This has not been a good week for vacationers what with the incessant rain, the high surf producing truncated beaches and riptides and red flags at the lifeguard stands.  Uncle Jack extends his sincere sympathy to all those whose annual week at the beach has been something of a washout.  He hopes that those of you from the flood-ravaged areas to the north will not return home tomorrow to find your houses under water.  That would be too much.

     Today is starting out like it could develop into a perfect beach day.  One out of seven is not very good but it's better than none. Enjoy.

    For those of you who are chained to your desks on this lovely Friday here's another gleaning from the archive to help pass the time:

  The penultimate day of June arrived shrouded in mist and clouds with only a shred of light here and there in the sky to suggest that a sunrise was happening out there somewhere.

    It was close to low tide at 5:45 a.m. revealing an extremely wide, flat expanse of gravelly sand extending up to the edge of the drop-offs which range from one to five feet high.  In some places the newly formed drop-offs are coterminous with the remains of last year's berms making for a rather precipitous trip from the top of the berm to the beach below.

     Where all that sand went and when it will return are mysteries at this point.  In the meantime beachgoers are still able to negotiate the drop-offs and find places to sit where they can talk about how strange the beach looks right now.

     Yesterday was warm, humid and cloudy with occasional glimpses of sunshine. Today is starting out like another yesterday but who knows what it might be like in a few hours.

    Here's another oldie from the archives in the guest bedroom closet:

      "Rain, rain go away" would be an appropriate mantra for vacationers on the Outer Banks today after yesterday's nearly non-stop deluge.  Right now it looks like more of the same with overcast skies and not even a hint of a sunrise this morning.

      Uncle Jack did go up to the beach at putative sunrise and took a couple of pictures before his Elph battery went dead.  He put in the back-up battery he always carries with him only to discover that it had not survived its fourth trip through the washer-dryer cycle yesterday.  He is going to try drying it out in the microwave this morning but he doesn't hold out much hope for it.

     The surf is still up this morning and has continued to chop away at the beach which has lost a zillion tons of  sand in the last few days. Uncle Jack's walk this morning was cut short by the reappearance of a wall of hitherto covered-up sandbags in front of one cottage.  Only the agile and intrepid will be able to get past it today.  So much for the "public beach".

     The wind has shifted to the southwest so perhaps the waves will die down today and some of the lost sand will begin to return.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes for Mother Nature to cover up those ugly sandbags again and restore the beach to its normal state of flatness.

     The picture below from the Coastland Times says something about the trustworthiness of the Army Corps of Engineers. They maintain the fiction that the ditch in South Nags Head is a "navigable waterway" so they can get more money out of the federal treasury.  (Any resemblance to the scam artists in New Orleans is purely coincidental).  Because of this the N.C. Department of Transportation which owns the ditch won't clean it because they have to get permission from the Corps first. Incredible.

     Those big black clouds that have been hanging around in the western sky finally moved in on South Nags Head last evening.  Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. were still on the beach, concluding their evening walk to Jennette's pier, when the downpour started. Needless to say they were drenched by the time they got home. Fortunately the Elph stayed dry and will live to pixelate again.

    But not this morning.  Rain is still falling steadily and there was not even  a hint of a sunrise at the appointed time. By not leaving the house  Uncle Jack gained some time to read about the calamitous hydrological events in the Washington, D.C. area yesterday and he thanks Mother Nature for sparing us (so far) from anything even remotely resembling that deluge.

    He is continuing to turn over rocks in the guest bedroom closet and yesterday unearthed this rumination on the subject of crickets from days gone by:

     It's the dawn of a new week and a very pretty one it was.  There is a strong, steady wind blowing out of the southeast for the third day in a row and it has built up some serious waves that have been chopping away at the beach for the past several high tides.  The combination of a serious drop-off and heavy surf may very well bring out the red flags this morning.  Definitely not a good day to be in the water.

     Here is yet another long-buried nugget from the archives:

     Uncle Jack has often said that you never know what you are going to find on the beach at 5:30 in the morning and today was a good example.  He didn't expect to see a full-fledged wedding complete with musicians, ring-bearers, bride, groom and preacher this morning but there it was.  They were plighting their troth just as the sun came over the horizon which is pretty darned romantic if you ask Uncle Jack.

    It's another warm, humid, misty morning on the Outer Banks.  Yesterday's predicted afternoon thundershowers never materialized, at least not in South Nags Head, but already a line of huge clouds has formed on the western horizon and again the weatherman predicts late afternoon thundershowers.  He has to be right sometime.

    Here's another piece of flotsam (or maybe it's jetsam) from the archives:

     The weatherperson said it was 77 F on the beach at 5:30 but Uncle Jack thinks he lied.  A heavy mist chilled the air considerably and made him wish he had worn a jacket.  The sun broke through in a blaze of glory, though, and it looks like another hot day in store, at least until the afternoon thunderstorms arrive.

     It was beastly hot all day yesterday but it cooled off quickly in the evening which provided perfect conditions for a stroll down to the pier and back.  Except for one childish adult who was setting off fireworks that produced clouds of noxious blue smoke that sent dozens of people, including Uncle Jack and Mres. U.J. scurrying in search of breathable air it was a lovely evening. Why do people do idiotic things like that he wonders.

