Opinion Page
THE BRUNSWKK$KACON
Edward M. Sweatt and Carolyn H. Sweatt Publishers
Edward M. Sweatt .....Edttor
Susan Usiicr News Editor
Rahn Adams & Doug Rutter StaJJ Writers
Johnny Craig Sports Editor
Christine Baiiou Office Manager
Carolyn H. Sweatt ....Advertising Director
Timberley Adams & Valerie Lamb....?A dvertising Representatives
Tammle Galloway & Dorothy Brennan Typesetters
William Manning Pressman
Brenda Clemmons Photo Technician
Lonnle Sprinkle Assistant Pressman
Clyde and Mattle Stout. Phoebe Clenunons Circulation
PAGE 4-A, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1990
When The Urge Strikes
To Get Away...
Sometimes 1 simply get the itch to get out of town ? for a day, for a
weekend, just to claim some breathing space.
Just recently a near-ideal getaway guide crossed my desk. 1 resisted
looking it over for about a week, then couldn't stand it any longer. You
know how that goes.
These getaways are all within a day's travel distance, most closer than
that They're listed in the state's 1990 i 1
Calendar of Evenis. The calendar
used to a glossy slick semi-annual
publication. This year's version,
however, is a very practical tabloid
size in black and white.
Skimming through its 35 pages
brings home the truth of the state's
old promotional theme, "Variety
Vacationland." North Carolina truly
offers something for everyone.
Brunswick County otters its own
Susan
Usher
share of the fun, of course, bul what about us folks who need to get away
but not too far?
Looking at just one month-April, you can take your pick, starting with
Easier egg hunts galore.
Other offerings include the tooey April 14 Stoneybrook Steeplechase at
Southern Pines, the Chimney Rock Hill Climb, a high-speed auto race up a
winding moutain road. Before and after the race, visitors have full access to
the drivers and their cars. Across the state that same month there's a wide
variety of stage productions, from Porgy & Bess in Charlotte and Big River
in Boone, to Caberet in Roxboro and West Side Story in Raleigh.
And you can't forget the Newport Pig Cookin' Contest or the N.C.
Zoo's Zoo Fling '90 in Asheboro. Musical performances, garden tours,
hobby shows for items ranging from guns to boats ? you'll find them
somewhere in the Tar Heel State in July.
This calendar of events rivals the Sears or Penney catalog when it
comes to wishbook status at my house. With a big red grease pencil I've
marked up more dates and events than Don and I could EVER attend. (At
least not all in the same year.) But if we work it right, we could combine a
trip up to visit family with a night at the theater, or perhaps at that concert
in Chapel Kiii. . .As you migiii guess, with a iiuie oil of advance planning,
anything is possible.
If you feel that same itch to get away, but not too far or for loo long,
you might want to check oul the calendar. You can gel your own copy from
the N.C. Division of Travel and Tourism, Dept. of Economic and
Community Development, 430 N. Salisbury Street, Raleigh, N.C. 27603.
If you're in a hurry, why not call? From out of state the number's toll-free,
(800) VISIT NC; inside the stale, call 733-4171. Have a nice geiaway, bul
don't forget to come home.
The Refund To
End All Refunds
Like a lot of people, I've always been very fond of refunds.
I haven't received very many refunds in my lifetime, but the ones I
have received have always been accepted graciously.
I'm most fond of income tax refunds because receiving an income tax
refund is one of the few times when money flows from the hands of the
federal government to my hands, | 1
instead of the other way around.
The way I look at it, a tax refund is
free money. It's money you never had
to start with but somehow end up
with, so it should be spent on
something frivolous.
Sticking tax refunds in the bank
may be OK for some people. But if
you ask me, the money should be
frittered away on things like acoustic
guitars, surfboards and boomerangs.
Doug
Rutter
These are things that you can live just as well without, but still would like
to have for one reason or another.
Receiving an income tax refund is sort of like finding a S20 bill on the
street. You always make sure nobody's looking when you pick it up and
smoothly slip it into your pocket. And of course, you've got to spend it
right away before the person who lost it realizes it's missing and hunts you
down.
Like most other things in this world, refunds come in different sizes.
You've got big refunds, or so I'm told, and then you've got little refunds.
The topic of this week's column is little refunds. More piccisely, the
littlest refund possible. The refund to end all refunds ? one penny.
Ed Steele, a businessman and town commissioner at Orean Isle Beach,
was the recipient of this small potatoes refund.
He apparently received the check sometime last July but it didn't
surface on his desk again until recently. Duke Power Company sent the
refund check, which was good for exactly one red cent.
Steele said he's not sure why he received the refund, but it arrived in
the mail shortly after he sold a home in Charlotte he had owned for 30
years. When the power company switched the service over to the new
owner of the home, Steele apparently had one penny of credit.
"That's precision bookkeeping or it's a novelty or something," he said
last week. "They did all that paperwork and spent 25 cents to send it to
me."
Steele said he's going to frame the check instead of cashing it at the
bank. That's probably a good idea. It'll make a great conversation piece for
years to come, no doubL
"It's a novelty," he continued. "It's one in a million, you know. It
probably wouldn't happen again in a million lifetimes."
