UNCLE JACK'S WEBLOG
|
| Friday, June 30, 2006 | | Sonag sunrise Friday June 30, 2006 | This has not been a good week for vacationers what with the incessant rain, the high surf producing truncated beaches and riptides and red flags at the lifeguard stands. Uncle Jack extends his sincere sympathy to all those whose annual week at the beach has been something of a washout. He hopes that those of you from the flood-ravaged areas to the north will not return home tomorrow to find your houses under water. That would be too much.
Today is starting out like it could develop into a perfect beach day. One out of seven is not very good but it's better than none. Enjoy.
For those of you who are chained to your desks on this lovely Friday here's another gleaning from the archive to help pass the time:
Don’t Touch Nothin’
A One-Act Play
By Pier Andello
Scene: A souvenir shop somewhere on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. It is 11 a.m. on a typically hot and humid August day. The clerk hastily gulps her fourth Valium of the morning as three tow-headed children, ages 5, 4 and 2 burst through the door followed moments later by their tanned but haggard parents, mother carrying a small baby.
Clerk: (with feigned cheerfulness born of economic necessity) “Morning folks. Can I help you?”
Male Parent: “No thanks. Just browsing.”
Female Parent: “I don’t want you kids to touch NOTHIN', understand? (Her eyes glazed, she is unable to perceive that her three ambulatory children are simultaneously touching 47 breakable objects as she speaks).
Clerk: (With grim smile) “Just let me know if I can help.” (She watches in resigned horror as children proceed to touch all 4, 738 items in the shop in two minutes and 51 seconds flat. Pretty good time, she notes, but not a record for three children under six).
Five-year-old: (Brandishing ceramic replica of Cape Hatteras lighthouse, exquisitely crafted by skilled Chinese artisans and authentic in every respect except for the mauve and yellow stripes). “Mommy I want one of these get me one of these I want one PLEASE.”
Female parent: “Rocky I told you not to touch anything. Now put that back where you got it right now and DON’T TOUCH NOTHIN'!!”
Five-year-old: (Tosses ceramic lighthouse into barrel filled with pink sponge rubber porpoises) “I hate you. You never buy me nothin' I want.” (Aims vicious kick at table containing 200 plastic replicas of Wright brothers first glider).
Four-year-old: “Daddy I has to go tee-tee.”
Male parent: (Deeply engrossed in study of poster displaying numerous deeply bronzed and oiled female torsos) “Huh?”
Four-year-old: “Daddy I has to go tee-tee real bad.”
Male parent: (To female parent who is unsuccessfully trying to quiet screaming infant) “Debbie has to go, hon. Can you take her somewhere?”
Female parent: (Shouting to clerk over screams of deranged infant) “You got a bathroom in here?”
Clerk: (Praying that the Lord will not strike her dead on the spot for telling a monstrous lie) “I’m sorry but the nearest bathroom is over at the Visitors’ Center in Kitty Hawk which is about 12 miles from here so you better get going before it’s too late.”
Two-and-a-half-year old: “Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh” (Having knocked over pyramid display constructed of 750 imported ceramic ashtrays inscribed “Fun in the Sun. Nags Heap, N.C. Summer 2006” which had taken the owner three slow days in June to stack).
Female parent: “Dammit Rambo, I told you not to touch nothin'’. Now put those things back the way they were because we got to go.”
Male parent: (Still ogling oiled nudes) “Why don’t you take the kids out to the car, hon, while I buy this poster for the family room.”
Clerk: (Reaching for Valium bottle as first family departs and new group enters)
“Y’all come back soon, hear?”
THE END
Moral: Retail is not pretty. |
| 
click for larger image | 5:50 Thick clouds on the horizon have delayed the sun's first appearance but it has finally broken through. |
| | 
click for larger image | It was extreme low tide at 6 a.m. producing a wide expanse of flat sand interspersed with large shellbeds. Plenty of room for everybody, at least until high tide when most of this will be covered. |
| | 
click for larger image | Sand has begun to cover up the ugly mess in front of this cottage. It was actually possible to get around it this morning without having to climb over sandbags. |
| 
click for larger image | One last look at the sun. We have seen so little of it lately that it deserves our attention. |
|
posted by Uncle Jack at 6:56 AM |
Comments [2] |
|
| Thursday, June 29, 2006 | | Sonag Sunrise, Thursday June 29, 2006 | The penultimate day of June arrived shrouded in mist and clouds with only a shred of light here and there in the sky to suggest that a sunrise was happening out there somewhere.
It was close to low tide at 5:45 a.m. revealing an extremely wide, flat expanse of gravelly sand extending up to the edge of the drop-offs which range from one to five feet high. In some places the newly formed drop-offs are coterminous with the remains of last year's berms making for a rather precipitous trip from the top of the berm to the beach below.
Where all that sand went and when it will return are mysteries at this point. In the meantime beachgoers are still able to negotiate the drop-offs and find places to sit where they can talk about how strange the beach looks right now.
Yesterday was warm, humid and cloudy with occasional glimpses of sunshine. Today is starting out like another yesterday but who knows what it might be like in a few hours.
Here's another oldie from the archives in the guest bedroom closet:
Cereal Cynic
Uncle Jack is not sure why he bought a box of Wheaties a couple of weeks ago but he did and he is working his way through it at a fairly good clip. He used to eat a lot of Wheaties when he was a kid but to tell the truth he never liked them all that much because if you ask him they got soggy too quick. That is the main reason that when he grew up he switched over to those nature cereals which are full of hard stuff like nuts and seeds and dried coconut husks which are still crunchy enough to break your fillings an hour after you pour the milk on.
The main thing Uncle Jack liked about Wheaties when he was a kid was the boxes. He was always a great reader even at a very early age and the Wheaties boxes always had plenty of interesting stuff to read such as testimonials from famous athletes who always said they wouldn’t have amounted to much except for eating a bowl of Wheaties every day.
Uncle Jack suspects that was the main reason he kept on eating Wheaties even though he wasn’t too crazy about them and he did wonder sometimes how that mushy mess in the bottom of your bowl could turn you into a superstar like Joe DiMaggio who could win the hand (and everything else attached to it) of somebody like Marilyn Monroe.
Later on he found out that those famous athletes actually got paid for saying they liked Wheaties and right then he turned into the cynical, doubting person he has remained to this day.
Like he said he does not know what compelled him to buy a box of Wheaties after all these years but he can tell you that after reading the box every morning for the past couple of weeks they have hardly changed at all. They have this picture of a smiling football star on the back and on the inside there was a nice picture of another football player who is one of the 25 “Hot Superstars” he can get if he buys 24 more boxes of Wheaties.
Also the box had a coupon which he can send in with $19.95 and get a videotape called “Learning Football the NFL Way” where these superstars will teach you the fundamentals such as how to pick a good agent, how to beat a urine test, and how to set up a deferred payment plan that will keep you in Wheaties long after the ligaments in your knees have turned to tomato aspic.
Uncle Jack is just kidding. They probably have some stuff in there about blocking and tackling and being a good sport, too, with demonstrations of how to help the opposing quarterback to his feet after you have broken both of his legs.
The side panel of the Wheaties box is still the same, too, with all that stuff about nutrition such as how one bowl gives you 4% of all the protein you need for the whole day (as long as you go right back to bed and stay there). Uncle Jack is not sure how that compares with one regular Krispy Kreme glazed but he did notice that the second main ingredient in Wheaties is sugar which is what they are probably talking about when they say that Wheaties give you “Energy that you need to get going“.
