“Hoi Toiders.”
Our coast is called “The Crystal Coast.” Eastern-most Carteret County houses the “Hoi Toiders” or the “High Tiders.” They go “way back,” as my boat-building buddy, J. A. Rose, of Harker’s Island, says.
I asked one old timer about his siblings. They had all relocated elsewhere. Why? “We wuz so poor we had to scatter.”
“Possum” Hale was driving a local, who asked if Hale had anything left to drink (True Story!) Watson or Possum, told him there was a pint in the glove compartment. Before he could stop him this Hoi Toider had drunk half a can of brake fluid.
“Possum” took the immediately ill passenger to the emergency room. After violent vomiting, the Doctor asked, “ Are you all right? You drank a half can of brake fluid.”
“Ort to be able to stop her on a doime,” said the recovering “Core Sounder.”
One tale holds that times were so bad that a fisherman had to take his wife along to help him. A storm washed them both overboard. He was saved and taken by the Coast Guard to the hospital.
A doctor broke the news. “Sir, we found your wife. Unfortunately she was tangled beneath the sea in a net. She has about fifty blue crabs attached to her. It’s quite a mess, and we really wonder what you’d like us to do?”
The Hoi Toider’s conclusion: “Well, toimes being toimes, and Thelma being Thelma, just take them crabs off and re-set her.”
Mr. Rose said a Hoi Toider was awakened at midnight by a neighbor who reported, “Oi’ve hit something out in the road. It’s got an ugly, big hard head, and its ass smells worse than anything Oi’ve ever encountered.”
The husband reported, “ My Lord, you’ve hit Pauline.” 226