker. After I did it once I was pretty confident that I could do it seven more times without messing up. Amazingly I did it having acquired several blisters I displayed for all to see as proof of my heroic effort. Then came the test: would the holes I had drilled line up with the holes in the galvanized metal window well? Measure twice, drill once and success came my way. It was now just a matter of putting the well in place and pounding the permanent drive anchors with their accompanying washers into the wall using an actual hammer. 

Sometimes a real wave of accomplishment can come from the most mundane activities. This one was not mundane for me. It was stepping over a line in the sand. You never know what you're capable of doing until you try. I may not have a green thumb or an interest in developing one but I now know I can conquer concrete with a drill hammer and that opens up a whole new aspect of my self-image. Watch out all you HGTV superstars. Lee is out there.