Last Walk on Bald Head Island, Again



Last Walk on Bald Head Island, Again

By Bill McIlwain

In 1972, when my father and I came to Bald Head Island, I was 14, Pop was 46 and the ancient island ranked among the wildest places then remaining on the southeastern seaboard. To show me the island before development changed it forever, Pop took me on a backpacking trip there, an experience he described in "Last Walk on Bald Head Island," an essay published in Harper’s Magazine in 1973. Today, 36 years later, I'm middle-aged, Pop is 83 and we've returned to Bald Head Island for a last walk, again.

Bald Head lies at the mouth of the Cape Fear River in southeastern North Carolina, 17 miles downstream from the port of Wilmington, where Pop grew up and began his career as a newspaperman during World War II. Comprising 12,000 acres of subtropical maritime forest, salt marsh and 14 miles of waterfront, the island -- like so much of the eastern seaboard -- is highly desirable real estate. In the mid-1970’s, after years of legal battles, development of the southern tip of the island began. Today the island features 1,900 million-dollar homes, an 18-hole golf course, a country club and a marina where gleaming yachts await their owners. There is, however, no bridge to the mainland, which gives visitors a pleasant feeling of separation.

On our first trip to Bald Head we walked to the island, crossing from Fort Fisher to Zeke's Island, then wading a wide salt creek at low tide and camping under the open sky in a grove of low cedars. Pop, whom I called Dad back then, was worried then that even careful development of even a portion of the island would ruin its diverse ecology, driving away its exotic birds and Loggerhead and Leatherback sea turtles, changing the island’s ecology irrevocably. Today, on a sunny Good Friday, we've returned by boat to see how the island has changed and what has remained the same. We've also come knowing how much we have changed.

At the private ferry terminal in Southport, N.C., we boarded a hulking ferry that would carry us two miles across the choppy Cape Fear to Bald Head. I insisted that Pop, who has grown unsteady in recent years, carry a stout walking stick I carved, and as we walked up the gangway he gripped my elbow tightly with his free hand, and we moved along at a turtle's pace, followed by well-to-do vacationers looking forward to spending the Easter weekend on the island, playing golf, sipping drinks on the patio and enjoying a genteel seclusion in what has become largely a province of the wealthy. A steady 20-knot wind coursed the deck of the big ferry. We settled on a bench on deck, and Pop accepted the offer of my parka, which I helped him get zipped. As we steamed across the river's mouth in the distance I could see Old Baldy, the 1817 lighthouse that once warned sailors of treacherous Frying Pan Shoals. With binoculars I could see the houses and the 10-acre marina lining the waterfront.

"Take a look," I said, handing the binoculars to Pop, who fumbled with them briefly, took a quick look and handed them back. "It surely looks different," he said.

Twenty minutes later we pulled into the marina, shuffled off the ferry and set foot on Bald Head. Cars are not allowed on the island, so people get around in golf carts mostly, with a few riding bicycles for fun and even fewer walking. Leaving Pop in a quiet nook, I located our luggage and found the "tram" that would take us to the fancy inn where we would spend two nights enjoying each other's company.

"Nice palms," I said as we motored along a narrow paved pathway, pulling over several times to let other carts buzz past. Across a patch of marshland Old Baldy loomed above the live oaks and yaupon trees, a quaint reminder of the way the island used to be, when its only residents lived at the now abandoned Coast Guard station at the island's southern tip on the edge of what sailors dubbed “the graveyard of the Atlantic.” Lovely homes lined either side of the cartpath, each dwelling a bit different from its neighbor and each tastefully painted in subdued colors in compliance with the island's restrictive covenants.

Arriving at the inn, we were greeted by Leslie, the lovely innkeeper, who charmed Pop and quickly became a focus of his attention. She showed us around the inn, and Pop was pleased to hear that the coffee pot in the pantry stayed full at all times. She showed us to our suite, and we settled in. Pop would have the reproduction antique bed. I would sleep on the sofa.

"This is quite a place," I said, opening the wooden shutters to reveal a pleasant view of the marina and the transom of a yacht named My Reward. "It surely will be different from sleeping last time," said Pop, recalling our earlier trip, when we slept under the stars in blankets beside a campfire that Pop kept burning all night.

