THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, May 5, 1996 TAG: 9605030241
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY CATHERINE KOZAK
STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 226 lines
NICK SPALLINO tips his chair back as he drags on his cigarette, remembering 1975 when he moved to the Outer Banks.
``It was nice, man. It was uncrowded,'' Spallino says. ``Everybody knew everybody. Shoot, everybody even knew the sheriff. It was cool, ya know. Watch 'em roll the sidewalks up at 8 o'oclock.''
Spallino's voice rises and accelerates as he reminisces. Chopping the air with beefy hands, he laughs in short bursts and turns th's in his speech to t's and d's.
The phone rings. He seizes the receiver. ``What?'' he half-shouts into the mouthpiece.
Brash, loud, sarcastic, Spallino is obviously no Southern boy. As New York as any Woody Allen movie, Spallino, the body shop manager at Coastal Chevrolet, arrived on the Outer Banks when other Yankees were still bypassing North Carolina in favor of Florida.
Newcomers from the North were a rarity on the barrier islands 20 years ago. But as it turns out, like a good New Yorker, Spallino had managed to move to the front of the line.
Yankees have surged into the beach communities in Northeastern North Carolina since the early 1980s, helping to transform the once-remote islands into a booming year-round family community.
Faced with exorbitant taxes and frantic lifestyles, tourists from up North found the laid-back charm and unspoiled beauty of the region irresistable; and as fast as they could ditch their houses and jobs, they made the land of new beginnings home.
Northern money has bankrolled upscale development, good schools and prosperous businesses. Perhaps equally dramatic, Northern people have irreversibly altered a resilient culture where families have fished the same waters for centuries.
Long Island- and Brooklyn-bred, Spallino bulldozed his turf among natives in typical New York fashion: He schmoozed, he hustled. Now he's the old-timer of the newcomers. A scout into the promised land.
``You spend 20 years here, you pretty much figure everybody out,'' he says. ``This was, ya talk about clannish. Bible-thumping. This place was somethin'. Where I come from, you're either Catholic or Jewish. The first time someone said to me, `Are you Pentecostal?,' I say, `Penny who?' ''
``Yankees weren't too well-liked down here. You couldn't get a cushy job.
Anywhere else in the country, Spallino would be called, simply, a New Yorker. South of the Mason-Dixon line, he's a Yankee. And with the name comes history, war tales - and, sometimes, resentment.
``They've screwed up everything else in New Jersey,'' says Colington native Billy Beasley. ``Now they wanna screw up everything here in the Carolinas.''
A proprietor of several fish markets, a commercial fisherman and a fish dealer, Beasley complains that Northerners seem to think fish should only be line-caught. Worse, he says, some tell fishermen to stop fishing with nets.
``We're just tryin' to make the kind of livin' that we've always done,'' he says, speaking with the distinctive Outer Banks brogue.
Beasley bristles at the thought that any Yankee should sit in judgment of the local fish trade.
``I fished with my father startin' in 1964, and he fished in the early 1900s . . . And I've never helped my father catch as much fish as I did yesterday. The fish is here - a lot of people says they're not,'' Beasley says.
``We didn't have no problem before all the tourists came down here. They came down here, they think they own the whole world.''
Tension between the Yankees and the Rebels is an American tradition. The industrial North and the agrarian South clashed over some of the most passionate issues in the nation's history.
But fiery animosity has dimmed over the decades into regional bantering. Stereotypes have emerged: The aggressive, opinionated Yankee vs. the soft-spoken, polite Southerner.
The Civil War in 1861 presented a quandary for North Carolina, says Outer Banks History Center curator Wynne Dough. Before the war, the state had strong unionist ties in the mountains and along the coast.
Slavery was not practiced very widely on the barrier islands. With freighters and fishermen trading with Northern ports, Dough says, coastal residents had dealt with the North more than with the interior of the state.
``There was no great love for Raleigh anywhere on the Outer Banks,'' Dough says. ``And there was no real love for the Confederacy.''
Nonetheless, Lincoln's ultimatum to back the Union with troops forced North Carolina's hand. The state begrudgingly seceded in April 1861, the next to last of 11 to do so, Dough says.
But by 1862, Northeastern North Carolina was in Yankee hands, where it stayed for the remainder of the war.
It was after the Civil War that hunters from up North discovered the delights of duck hunting on the Currituck Sound, Dough says.
``They figured they had blown away every (Northern) feathered thing, so they said, `Hey, let's go South!' '' Dough says wryly.
Although New Yorkers logged at Buffalo City near East Lake on the Alligator River for some years in the early 20th century, they deserted the town nearly as fast as they erected it.
Vacationers from the North increased as roads and travel improved, but until the late 1970s, the natives could pretty much go about their business most of the year unaccosted by noisy, pushy Yankees.
Everyone who's spent any time on the Outer Banks realizes quickly that natives here are members of huge families that go back generations. Perhaps centuries.
Even putting aside their unique - and to non-local ears often indecipherable - dialect, natives here are set apart most powerfully by their rightful inheritance of the land.
And, once again, their land has been invaded by Northerners. But this time, natives are making the killing. They hope.
``I'm glad they're here,'' says R.V. ``Bobby'' Owens Jr., the chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners. ``Point blank - because of money. Dollars.''
Owens' family owns one of the oldest restaurants on the barrier islands, and is a member of an old-time Manteo clan.