Anyway Uncle Jack really did enjoy his box of Wheaties and he was happy to learn that some things in this world never change. Next week: What Joe DiMaggio really liked for breakfast. |
click for larger image | Uncle Jack regrets to report that this is your sunrise picture for today, taken at 5:55 a.m. |
| 
click for larger image | The Outer Banks pier is down there somewhere but you can't even see the lights this morning. |
| 
click for larger image | The ocean has calmed down a lot since yesterday and probably won't do any more sand removal at high tide today. Isn't this a lovely sight? |
| 
click for larger image | The striations are almost like rings in a tree, each one representing a different condition of the beach in years past. |
| 
click for larger image | This neighborhood pigeon was the only bird Uncle Jack saw on the beach this morning. Strange. |
| 
click for larger image | These birds were in the water last evening while he tried to use the Elph's sound recording function. He succeeded in recording the sound of the waves and playing it back from the camera, but........ |
| 
click for larger image | ....after he downloaded the pictures into his computer he couldn't get any sound to come out of them. Does anybody know what he's doing wrong? |
|
posted by Uncle Jack at 6:49 AM |
Comments [5] |
|
| Wednesday, June 28, 2006 | | Sonag Unrise, Wednesday June 28, 2006 | "Rain, rain go away" would be an appropriate mantra for vacationers on the Outer Banks today after yesterday's nearly non-stop deluge. Right now it looks like more of the same with overcast skies and not even a hint of a sunrise this morning.
Uncle Jack did go up to the beach at putative sunrise and took a couple of pictures before his Elph battery went dead. He put in the back-up battery he always carries with him only to discover that it had not survived its fourth trip through the washer-dryer cycle yesterday. He is going to try drying it out in the microwave this morning but he doesn't hold out much hope for it.
The surf is still up this morning and has continued to chop away at the beach which has lost a zillion tons of sand in the last few days. Uncle Jack's walk this morning was cut short by the reappearance of a wall of hitherto covered-up sandbags in front of one cottage. Only the agile and intrepid will be able to get past it today. So much for the "public beach".
The wind has shifted to the southwest so perhaps the waves will die down today and some of the lost sand will begin to return. It will be interesting to see how long it takes for Mother Nature to cover up those ugly sandbags again and restore the beach to its normal state of flatness.
The picture below from the Coastland Times says something about the trustworthiness of the Army Corps of Engineers. They maintain the fiction that the ditch in South Nags Head is a "navigable waterway" so they can get more money out of the federal treasury. (Any resemblance to the scam artists in New Orleans is purely coincidental). Because of this the N.C. Department of Transportation which owns the ditch won't clean it because they have to get permission from the Corps first. Incredible. |
click for larger image | This picture from the Coastland Times says a lot about the trustworthiness of the Army Corps of Engineers. This is the weed-choked drainage ditch along the west side of Old Oregon Inlet Road in Sonag which the Corps calls a "navigable waterway". |
| | 
click for larger image | Sonag has a whole new beach this morning courtesy of Mother Nature who has taken away the old one, hopefully only temporarily. |
| | | 
click for larger image | This is as far as Uncle Jack could get this morning. This is one of the consequences of allowing cottage owners to armor their property with giant sandbags. You can have sandbags or you can have a beach but not both, as Professor Pilkey says. |
| | 
click for larger image | The drop-offs are a geologist's delight, showing layers of sand going back probably several years. Uncle Jack guesses that the thick top layer is made up mostly of Currituck County sand that has washed down from last year's berms, very little of which rem |
| 
click for larger image | The faint pinkness in the northeastern sky indicates that the sun was around here somewhere. This was the last shot before the battery died. |
|
posted by Uncle Jack at 7:40 AM |
Comments [2] |
|
| Tuesday, June 27, 2006 | | Sonag Unrise, Tuesday June 27, 2006 | Those big black clouds that have been hanging around in the western sky finally moved in on South Nags Head last evening. Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. were still on the beach, concluding their evening walk to Jennette's pier, when the downpour started. Needless to say they were drenched by the time they got home. Fortunately the Elph stayed dry and will live to pixelate again.
But not this morning. Rain is still falling steadily and there was not even a hint of a sunrise at the appointed time. By not leaving the house Uncle Jack gained some time to read about the calamitous hydrological events in the Washington, D.C. area yesterday and he thanks Mother Nature for sparing us (so far) from anything even remotely resembling that deluge.
He is continuing to turn over rocks in the guest bedroom closet and yesterday unearthed this rumination on the subject of crickets from days gone by:
Crickets Are Our Friends
Dear Uncle Jack,
I have a problem I hope you can help me with. First I should tell you that I am not exactly what you would call a liberated woman. I have never had a real job unless you want to call raising five kids on the kind of money my husband makes picking up aluminum cans on the bypass a real job.
Anyway the kids are grown up now and I guess I don’t have a very good excuse for not going out and getting a real estate license like everybody else but I can never keep a straight face when I tell a lie so I don’t think I would be very good at real estate.
Besides I do get a lot of satisfaction out of staying home and doing housework, especially since the kids moved out and I don’t have to pick up after them any more. Cleaning is my strong suit and I am not bragging when I tell you that my house is a cinch to turn up in the Pine Sol Hall of Fame one of these days.
I always try to keep my house so clean that if President Bush and Laura should knock on my door some day and want to use the bathroom I will not be embarrassed and don’t laugh because exciting things like that have happened to ordinary housewives like myself more than once.
I have to give some credit for my clean house to my husband because he helps a lot by going up to the Burger King when he needs to go to the bathroom and that cuts my workload down at least 50% right there.
I suppose that by now you are wondering what my problem is and I am going to tell you even though it is really embarrassing to talk about it like this in public. My problem is crickets and I have tried every way I can think of to get them out of my house but they are still chirping away like crazy. Can you imagine how I would feel if Laura Bush was in the bathroom sometime and a cricket crawled out from under the plunger and hopped in her lap or something? Please help me Uncle Jack. You are my only hope.
Mrs. Clean
Nags Head
Dear Mrs. Clean,
First of all Uncle Jack will tell you that you are not alone in the cricket department. Everybody Uncle Jack knows on the Outer Banks has crickets in their house and it is nothing to be ashamed of. Also he would not be surprised if President and Mrs. Bush have crickets in their Texas ranchhouse so they are probably used to having crickets jump out in front of them at all hours of the day and night.
If you are wondering how crickets get into your house in the first place Uncle Jack would guess that your husband brings most of them in with him when he comes back from the Burger King. You might want to think about letting him use the bathroom at home, especially at night when the crickets tend to move around the most.
Nothing really works, though, so you might as well get used to having a few crickets in your house no matter what you do. Think of them as part of God’s plan for the world and try to relax and enjoy their humorous antics. That’s what Uncle Jack does and he can tell you that after he has had a few sips of Jack Daniel’s in the evening he thinks those crickets are just as funny as anything on TV with the possible exception of Fox News.
|
click for larger image | These are the clouds that brought our Monday evening stroll on the beach to a sodden halt at about 8 p.m. |
| 
click for larger image | Intrepid walker braves heavy surf which continues to chop away at miles of beach in South Nags Head. Uncle Jack has never before seen such extensive erosion of this kind. The cause remains a mystery to him. |
| 
click for larger image | It was too rough for sensible people to go into the water yesterday so many of them devoted their time to creating some remarkable sand sculptures. This magnificent construction was half gone by the time we got back to it on our return trip from Jennette |
| 
click for larger image | Another view showing the proximity of the angry sea. Further proof that it's not a good idea to build close to the ocean no matter what you happen to be building. |
| | | 
click for larger image | This drop-off, six feet high in places, extends for miles, off and on, in South Nags Head. A very unusual phenomenon in Uncle Jack's experience. |
| | | 
click for larger image | Uncle Jack couldn't produce a sunrise picture this morning but perhaps this photo of little Macy from Louisville, Kentucky will do until the next sunrise comes along. Is she adorable or what? |
|
posted by Uncle Jack at 7:34 AM |
Comments [5] |
|
| Monday, June 26, 2006 | | Sonag Sunrise Monday June 26, 2006 | It's the dawn of a new week and a very pretty one it was. There is a strong, steady wind blowing out of the southeast for the third day in a row and it has built up some serious waves that have been chopping away at the beach for the past several high tides. The combination of a serious drop-off and heavy surf may very well bring out the red flags this morning. Definitely not a good day to be in the water.
