Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 11, 1995 TAG: 9506150002
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: D-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE TAYLOR ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: TANGIER LENGTH: Long
There, the tour boat Steven Thomas is moored, festooned with balloons for a floating party. Two dozen couples - young men in tuxedos, their dates in blue, red or black evening gowns - line the rails and wave to the crowd.
Cameras click. Parents beam. And relatives allow a tear or two to fall at the symbolic passing of childhood on an island where everyone has always known everybody else.
``There go some beautiful children,'' said Betty Nohe, who came to see her grandson depart on the tour boat for his high school ball in Salisbury, Md.
It's a crowning event of any year, generation after generation; a demonstration of community spirit born of geographic isolation. Islanders hold bake sales and fashion shows to raise money to send their high school juniors and seniors out for one enchanted evening off their 21/2 square-mile island.
``One thing about Tangier parents,'' Danny McCready, the town's vice mayor and treasurer, said as he waited at the pier for his son. ``They support their kids in things like this.''
Tangier sits like an emerald in the unbroken blue of Chesapeake Bay, 15 miles east of the Virginia mainland and 10 miles west of the Eastern Shore peninsula, accessible only by boat or airplane. Townsfolk still speak with a vestige of the island's 17th century Cornish settlers. Here, crab is king and tourism is tolerated.
Islanders are a bit less wary of the strangers who fill their streets by day to buy souvenirs and seafood.
``It's a tight community,'' said Linda Khanoyan, a tour guide whose great-grandfather served as the island's pastor a century ago. ``They're a very shy people.''
Khanoyan drives what on Tangier passes for a bus - a six-seat golf cart - along the 12-foot-wide asphalt ribbons that serve as streets. Tourism got a boost from a television ad Bell Atlantic made touting its ability to link the isolated archipelago to the rest of the world.
``The commercial has really helped already,'' she said, pointing to a house recently converted into a bed-and-breakfast for the few visitors who spend the night.
But some crabbers, whose trade has long underpinned Tangier's economy, concede mixed feelings about all the attention.
Tourism ``doesn't help the whole community, just a few,'' said Frank Pruitt, a former crabber who now works at the island's power plant.
The business of supplying East Coast seafood wholesalers with the popular Chesapeake Bay hard- and soft-shelled ``peeler'' crabs is struggling.
``The price has been good, but the catch has been down,'' said waterman John Charnock at the family-owned C.F. Charnock & Son crab plant.
``When there's boats that stay here, that tells you something,'' Pruitt said.
Capt. John Smith, who founded the Jamestown colony, discovered Tangier in 1608. Because it was so remote, British settlers stayed away until late in the 17th century.
Tangier's remoteness has preserved a distinctly different way of life.
Most of the island's transportation is by foot, bicycle, scooter or golf cart. Only a dozen cars and trucks use the narrow streets, and when one stops to deliver groceries from one of the town's two grocery stores, no one can get by. People here are patient and wait without complaint.
Houses - Cape Cods and small ranch styles, a few Victorians and even some mobile homes - are neat and packed close together in fenced yards.
The town virtually shuts down for funerals.
When they buried lifelong waterman Edwin Parks on an overcast day in May, scores of residents turned out. The main street that runs by Swain Memorial United Methodist Church was closed and tourists had to detour as Parks' casket was carried from the church education building to the sanctuary next door. School closed early that day so pupils at play would not disrupt the somber event directly across the street from the school.
``I was raised in a small community like this, where everybody knew everybody's joys and everybody's sorrows, and we shared them all together,'' said the Rev. Wade Creedle Jr., pastor of Swain Memorial, the older of the island's two churches.
Living on the island forces residents to plan, said Susan Parks, one of Tangier's two registered nurses and the school's science teacher.
``The hardest part is being prepared and knowing you can't just run out and pick up something on the spur of the moment,'' said Parks, who married a Tangier native and moved with him to the island two years ago.
The school has 170 students, from kindergarten through 12th grade. Five of the nine graduates of Tangier Consolidated School's class of '95 plan to go to college, three will attend trade schools, two plan to learn diesel mechanics and one will enter the Air Force.
``Next year, we'll have 12 [graduates], but that's unusually large,'' Parks said.
A daily mail boat serves Tangier's post office. There's a fire department and a recreation center, but no hospital and no doctor. Medical emergencies are flown to the mainland from a 25-year-old airstrip the Navy donated to the islanders.
Neither of the two grocery stores sell beer or lottery tickets. Restaurants don't sell alcohol either.
Signs along Tangier's 15 mph streets warn, ``Speed Checked by Radar.'' There are no traffic lights.
Wooden bridges span the marshes that separate the three residential areas. The spans had to be modified last year after the community bought a new fire truck that was a little too wide for them, Khanoyan said.
There's very little crime on Tangier - a good thing considering there is nowhere to lock criminals away. Darren Landon, the town's police officer, said most of his calls involve domestic quarrels or disorderly conduct. Anyone who gets arrested must be sent by boat to the Accomack County jail.
``The thing is, you can't just come and go,'' Landon said. ``It makes it nice. I know everyone by name, what they own, everything.''
The island is like a big family whose values are conservative and religious. Even bumper stickers on the golf carts reflect the community's values. ``Salvation - Don't Leave the Earth Without It,'' one said.
But there are messages that money is finding its place here. ``Tips are appreciated,'' read handwritten notes posted at several businesses that cater to tourists.
Boxes offering recipes for such dishes as Aunt Nellie's Crabmeat Casserole and Tangier Sweet Potato Pie line the street where the tour boats dock, along with gift shops selling T-shirts and crafts. The cost per recipe: 25 cents.
by CNB