Leslie showed me how to operate the golf cart that was included in the price of the room, and after getting Pop settled on the passenger side with his stick we headed out to explore the island. Most of the homes, some costing more than $2 million, are nestled in the maritime forest near the lighthouse along a maze of shaded cartpaths with such names as Chicamacomico Way, Sabal Palm Trail and Edward Teach Wynd. Breezing along in the cart, I recalled the arduous 19-mile hike we made in '72, leaving our gear at the campsite on the north end of the island and walking down the beach to the old Coast Guard station near the mouth of the Cape Fear. Today's traveling was much easier and far less satisfying.

At an understated but well-stocked grocery a mile or so from the inn, we ordered sandwiches to go, piled back in the golf cart and rode out to the beach, parking on the edge of the continent to enjoy the food and the expansive view of the Atlantic Ocean. A narrow boardwalk designed to protect the fragile sand dunes crossed the open 100 yards from the cartpath to the beach. "Do you feel up to walking out to the beach?" I inquired. Pop, who suffers from arthritis and various other ailments, said "sure," and we started out, with Pop gripping my arm with one hand and the walking stick with the other. It was late afternoon, and small groups of people were coming the other way on the narrow boardwalk, which had no railing along most of its length. Several times we paused to let families squeak past. I worried that Pop might misstep and suffer a disastrous fall four feet down to the sand. One family, recognizing Pop's unsteadiness, opted not to pass, saying, "Take your time. We're in no hurry."

By and by we reached the end of the boardwalk and crossed the uneven sand to where the surf lapped. I snapped a picture of our shadows on the sand, two silhouettes connected by the shadow of Pop's arm on mine. Looking up the beach I recalled our long hike from years ago and wondered if, as a 50-year-old, I could walk 19 miles in a single day. Perhaps, but the ending wouldn't be pleasant, and I would pay dearly the next day.

The wind threatened to chill us both, so we didn't stay long. We negotiated the boardwalk again, this time getting caught up in a clot of two parties with unleashed dogs that scrapped with each other and bounded past us, giving us both a fright. At the golf cart Pop said he was ready to head back to the inn. Through the rolling forest we went, never violating the 18mph speed limit. As a matter of fact, we never got above about 10 miles per hour because our old cart wouldn't go any faster. Several times I heard the whisper of another cart come up behind us, eager to pass, and I pulled over to let them hurry on.

In his 1972 essay, Pop wondered how Bald Head's ecology would fare if the island were developed. "However much care is taken with the ecology of the island, someone must attack its insects or there will be little patio dining on the hot dead-still nights in the long dog days of summer," Pop wrote. "I wondered how the birds will fare. And the baby shrimp that are nurtured in the marshes of Bald Head before moving out into the ocean. Can they live on?"

The answer is yes. Bald Head's ecology lives on, but like so many things along the North Carolina coast the changes have been mixed. For example, several prominent bird species that were in trouble 40 years ago are far better off now: Ospreys and Brown Pelicans have made a remarkable comeback, partly due to stricter environmental laws. Fish, shellfish and crabs, however, have not fared well. Water pollution, caused by sewage discharges and run-off from surging coastal development, has degraded habitat. Most of the once-rich oyster beds near Bald Head are closed to harvesting as a result of pollution. Over-fishing has depleted many fish species. Loggerhead turtles are struggling, too. They require undeveloped, dark beaches for nesting, and there aren't many dark beaches left on the North Carolina coast. The Bald Head Island Conservancy, a non-profit group founded in 1983, maintains a vigorous sea turtle protection program that includes nest protection efforts, education, tagging, monitoring and "sea turtle interns" patrolling the beach with flashlights all night from mid-May to mid-August. The conservancy’s primary goal is protecting the ecology of the Smith Island Complex (Bald Head, Middle and Bluff Islands), known colloquially as “Bald Head.” Functioning as the island’s environmental advocate, the conservancy offers educational programs and sponsors scientific research dealing with the unique environment of this barrier island. The Smith Island Land Trust, a subsidiary of the conservancy, strives to acquire and preserve ecologically significant aspects of the island. Since it was founded in 1996, the land trust has preserved more than $10 million worth of property, partly through tax incentives offered to landowners. In 1997 the land trust raised $1 million to purchase 11 acres at Cape Fear Point, which is now part of the Bald Head Island State Natural Area. The island, like Pop and me, has changed since 1972, some for the better and some for the worse.