Here is yet another long-buried nugget from the archives:
Mosquitoes
We seem to have a lot of mosquitoes around here right now and it’s got a lot of people upset. To hear some of them talk you would think the mosquitoes are the worst natural disaster to hit the Outer Banks since the Ash Wednesday storm. Uncle Jack has heard so much complaining about mosquitoes lately that he thinks it’s about time to set the record straight.
One thing he knows is that compared to the mosquitoes up in northern Wisconsin where Uncle Jack grew up, the Dare County mosquito shouldn’t even be called a mosquito. Wisconsin mosquitoes and their first cousins, Minnesota mosquitoes, are truly a breed apart. A northern mosquito is to a Dare County mosquito as open heart surgery is to a haircut.
A bite from a local mosquito, Uncle Jack has discovered, is like a good hickey. It itches for a while, it feels good when you scratch it, and then it goes away. A bite from a Wisconsin mosquito is, to use a popular local metaphor, another kettle of fish. The Wisconsin mosquito has a stinger the size of a paring knife and a bite that could rouse a dozing hippopotamus (if one ever wandered that far north).
The life cycle of a Wisconsin mosquito bite is anywhere from seven to ten days. For the first few days and nights you scratch constantly. Scratching only makes matters worse but there’s nothing you can do about it so you scratch. You scratch and scratch until the itching stops which is right after the pain and bleeding start. After a few more days scabs form over the wounds.
Kids in northern Wisconsin keep themselves awake in school by picking their mosquito bite scabs which keeps them occupied right up to Thanksgiving vacation, after which they switch over to peeling dead skin off their frozen ears.
The best place Uncle Jack ever found to get away from mosquitoes was Pittsburgh where he lived for 17 years and never saw a mosquito that whole time. Scientists have discovered that the air in Pittsburgh in those days had the exact same chemical composition as “Off” insect repellent.
He has heard that the air in Pittsburgh is much better since they shut down all the steel mills but he is afraid to go up there and find out because the mosquitoes might be back.
Hope y'all have a nice day and week. Stay out of the water unless it's in a swimming pool. |
| | | | | 
click for larger image | Sunday afternoon at the foot of James Street in South Nags Head. This is about as big a crowd as ever collects in this vicinity. Not exactly Coney Island. |
| 
click for larger image | The surf was quite wild last evening. These rafters were pummeled sufficiently to make them quit after this ride. |
| 
click for larger image | Uncle Jack hasn't seen this nasty pipe since Isabel uncovered it almost three years ago. It marks the location of a cottage that once stood here. Fair warning to those who build on the ocean front. |
| | |
posted by Uncle Jack at 6:57 AM |
Comments [8] |
|
| Sunday, June 25, 2006 | | Sonag Sunrise Wedding, Sunday June 25, 2006 | Uncle Jack has often said that you never know what you are going to find on the beach at 5:30 in the morning and today was a good example. He didn't expect to see a full-fledged wedding complete with musicians, ring-bearers, bride, groom and preacher this morning but there it was. They were plighting their troth just as the sun came over the horizon which is pretty darned romantic if you ask Uncle Jack.
It's another warm, humid, misty morning on the Outer Banks. Yesterday's predicted afternoon thundershowers never materialized, at least not in South Nags Head, but already a line of huge clouds has formed on the western horizon and again the weatherman predicts late afternoon thundershowers. He has to be right sometime.
Here's another piece of flotsam (or maybe it's jetsam) from the archives:
Mad About Food
If Uncle Jack has any talent at all it is his ability to remain calm---even to the point of dozing off---in the face of extreme provocation. He almost never gets mad enough to spit, even when he should. Throughout his life his ability to ignore, avoid, or overlook aggravation has kept him out of more trouble than he can remember and it has enabled him, if not to prosper, at least to survive.
For example, Uncle Jack’s tranquil nature made it possible for him to teach school for five years without killing or permanently injuring a single child. It also served him well during his time of greatest stress---the five months he endured as editor of a small weekly newspaper. And it played a vital part in enabling him to stay married to one person for nearly 37 years---a feat which that person aptly described as “a pyrrhic victory for apathy over rationality”.
Uncle Jack’s unflappability is basically organic, he believes, and is attributable to the blandness of his childhood diet which consisted largely of calm foods like oatmeal, macaroni and velveeta cheese, Wonder bread soaked in warm milk, and other soothing delights from his mother’s Calvin Coolidge cookbook.
This probably explains why, when he does start to get a little bit perturbed about something, it is almost always about food. On occasion it has happened at a really nice restaurant by which he means a restaurant where you sit down at a table and they serve something besides hamburgers and pizza and they bring your food on real dishes that can be washed and used again and the cheapest thing on the menu is the “fish du jour” for $9.95.
Sometimes it makes Uncle Jack a little bit peevish when he discovers that the “fish du jour”, which is rectangular, was probably caught a couple of years ago somewhere near Indonesia, and the french fries are made out of some kind of compressed potato substitute, and the tartar sauce he put in his coffee by mistake because he thought it was “non-dairy creamer” tastes like mosquito repellent, and the waitress acts like she is doing him a big favor by putting down her Harlequin romance long enough to bring him his dinner before the grease hardens.
One day last week Uncle Jack was standing in line at the supermarket check-out counter with his week’s supply of “mixed fryer parts” which is mostly necks and gizzards and pituitary glands; a can of generic string beans with leaves and stems, and some other choice items that were marked down because the cans were bent or the boxes were falling apart.
He is standing there waiting with his pitiful basket of stuff while this really cute girl in Calvin Klein jeans and Manolo Blahnik flip-flops unloads her cartload of sirloin steaks and Oreo cookies and Fritos and Pepsi and other basic commodities like that---all of which she pays for with food stamps. Fortunately she had enough real money to buy a carton of Marlboros and two six-packs of Michelob Light to help wash down those sirloins.
Uncle Jack stood there staring at his package of mixed fryer parts that was starting to leak and he was just about mad enough to write a letter to President Reagan to tell him about this woman buying sirloin steaks with food stamps so he woud have another example of welfare fraud to talk about at his next news conference. But all of a sudden this lovely woman flashes a big smile and says, breathlessly, “Aren’t you Uncle Jack who writes for the Current? I just love your column!”
Suddenly Uncle Jack sees the truth, which is that this obviously intelligent young person is clearly a victim of circumstances who should not be blamed for the flaws in a much-needed but poorly administered program of public assistance. Besides, nobody who likes Uncle Jack’s column should have to subsist on a diet of chicken glands and generic vegetables like he does.
That very same day Uncle Jack read in the paper that Moody Air Force Base in Georgia spent $500,000 last year just to add four lanes to their bowling alley. He hopes that President Reagan saw that article, too, and he will mention it in his next press conference. After all, $500,000 could have bought a lot of Fritos and Pepsi for a lot of hungry kids.