     Here's yet another tidbit from the archives:

   When it's hot and humid on the Outer Banks at 5:30 in the morning you know that summer is here to stay. Yesterday was a scorcher and it looks like more of the same today. Uncle Jack invested in a new cooling system a few months ago and he is mighty glad he did in spite of the stupefying cost.

     Sunrise was on the puny side this morning but welcome as a sign that Mother Nature has granted us another day to enjoy, especially those of us who have good air conditioners.

    Here's another bon-bon from the archives:

     "Ethereal beauty" is the cliche Uncle Jack has chosen to describe what he found at the beach at 5:30 this morning. All the familiar landmarks like the fishing piers and the ugly sandbagged cottages and the blocky Comfort Inn South were shrouded in mist which softened their contours and gave them a kind of fuzzy dignity they do not normally possess.

     The temperature must have risen 15 degrees in the half hour he spent on the beach and there is every indication that this will be a quintessentially hot and muggy day on the Outer Banks.  It was much the same yesterday until thunderstorms rolled in late in the afternoon followed by heavy rain in the early evening which washed out Uncle Jack's usual post-prandial stroll on the beach. No pictures of the day's crop of sand castles for which he apologizes.

    Those who read yesterday's blog entry will recall that Uncle Jack expressed his concern that the Outer Banks may be falling behind some of the more advanced beach resorts like Atlantic City, New Jersey which offer a host of amenities much sought after by modern, upscale beachgoers.

    As it turns out he needn't have worried as this story in Tuesday's Coastland Times suggests:

     The longest day of the year already feels like it could be the hottest one so far.  Everything is dripping with humidity this morning and the sky is only partly cloudy so the sun will be cooking beachgoers unmercifully today.

      After a gloomy start yesterday turned rapidly into a fabulous beach day.  Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. went for a walk down to the O.B. pier after dinner when it had cooled off enough and were treated to a rare sight.  Scores of dolphins had come in very close to shore and were feeding like a bunch of ravenous bluefish.  Several of them leaped completely out of the water and there was much slapping of tails as they  maneuvered through the schools of fish. People lined the beach for a mile, oohing and aahing and trying to capture the sight in their cameras. Uncle Jack can only hope they were more successful than he was.

     Here's another column from the archives to help pass the time. (It's going to be a long day):

     The next to the longest day of 2006 is starting out to be one of the gloomiest.  Uncle Jack walked up to the beach at 5:30 with his morning mug of Twining's Earl Grey tea in hand but he stayed only long enough to take three pictures of the gray expanse of cloud and water that greeted him.  It was obvious that sunrise would not be visible this morning and a light drizzle was starting to fall so he beat a hasty retreat.

      This very brief sojourn with the beach gave him more time to peruse the New York Times on line which he does every morning.  Nothing like starting the day by reading "All the News That's Fit to Print" which these days seems to be almost uniformly bad. From Afghanistan to Zaire the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket.  Of course it always has so Uncle Jack doesn't let it get to him or he wouldn't be able to get out of bed and take his sunrise pictures every day.

     This morning's issue does contain a long and interesting article on the possible impact of global warming on the world's coastlines which made him sit up and take notice.  The Outer Banks is mentioned a couple of times and it certainly is worth reading by anybody who lives on a barrier island whether he or she owns oceanfront property or not.  Click on the following URL or if that doesn't work paste it into your browser's address line to get to the article quickly:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/20/science/earth/20sea.html

     Sunday turned out to be a magnificent beach day and today looks already like it could be another.  The sun was obscured behind thick clouds on the horizon at official sunrise but it did make a brief appearance a few minutes later before vanishing again. Pretty but not spectacular.

     The pelicans were putting on an airshow this morning, diving from great heights into the water in search of breakfast.  How they manage to keep from breaking their necks is a mystery to Uncle Jack.  Another mystery is what happened to all the sandpipers.  He hasn't seen a single one for the past several days.  They may have gone to parts of the beach where there aren't so many people all the time but who knows.  He misses them in any case.

    Here's another oldie from the archives:

     The sun came up this morning at the appointed time but promptly disappeared behind a thick bank of clouds on the horizon.  Not a very spectacular entrance as the pictures attest.  Unlike yesterday the sky is completely overcast and it's hard to tell where this day is going.

     Aside from being a perfect beach day which prompted another early-evening walk up to Jennette's pier and back, yesterday was enlivened by the arrival of the latest edition of "Nags Head Lines", the official publication of the Town of Nags Head, of which this was issue number 63. Uncle Jack really enjoys reading "Lines" because it is full of information about things the town government is doing to make his life richer and fuller and also suggestions of things that he can do to be a better citizen of the town.

     Issue number 63 might be called the "water conservation issue" because that is the main topic and it is full of wonderful hints about how Uncle Jack can reduce his water consumption and thus make it unnecessary for the town to invest in yet another expensive reverse osmosis plant which could cause  taxes to rise.

    For example he is exhorted not to leave the water running while he brushes his teeth which, it is said, could save up to 50 gallons each time.  Obviously the writer has never watched Uncle Jack brush his teeth because it never takes him more than ten seconds and even if he left the water running full blast he would not use more than a gallon but it is still good advice because many people may be much more enthusiastic about dental hygiene than he is.

     Also he is urged not to irrigate his landscape every day which will be very easy for him to comply with because except for watering the tomatoes during exceptionally dry periods he has never once irrigated his "landscape" which consists largely of indigenous weeds which seem to grow fantastically well without his help. Actually, as a resident of the former wetland known as South Nags Head, his "landscape" needs pumping out at least as often as it needs irrigation.

