Winter Bartering
I am on the Crystal Coast today visiting my parents in my old home town. I am always shocked by how much the georaphy of this place changes every time I come, what was once one thing is now another. Woods are now condos. The old skating rink is about to be the new Starbucks, Arbies, and Chick Filet. But for all the changes in geography the people remain unchanged.
Dad still grows collards which are their sweetest in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Folks are still using the colder months to slaughter hogs for their winter's meat, and they are still bartering the bits they don't want for collards with my dad. When I arrived yesterday he was just finishing up the process of prepairing two hogs heads; jowls for bacon, bits and peices for souce and brains for breakfast. Later that day the phone rang and a third person had a hogs head and a box of bones in hopes dad would trade it for christmas collards. It wasn't even a question, we were there in under ten minutes.
While I hold to this day that I am still a militant omnivore fighting tooth and claw to protect the right to eat anything you can put in your mouth, I personally put zombie food on the list of "things you eat when there is nothing left to eat". To dad pork brains are a treat that he only gets when someone trades hogs heads for collards. When I was a child I ate them, but as an adult with some interest in seeing my next birthday, have trouble eating something that has more natural cholesterol than anything on the planet. Knowing this, I believe we should probably include Lipitor in the quiver of zombie fighting arrows. If zombies need brains, and brains are mostly cholesterol, than Lipitor could be a powerful new weapon in the fight against the living impaired.
As for my breakfast I'm having egg and onion biscuit. Later ya'll!
Comments
My mom was telling me about the new Arby's and Chik-fil-a the other day, so I'm assuming you're talking about Morehead City (where my parents have lived for the last four years). I think there's also supposed to be a new grocery store and maybe some new big retail stores too.
It's a shame about all the things they're tearing down to make room for condos, including the skating rink & bowling alley in Morehead City and the go-cart track and mini-golf/bumper-boat place in Atlantic Beach (where I used to play as a little kid--man, did I have trouble steering those bumper boats).
The worst part for my parents is that they moved down there because, for reasons beyond my understanding, they **love** to fish, but they've already torn down at least one pier, and they're in the process of tearing down the Sportsman Pier (where my parents always had season passes) to make room for condos (which aren't pre-selling well like they expected; the owner may have to switch to just selling the space as land lots.
If they keep tearing things down to build condos that only rich people can afford, they'll be plenty of luxurious places to stay and nothing fun to do. For my parents, the only pier left is the Oceana Motel Pier, but it's too short, narrow, and shaky for my parents to fish on comfortably. My mom's even talked about moving back to the Triad. She's even joked about moving into a house on my street (give me strength).
The Morehead City/Atlantic Beach/Beaufort area isn't the only area affected by this trend. There was even an article in the W-S Journal recently about piers being torn down for condo space all over the east coast, especially NC. Coastal city/town governments are just now starting to worry slightly about the future, but it's way too late.
On the upside, property values down there are rising fast. My parents' house has probably doubled or tripled in value. If your parents own land down there, they may be "sitting on a goldmine" as my aunt always tells my mom.
Posted by: Todd W | December 18, 2006 11:02 AM
You might consider having them sell their Morehead City place and move to the South River area Meramon township. It is in the county on the far off barely charted edge. "progress" is on the horizion, but they would have years of good waterfront living before civilization caught up with them. At which point they could sell again at a huge profit.
Posted by: Woody Cavenaugh | December 18, 2006 11:28 AM