*******************************
(And now Uncle Jack is off to New York Bagels to pick up four whole wheat everythings and the Sunday New York Times which has the acrostic puzzle this week. It is the best of all possible worlds.) |
| | | | | 
click for larger image | Ominous clouds at sunset last evening. Nary a drop fell in South Nags Head but it must have been raining somewhere. |
| 
click for larger image | For some reason the ocean has been hacking away at the beach in some places and forming steep drop-offs like this one. |
| 
click for larger image | Getting out of the water and up onto the beach can be a challenge, especially if you're a tad overweight like this young man. |
|
posted by Uncle Jack at 7:06 AM |
Comments [6] |
|
| Saturday, June 24, 2006 | | Sonag Sunrise Saturday June 24, 2006 | The weatherperson said it was 77 F on the beach at 5:30 but Uncle Jack thinks he lied. A heavy mist chilled the air considerably and made him wish he had worn a jacket. The sun broke through in a blaze of glory, though, and it looks like another hot day in store, at least until the afternoon thunderstorms arrive.
It was beastly hot all day yesterday but it cooled off quickly in the evening which provided perfect conditions for a stroll down to the pier and back. Except for one childish adult who was setting off fireworks that produced clouds of noxious blue smoke that sent dozens of people, including Uncle Jack and Mres. U.J. scurrying in search of breathable air it was a lovely evening. Why do people do idiotic things like that he wonders.
Here's yet another tidbit from the archives:
Perils of Reading
Uncle Jack read a story in the paper last week that said Americans are reading more now than they ever have before. The article said the scientists who found this out were surprised because they thought a lot of people had stopped reading and just watched TV all the time when they were not out jogging.
Uncle Jack was not surprised, though, because he knows how much reading he does himself every day. Every day he reads the Raleigh News and Observer, the New York Times, and the top half of the Elizabeth City Advance which is all he can see through the window of the vending machine in front of New York Bagels.
Every week he reads the New Yorker magazine which keeps him up to date on cultural events in the Big Apple and also the Coastland Times which does the same for the Greater Manteo Metropolitan Area including Stumpy Point, Coinjock, and Buffalo City.
Every month he peruses the National Geographic, Smithsonian magazine and the 4000 pieces of junk mail he gets because advertisers think that anybody who subscribes to these magazines must have a lot of spare cash to spend on Norman Rockwell collector plates, goosedown comforters, cheese-of-the-month clubs and other high-class stuff like that. Those advertisers could save themselves a lot of trouble if they knew that all those fancy magazines Uncle Jack reads are Christmas gifts from his upscale friends.
Anyway those are just a few of the things he reads in the privacy of his own home. Whenever he has to go to the doctor or dentist he also gets to read the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Tax Shelter Newsletter, American Legion magazine, Readers Digest, and Humpty Dumpty.
So Uncle Jack really does a lot of reading every day and he is not surprised that other people are reading more, either, because most American people are very much like Uncle Jack even though they are not all high school graduates. If you ask Uncle Jack the main reason Americans are reading more than they used to is TV.
If you are going to watch TV very much it is a good idea to have something to read in your lap at all times. This will help you to keep from dozing off during the long, boring stretches between Energizer Bunny commercials. With practice you will be able to learn to read with one eye and watch TV with the other. There is hardly ever anything on TV that you have to watch with both eyes so you will not miss out on anything if you do this.
When something worthwhile does come on, like "Baywatch" for example, you can quickly switch over to watching with both eyes. Uncle Jack should warn you, though, that reading is not as safe as watching TV. You never know when you are going to read something that could be very harmful to your mental health.
You can imagine how he felt last week when he read in the paper that scientists have found out that fish experience pain just like people do. They say that when you hook a fish the fish feels just like you would if you had a hook in your mouth and some idiot was jerking it around.
If you want to know the truth this is something Uncle Jack would rather not know about. He would much rather go through life believing that fish do not feel pain, that bloodworms enjoy being dismembered and impaled, and the crabs are actually grateful when you dump them into boiling water and pour red pepper in their eyes.
This is the kind of caring, thoughtful person Uncle Jack is. He does not think any human being has the right to inflict pain on any other living creature who is not a member of his immediate family.
When he reads in the paper that it really does hurt a bloodworm when you cut a little piece off the end, and what you are watching is a worm writhing in agony when you do that, it is enough to make Uncle Jack want to give up reading altogether.
Have a nice weekend y'all.
|
| | | 
click for larger image | The sun finally made an appearance through the mist about twenty minutes after official sunrise. |
| 
click for larger image | And now it's about to disappear again behind that ominous looking cloud. The waves were beautifully shaped this morning and should be great for surfing and bodyboarding. |
| 
click for larger image | This stealth bomber replica was obviously the product of hours of painstaking work. By morning it had been reduced to a pile of sand by vandals. |
| | | 
click for larger image | James Tierney of Richmond demonstrates the fine art of skimboarding in a tidal pool which unfortunately had nearly vanished an hour or so later. James and friends put on quite a show while it lasted. |
|
posted by Uncle Jack at 7:00 AM |
Comments [4] |
|
| Friday, June 23, 2006 | | Sonag Sunrise, Friday June 23, 2006 | When it's hot and humid on the Outer Banks at 5:30 in the morning you know that summer is here to stay. Yesterday was a scorcher and it looks like more of the same today. Uncle Jack invested in a new cooling system a few months ago and he is mighty glad he did in spite of the stupefying cost.
Sunrise was on the puny side this morning but welcome as a sign that Mother Nature has granted us another day to enjoy, especially those of us who have good air conditioners.
Here's another bon-bon from the archives:
From the Mailbag
Dear Uncle Jack,
I enjoyed my visit to the Outer Banks last month but I got very confused because I kept seeing signs that said “Bodie Island” and “Pea Island” and “Hatteras Island” but I could never find any islands. Does “island” mean something different on the Outer Banks than it does in other places?
Geography Major
Chapel Hill
Dear Major,
You have unwittingly discovered one more example of the wisdom, patience and frugality of the hardy folk who settled this fragile strand known as the Outer Banks. Bodie Island (pronounced “body” as in Pamela Anderson) and all the other non-islands you name, really were islands at one time. When the inlets filled up and they weren’t islands any more nobody bothered to change the signs because everybody who lives here knows that one of these days---maybe next week---they’re going to be islands again.
Geodetically,
Uncle Jack
Have a nice day, all. If you're driving down here this weekend be careful. The traffic is beyond belief. |
| | 
click for larger image | Picturesque pelicans. Uncle Jack apologizes for the tilt but he had to snap this quickly. |
| | 
click for larger image | Which caused him to miss this burst of color at about 6:05. He must learn to be more patient. |
|
posted by Uncle Jack at 6:55 AM |
Comments [0] |
|
| Thursday, June 22, 2006 | | Sonag Sunrise Thursday June 22, 2006 | "Ethereal beauty" is the cliche Uncle Jack has chosen to describe what he found at the beach at 5:30 this morning. All the familiar landmarks like the fishing piers and the ugly sandbagged cottages and the blocky Comfort Inn South were shrouded in mist which softened their contours and gave them a kind of fuzzy dignity they do not normally possess.
The temperature must have risen 15 degrees in the half hour he spent on the beach and there is every indication that this will be a quintessentially hot and muggy day on the Outer Banks. It was much the same yesterday until thunderstorms rolled in late in the afternoon followed by heavy rain in the early evening which washed out Uncle Jack's usual post-prandial stroll on the beach. No pictures of the day's crop of sand castles for which he apologizes.
Those who read yesterday's blog entry will recall that Uncle Jack expressed his concern that the Outer Banks may be falling behind some of the more advanced beach resorts like Atlantic City, New Jersey which offer a host of amenities much sought after by modern, upscale beachgoers.