      Anyway he gets a chuckle out of the town's  annual plea to conserve water because never do the words "swimming pool" or "jacuzzi" appear in it. Is it too much to ask that the owners of these water-hogging conveniences leave them unfilled during periods of peak water demand---such as June, July, and August?  Uncle Jack would be happy to stop brushing his teeth entirely during those months if swimming pool owners would do their part to conserve water. He is sure that they don't want their taxes to go up any more than Uncle Jack does.

     Anyway he really enjoyed reading the newsletter which contained much more interesting stuff than just the annual water conservation instructions.  He was especially pleased to read about the grand opening of the new South Nags Head fire station which is not only very good looking but also very near his house which could come in handy during the summer fireworks season which is now upon us. He hopes the firemen are encouraged to use as much water as they think they need to put out all the grass fires ignited by careless fireworks enthusiasts this summer.

     All kidding aside "Nags Head Lines" is an excellent, informative publication of which the town fathers and mothers can be justly proud. Uncle Jack considers himself very fortunate to live in Nags Head if for no other reason than the excellence of the Public Works department which does a fantastic job of hauling away his empties month in and month out. He salutes them.

      What a morning!  Gulls swooping and diving, porpoises feeding in close to the beach, flat, clean sand that invites long walks, a sky full of pink clouds, 65 degrees heading for 80.  Uncle Jack almost wept for the people he saw on Whitecap Street getting reluctantly into their overstuffed cars at 5:30 a.m. and heading back to Ohio.

     Some of the pictures below were taken last evening around sunset when Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. enjoyed a stroll down to the Outer Banks Pier and back.  It was one of those absolutely perfect evenings that make a person want to chuck everything and move to the Outer Banks for good.  If only the houses didn't cost so much.

     Everything is relative though.  Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. went walking in a residential neighborhood just behind the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach last Friday morning and stopped to look at a house for sale a block back from the beach.  It was a nice house but nothing at all spectacular.  We each guessed at what the asking price might be before looking at the informational brochure;  Mrs. U.J. guessed $500,000 and Uncle Jack estimated $750,000. They didn't know whether to laugh or cry when they found that it was actually $4 million.

     In the next block they passed a nondescript two-story concrete block building of uncertain vintage containing four small two-bedroom condominiums.  One of them was for sale for $500,000---a block from the ocean with no ocean view.  (Every day on his way to the beach Uncle Jack passes a very nice three-bedroom house on Whitecap Street just three  back from the ocean with a lovely view of the water from the spacious deck.  The asking price is only $515,000 which by Rehoboth Beach standards is a giveaway).

    What this suggests to Uncle Jack is that  Outer Banks real estate prices have nowhere to go but up in spite of the current lull in the market. "Affordable housing" is already an oxymoron on the Outer Banks but it looks like we ain't seen nothing yet.

     The first day of the second half of June looks like a winner.  Not a cloud in the sky this morning, the beach flat and clean, the surf calm. No rain in sight for a change.  Just a lovely day to be on the Outer Banks.  Uncle Jack's heart goes out to all you folks who are stuck in some godawful place over on the mainland.

                         **********

      Here's another selection from the archives:

     Well Alberto has come and gone and we should hope that all the rest of this summer's hurricanes should be so benign.  He huffed and puffed for a little while last evening and blew Uncle Jack's trash can down but Katrina he was not.  Rain fell off and on all day yesterday presenting Outer Banks merchants with a welcome mid-week bonus.  Confucius or somebody (maybe it was J.C. Penney) once said that a rainy day is worth a thousand bucks in the till and he knew whereof he spoke even though his numbers may not be entirely accurate.

      Sunrise this morning was a bit of a fizzle but it was sheer pleasure to walk a mile on a beach that was as clean and flat and firm as it has been in months thanks to Alberto.  Oddly enough Uncle Jack did not see a single sandpiper or gull during his half hour on the beach although he did spot one crow and one pigeon. The habits of shore birds are a mystery that he will be happy to continue to explore as long as he can walk.

      Here's another artifact from the archaeological dig Uncle Jack is conducting in the guest bedroom closet:

     Alberto is not supposed to reach the Outer Banks until late this afternoon but you would never know it this morning.  The sky is completely overcast and enough rain is falling to keep Uncle Jack and the Elph indoors.  This is shaping up to be a fairly miserable day around here with steady rain and increasing winds as Alberto passes by.  On top of all this Uncle Jack has an appointment with his dentist to have two ancient fillings replaced this morning. When it rains it pours as the Morton's Salt Company used to say.  Maybe they still do.

     Uncle Jack has been thinking a lot about whether the Town of Nags Head should buy its own dredge for beach renourishment purposes but he hasn't made up his mind yet. After visiting Rehoboth Beach, Delaware last week he has to wonder if only one dredge is going to be enough to do the job of stopping the ocean in its tracks.

    The folks in Rehoboth spent $18 million (three quarters of it play money from the Federal government) last year to hire a rent-a-dredge to widen just just a couple of  miles of its beach. A significant amount of that dredged sand has already washed away even though there haven't been any serious storms since the dredge departed.  There is every reason to believe that they will have to do it all over again before long.

