Nags Head, NC

I love the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I think of it as my second home. I first went to Nags Head when I was eight or nine years old. That's my first memory anyway. My family use to rent a cabin oceanfront from the local pharmacy. I believe it was Miller's Pharmacy. It is no longer there. The cabin was up on stilts-a standard way to build in Nags Head. It had no air conditioning. If you've been to the Outer Banks, you know it gets really hot in the summer. Well, the cabin had lots of windows that you kept open to let the ocean breezes blow through the house. The house was hot just the same. You'd sit at the wooden kitchen table and put your arms on the table and they'd stick to the table. You could feel the skin tug as you pulled your arms from the table. Sleeping at night was always coverless. You'd wake up in the morning and your head would be slightly wet. However, going to sleep at night hearing the ocean waves crash the beach was great sleep inducing music. You'd have to bring your food from home because there were no grocery stores in Nags Head. A local trading post-Calhouns I believe, was the only source for additional food items. The week's stay was always great. I loved going in the ocean and riding waves in whether on board or just body. There'd be days where the waves were wild and others where they'd be mild.

That was over forty years ago. Things have definitely changed. I still have some great memories with my family from those early years. We also stayed in some cabins that weren't on stilts. I can't remember their name but they also weren't air conditioned and on the cramped side. A local guy in Hopewell owned a cabin down in Nags Head. I believe his name was Elmo Parr. He owned a local BBQ joint in Hopewell. One time, Elmo and his friends offered to take my dad and me flounder gigging. It is done at night in the dark. We packed into his truck and headed to the Oregon Inlet bridge. Right before we got to the bridge, we turned off the road onto sand. We four wheeled it to somewhere under the bridge. It was low tide. There were all these little water causeways where the water still flowed. We were getting ready to walk in them. The gig was a long pole with a spear on one end and a rope with a knot tied to the other end. The concept was you'd spear the flounder, then slide it along the pole to the rope where it'd slide down and be dragged in the water behind you to keep the fish fresh. There was also a light pole that you'd place into the water near the sands surface to look the outline of the flounder in the sand. It was totally dark so that light in the water was the only source by which to see. Seeing all the sea life at night in this environment was amazing. Watching large fish swim between my legs was a little freaky but cool nonetheless. The water started out no more than knee deep but it got to points where we were in to our shoulders. It was an experience I'll never forget. We got a boatload of flounder and fried it up the next night.

The water at Nags Head can be very tricky. Sandbars can appear and disappear in the blink of an eye. Sometimes you can walk for a long way out with the water no more deep than your ankles. I remember one time with my sister we were walking on the sandbar and we noticed the sandbar shifting. We ran towards shore to escape the shifting sand but my sister made a wrong move and stepped off the bar into water over her head. It freaked both of us out. She swam out of the water just slightly shaken.

Another time I was carrying my brother on my shoulders with my sister and her friend along the ocean at night. The tide was coming in and eating up the entire beach. We had to climb the dunes and come back to our cabin by the road because the tide had come in so high. My parents were worried sick because they had noticed the tide and thought we could be in trouble. They were very relieved when they saw us arrive back from our excursion.

This is a good place to stop for now. I have more to say but at 1am, I'm getting tired. Thanks for reading so far.

Keith