“I have just had a great trip,” said the Bank Clerk to the Soda Jerker. “Who would have dreamed, five years ago, that any of us would ever motor to Kitty Hawk, to Nags Head or Roanoke Island? But that is what I did this week. From Point Harbor at the end of the the Currituck Peninsula I ferried over to Kitty Hawk, four miles across Currituck Sound. From Kitty Hawk I motored on soft tires down the coast by Kill Devil Hill to Nags Head.
“At Nags Head I got a ferry to take me across Roanoke Sound to Roanoke Island, landing me at Manteo. I motored all over Roanoke Island for the first time in my life, and never saw so many roads in one place in my life. Roanoke Island is only two or three miles wide and 10 miles long, and they will tell you that there is only one road on Roanoke Island, but they tell you wrong. There are approximately 1,000 miles of road on Roanoke Island.
“Before the State built its 10 miles of highway on the Island, every fellow who started any place in a horse and cart made his own road. These roads wind and twist the primaeval forests of scrub pine, live oaks, yapon, myrtles and yopon, affording the great avenues of privacy for courting couples to be found anywhere in the Easter half of the old North State.
“I enjoyed my visit on the Island. The primitive charm of the place and the simple, whole-hearted ways of its people are captivating. But Roanoke Island is fast losing much of its charm under the pressure of civilization. For instance, I saw a woman toiling and steaming in her kitchen canning figs for market. Texas or California never produced finer figs in greater variety or profusion than are produced on Roanoke Island. And the people down there know how to preserve them, employing every modern device for processing and packing.
“But when I saw this woman standing over a hot stove canning figs my thoughts went back to the Garden of Eden. When Mother Eve wanted a dress, she had only to each up and pul a leaf from a fig push and adorn herself just so--no work, no worry, no time lost.
“But we have become civilized. Behold a modern daughter of Eve growing fig bushes, cultivating them, pruning them, nursing them; in season gathering and washing the figs, skinning them, steaming them, cooking them in syrup, packing them painstakingly in jars and bottles. And then having to find a market for her figs, exchanging them for cash; and in turn exchanging the cash received for something to wear. Mother Eve had the long end of it.
“Yes, I enjoyed my motor trip around the coast and over the happy island. Why don’t you take a trip of that kind?”
“Me?” said the Soda Jerker. “I did take it. I went to Nags Head, spent a night there. Parked my car on the peach with the curtains all buttoned in place and left it for the night. Next morning when I went to get my car, somebody had kicked out the curtains on one side with their feet.”
From the front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, Sept. 10, 1926
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn83025812/1926-09-10/ed-1/seq-1/
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