THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 29, 1995 TAG: 9501270797
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 04 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Ronald L. Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
A little smoke was still curling out of the ashes when Francis Meekins slowly climbed up the stairs to the office of The Virginian-Pilot and The Carolina Coast, and peered inside. When he saw me sifting through the debris, he waved me outside.
We'd met a few times, and we both drive what we euphemistically call long-lasting vehicles. But we aren't close, because we're rivals. He's the editor of The Coastland Times, a native, and the patriarch of publishing in these parts. I'm a new boy, in town less than a year.
Nevertheless, wheezing from a bout with the flu that had sent him to bed, Mr. Meekins said he was sorry about our loss and offered me a small building that he owned as interim headquarters while we pulled ourselves out of the dumps and got back in business.
I was touched. So were all of us in circulation and advertising and news.
Thanks, Mr. Meekins. And thanks to the dozens and dozens of others who offered space and computers and faxes and other stuff that we lost when fire gutted our building.
We've managed to keep going by working out of our homes, and this week we will be moving into a new building a few miles north of where we have been operating for several years.
The new (for now) home of The Virginian-Pilot and The Carolina Coast will be at 111 W. Carlton Ave. in Kill Devil Hills, just south of the Wright Brothers' monument.
We'll keep you posted in the daily paper, and update you on our plans.
Among those plans is a commitment to step up our coverage of the men and women whose livelihood depends on the fishes in the sea.
We all know that watermen up and down the East Coast have fallen on hard times, but I don't think most of us really understand just how hard those times are for the people who for centuries have relied on nature's bounties in the sounds and the sea.
Staff writer Lane DeGregory spent some time with watermen and their wives last week and her tales are heart-wrenching.
There are lots of reasons why times are tough - pollution, overfishing, changing tastes - and we have written often about those reasons.
But I don't think we've ever really shown the suffering those problems have caused families who know no other way of life.
Next time you drive through Colington or Wanchese or Columbia or Stumpy Point or Hatteras or Ocracoke or Elizabeth City or Edenton, think about the people whose families for generations have braved the seas to make a living and provide food for a nation.
Many of them have lost faith in the future, and feel abandoned by our government and our politicians.
``Not being able to pay the rent, and having your lights cut off is hard to take when you want to fish so you can pay the bills - and they won't let you,'' a veteran waterman told me. ``We don't know where to turn. We don't know what to do.''
The watermen also are tired of being blamed for causing their own problems by overfishing. They contend that's an unfair rap handed down by people in suits and ties who don't know what they are talking about.
It's a complicated story, with many sides. I think it's time now to tell the side of the watermen, who have little political clout.
There are no easy answers, but I hope Lane DeGregory's stories will help us all know what's happening to the men and women who lived on the waterfront for centuries before tourists started flocking to the beaches.
Telling those stories is what newspapering is all about. I'm glad Mr. Meekins and all of the rest of you wanted us to get back in business so we could keep doing what you count on us to do. by CNB