      Considering that the Nags Head beach is 14 miles long and historically even more vulnerable to storms than Rehoboth it doesn't seem likely to Uncle Jack that one dredge will be nearly enough to do the job, especially if it has to go into a rental program from time to time to raise cash to help pay for itself.

      Uncle Jack is inclined to think that this might be a good time  for the town to explore the cost effectiveness of buying two or three dredges now instead of just one.  They certainly will never be cheaper than they are right now what with inflation and all.  Anyway it's something to think about on a rainy day and if anybody out there has any ideas about this he would love to hear them.  

     Uncle Jack is pleased to report that he and Mrs. U.J. survived seven hours of white-knuckle driving through intermittent cloudbursts on Interstates 265, 95, 295, 264, and 64 and highways 168 and 158 yesterday.  The Mini performed magnificently in its role as the filling in a truck sandwich most of the way from Baltimore to Nags Head. There is nothing quite as terrifying as having a gigantic 18-wheeler riding on your back bumper at 65 mph with his lights flashing and horn honking and you have nowhere to go to get out of his way---especially in a Mini.  

       Uncle Jack slept so well last night he almost didn't wake up in time for his usual sunrise stroll.  He left home in such a rush he forgot to bring his spare battery for the Elph which went dead after only a couple of shots.  Lucky for him there wasn't much to take pictures of because of the thick cloud cover on the horizon.  Furthermore it was chilly and windy on the beach so he beat a hasty retreat.  He was hoping for something better after five days away but c'est la vie. Tomorrow is another day perhaps.

Here's another gleaning from Uncle Jack's archive of old Outer Banks Current columns. It seems like a hundred years ago that folks were arguing about what to do with the Hatteras Lighthouse:

                Uncle Jack's Mailbag

Dear Uncle Jack,

All I have been reading about in the paper lately is that stupid  lighthouse down on Hatteras. What is such a big deal about lighthouses anyway. Nobody needs them anymore since they invented radar and sonar and all  that stuff so why spend a lot of money trying to keep a lighthouse from falling down when there are so many other things that need doing like building an elevated highway from Oregon Inlet to Buxton?

You're pretty smart, Uncle Jack, so I presume you agree with me that they ought to let the lighthouse fall in the drink but I wouldn't be surprised if you were too chicken to come right out and admit it in public.

Len Fresnel

Avon

Dear Len,

First of all Uncle Jack would like to say that if he thought it would be best to let the lighthouse fall in the ocean he would come right out and say it. He is not running for office so there is no reason for him to lie about what he really thinks.

      If you want to know the truth he has thought a lot about the lighthouse over the 26 years he has lived here and he has to confess sometimes he thinks one thing and sometimes he thinks something else depending on what was the last thing he read in the paper (and sometimes what was the last thing he drank).

Right now he is leaning toward letting it fall in the ocean, primarily because it would be so much fun to watch on TV. Uncle Jack has seen those movies on TV where they put a lot of dynamite in a building and blow it up and the whole thing falls down in a big heap of rubble and he never fails to get a big kick out of watching that, especially when they do it in slow motion about six times.

He can hardly imagine what a thrill it would be to watch that lighthouse fall into the ocean due to natural causes without the use of any artificial substances such as dynamite. Uncle Jack is pretty sure that an event like this would get terrific ratings on the TV and if the people in charge of the lighthouse played their cards right they could make enough money out of it to build a much nicer, higher lighthouse with all the amenities such as jacuzzis and elevators and skyboxes where the big corporations could entertain politicians and other important people and write it off as a business expense.

        If Uncle Jack was in charge he would start right away to put out a line of T-shirts each one of which would have a day, hour and minute printed on it and the proceeds would go into a big pool and the person who has the closest time to when the lighthouse falls down would win a nice prize like breakfast at Sam and Omies and the rest of the money would go toward building a bigger and better lighthouse in a safer place like over behind the reverse osmosis plant.

      Uncle Jack knows this will not be a very popular idea with many people who have a strong emotional attachment to the present lighthouse (and not just because it is the biggest phallic symbol on the East Coast south of the Washington monument).

    But he would remind them that the present lighthouse is not the first to stand in that place or even the second so it is not as though something like this has never happened before. Each succeeding lighthouse has been bigger and better than the one before and there is no reason this could not be the case again. Everybody would have to watch out to make sure the contractors did not try to build it out of particle board but that does not seem like an insurmountable problem.

Uncle Jack has many more ideas about how to deal with the lighthouse quandary but he is running out of space and will have to save them for the future, assuming there is one.

Optimistically,

Uncle Jack

     There is nothing quite as much fun as a good boardwalk and Rehoboth Beach's could serve as a model.  Popcorn anyone?

     We expect to be back in Nags Head for the sunrise on Tuesday. Have a great week-end.

     Uncle Jack and Mrs. U.J. arrived in Rehoboth Beach at about 3 p.m. on Thursday and left at noon today, Friday.  It was not a long visit but it was most enjoyable and a real revelation.  Neither of us had visited Rehoboth in over 30 years and we feared the worst but we were both pleasantly surprised.

      Somehow the part of town fronting on the boardwalk---the old heart of the city---has retained much of its charm.  In fact it looks better than ever after a major facelift in which overhead power lines were buried and sidewalks and streets were repaved and new lighting installed.  We walked the entire length of the newly refurbished mile-long boardwalk twice and enjoyed it thoroughly.  Everything is clean as a whistle due to the small army of sanitation workers who comb every surface every day--- including the beach which is immaculate.