* * *

Eb and Flo's Steam Bar, the only open restaurant, was packed when we arrived at 8:30 for a late dinner. We made our way slowly back to the bar to wait for a table, and I was touched when a 30-something fellow dining with his wife gave up his stool at the bar for Pop. Old age has some benefits, at least sometimes. We ordered a bucket of steamed local oysters, two of which were dead and filled with mud from the nearby Lockwood's Folly River. The apologetic waitress brought us another bucket, some of which hadn’t opened from being steamed. Pop, who loves oysters, showed me how to insert the blunt oyster knife in just the right spot to pry open the shell and reveal the slimy prize.

Pop loves to talk. When we're together he does most of the talking. I listen dutifully as he holds forth on various topics: politics, current events, family, friends, alcoholism, "war stories" from his days as a big-time newspaper editor, writing, himself, all in the charming Southern drawl that I never picked up as a kid growing up in the suburbs of Long Island. At one point during dinner the conversation drifted to the various camping trips we've done, including one to Stone Mountain, North Carolina when I was 15. It was on that trip that our relationship shifted significantly on a slippery stream bank at dusk. Having lingered too long by the creek, we were overtaken by darkness. As we made our way back to camp, Pop put his hand on my shoulder to steady himself as we climbed the steep bank. Although I didn't appreciate the significance of it at the time, he remarked that I was taking care of him instead of vice-versa. The balance had shifted.

Then there was the trip to Cape Sable, Florida when I was in college. We flew to Miami, drove to Paradise at the edge of the Everglades, rented a canoe and set out for a two-night camping trip to the Cape Sable, a pristine mangrove beach on the Bay of Florida and the southernmost point of the continental United States. Ten miles we paddled in a swampy canal as straight as a surveyor's line, turning only once (90 degrees at the seven mile mark), and finally arriving at Cape Sable ready, as Pop said, “to rest our souls.” It was a pleasant trip, but not without some unpleasantness. But despite the heat and bugs, a harsh word never passed between us. When the going gets tough we lean into the yoke and bull on through, being careful with what we say to each other. That's the way it has always been with us. But an opportunity for harsh words presented itself the next day when we paddled the unloaded canoe up a salt creek into the mangroves in search of fishing, something we both enjoy but aren't very good at. Flanked by the ubiquitous, eerie mangroves, the creek branched repeatedly, disappearing into the anonymity of the dark, leggy mangroves, their odd, spindly limbs rising out of the army-brown water. At each branch I scored an arrow in the mud to guide us home on the return trip. Hours later, having caught no fish, we attempted to paddle back to camp only to find that the tide had risen, obliterating my careful markings. With no current to guide us and everything looking the same, we pressed on, with me in the stern, steering the boat and making uneasy choices at every fork with images in my head of that scene in "The African Queen" when Bogart and Hepburn get lost in the river delta and give up hope. But somehow an hour later we found our way out; the Bay of Florida opened up before us. I've never been so glad to see a campsite.

* * *

At Eb and Flo's the food was mediocre and the service lackluster, so when the check came I encouraged Pop, who is always a good tipper, to leave a minimal tip. But the waitress was young and pretty, and Pop insisted on leaving a good tip. We walked a few hundred yards back to the inn in the dark, and I was glad that I had brought a flashlight along. There are no streetlights on the island, and several whizzing golf carts had me worried that we might get hit. As we passed the stern of the My Reward we both remarked about the boat's name being outlined in garish, purple, neon light.

Saturday dawned sunny, breezy and chilly. We enjoyed a fine breakfast on the inn's back deck, and I gently warned Pop not to sunburn the top of his bald head and offered him my cap, which covered my balding head. He declined, saying he would put one on soon.

I proposed a tour of the island, and after 30 minutes of getting ready we headed out in the slow cart, following a colorful real estate map to Cape Creek Road, passing more stately homes partially hidden in the woods, and undeveloped quarter-acre lots selling for $250,000. Near the end of the road the pavement ended. We continued on, passing beneath twisted live oaks, laurel oaks and ironwood, stopping every now and then to take pictures across the marsh where several long-legged White Ibis worked the shallow water and a family in kayaks frolicked in the sunshine.

At the end of the road we discovered the Ibis Lake Sanctuary, a serene preserve managed by the Bald Head Island Conservancy. Although I wanted to pass the gate on foot and explore, I didn't mention my desire. Pop wasn't up to it. Maybe someday, under difference circumstances, I'll return to Bald Head and explore the vast undeveloped areas, but today we would see Bald Head on Pop's terms, and those terms precluded such a venture.