As it turns out he needn't have worried as this story in Tuesday's Coastland Times suggests:
Outer Banks Harley-Davidson awarded NC State HOG Rally 2007
For the very first time, Outer Banks Harley-Davidson's HOG Chapter has been awarded the North Carolina State HOG Rally for 2007.
Both the North Carolina Harley-Davidson dealerships and their associated Harley Owners group chapters voted to hold next year's rally in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Greg Berryman, Outer Banks Harley-Davidson's HOG director, said he is looking forward to the opportunity, as rally coordinator, to bring in HOG chapters from all over the state and out of state to experience all the Outer Banks has to offer.
Hosted by Nags Head Harley-Davidson, Kitty Hawk Harley-Davidson and Outer Banks Harley-Davidson, the event will take place April 26-28, 2007. Great riding opportunities, fun and games, live band parades and bike shows all help make state rallies special. But what sets each state rally apart is a heavy dose of home state pride. Held in the majestic Smokey Mountains of Ashville(sic) this year, the Outer Banks will showcase the picturesque coast and beaches of North Carolina in 2007.
Maurice Slaughter, owner of the Outer Banks Harley-Davidson dealerships, said he was honored that his HOG chapter was selected and is confident that the Outer Banks/NC State HOG Rally will be one to remember. He believes from the mountains to the ocean, North Carolina is one of the most scenic states on the East Coast and that the Outer Banks will be a great destination to get out and ride.
*************
Uncle Jack did a little research on this event and found that it drew about 2000 motorcycle enthusiasts to Asheville this year who dropped about $2 million into the cash registers of businesses in that area. No doubt local purveyors of food and drink are already salivating over the prospect of slopping that many hogs over a three day period.
Finding parking places for that many bikes at one time will surely be difficult so Uncle Jack has decided to do his bit by leaving town for the duration thereby giving up whatever parking spaces he might have occupied at popular local attractions such as the Elizabethan Gardens and Hooters.
Bottom line this wonderful recognition by the N.C. HOG owners group would seem to drive a final stake into the heart of the quaint notion that the Outer Banks can maintain its reputation as a "family oriented" destination. Watch out, Myrtle Beach! We are oinking at your heels.
|
| | 
click for larger image | Ditto, looking almost straight up. A tiny crescent moon is visible if your monitor is up to it. |
| | | 
click for larger image | The surf was especially pretty this morning. Beautifully formed waves fanned out on the scalloped beach in graceful patterns on the incoming tide. |
| 
click for larger image | One happy old dude preparing to tie into a celebratory plate of Swedish pancakes with sour cream and lingonberries on his 76th birthday yesterday. (Thanks to Mrs. U.J., the best cook this side of Stockholm) |
|
posted by Uncle Jack at 7:20 AM |
Comments [21] |
|
| Wednesday, June 21, 2006 | | Summer Solstice, Wednesday June 21, 2006 | The longest day of the year already feels like it could be the hottest one so far. Everything is dripping with humidity this morning and the sky is only partly cloudy so the sun will be cooking beachgoers unmercifully today.
After a gloomy start yesterday turned rapidly into a fabulous beach day. Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. went for a walk down to the O.B. pier after dinner when it had cooled off enough and were treated to a rare sight. Scores of dolphins had come in very close to shore and were feeding like a bunch of ravenous bluefish. Several of them leaped completely out of the water and there was much slapping of tails as they maneuvered through the schools of fish. People lined the beach for a mile, oohing and aahing and trying to capture the sight in their cameras. Uncle Jack can only hope they were more successful than he was.
Here's another column from the archives to help pass the time. (It's going to be a long day):
The Murmur of the Waves
Being a high school graduate is something Uncle Jack takes fairly seriously. He always tries to eat right and keep fit and get plenty of rest so he will be in top shape if the President calls and wants his help with anything. He also does a terrific amount of reading every day so he can keep up with all the current events that are going on in all those little countries that were not even on the map when he studied geography in grade school such as Kuwait and Iraq.
He is careful about what he reads, too, because he knows there are only so many hours in the day and by the time he has finished toiling in his quaint little art gallery by the sea and had his dinner there is not a whole lot of time left to keep himself well informed. This is why he goes to the trouble and expense of getting the Sunday New York Times every week because as far as he is concerned the New York Times is right up there with Parade Magazine when it comes to keeping a person up to speed on current events..
If Uncle Jack wants to know something about Michael Jackson’s glandular imbalances he goes right to Parade Magazine but if he wants to know about more important things like what the Moslems are up to over in the Middle East there is no substitute for the Sunday New York Times even though it does not come in until Tuesday afternoon over at Cahoon‘s grocery.
Uncle Jack has learned many amazing things by reading the New York Times and he can tell you it is worth waiting for. Last week, for example, he saw this big advertisement for a brand new condominium they are building in this highly advanced ocean resort called Atlantic City which is somewhere up in New Jersey. This is what it says about this new condominium which looks from the picture like it might be slightly larger than the Empire State Building:
You awake to the murmur of the waves below. And the sun sparkling off the surf. It’s a perfect morning for coffee on your terrace. The view of beach and boardwalk and bay is nothing short of spectacular.
The concierge rings you up to confirm your tickets to the show and the catering arrangements for the supper party you’re hosting afterwards. Now the only thing to decide is whether to take a dip in the pool before your tennis date or after.
Where are you? At home. At Ocean Club. A very private, very privileged world of luxury. A world whose pool, tennis court and health spa make it your own special resort. A world whose exotic shops, private clubs and restaurants give it a special excitement. A world whose available services---limousine, concierge, catering---make you and your guests feel as special as you are.
In a city of spectaculars, Ocean Club is unique. Studio, one, two, and three-bedroom condominium residences are still to be had at prices from $180,000 to over $1,000,000. Located between the Golden Nugget and Tropicana casinos.
Well you can imagine how Uncle Jack felt when he got through reading all that. He can tell you he is really ashamed that he lives in one of those old-fashioned resorts where the people are so backward they still actually swim in the ocean instead of sitting up on their terraces and listening to it murmur.
Also as far as he knows there is not one single concierge anywhere on the Outer Banks from Duck to Ocracoke and if that is not backward he doesn’t know what is. He even called up the Dare County library to find out what a concierge is and they could not even find it in the big dictionary they have over there.
So it looks to Uncle Jack like the Outer Banks has a long way to go to catch up with the more advanced resorts like Atlantic City and we are all going to have to work hard and pull together. And the first thing we have to do is get rid of all those backward laws against having tall buildings on the ocean front. It seems fairly plain that the kind of classy people who go to advanced resorts like to look at the ocean from fairly high up where they never have to worry about getting salt spray in their Jacuzzis.
And isn’t that what we all want deep down inside?
|
| | | 
click for larger image | Fishermen were out in force this morning. Uncle Jack has yet to see one catch a fish. At least it keeps them off the bypass for a while. |
| 
click for larger image | The Outer Banks pier was loaded Tuesday evening. A great viewing stand for the dolphin show. |
| 
click for larger image | This was about the best Uncle Jack could do, dolphinwise. The Elph is not a Hasselblad and Uncle Jack's reaction time is approximately that of a brain-damaged sloth. |
| 
click for larger image | This young man was ready to join the dolphins if they came in any closer. Probably not a good idea when they're feeding. |
| 
click for larger image | The sunset was pretty but Uncle Jack was so preoccupied with the dolphins that he missed that, too. |
| 
click for larger image | A few of the hundreds who came out to watch the dolphin show which continued until it got too dark to see them any longer. It was more fun than a trip to Sea World. |
|
posted by Uncle Jack at 7:07 AM |
Comments [7] |
|
| Tuesday, June 20, 2006 | | Sonag Unrise Tuesday June 20, 2006 | The next to the longest day of 2006 is starting out to be one of the gloomiest. Uncle Jack walked up to the beach at 5:30 with his morning mug of Twining's Earl Grey tea in hand but he stayed only long enough to take three pictures of the gray expanse of cloud and water that greeted him. It was obvious that sunrise would not be visible this morning and a light drizzle was starting to fall so he beat a hasty retreat.
