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.