Bald Head Island is the northern edge of a subtropical ecosystem that is home to a wide variety of creatures. American Alligators and Diamondback Terrapins work the margins of the salt marshes, and Snowy Egrets and Great Blue Herons keep them company. Corn snakes and the Eastern Glass Lizards inhabit the woods and scrub thickets, eeking out a gritty existence. Pennywort, Sea Rocket and Muscadine Grape grow in the thickets and dunes, while Salt Meadow Hay, Smooth Cordgrass and Black Needlerush thrive in the salt marsh. These species continue to live on, despite the development on the southern end of the island, including the golf course, which has had the largest environmental impact by the removal of so many trees. But like some of the other changes on the island, the golf course has had its positive effect, with its water hazards providing habitat for alligators, turtles and waterbirds. Strict regulations now protect the dunes, unlike in the pre-development days when enterprising fishermen brought old cars over on barges and roamed the dunes and beaches in search of bluefish, puppy drum and flounder. Ironically, the loss of Bald Head as a possible state park back in the 1970’s helped bring about stricter regulation of North Carolina’s coast, including laws that prohibit “hardening” beaches with seawalls and jetties in an effort to prevent erosion and protect beach houses. Prior to the Bald Head development controversy few people paid much attention to the need for regulation of development along North Carolina’s coast. The Coastal Area Management Act, which came out of that era, imposed an array of regulations, including one that mandated public beach access points along the coast, providing access to ordinary folk not wealthy enough to own a beach house. Now the only hard part is finding a parking spot.

* * *

We limped the ailing cart several miles back to the inn, arriving just as another couple staying at the inn pushed their dying cart into the garage for a charge. It was then that Pop admitted that his head was sunburned, “ruined, as my mother used to say,” he said. After lunch I suggested that Pop rest while I made a solo foray into the woods. I didn't have to go far to get a taste, albeit a civilized taste, of the wild island I recalled from 36 years ago. Near the ruined earthworks of a Confederate fort from 1863, I parked the cart and followed a boardwalk into the fecund, jungle-like woods, passing Sabal palmettos and palms, arriving at a deck overlooking a man-made pond not far from the golf course. I set up a folding chair and relaxed for the first time since the ferry trip, enjoying the sounds of the woods: a pair of cardinals calling to each other, wind in the dense canopy, and the cryptic calls of birds unknown to me. I recalled, fondly, how my life has been since 1972: high school, college, eight years as a newspaper reporter, marriage, two children, a bitter divorce, a new career as a high school English teacher, my marriage to Mary Beth, a blended family, countless camping trips -- many of them solo -- into the wilds of Appalachia. I'll never own a home on Bald Head, but my life has been rich, partly because of my love of Pop and his love of me.

I broke out a sketchbook and spent some pleasant time trying to sketch the wooded landscape but became frustrated with my inability to capture the multiplicity of the scene, deciding finally to take some photos, telling myself they were "studies" for some later attempt at watercolor. It felt good to be there in the woods, even if it was right next to a golf course. I was reminded of synecdoche, a literary device in which a part of something represents its whole. Years ago, when I was raising my two young children as a single dad, I couldn’t go hiking and camping often, so I had to satisfy my yearning for the woods by enjoying a walk through the wooded park near my home, a natural synecdoche, of sorts. It is a mindset that still serves me well.

I returned to the golf cart to find its battery lifeless. My cell phone call to Leslie, the innkeeper, only got as far as her cheery voice mail, so I walked the half mile back to the lighthouse, surprised that I was the only pedestrian. I probably could have hitched a ride -- almost everyone had been friendly to us -- but the weather was fine, I love to walk, and walking would get me in touch with the island in a way a golf cart cannot.

Pop had taken a nap and seemed refreshed in his anxious way, which contrasts sharply with my relaxed manner. I told him briefly about my sojourn, then dropped back and enjoyed listening to him talk until I started to doze off, lying there on the couch. Pop, knowing how much I would enjoy a nap and probably sensing my fatigue, stopped talking and let me doze off for a while.

In 1968, after working the calamitous Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Pop, his brother-in-law and some old friends came to Bald Head to unwind by fishing in the ocean and partying in the derelict Coast Guard station at Cape Fear Point. Hurricane Abby approached, menacing them. "Listening to a transistor radio, we drank vodka all night, worrying less and less about the rising wind and reports of evacuation south of us," Pop wrote of that night.

