No bridge to our coastal home of Emerald Isle, NC, before the ’70’s. Our end of the island has residue of the wild days.   Sharks, stingrays, copperheads, raccoons, coyotes.  A local gardening shop featured an unannounced 7 and a half foot alligator on the display  floor.  Even the spectre of racism, Trump or the virus pale compared to #1.  Anything but a hurricane is local mantra.  Actually, it is water damage. “Don’t ask for deluge!” (Starbuck a.k.a. THE RAINMAKER).   The pearl of our community is “The Yacht Club”. It has an abandoned flat bottomed Core Sound skiff on top of the building. Thus “Yacht Club”. Three years ago Florence totally flooded many businesses and homes including the “TYC”. Friday night was our developments trip to the YC. Had to be out by nine o’clock pm though. That’s when the bikers came. A roadhouse bar,  the food was getting better before the flood. Head waiter wore a t-shirt that said “NOPE NOT TODAY”. The drink menu included ” The Hurricaine, Yella-God-Amighty, Stranded in Honduras, and the last item was “Sex On The Deck”–$2.50

One fundamental of a healthy retirement is local friends. Randy and Pat Campbell and David and Lynn Odom visited recently. Pat brought a lovely bouquet of 12 yellow roses. A player once told me after all day in the sun playing “Coach, you’re getting up a little bit”. Post op and  everything tastes and smells bad about yourself   So it didn’t surprise me after Randy had posed a single rose behind my ear the lovely yellow petals fell off the bud…all of them. Got a video. Coach Odom has a hometown friend here named Rex Teaney . Rex recalls that every conversation with Mr. Odom Sr. concluded with the questions “is David a good boy Rex, is he a good friend, do people like him?” Rex’s signature story is about his first high school varsity team wrestling match: Rex is not a large man and certainly there wasn’t much to him in the 9th grade (about 90 lbs) It was sort of an odd debut. The high school versus the Goldsboro Boys Home. Nervous but not noticing much but that his opponent looked to be about 25 years old. And he was apparently blind. Back on the mat  and Rex was pinned in 20 seconds. The next realization was he was skinned burned from the guys lack of a shave. David bailed him out: “I don’t think Rex ever lost a high school wrestling match .”

Right down from the Yacht Club is “Phillips Seafood”. Jimmy Clyde Phillips has his market written up often as a tourist attraction. Jimmy has a sign in the front window: “Local As It Gets”!