     Last year Rehoboth widened 2.5 miles of beach with sand pumped from offshore and constructed a low berm running the length of the boardwalk.  The project cost $18 million of which three-fourths came from the feds in what might be one of the last federally funded beach replenishment efforts.  The beach seemed quite narrow to us and several locals we talked with said that at least a third of the sand pumped onto the beach last year has already disappeared.  It will be interesting to see what happens to the rest if a hurricane moves up the coast this summer.

     As charming as old Rehoboth is the area around it is a disaster.  Imagine the bypass and multiply by ten and you will have some idea of what Route 1, the coastal highway that connects Ocean City, Bethany Beach, Rehoboth and the other shore points in that area is like.  Rehoboth alone has four (!) Tanger outlet malls sandwiched in among dozens of big box stores of every kind.

       Real estate in Rehoboth is even more insanely expensive than it is on the Outer Banks. We picked up a descriptive brochure in front of a fairly ordinary looking house a block back from the beach (Uncle Jack guessed that the asking price might be $750 thousand at the outside). The price tag was $4 million.  A very small two-bedroom condo in a nondescript old concrete block quadruplex two blocks from the beach was $500 thousand.

     More from Rehoboth Beach tomorrow if babysitting permits.

    Uncle Jack has gassed up the Mini and he and Mrs. U.J. are heading for Baltimore bright and early this morning.  They will be driving up the Eastern Shore and plan to spend the night in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, scene of a recent $18 million dollar beach replenishment effort, after cruising through Ocean City, Md. and the other beach communities between O. City and Rehoboth.

     He will have the Elph all charged up and ready to take pictures along the way but he doesn't know when he will be able to post another blog entry due to the press of babysitting duties in Baltimore.

     Sunrise this morning was a bit puny.  Not a cloud in the sky except on the horizon.  Should be a lovely beach day.  Ciao.

     Mother Nature put on another magnificent cloud show this morning with the sun relegated to a behind-the-scenes role.  Every kind of cloud from cumulo nimbus to cirro stratus was on display in a continually changing panorama that was awe inspiring to watch.

     The same chilly northeast breeze that drove visitors off the beach and into the arms of merchants yesterday is still with us this morning. The surf is a bit riled up, the beach is steep and it looks like a good day to stay out of the water. All retail clerks should eat a good, hearty breakfast this morning because it looks like another busy one.

      Here's another true fish story from Uncle Jack's bottomless archives:

                        Fishing the Point

Last Sunday was one of those days Uncle Jack used to dream about back when his body was living in Pittsburgh but his mind was on the Outer Banks. It was warm but not too warm and the sun was shining the way it only shines on the Outer Banks and it was his day off so naturally he felt this powerful urge to go fishing.

He went down to the garage and fished his trusty $4.95 Gaylord Perry signature reel out of the bucket of WD-40 where he keeps it between fishing trips and screwed it onto his trusty Junior Johnson signature flounder rod and headed for the beach in his (t)rusty new secondhand Jeep on which he has eight payments to go before he will own what is left of it outright.

He used his time-tested fishing strategy which is where he drives down the beach until he comes to somebody who is catching fish which is where he stops and tries to bum enough bait so he can fish there too. This is a very good plan as long as somebody somewhere is catching fish but if you want to know the truth he drove from one end of Nags Head to the other and he only saw one man fishing and he was not catching anything.

Uncle Jack is not sure where all the fishermen were but he would not be surprised if they were all sitting in dark rooms somewhere drinking beer and watching the Steelers and Redskins play which is a fairly dumb thing to do on a nice Sunday afternoon but he has done it enough times himself so he is not entitled to cast aspersions.

Anyway this lone fisherman mumbled something about how he caught a hundred flounders down at Cape Point the day before and Uncle Jack is the kind of fool who believes stuff like that so he drove right straight down there. He was very lucky to find a good parking place only about a half a mile from the point so he could walk over there and watch all the crazy people standing up to their armpits in freezing water and fishing like there was no tomorrow which is close to the truth if what you have to do tomorrow is pack up and drive back to New Jersey.

Anyway he watched for a long time and the only person who caught anything at all was a small boy who snagged a broken conch shell with his Hopkins. Needless to say Uncle Jack did not even bother to bait his hooks and bye and bye he decided to head on over to Bubba’s Barbecue and pick up a slab of ribs for dinner which he can tell you is not a bad substitute for flounder when you are in a pinch.

You can imagine how a sensitive person like himself must have felt when he turned the key of his new secondhand Jeep and all he heard was a puny little buzzing noise instead of the full-throated roar of his powerful gas-guzzling engine. His worst nightmare had finally happened---his Jeep was dead in the sand at Cape Point and he didn’t know how to fix it.

Lucky for him, though, a lot of fishermen who did not have anything better to do, such as catch fish, came over and peered into his engine and poked and prodded at all the various wires in there and after a while they all agreed that what Uncle Jack needed was a new Bendix which was news to him because he did not even know he had a Bendix in the first place.

The only Bendix he ever heard of besides William Bendix, the actor, was the old Bendix washer Mrs. Uncle Jack used to have which had a rubber tub which would collapse at just the right time and squeeze all the water out of the clothes. It worked real well, too, until the time Uncle Jack forgot and left his Swiss Army knife in his pocket with the corkscrew in the open position.