This very brief sojourn with the beach gave him more time to peruse the New York Times on line which he does every morning. Nothing like starting the day by reading "All the News That's Fit to Print" which these days seems to be almost uniformly bad. From Afghanistan to Zaire the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. Of course it always has so Uncle Jack doesn't let it get to him or he wouldn't be able to get out of bed and take his sunrise pictures every day.
This morning's issue does contain a long and interesting article on the possible impact of global warming on the world's coastlines which made him sit up and take notice. The Outer Banks is mentioned a couple of times and it certainly is worth reading by anybody who lives on a barrier island whether he or she owns oceanfront property or not. Click on the following URL or if that doesn't work paste it into your browser's address line to get to the article quickly:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/science/earth/20sea.html |
| | | 
click for larger image | Last evening's post-prandial stroll up to Jennette's pier and back yielded this pretty sunset photo. Monday was a perfect beach day. |
| 
click for larger image | There was a stiff breeze out of the southwest last evening which is what it took to get this hefty kite off the ground. Thereby hangs a tail. |
|
posted by Uncle Jack at 6:50 AM |
Comments [7] |
|
| Monday, June 19, 2006 | | Sonag Sunrise Monday June 19, 2006 | Sunday turned out to be a magnificent beach day and today looks already like it could be another. The sun was obscured behind thick clouds on the horizon at official sunrise but it did make a brief appearance a few minutes later before vanishing again. Pretty but not spectacular.
The pelicans were putting on an airshow this morning, diving from great heights into the water in search of breakfast. How they manage to keep from breaking their necks is a mystery to Uncle Jack. Another mystery is what happened to all the sandpipers. He hasn't seen a single one for the past several days. They may have gone to parts of the beach where there aren't so many people all the time but who knows. He misses them in any case.
Here's another oldie from the archives:
From the Mailbag
Dear Uncle Jack,
I am one of those unfortunate people who gets to spend his two week summer vacation on the Outer Banks and then he is miserable the rest of the year because he is not down there. Believe me I could have quit my lousy job at Cleveland Gear and Screw and moved down there years ago except for my wife who does not think she could stand it down there in the winter with nothing to keep her brain alive.
We have been married for 42 years and raised 13 children so I do not feel it would be right just to dump her, especially since I got laid off at Cleveland Gear and Screw right before Christmas and my unemployment is due to run out this month.
You probably read in the paper where Cleveland Gear got out of the machine parts business and into frozen pirogis and they are doing real good, too, but I could never get the hang of that computerized potato peeler they put me on so they canned me without so much as a Timex watch after 35 years.
So now I mostly shovel snow out of the driveway and count the days until my wife gets her annual vacation from the Burger Bistro over on Cuyahoga Avenue. They made her the manager over there after only two days on the job when they found out she could read and write, both.
Anyway I know things are changing fast on the Outer Banks and winter isn’t like it used to be down there so I was hoping you could say a few words of encouragement to my wife so she would at least start thinking about the possibility of maybe moving down there for good some day.
Milo Minderbinder
Cleveland, Ohio
Dear Milo,
Uncle Jack receives many letters from unhappy persons such as yourself and he is pleased to tell you he has good news for all of you. You are absolutely right when you guess that winter is not like it used to be in the old days when winter started the day after Labor Day and ended on Memorial Day. If you want to know the truth it has got to the point where you can hardly tell the difference between winter down here and winter in Cleveland except we do not have any snow down here which is not all bad if you ask Uncle Jack.
When it comes to new cultural developments he hardly knows where to start. For one thing they are building a big addition onto the bowling alley and they are planning to bring the Pro Bowlers tour in here next winter which the wife will have to admit is a major cultural event and a big step up from those tacky karate fights they put on over at Roller World last year.
In case the Mrs. is into more intellectual pursuits Uncle Jack should mention the Great Books discussion club they have over at the Senior Center every Thursday night. They started out with “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” and they are working their way up to Sidney Sheldon’s best-selling trilogy “Lust”, “Depravity” and “More Lust and Depravity”.and Uncle Jack can tell you those discussions have gotten to the point where they have to station a whole EMS crew over there on Thursday nights just to watch out for heart attacks.
Anyway it is a whole new ball game down here in the winter and there is no reason why your wife should not be happy, especially with all those new designer drugs they have on the market now. So like they always say on Wheel of Fortune, “Come on Down!!”
Cheerfully,
Uncle Jack
|
| | | | | | | |
posted by Uncle Jack at 6:54 AM |
Comments [2] |
|
| Sunday, June 18, 2006 | | Sonag Sunrise, Sunday June 18, 2006 | The sun came up this morning at the appointed time but promptly disappeared behind a thick bank of clouds on the horizon. Not a very spectacular entrance as the pictures attest. Unlike yesterday the sky is completely overcast and it's hard to tell where this day is going.
Aside from being a perfect beach day which prompted another early-evening walk up to Jennette's pier and back, yesterday was enlivened by the arrival of the latest edition of "Nags Head Lines", the official publication of the Town of Nags Head, of which this was issue number 63. Uncle Jack really enjoys reading "Lines" because it is full of information about things the town government is doing to make his life richer and fuller and also suggestions of things that he can do to be a better citizen of the town.
Issue number 63 might be called the "water conservation issue" because that is the main topic and it is full of wonderful hints about how Uncle Jack can reduce his water consumption and thus make it unnecessary for the town to invest in yet another expensive reverse osmosis plant which could cause taxes to rise.
For example he is exhorted not to leave the water running while he brushes his teeth which, it is said, could save up to 50 gallons each time. Obviously the writer has never watched Uncle Jack brush his teeth because it never takes him more than ten seconds and even if he left the water running full blast he would not use more than a gallon but it is still good advice because many people may be much more enthusiastic about dental hygiene than he is.
Also he is urged not to irrigate his landscape every day which will be very easy for him to comply with because except for watering the tomatoes during exceptionally dry periods he has never once irrigated his "landscape" which consists largely of indigenous weeds which seem to grow fantastically well without his help. Actually, as a resident of the former wetland known as South Nags Head, his "landscape" needs pumping out at least as often as it needs irrigation.
Anyway he gets a chuckle out of the town's annual plea to conserve water because never do the words "swimming pool" or "jacuzzi" appear in it. Is it too much to ask that the owners of these water-hogging conveniences leave them unfilled during periods of peak water demand---such as June, July, and August? Uncle Jack would be happy to stop brushing his teeth entirely during those months if swimming pool owners would do their part to conserve water. He is sure that they don't want their taxes to go up any more than Uncle Jack does.
Anyway he really enjoyed reading the newsletter which contained much more interesting stuff than just the annual water conservation instructions. He was especially pleased to read about the grand opening of the new South Nags Head fire station which is not only very good looking but also very near his house which could come in handy during the summer fireworks season which is now upon us. He hopes the firemen are encouraged to use as much water as they think they need to put out all the grass fires ignited by careless fireworks enthusiasts this summer.
