The Simple Things in Life....Is a Bridge to somewhere...

When I first started coming to the Outer Banks in 1979 the immediate feeling was peace, serenity and paradise.   I grew up in Alexandria , Virginia ,,,technically the mailing address...the actual growing space of my life was done between Penn-Daw and Mount Vernon.   I went to school in the Penn-Daw area and spent my summers with my grandmother, great grandmother and great aunts , uncles and cousins in the Mount Vernon area.  Almost all of them had worked at the estate of our first president as well as all our family before them , one working with George in his surveying and collections.   But what that life taught me was to appreciate the simple things life presents to you, not necessarily give , because sometimes you have to work hard for it....such as the taste of home grown garden tomato, dashed with salt from the salt shaker hiding in your pocket while you are out picking the garden or weeding it.  Sometimes it laying on the ground under a oak tree one of your ancestors planted watching the squirrel races or the birds and clouds pass by.  Here on the Outer Banks the Simple Things are in overwhelming abundance and we have to make time to enjoy them, because the place we choose to call home is not an easy place to live.  We have bad storms, hurricanes, bridge issues , work is often difficult and or hard to find...   Since I moved here in May of 1999, I have watched government and organizations take a lot of those simple things and  corrupt them , such as watching the birds dash on the beach , but the environmentalist groups made us despise something we were use to protecting and coveting in our way.  So we didn't pay as much attention as we should have, and then they took it one step further and told us we couldn't build a bridge that we needed to continue the life we struggle to have because we love it here.  Then the government started over regulating the fishing industry , causing many to seek other kind of work, yet that is what their families in many cases have done for hundreds of years . it was their survival.  I didn't need a fishing license when I came here on vacation , nor when I moved here but with in a few years I did.  Doesn't matter , I never have time to go fishing anyway trying to maintain a living here.    But it still all comes down to people fighting to keep what they love, an island such as Hatteras where their families have lived for hundreds of years and that respect the island and its surroundings and the wildlife that is a vital part of it .  And the island I live on Roanoke Island , and the little fishing village I live in Wanchese , that has its vast and wonderful collection of souls that love what they do and will always lend a helping hand.  They are trying to change this too...because of the over regulation , but the fishermen keep adapting trying to keep their boat afloat on the waters of their family heritage.  The history that has built the Outer Banks.  Then there is the other parts from Nags Head to Kitty Hawk, built up , four lane road ...two lanes more than when I first started coming here...so many "Box" stores, before it was a part of the adventure of coming here to find groceries , fishing gear , camp grounds and the best little places to eat...but everyone was nice, they were helpful , they enjoyed the simple things of life here.  Knowing in their hearts how blessed they were to live here, and the community that surrounded them...  Their ancestors settled here and learned the means of Survival through trial and error.   In the last 34 years that I was blessed to be a part of the Outer Banks , 20 as a visitor, and the last 14 as a resident local,,,a title I found hard to earn , but respect with all my heart.  Something went terribly wrong and the small quaint beach paradise started being overwhelmed by the Metropolizing of it , bigger houses, more places to shop , especially when the "Box" stores such as Kmart and Walmart , Food Lion, Lowes, Home Dept came crashing down like a tsunami   although appreciated by some it hindered the small businesses that helped this place become what it did, and now we have lost so many wonderful places because they just gave up.

So now the environmentalists who probably own stock in those companies and who we all mostly feel have never been here , or if they have not experienced the real Outer Banks want to shut down basically Hatteras Island , turn it into a wildlife refuge and tell all those people that have lived there their entire lives back several great grandparents in many cases they don't matter.  But they do ...because without those people , Hatteras and the Outer Banks would have stayed a deserted island, it didn't tho and now we all love our piece of paradise and gladly share it with as many as we can.   One of the reasons I started this Photo Blog was to share all that I love about my home.

So what I ask is that you understand that the Oregon Inlet Bridge is not a Bridge to no where but a bridge to someplace so special and magical that we are the somewhere over the rainbow for North Carolina and all the states and people close by and even far away who have come to love it as much as those of us who live here.

A Bridge to Somewhere....

Ok if you have come this far I will share with you what made me write this piece today, I am usually not this long worded...but well today ,,,one of the simple things that mattered to me disappeared.   I drive a school bus for Dare County and for the last two years I drove a route on the north end of Roanoke Island.  Down one of the streets I drive twice a day , was a little house with  the cutest little Chicken coop and a few hens.  every time I would drive by it , it made me smile, because it reminded me of my great grandmother and my time as a child on her farm (Spent most of my childhood there when I wasn't in school) , and they had just repainted the coop a beautiful red and gave the scarecrow a fresh paint ...it was a simple thing that I got to experience that gave me a happy thought.   Well today I drove by the coop was there but everything else had flown the coop so to say...the chickens , the scarecrow , the people who lived there.  So now I have to find another simple happy thought...God Bless us all ...