Me, 1 probably would nave cashed the check and done something
foolish with the penny ? like put it toward that piece of bubble gum I've
had my eye on.
The Beacon welcomes letters to the editor. All letters must be signed
and include the writer's address. Under no circumstances will unsigned
letters be printed. Letters should be legible. The Beacon reserves the
right to edit libelous comments. Address letters to The Brunswick
Beacon. P. O. Box 2558, ShalkHte, N. C. 28459.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Treat Serious Calabash Matter Responsibly
To the editor
The flippant attitude expressed in
Doug Rutter's Feb. 1 column is not
appreciated.
To say the people of Carolina
Shores and Calabash are feuding
over consolidation of the two areas
is a misrepresentation of the facts;
it's a gross canard.
For example, if Carolina Shores
wantp/1 lo "throw its w<?iohl armmri"
"
we would not have elected a man
from Calabash mayor. However, to
show our good will and extend the
hand of friendship, Duug Simmons
was elected by a substantial
majority, which obviously came
from Carolina Shores voters.
There is no intention now or ever
to require the people living in Cal
abash to park their pickup trucks
out of sight or prohibiting the
hanging of clothes lines wherever
they wish.
Your employees column infers
there is something dishonest in Csr
olina Shores with 1,000 residents
having five commissioners and Cal
abash having only two, with 200
residents. Evidently Ruttcr does not
grasp this elementary democratic
representation principle.
Finally, this is a trying time for
both communities and your "smart
alec" reporter seems to be going to
extremes to incite disharmony.
It will be appreciated if in the
future you instruct Mr. Rutter to
treat serious matters responsibly
and report the news as it is-not as
he fancies it.
Kenneth Manning
Carolina Shores, Calabash
(Another letter, following page)
PHOTO BY BILL FAVEt
COASTAL WETLANDS are important habitat areas for many birds and animals .
Our Vanishing Wetlands
BY BILL FAVER
One of the most interesting portraits of the
coastal environment shows vast areas of marsh
FAVER
i ? .? ? iiUA
iojiuj mui jpivuuuig *t?v
oaks and puffy white
clouds against a deep blue
sky. Many of our artists try
to catch the magic of such
a scene on canvas. Writers
describe it in great detail.
Photographers search and
search for the perfect pic
ture and seem never satis
fied with what they find.
Scientists tell us we only
have about 45 percent of
the wetlands thai were present in the new world
at the time of the European settlements. Some
of the losses have come about through storms.
shifting of streams, fires and other natural caus
es. However, most of what has been lost is the
result of clearing, development, dredging and
filling ar.d oihsr mon.moHo csiisss
We've only recently realized how important
the weuands are. For many years they were
looked upon as dumping places or places to be
filled in. We are told George Washington,
Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson had pro
posed draining the coastal wetlands such as the
Great Dismal Swamp. With all the land avail
able, even our founding fathers had designs on
how the wetlands could best be used.
Today we are told that wetlands contribute
some S10 billion each year to the economy
through outdoor activities such as fishing, hunt
ing, water sports, nature study and other out
door interests. We know weUands are important
breeding grounds for shellfish, fin fish and
birds. In many areas ihe wetlands contribute to
recharging die ground water, replenishing the
?vniiifom .. tua numn Aur motor
WVt|UUVId U Will nlllWII n V wtu ?? M?V? ?
During times of high tides and storms, wedands
along the coast play an important role as buffers
against the storm surges.
One recent estimate is that 83 percent of the
coastal wedands remaining in our country are
located in the southeastern United States. We
are fortunate, indeed, that our wetlands have not
fallen to the same fate as those along the coasts
of some of the northern states and along the
Florida coasdine. We have state agencies and
federal cooperation attempting to save the wet
lands along the coasts of the Carolinas. We can
do our part by understanding the importance of
wedands and letting it be known we are not in
favor of "vanishing wedands."
Rub-A-Dub-Dub, Landlubbers In A Motorized Tub
I kicked a tire on my boat trailer
the other day, and it went flat. It's
going to be a long boating season.
When my wife and I moved into
a canal house on Ocean Isle about a
year ago, we decided that life
wouldn't be complete without a
boat. After all, we had our own
dock. We had enough room next to
the horseshoe pits to park a trailer.
We had even inherited a spare
boat ? a derelict, I think it's
called ? which still lies upside down
in the yard, abandoned by a fellow
who apparently found out about
halfway through the job that re
fiberglassing a hull was no easy
task.
But most of all, we wanted to
take advantage of living in the
South Brunswick Islands, with its
scenic rivers and the Atlantic
intracoastal Waterway (ICW) right
down the canal from us. Living on
an island and not owning a boat
would be like living in a chalet at
Sugar Mountain and not having a
pair of skis and a lift ticket Or like
living in a country club fairway
home and not knowing the
difference between a divot and a
divan.