All kidding aside "Nags Head Lines" is an excellent, informative publication of which the town fathers and mothers can be justly proud. Uncle Jack considers himself very fortunate to live in Nags Head if for no other reason than the excellence of the Public Works department which does a fantastic job of hauling away his empties month in and month out. He salutes them.
|
| | | | | | | 
click for larger image | The little guy in the yellow bathing suit was ecstatic about what appeared to be his first encounter with the ocean. |
| 
click for larger image | The Comfort Inn South at least makes an attempt at hiding its unsightly pile of sandbags during the summer. Apparently they ran out of paint and lattice before the job was finished. |
| |
posted by Uncle Jack at 9:01 AM |
Comments [3] |
|
| Saturday, June 17, 2006 | | Sonag Sunrise, Saturday June 17, 2006 | What a morning! Gulls swooping and diving, porpoises feeding in close to the beach, flat, clean sand that invites long walks, a sky full of pink clouds, 65 degrees heading for 80. Uncle Jack almost wept for the people he saw on Whitecap Street getting reluctantly into their overstuffed cars at 5:30 a.m. and heading back to Ohio.
Some of the pictures below were taken last evening around sunset when Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. enjoyed a stroll down to the Outer Banks Pier and back. It was one of those absolutely perfect evenings that make a person want to chuck everything and move to the Outer Banks for good. If only the houses didn't cost so much.
Everything is relative though. Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. went walking in a residential neighborhood just behind the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach last Friday morning and stopped to look at a house for sale a block back from the beach. It was a nice house but nothing at all spectacular. We each guessed at what the asking price might be before looking at the informational brochure; Mrs. U.J. guessed $500,000 and Uncle Jack estimated $750,000. They didn't know whether to laugh or cry when they found that it was actually $4 million.
In the next block they passed a nondescript two-story concrete block building of uncertain vintage containing four small two-bedroom condominiums. One of them was for sale for $500,000---a block from the ocean with no ocean view. (Every day on his way to the beach Uncle Jack passes a very nice three-bedroom house on Whitecap Street just three back from the ocean with a lovely view of the water from the spacious deck. The asking price is only $515,000 which by Rehoboth Beach standards is a giveaway).
What this suggests to Uncle Jack is that Outer Banks real estate prices have nowhere to go but up in spite of the current lull in the market. "Affordable housing" is already an oxymoron on the Outer Banks but it looks like we ain't seen nothing yet. |
| 
click for larger image | This young lady was making the first tracks in an otherwise pristine beach. The sand is so firm it's almost like running on a sidewalk. |
| 
click for larger image | Gulls and pelicans were chowing down on what must have been a sizable school of fish just off the beach. Dolphins were getting a piece of the action, too, but Uncle Jack could not catch one with the Elph whose shutter speed leaves a bit to be desired. |
| | 
click for larger image | Friday evening was perfect for kite-flying which is what this gentleman is attempting to do without much success. |
| | | | | 
click for larger image | But this handsome turtle was just far enough back to live to see another day. There's a moral in here somewhere. |
|
posted by Uncle Jack at 7:27 AM |
Comments [3] |
|
| Friday, June 16, 2006 | | Sonag Sunrise, Friday June 16, 2006 | The first day of the second half of June looks like a winner. Not a cloud in the sky this morning, the beach flat and clean, the surf calm. No rain in sight for a change. Just a lovely day to be on the Outer Banks. Uncle Jack's heart goes out to all you folks who are stuck in some godawful place over on the mainland.
**********
Here's another selection from the archives:
FROM THE MAILBAG
Dear Uncle Jack,
I have been reading a lot about how the people who own all those big houses up in Corolla want the state to build a bridge across from the Currituck County mainland to the Outer Banks. They say it will help to relieve traffic congestion and also help to get people out of there in case of a hurricane. Do you think they ought to build a bridge up there, Uncle Jack?
Lorna Dune Kitty Hawk
P.S. If they do build that bridge can you think of any way an ordinary person like myself could make a buck out of it?
Dear Lorna,
Uncle Jack is glad you asked him about this because he has been thinking about traffic a lot lately, mostly while waiting to make left turns on the Bypass but other times, too, like the other day when he drove to Norfolk and saw the cars in the southbound lanes of highway 158 backed up bumper-to-bumper from Kitty Hawk all the way back to Grandy.
If you want to know the truth he was a little surprised to see that traffic jam up in Currituck County because he thought it was supposed to be a thing of the past since they made the highway five lanes all the way to Norfolk and doubled the size of the Wright Brothers bridge.
Back in the 70’s before he moved here he would have to crawl through the gauntlet of Currituck County pig farms on two-lane highway 158 and creep across Currituck Sound on the old two-lane bridge and he could hardly wait until they widened the road and built the new bridge so he could breeze right on down to Nags Head at a steady 50 mph.
In those days there wasn’t even a stoplight at Duck Road because hardly anybody except real estate speculators ever wanted to go up that way because there was nothing up there except huge tracts of empty land from the ocean to the sound.
He knows exactly how those people feel who want a new bridge across the sound up north because it will save them a lot of aggravation, especially on week-ends when the rental houses change over. He can even imagine that for a couple of years after the new bridge opens they will think they have died and gone to heaven before reality sets in again and the southbound traffic to the new bridge starts to back up somewhere near Williamsburg, Virginia. Then the clamor will begin to four-lane the bridge which will take another ten years and eventually bring another brief respite before gridlock sets in again.
In the meantime traffic will have steadily increased on the Bypass and pressure will mount to construct a 30-mile-long overpass (probably to be called the Uberbypass) on top of the existing five-lane highway 158 through Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills and Nags Head (which will be renamed the Marc Basnight Memorial Service Road), all of which will connect to the new (two-lane?) Bonner Bridge to Greater Metropolitan Hatteras.
Anyway, to answer your question, Uncle Jack thinks they will have to build a bridge across Currituck Sound some day. In the short run it will solve a problem and in the long run compound it, just like every other traffic “improvement” they have made around here in the last 30 years. (Can you believe that in 1970 there was only one stoplight in all of Dare County?)
If you want to know the truth Uncle Jack does not think there is any solution to the traffic problem on the Outer Banks. It will continue to get worse as the years go by and there is not much anybody can do about it except Mother Nature who could decide to wipe the slate clean one of these days.
The bottom line is that if visitors keep coming to the Outer Banks in droves they are going to have to learn to put up with most of the same aggravating problems they came here to escape. And those of us who live here will have to do the same.
Fatalistically Uncle Jack
P.S. You don’t have to wait for the new bridge to open to make some money. You could go out on highway 158 any Saturday or Sunday afternoon and peddle Prozac car-to-car to the folks who are parked out there waiting to make the left turn up to Duck. |
click for larger image | 5:30 a.m. Not a soul on the beach in either direction. Uncle Jack feels almost guilty about having this all to himself, even for five minutes which is about as long as his solitude lasted. |
| 
click for larger image | Ten minutes later, the first glimpse. Only five days to go before the summer solstice when the sun starts heading south again and the days begin to get shorter. |
| 
click for larger image | Up she comes. One sun's width every two minutes if Uncle Jack remembers his Farmer's Almanac rightly. |
| | | |
posted by Uncle Jack at 7:31 AM |
Comments [6] |
|
| Thursday, June 15, 2006 | | Sonag Sunrise, Thursday June 15, 2006 | Well Alberto has come and gone and we should hope that all the rest of this summer's hurricanes should be so benign. He huffed and puffed for a little while last evening and blew Uncle Jack's trash can down but Katrina he was not. Rain fell off and on all day yesterday presenting Outer Banks merchants with a welcome mid-week bonus. Confucius or somebody (maybe it was J.C. Penney) once said that a rainy day is worth a thousand bucks in the till and he knew whereof he spoke even though his numbers may not be entirely accurate.