Anyway a nice man with a rifle in the back window of his pickup truck finally came along and gave him a tow and got his Jeep started again and he did not even wait for Uncle Jack to thank before he was gone. If you want to know the truth Uncle Jack has never been too crazy about people who ride around with guns in their pickup trucks but he decided right then and there to send a generous contribution to the National Rifle Association and he is even thinking about voting for Charlton Heston when he runs for president.

It was a few minutes later before his radiator hose broke and that is another sad story but Uncle Jack does not wish to dwell any longer on his misfortunes. He can tell you he crossed the Bonner Bridge at sunset and what he saw was so beautiful it made him forget all the trials and tribulations of the day.

And the ribs were not bad either.

     Sunrise was a bit of a disappointment this morning inasmuch as the sun had still not made an appearance a full half-hour after the appointed time.  Massive banks of clouds got in the way and prevented the sky from lighting up in the pinks and oranges that make for better pictures.  C'est la vie.

      It was unseasonably chilly on the beach at 5:45 a.m. which cut the morning crowd down to two people Uncle Jack spotted way off in the distance toward Jennette's pier.  The weatherman is not promising much for today---a high of 68 and a 60% chance of rain.  A great day for the retail merchants who no doubt wait with 'bated breath.  He is not terribly unhappy that he is no longer one of them.

                         ************

     Here's yesterday's gleaning from Uncle Jack's newspaper column archives:

    Uncle Jack took advantage of a five minute lull in this morning's downpour to bring you a couple of post-sunrise shots from the rain-soaked beach in South Nags Head.  After a flawless day of  sunshine and cool, off-ocean breezes yesterday the rainclouds moved in last night and they are still hanging around.  It could still turn out to be a nice beach day today but it doesn't look like it right now.  If the sun is shining in Canton, Ahia (or wherever) consider yourselves lucky  you're not here.

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Here's an allegedly funny piece from the archives to help cheer you up at work today. (During your lunch hour, of course).

     Looks like another hot and humid day is in store for the Outer Banks today.  It cooled off a bit after yesterday afternoon's frog-strangling thundershowers but the temperature is rising rapidly again and will no doubt get to 80 or thereabouts by noon.  Not a breath of air was stirring on the beach this morning and the humidity is 94% so walking very far required more effort than Uncle Jack was prepared to make before he had his first cup of  Twining's Earl Grey tea.

      Yesterday's foray into the archives produced this epistle from some years back:

                  Uncle Jack’s Mailbag

Dear Uncle Jack,

You keep writing all the time about fishing and fishermen and what I want to know is what is so great about catching fish? I mean it is a well known scientific fact that all fish are fairly stupid and bluefish, which is what they catch the most around here, do not even register on the Fish IQ Scale they are so dense.

So how can any normal person get excited about outsmarting a fish, and also why would any normal person stand out there in the wind and rain and totally wear himself out trying to catch more of those pathetic creatures than anybody else? I mean you can be a lot smarter than a bluefish and still not get into law school or even West Point.So what does it all prove, Uncle Jack?

Duck Hunter                                                   Swan Quarter

Dear Duck,

Uncle Jack is very glad you asked him about this because fishing is something he knows a lot about and he is always happy for a chance to answer questions about his favorite sport. He can see why it might be hard for somebody who does not know anything about fishing to understand why a perfectly normal person would spend upwards of $30,000 on an SUV just so he could go surf fishing a few times a year.

Also he can understand how you might wonder why a normal person would spend thousands of dollars on rods and reels and lures and sinkers and waders and foul weather clothes and coolers and bottle openers just to catch a few fish which he could buy at the fish market with no trouble at all for less than the cost of the shrimp he used for bait.

Also Uncle Jack can understand why an ignorant person such as yourself who does not know anything about fishing might wonder why any normal person would stand out in the wind and rain and cold all day just to prove that he is smarter than a fish, which is not, as you have rightly pointed out, a major intellectual achievement.

He can also appreciate why you might not understand why so many fishermen go to the trouble and expense of coming to the Outer Banks fishing tournaments from all over the U.S. and wearing themselves to a frazzle for two days just to try to prove they are better than anybody else when it comes to outsmarting fish (which is a dubious distinction as you have rightly pointed out).

And even though you did not mention it, Uncle Jack would be willing to bet that you would also wonder why fishermen work so hard to catch more fish than they can eat so they wind up cleaning them and packing them away in their freezers and keeping them there at great expense until they have to throw them all away to make room for next year’s fish.

Uncle Jack is sure there are many more questions you could ask about fishing but the answer to all of them, which he is now going to tell you, would be the same. Fishermen go to all the trouble and expense of fishing for the same reason that some people will spend $100,000 on a sailboat which they only use a few times each year and when they do use them chances are they will wind up wet and cold and tired which is something they could accomplish a lot faster and cheaper if they just stood in a cold shower and did deep knee bends until they collapsed.

Anyway Uncle Jack is glad he could answer all your questions about fishing and he hopes you will not hesitate to write to him again the next time you are confused about anything.

Piscatorially                                                       Uncle Jack

P.S. He does not have the slightest idea why any normal person would go duck hunting so please do not ask him about that.

     Not the most exciting sunrise of the week but well worth getting up for. The wind is out of the southwest this morning so it's already quite warm and humid.  Yesterday was a scorcher, probably the hottest day so far this year, and today promises to be another.  Not a good morning to be packing the car for the long drive home. Do everybody in the car a favor and take a shower before you head up the road.