So we bought a boat ? a 1961 T
Craft runabout with a 65
horsepower Mercury engine. I
know, I know. All of the boating
books at the library advise that a
first-time boat shopper should never
buy a used vessel. But it was a
pretty little red boat that had been
reconditioned (hopefully not by the
sainc guy wiiu U9VU iu liVC Ml SiiT
house), the motor looked good and
ran well, and we didn't have to
become galley slaves of the bank to
buy it.
As I've related in previous col
umns, we quickly discovered that
boating on the ICW ? even in a
brand spanking new boat ? is
neither for the faint of heart nor for
folks who don't know their fore
from their aft. I won't go into all of
my horror stories again about
Rahn
Adams
crossing ihe four-foot-high wakes of
speeding cabin cruisers and trying
to dock at a crowded marina when I
even have trouble parallel-parking
my car.
Boating Tip Number One: Boats
don't have brake pedals, no matter
how violently your right leg
twitches as your tiny vessel drifts
toward a docked pleasure craft that
is worth more iiiau die house you
used to own, your two cars, the
engagement ring your wife is
wearing and the payoff on your life
insurance policy all put together.
Also, cutting the wheel sharply does
little good after you've cut the
motor. Take my word for it
Our boat, which 1 initially dubbed
Dingboat, looked really cool
moored to our dock. It gave our
place that certain ambiance of being
a coastal hideaway where we
expatriated landlubbers could jump
in the boat at a moment's notice and
go island-hopping when the
pressures of the workaday world got
to be too burdensome. The problem
was, though, that whenever we had
cr.Oweh uiiic 10 go coating, so aid
every other fool (notice I'm
including myself) who would have
a hard time earning a learner's
permit if boating licenses were
required.
Boating Tip Number Two:
Given the fact that the phrase,
"every man for himself," has its
origins at sea, you should realize
that the ICW isn't a driving-school
practice range. On the waterway,
you must have the knowledge.
experience and ability to look out
for yourself. It's life-or-death
defensive boating out there.
After all, it's kind of unreasonable
to expect the skippers of those cabin
cruisers I mentioned earlier to let go
of their beer cans long enough to
throttle down. If they did that, they
wouldn't have the immense
pleasure of seeing me get drenched
by their wakes and watching my
boat bob like a cork in a Jacuzzi.
And they might spill some beer.
Needless to say, my wife and I
didn't bother taking our boat out
much between the Fourth of July
and Labor Day. And then came
Hurricane Hugo. The boat has been
lashed down under the house ever
since then. I went to such lengths to
make sure Hugo didn't carry off the
boat that after the storm I hated to
undo sm.li a work of knot-tying art.
I dreaded going through that
traumatic experience again. ..not
weathering the hurricane ? taking
the boat out of the water. I made the
marina guy's day.
Boating Tip Number Three:
Never keep your boat tied up at
your dock long enough to let green
scum, barnacles and various other
types of marine organisms attach
themselves to the hull from the
waterline down. Not only does a
boat in that condition let those
salty-dog types at the marina know
you're a beginner, certain smart
alecky boaters have the nerve to
pull up next to you and ask if you
plan to enter your scum-skirted boat
in a parade.
A couple of weekends ago, we
finally got around to scraping the
barnacles off the boat. Well,
actually, my wife scraped the
barnacles while I pitched
horseshoes in the side yard. I would
have helped, but we only had one
barnacle scraper. She said I need not
ask what she's going to buy me for
my birthday in August.
Now that the dirty work is done,
we're ready to fix up the boat this
winter so that we can hit the water
this spring. We need to put down
new carpet, tuy a new marine
battery, finish installing a bilge
pump, repaint the hull with that
expensive anti-fouling paint that
didn't work last year, get the motor
serviced, buy a new fire
extinguisher and flares, replace both
trailer tires, rewire the trailer's
taillights and repaint the trailer ? all
of which reminds me of...
Boating Tip Number Four: The
definition of "boat" is "a hole in the
water surrounded by fiberglass,
aluminum or wood into which one
pours money." We've already spent
so much money barely maintaining
our old boat that I plan to rename it
The Black Hull.
Oh, yeah. I almost forgot to
mention the most important thing
we're going to do to get ready lor
boating season: take a boating
safety course. Two local boating
organizations have classes
scheduled to begin soon ? the U.S.
Power Squadron, Feb. 10, at 9:30
a.m., at the Atlantic Telephone
Membership Corporation office in
Shallotte; and the U.S. Coast Guard
Auxiliary, Feb. 19, at 7 p.m., at the
Shallotte Senior Citizens Center.
When 1 called Clete Waldmiller to
sign us up for the Power Squadron's
Saturday morning class, he said to
be sure and emphasize that you
don't have to own a boat to take the
course, and that a knowledgeable
passenger can be an important asset
if the skipper is incapacitated in
some way. Makes sense to me,
considering all of the semi
incapacitated cabin cruiser captains
I've encountered.
Boating Tip Number Five:
Make sure your knowledgeable first
mate pays special attention in class
when the instructor goes over boat
upkeep and maintenance. That way,
at least one local skipper won't ruin
his horseshoe-pitching touch with
his brand new barnacle scraper next
winter.