Four years later, when he and I hiked the length of the island to the abandoned Coast Guard station we crawled under one of the houses and drank cool water from a spigot fed by a cistern that collected rainwater for drinking. Today I wanted to find that house and see if I might get another drink of that special water.

"Let's ride down to the Coast Guard station," I suggested. Pop hesitated briefly, the wheels turning, weighing various odds and possibilities, not all of them good.

"Do you think we can find it?" he asked.

"Sure. I know at least one of the three houses has been renovated. I read about it in that magazine, indicating the slick Bald Head Island Limited publication on the coffee table. "They call it Captain Charlie's cottage. It's named after the guy who ran the lighthouse way back when."

Pop “did around” for a few minutes, taking his afternoon pills from a vast array of bottles on the dresser. We asked Leslie for a fresh cart and started down North Bald Head Road Wynd toward the point. The cart was another dud and struggled to climb the long, low hills through the maritime forest.

"Do you think we can get down and back?" Pop asked.

"I sure hope so," I said, my foot with the peddle to the floor. Once again I heard the whisper of an overtaking electric car, this one tricked out to look like a Hummer and driven by three vociferous teenage boys. At least he's not blowing his horn, I thought.

We arrived at a small parking lot at the base of a big dune. A paved driveway rose up the hill, but it was blocked by a white picket gate with a sign: "this beach access is temporarily closed." Pop sighed when I read it to him.

"We've got to see the Coast Guard station," I said.

"Yes, we do."

"Can you get up that hill?"

"I think so," he said reluctantly. "Do you think it would be all right?

"Yeah, sure. What are they going to do, arrest us?"

Off we went in our now familiar way: Pop with the walking stick in his big right hand, and his big left hand in an iron grip just above my elbow.

"Watch your step on this sand. It's pretty uneven," I said as we bypassed the gate.

"Uneven ground is tricky," he said as we got back on the pavement and slowly climbed the driveway. At the top of the dune a construction site came into view: dumpster, lumber, equipment, trash. Behind it stood what seemed to be one of the old Coast Guard houses, with its weathered, gray clapboard siding and a faded red brick foundation. Tarpaper covered a portion of the back. Renovation was underway, but no one was around.

The ocean horizon and the broad mouth of the Cape Fear River stretched out before us, vast and empty beyond Cape Fear Point, where severe erosion threatens the cape and a number of houses near it. Miles out, on a glimmering band of blinding white, an ocean going ship was outward bound. A narrow boardwalk without railings connected the three houses, each under renovation and each with a stunning view across 150 yards of rolling dunes and waving sea oats.

"Which one did you and Uncle Kelly ride out the hurricane in?" I asked.

"I'm not sure."

"I wonder which one we got the drink of water under," I asked. "That was so cool."

We walked, carefully with stick and arm, to the second house, where broad steps mounted to a breezy front porch. At the base of the steps a half dozen rocking chairs, all overturned, rested on a new deck. I set up a pair of rockers for us, facing out to sea. I made some more photos, asking Pop to take off his sunglasses.

"Your mother used to say that people who wore sunglasses were hiding something," he said, smiling.

"She was probably right. She said the same thing about beards, too," I said, chuckling and pointing at Pop's Ernest Hemingway beard.

"Do you think this is the one?" I asked, indicating the house.

"I don't know. I don't remember it looking like this. Are you sure these are the houses?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm sure about that. I'll go see if I can find the spigot.

I left Pop with a bag of salted peanuts and a canteen of flat "beachwater" and started looking under the house, which stood on tall brick pilings. All three houses looked unfamiliar, which surprised me. My memory, especially for places, is usually very good. Latticework covered the open space where I think we may have crawled on that hot summer afternoon, grateful for the cool drink of cistern water and happy to be together in such a wild, unusual place. I recall how we refilled the quart mayonnaise jar we had used for a canteen on that day, but on this day I couldn't recall which of the three houses we drank under. New plumbing -- plastic pipes -- had been installed, and I saw no signs of the cistern’s spigot. I checked the other two houses without luck.

"I didn't see it."

"That sure was a nice drink of water back then."

More photos: Pop on the deck with the one of the houses behind, the structure looking much less weathered than he. Pop talked and I listened. The familiar ease between us informed the moment. There is an easiness between us that began long ago, when both of us wore the clothes of younger men. I thanked him for being such a good dad, and we told each other how much we love each other. I thanked him for encouraging me as a writer and how much that means to me.

“You don’t know how much that means to me,” he said.

“I think I do.”