``Our whole economy is based on Northern trade,'' says Owens, 62. ``They seem to have more money - it's very evident when you look at some of these cottages.''
In the old days, Owens says, residents made do with gardening, fishing and depending on each other. The resort business existed, but it wasn't very large.
Owens acknowledges that natives do harbor some resentment for the power of the Yankee dollar - and, yes, the Yankee ways.
``What I hear is a little philosophical. We don't like it, but we'll take advantage of it. I'm open towards them, because that's how we all eat,'' he says. ``But if they had their druthers, the real natives would like to go back to the way it was.''
Kenny Ballance, a native Ocracoker, said island locals see Northerners standing up demanding change and improvement, and they don't like it. But they don't complain too loudly, because the imports have provided a lot of jobs.
``They're happy when they come, and they're happy when they leave,'' Ballance says of the natives' reaction.
As a lot, people from up North are pushier, more outspoken. Sometimes, they're insensitive. ``A prime example is that they walk in the middle of the streets, because we have no sidewalks,'' Ballance says.
But he gives the newcomers credit where credit's due.
``Their opinions and attitudes are a little stronger than the down-to-earth people here on Ocracoke,'' Ballance says. But maybe because of that, they are active participants in local government and outnumber the natives on volunteer committees.
``They are more willing at times to do more than the locals, and I think that's really sad. When Northerners are part of these committees and have the opportunities to make these decisions, (natives) have no one to blame but themselves.''
Moon Tillett likes Yankees. A Wanchese fisherman, Tillett, 66, says he has had some good experiences with fishermen up North.
``I'll tell you, the people treated us jus' like kings,'' he says.
And folks he's dealt with on party boats were ``mighty good friends and mighty good tippers.''
``But they do talk real different,'' he says, chuckling. ``They got a language that doesn't sound good - the way they say dirty words. And they didn't pay no attention who was there. They didn't care.''
Vivian Berscak moved to Kitty Hawk in 1989, and almost four years ago was hired as the postmaster for Manteo. Berscak, with a potent Long Island accent and dark Italian looks, says the locals seemed ``dumbfounded'' by her at first. Over time, everyone adjusted.
``Ya kinda carry this baggage that you're unaware of,'' she says. ``But once the people give you a chance and they kinda get to know you, then it changes. I can respect people being cautious.''
People from the North, especially the cities, have grown up more suspicious of others' motives, more fearful, more defensive, Berszak says. They can seem rude and lack respect.
``When you take this Northern person and you put this Northern person in the South, our ways are often misinterpreted as being disrespectful simply because we speak loud, we speak fast and we're always in a hurry,'' she says.
``I've learned that I need to change so that I'm not perceived as offensive or disrespectful. We seem rude because we cut people off. It would be very nice if when you come up from the North, these different cultural things were explained.''
To Lou Petrozza, owner of Petrozza's Deli & Cafe, an upscale Italian deli in Kill Devil Hills, cultural disparity might be most apparent in the local food.
Petrozza moved to the Outer Banks seven years ago because, compared to Long Island, it was affordable. And it reminded him of the east of Long Island.
Florida (``a hot Brooklyn'') didn't interest him. Like many Northerners who relocate here, Petrozza had grown to love the Outer Banks while vacationing.
``It was the seaside town thing. . . . I always liked resort areas,'' he says. ``I bought a house here for $67,000. You can't touch anything there for $500,000.''
Coming from an environment where little delis and pizza joints were a dime a dozen, Petrozza was astounded by the paucity of the food he once took for granted:
``Down here on the Outer Banks, it's hell finding a good pizza,'' he says.
But it was paltry hero sandwiches here that eventually inspired him to open his restaurant.
Kent Harvin recently transplanted a favorite Northern treat to the barrier islands: water ice - better known as Italian ices in New York. He says he plans to open 100 locations this summer on the Outer Banks.
``I think Italian ice is too ethnic,'' he says. ``And is too Northern.''
Harvin sold his produce business near Philadelphia and moved to Colington Harbour last December. Although he was born in the South, Harvin admits he's got the aggressive demeanor of the Northern suburbs where he was raised.
``Everybody who does business here says I'm going to have to tone it down and learn the Outer Banks ways,'' Harvin says, raising his voice and waving his arms vigorously toward the ground.
``They're saying, `You're pretty intense. Slow down, slow down, slow down!'''
And that's what the Northerners moved here to do.
``My biggest adjustment is to make sure I walk to the beach three times a week,'' says Dr. Daniel Dwyer, an ob-gyn at the Regional Medical Center. ``You really have to learn to kick back.''
``It's a great place to live,'' Petrozza says. ``Wherever I go, I always come back. Whatever bridge I go over, as soon as you get on the beach you know it's a special place.'' MEMO: Catherine Kozak, a Yankee, moved to the Outer Banks in 1995. She
formerly worked in upstate New York.
ILLUSTRATION: [Cover, Color illustration]
Staff photo by DREW C. WILSON
Nick Spallino, left, body shop manager at Coastal Chevrolet, arrived
in '75, a time when other Yankees were still heading to Florida.
Staff photo by DREW C. WILSON
Kent Harvin, who recently moved from Philadelphia, transplanted a
favorite Northern treat to the barrier islands: water ice - better
known as Italian ices in New York.
Lou Petrozza of Petrozza's Deli & Cafe, an upscale Italian deli in
Kill Devil Hills, says it was paltry hero sandwiches that inspired
him to move from New York and open his restaurant.
by CNB