Sunrise this morning was a bit of a fizzle but it was sheer pleasure to walk a mile on a beach that was as clean and flat and firm as it has been in months thanks to Alberto. Oddly enough Uncle Jack did not see a single sandpiper or gull during his half hour on the beach although he did spot one crow and one pigeon. The habits of shore birds are a mystery that he will be happy to continue to explore as long as he can walk.
Here's another artifact from the archaeological dig Uncle Jack is conducting in the guest bedroom closet:
Uncle Jack’s Mailbag
Dear Uncle Jack,
On the Outer Banks, what’s the difference between a “native” and a “local”?
Tourist
Pittsburgh
Dear Tourist,
A local is somebody who lives here all year round but isn’t a native. Most locals used to live in or near Pittsburgh. Locals are permitted to leave the Outer Banks for up to three weeks during January or February. If they stay away longer they are shunned by other locals who sneer at them and call them tourists.
A native is somebody whose family has always lived here. Natives never leave the Outer Banks except to join the Coast Guard.
Natives converse with each other in an unintelligible tongue which linguists believe to be an early form of English. Many natives carry on the ancient trades and crafts of their forefathers such as hunting, fishing, crabbing and selling real estate.
As far as Uncle Jack has been able to determine there are no important anatomical differences between natives and locals that would prevent them from mating.
Insouciantly,
Uncle Jack
|
| | | | 
click for larger image | Alberto did a first rate job of tidying up the South Nags Head beach. Not a beer can in sight. |
| 
click for larger image | In either direction. The crud on the beach in this picture is the partially buried remains of old sandbags which it will take a Katrina to remove. |
| 
click for larger image | The turtle patrol rolls by at 6 a.m. What a great job. When he gets old and decrepit and can't walk anymore Uncle Jack is going to volunteer for the turtle patrol. |
| 
click for larger image | A man and his dog. The eternal struggle for dominance. (Even when there's not a tree or hydrant in sight). |
|
posted by Uncle Jack at 7:05 AM |
Comments [6] |
|
| Wednesday, June 14, 2006 | | Unrise in Sonag, Wednesday June 14, 2006 | Alberto is not supposed to reach the Outer Banks until late this afternoon but you would never know it this morning. The sky is completely overcast and enough rain is falling to keep Uncle Jack and the Elph indoors. This is shaping up to be a fairly miserable day around here with steady rain and increasing winds as Alberto passes by. On top of all this Uncle Jack has an appointment with his dentist to have two ancient fillings replaced this morning. When it rains it pours as the Morton's Salt Company used to say. Maybe they still do.
Uncle Jack has been thinking a lot about whether the Town of Nags Head should buy its own dredge for beach renourishment purposes but he hasn't made up his mind yet. After visiting Rehoboth Beach, Delaware last week he has to wonder if only one dredge is going to be enough to do the job of stopping the ocean in its tracks.
The folks in Rehoboth spent $18 million (three quarters of it play money from the Federal government) last year to hire a rent-a-dredge to widen just just a couple of miles of its beach. A significant amount of that dredged sand has already washed away even though there haven't been any serious storms since the dredge departed. There is every reason to believe that they will have to do it all over again before long.
Considering that the Nags Head beach is 14 miles long and historically even more vulnerable to storms than Rehoboth it doesn't seem likely to Uncle Jack that one dredge will be nearly enough to do the job, especially if it has to go into a rental program from time to time to raise cash to help pay for itself.
Uncle Jack is inclined to think that this might be a good time for the town to explore the cost effectiveness of buying two or three dredges now instead of just one. They certainly will never be cheaper than they are right now what with inflation and all. Anyway it's something to think about on a rainy day and if anybody out there has any ideas about this he would love to hear them.
|
| | |
posted by Uncle Jack at 7:17 AM |
Comments [5] |
|
| Tuesday, June 13, 2006 | | Sonag Sunrise, Tuesday June 13, 2006 | Uncle Jack is pleased to report that he and Mrs. U.J. survived seven hours of white-knuckle driving through intermittent cloudbursts on Interstates 265, 95, 295, 264, and 64 and highways 168 and 158 yesterday. The Mini performed magnificently in its role as the filling in a truck sandwich most of the way from Baltimore to Nags Head. There is nothing quite as terrifying as having a gigantic 18-wheeler riding on your back bumper at 65 mph with his lights flashing and horn honking and you have nowhere to go to get out of his way---especially in a Mini.
Uncle Jack slept so well last night he almost didn't wake up in time for his usual sunrise stroll. He left home in such a rush he forgot to bring his spare battery for the Elph which went dead after only a couple of shots. Lucky for him there wasn't much to take pictures of because of the thick cloud cover on the horizon. Furthermore it was chilly and windy on the beach so he beat a hasty retreat. He was hoping for something better after five days away but c'est la vie. Tomorrow is another day perhaps.
Here's another gleaning from Uncle Jack's archive of old Outer Banks Current columns. It seems like a hundred years ago that folks were arguing about what to do with the Hatteras Lighthouse:
Uncle Jack's Mailbag
Dear Uncle Jack,
All I have been reading about in the paper lately is that stupid lighthouse down on Hatteras. What is such a big deal about lighthouses anyway. Nobody needs them anymore since they invented radar and sonar and all that stuff so why spend a lot of money trying to keep a lighthouse from falling down when there are so many other things that need doing like building an elevated highway from Oregon Inlet to Buxton?
You're pretty smart, Uncle Jack, so I presume you agree with me that they ought to let the lighthouse fall in the drink but I wouldn't be surprised if you were too chicken to come right out and admit it in public.
Len Fresnel
Avon
Dear Len,
First of all Uncle Jack would like to say that if he thought it would be best to let the lighthouse fall in the ocean he would come right out and say it. He is not running for office so there is no reason for him to lie about what he really thinks.
If you want to know the truth he has thought a lot about the lighthouse over the 26 years he has lived here and he has to confess sometimes he thinks one thing and sometimes he thinks something else depending on what was the last thing he read in the paper (and sometimes what was the last thing he drank).
Right now he is leaning toward letting it fall in the ocean, primarily because it would be so much fun to watch on TV. Uncle Jack has seen those movies on TV where they put a lot of dynamite in a building and blow it up and the whole thing falls down in a big heap of rubble and he never fails to get a big kick out of watching that, especially when they do it in slow motion about six times.
He can hardly imagine what a thrill it would be to watch that lighthouse fall into the ocean due to natural causes without the use of any artificial substances such as dynamite. Uncle Jack is pretty sure that an event like this would get terrific ratings on the TV and if the people in charge of the lighthouse played their cards right they could make enough money out of it to build a much nicer, higher lighthouse with all the amenities such as jacuzzis and elevators and skyboxes where the big corporations could entertain politicians and other important people and write it off as a business expense.
If Uncle Jack was in charge he would start right away to put out a line of T-shirts each one of which would have a day, hour and minute printed on it and the proceeds would go into a big pool and the person who has the closest time to when the lighthouse falls down would win a nice prize like breakfast at Sam and Omies and the rest of the money would go toward building a bigger and better lighthouse in a safer place like over behind the reverse osmosis plant.
Uncle Jack knows this will not be a very popular idea with many people who have a strong emotional attachment to the present lighthouse (and not just because it is the biggest phallic symbol on the East Coast south of the Washington monument).
But he would remind them that the present lighthouse is not the first to stand in that place or even the second so it is not as though something like this has never happened before. Each succeeding lighthouse has been bigger and better than the one before and there is no reason this could not be the case again. Everybody would have to watch out to make sure the contractors did not try to build it out of particle board but that does not seem like an insurmountable problem.
Uncle Jack has many more ideas about how to deal with the lighthouse quandary but he is running out of space and will have to save them for the future, assuming there is one.
Optimistically,
Uncle Jack
|
| |
| | | |