After a few moments I said, "You want to ride on back?"

"Oh, whatever you feel like. I'm all right either way."

It is a refrain I've heard many times from Pop, an ostensibly easy-going man who is actually, as he often says, “jumpy as hell.” We stayed a while, enjoying each other, the lovely weather, the splendid oceanfront vista that calls so many. We talked about the explosive development of North Carolina’s coast in recent decades. In 1972, when we first came together to Bald Head, North Carolina's coastal real estate was valued at $14 billion. Now its worth $72 billion. There were no other houses in sight, and the almost 180-degree panorama awed me. The ship I had seen headed out to sea earlier was barely visible to me now. Pop couldn't see it at all.

We made our way back across the narrow boardwalk and down the steep paved driveway to the gate. I tried the hasp, which was unlocked but stuck. A swift kick dislodged it, and we passed through, closing it behind us.

"Well, if I had known that we would have driven up."

"Oh, that's all right. I didn't mind it too much," Pop said.

Riding back to the inn in our fading cart, Pop talked about various things as I nervously watched the low battery light, waiting for it to come on and change our evening plans. Pop remarked how beautiful Leslie was and how he'd talked with her some and learned that she was considering studying to be a nurse at UNC-Wilmington, not far from where he lives in a modest house at Wrightsville Beach.

"If Leslie isn't working we could take her out to dinner," Pop suggested tentatively.

"Let's not," I said, and we drove on in silence, for a moment at least.

Our third and final meal at Eb and Flo's was only slightly better than the first two. Pop ordered a burger, and I went for the fried seafood platter. The oysters -- fried this time and without mud -- were actually quite good, and I slid one on to Pop's plate and advised him to eat it before it got cold.

Back in the room we sprawled out on the sofa, watched some miscellaneous television and talked some. Pop remarked how he had recently read the obituaries of two boyhood friends from Wilmington, and how both obits included nicknames that he had given them in high school: Raymond Lee “Football” Smith and Carl “Brick” Mason. He has always enjoyed naming people, places and things, and it pleased him to see that the names had stuck so well for so long.

“What’s it like to read obits for people you know?” I asked.

Pop paused for a moment, then said, “I think about the good times I had with

them, feel a little sad, sort of wistful, I guess. Gradually it sort of moves out of your mind, along with lots of other things.”

Pop often says he is "anxious as hell." I think those pots of coffee he drinks every day contribute to it, but he insists that caffeine doesn't affect him, and I've quit bugging him about it. I've also learned to get to the airport (or a ferry terminal) with plenty of time to spare. He'd asked Leslie to make reservations for us for the 10:30 ferry back to Southport. Checking later to make sure eased his mind and gave him another opportunity to talk with her. We packed up at 9:30 and were in the lobby soon thereafter, waiting for the tram to take us about 200 yards to the rustic terminal at the marina. But the tram was booked solid until 2 p.m., so Leslie offered to take us to the terminal in one of the inn's carts. She drove, Pop sat next to her and I hung on for the ride with the bags on the back seat.

The crowd for the ferry arrived at 10:20, apparently eager to get back to the mainland. I worried that Pop might get knocked over, so I found him a quiet spot out of the mainstream.

"You've got the tickets, right?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, checking my shirt pocket for the fifth or sixth time just to make sure.

The ferry arrived on schedule, and after the initial burst of boarders passed, Pop and I walked slowly up the wide gangway, with Pop gripping the stick with his left hand and the aluminum rail with his right.

The captain steered the big ferry out into the river, its surface broken with whitecaps, and we started back. Looking off to the northeast, I could see the dim outline of the Kure Beach water tank, and my eye followed the hazy line of trees southeast to Fort Fisher, Zeke's Island and the northern end of the island where Pop and I had crossed on foot years ago. It seemed like another lifetime, other people. I glanced at Pop, who was quiet behind his sunglasses and thought back to our trip 36 years ago, of which he wrote: I woke up around two in the morning, a beautiful night with stars, and threw some more wood on the fire. Bill was asleep in his blanket and I watched him for a while. I wondered whether he would have a son; and if he does, will there be a good place left for them to go off to together? Thankfully, there are wild places where a man and his son can go. My son Jesse and I have visited some of those places since he was a boy, camping out and enjoying each other is a way that seems to happen only around a campfire. Thinking of my son, who is now 19, I wonder if he will have a son, and if he does, will they have a wild place to visit and enjoy together?

-30-

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