Simple Pleasures

Walking along the beach...sitting on the Community Store porch...tending to a garden...raking for clams in the sound...reading a good book......Oftentimes it's these kinds of activities that provide the most pleasure in life.

Yesterday evening I walked across the lane to visit Blanche. Frankie was there. We chatted for over an hour. We didn't solve any world problems...didn't even try. But we told stories (including Frankie's first encounter with my Uncle Homer -- how he lay down inside the chicken yard and played with the biddies), laughed (in my mind I can still hear Blanche Styron commenting in her inimitable way, "There's something funny going on there, young-uns"), remembered stories of hurricanes (the 1899 storm that washed numerous schooners ashore, the 1944 storm that tore down docks and ran a trawler into Mr. Walter's upstairs window, and Isabel that brought about six inches of tide into Blanche's house), and recalled trips to Portsmouth (especially Blanche's 1943 trip when about 60 Ocracokers went across the inlet with Mr. Tilley the preacher to hold services and visit with the half dozen families who still lived there).

The visit was too soon over, but it was almost 10 o'clock and I still hadn't had my supper. So I bade them goodnight and walked back to my little cottage.

So often it's the simple things that give the most pleasure.

Our latest Ocracoke Newsletter celebrates colorful islander Don Wood (1936-1998). You can read it here: http://www.villagecraftsmen.com/news042610.htm.