    Yesterday's digging in the archives turned up this little essay from days gone by.  The sentiments expressed are probably still as valid today as they were 20 years ago.

                 STAY WHERE YOU ARE

Dear Uncle Jack,

I am one of the two million Pennsylvania residents who are planning to move to the Outer Banks to live as soon as they can figure out some way to swing it. You have been living there for quite a while now, Uncle Jack, and I was wondering if you had any advice for us.

Envious Eddy

Johnstown, Pa.

Dear Eddy,

You are right about one thing. Uncle Jack is getting to be quite an old timer on the Outer Banks. Just last week he was looking at his Acme Auto Parts calendar (which he has been doing fairly often this month because of the terrific picture of “Miss Valve Lifter” who is really good looking and all she is wearing is one hubcap).

All of a sudden it dawned on him that it is 1984 and he has been living down here for four years now and the way things are changing on the Outer Banks these days four years is a pretty long time.

Uncle Jack really enjoys being an old timer, too, because he can rare back in his rocking chair and tell all kinds of stories about what it was like in the old days when men were men---back before the Seamark when you had to drive all the way to Norfolk every time you wanted bibb lettuce in your salad.

He can remember some really amazing things like the day they brought in the first prefabricated condominium on a truck for example. If you want to know the truth Uncle Jack and the first prefabricated condominium arrived on the Outer Banks at about the same time and he is not quite sure what to make of that. It could be an omen of some kind but he is not sure what.

Anyway he could go on and on about all the amazing things that have happened around here in the past four years but if he did he would not have room to give you the advice you asked for which is DON’T MOVE DOWN HERE! Stay in Johnstown and pray for another flood and you will be better off.

You sound like one of those people who came down here and spent a few days on vacation and caught some fish and had a good time and now you think you want to live here. Well Uncle Jack has lived here long enough to tell you that life on the Outer Banks is not just one long vacation. You have to be able to put up with a lot of hardship and frustration like Uncle Jack did last Sunday which he is going to tell you about so brace yourself.

Last Sunday Uncle Jack drove all the way down to Cape Hatteras in his new second hand Jeep which is now 24 pounds lighter than it was when he bought it which he knows because that is how much rust he has swept up out of the driveway since last September.

Anyway he drove for hours through that government refuge down there where all you ever see is weird looking birds and juvenile delinquents trying to dig their vans out of the sand and finally he got to Cape Point and started fishing. He fished his heart out for two hours and he used up an entire $1.50 mullet for bait and HE NEVER GOT A BITE!

And neither did Mrs. Uncle Jack or their friends so they had to give up and just sat there in the sun and drank beer and ate fried chicken instead of catching fish which is what they drove all the way down there to do in the first place.

After a while they drove up to Ramp 23 by Salvo and they fished for a long time and they used up another whole mullet and THEY NEVER GOT A BITE! By then the beer was gone and the fried chicken was gone so all they could do was go home and make a pitcher of martinis and sit on the deck and watch the sun go down over Roanoke Sound and talk about what a rotten day it had been..

Anyway that should give you an idea of the kind of disappointment and frustration and heartache you would have to live with all the time if you moved down here. If you have plenty of beer and fried chicken up there in Johnstown take Uncle Jack’s advice and stay there. You will be a lot happier in the long run.

Sagely,

Uncle Jack

      This was definitely a sunrise worth getting up at an ungodly hour for and Uncle Jack almost missed it.  He stayed up way past his bedtime watching the Phoenix Suns and the Dallas Mavericks race up and down the floor in pursuit of the NBA Western Conference championship and it nearly wore him out.

     There's an old  saying "Red sky at morning, sailor take warning" but all indications are that this will be another gorgeous day for beachgoers.  The sky was more pink than red this morning anyway so maybe that doesn't count.

    Uncle Jack did a little more foraging in the guest bedroom closet yesterday and ran across this memoir-peroration from days gone by about days gone by:

                      Sands of Time

Uncle Jack was thinking the other day that he has been around here so long now he could legitimately call himself an old-timer. Not a real old-timer like some of the older natives but maybe some sort of senior level carpetbagger at least. Anyway he has been letting his mind wander back over the 37 years since he crossed the Currituck bridge and drove down the Bypass for the first time.

He cannot remember exactly how many buildings were already beginning to clutter up the Bypass in 1969 but there weren’t very many. The only ones he can remember for sure are the ABC store and the Sportsman’s Diner which was about the only restaurant in town, especially in the winter which in those days lasted from Labor Day to about the middle of June.

There was no stoplight at the main intersection at Colington Road then because when the DOT installed one of those car counters it rusted out before it got to 100 cars.

The first 7-11 was still a gleam in some accountant’s eye over at the Southland Corporation and all the gourmet food lovers used to line up at the Trading Post when the Pepperidge Farm truck came in from Norfolk on Fridays.

The Kentucky Fried Chicken at Whalebone Junction was the only franchise food place and if you were really lucky you would not have to wait in line more than 30 minutes to get your order which gave new meaning to the term “fast food“.

The Nags Head Town Hall was that little white building across from Jockey‘s Ridge where they keep a small fire truck now. It was big enough back then because the town only had one policeman to handle the drunk drivers (which is what they called them in those days before they invented the bloodless euphemism "DUI") and one clerk to answer the phone and collect the taxes.

She did not have much to do either because the town taxes didn‘t amount to much. Uncle Jack remembers when he could pay his out of the loose change in his sock drawer and still have enough left over for a piece of Mrs. Hayman‘s lemon chess pie at the Arlington Hotel.

Those were the days when Duck was still at the end of the earth and South Nags Head was like a voluptuous virgin about to be ravished by a gang of randy developers. He remembers when they built that strange domed Bucky Fuller house way down at the end of South Nags Head and how wide the beach was in front of it and how fast that beach disappeared and left those domes sort of hanging in mid-air. It was not much more than ten years from start to finish as he recalls.

That was when the developers started carving South Nags Head up into little lots running north and south instead of deep lots running east and west from the ocean to the road. This was a very smart thing to do if you were in the business of selling lots but it was not so smart if you are one of the people who is now watching his expensive oceanfront lot vanish from under his expensive oceanfront house which he cannot move back because some peasant built his shack on the cheap lot behind him.

Uncle Jack remembers lots of hurricanes from Ginger in 1970 right up to Isabel and what they did to South Nags Head where he has lived for the past 15 years or so. He has to wonder how anybody who has lived around here for a few years can seriously talk about something called “erosion control” much less want to spend countless millions of dollars trying to achieve it.

“Erosion control” sounds like it belongs in the same category with “military intelligence” and “computer literacy”---ideas that self-destruct when you think about them. You can believe that “erosion control” is possible and you can spend endless amounts of money trying to prove it but it always seems to be a few million dollars ahead of you. At least it seems that way to Uncle Jack and he has been around here watching the ocean carefully for a long time.

For a lot less money the commissioners could put up some nice signs at the end of each bridge leading to the Outer Banks and on the signs they could put a message something like this: “WARNING! You are entering an unstable barrier island which is known to shift around a lot when the wind blows. BUILD AT YOUR OWN RISK!”

Uncle Jack is smart enough to know that signs like that would not keep some people from building whatever the law allows as close to the ocean as they can put it but in the long run they could save the taxpayers a pile of money about the size of Jockey’s Ridge.

.

     The air was so thick this morning Uncle Jack could have used a machete to hack his way up to the beach.  In the absence of any perceptible breeze the no-see-ums were out in force at dawn so he didn't hang around too long.  The sun was hidden behind a thick bank of thunderheads and didn't make an appearance until at least 20 minutes after official sunrise and even then it was being very coy.  Looks like the first day of June will be another warm, humid perfect beach day on the Outer Banks---just like the last day of May.

      Uncle Jack is continuing his archaeological exploration of the closet in the guest bedroom and this is what he found yesterday:

UNCLE JACK’S FIRST ANNUAL STATE OF THE OUTER BANKS ADDRESS

Fellow Outer Bankers, as we stand at the (threshhold, brink, precipice: choose one) of another glorious Season in the Sun, let us pause for a moment to examine together the state of our beloved sandspit.

Even the cynics and naysayers in our midst will agree that the past year was one of unprecedented growth, prosperity and progress and other good stuff like that. Consider the following economic indicators:

Foreign Trade. Never has the Outer Banks enjoyed a more favorable balance of trade with the outside world than it does today. Latest Chamber of Commerce figures show that our mainland visitors spent far more on T-shirts, lighthouse replicas and ceramic seagulls last year than Outer Bankers spent at Sam’s Club and Circuit City in Norfolk put together. While it is unfortunate that the resulting surplus had to be divided amongst so many deserving merchants and that many therefore find themselves in straitened circumstances they should take heart from the fact that only a few dozen new shops just like theirs will be opening this summer.

The Environment. Last year saw tremendous progress toward the worthy goal of eliminating what is perhaps the Number One public health menace of the Outer Banks, namely flying sand. Uncle Jack is pleased to report that last year alone more than 27 square miles of unhealthy sand dunes, a major source of airborne particles, were brought under control through the copious application of asphalt and concrete. He is now able to predict with complete confidence that by the year 2020 the scourge of flying sand will be naught but an unpleasant memory in the minds of a handful of surviving senior citizens.

Uncle Jack must admit that in spite of the best efforts of our enlightened lawmakers a few environmental challenges remain. The Atlantic Ocean, of course, is one of them. Year after year the ocean continues to demonstrate callous disregard for one of our most cherished and fundamental principles---the basic human right of property owners to build fourteen-bedroom rental houses wherever they please.

Uncle Jack is sure that you will agree that it is time to take whatever measures may be necessary to put the ocean in its place and therefore he is pleased to reveal at this time his Master Plan to Stem the Tide At No Cost to the Taxpayers of Dare County.

Phase 1 of this simple but elegant strategy calls for the immediate replenishment of the South Nags Head beaches with sand from the unsightly pile known as “Jockey’s Ridge State Park” (presently located at the 12 milepost directly across the Bypass from Austin’s Fish Market.) This project will pay for itself through the sale of millions of dollars worth of oceanfront lots thus created.

Uncle Jack has calculated that if each unemployed person in Dare County next winter were required to carry one shovelful of sand from Jockey’s Ridge to South Nags Head before cashing his unemployment check the entire operation could be completed by the end of February.

Space does not permit further elucidation of Uncle Jack’s Master Plan at this time but you may rest assured that like our esteemed President he will stay the course until it is accomplished come hell or high water. Especially high water.