THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 30, 1995 TAG: 9508300522
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: GUY FRIDDELL
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
Corolla, on North Carolina's Outer Banks, still feels a final swipe of Tropical Storm Jerry malingering off Georgia and South Carolina.
On Sunday, 15 of us gathered, counting the Lab. The sky was overcast except for light in the west, but we expected to be in the water by late Monday. The only one in the water has been the Lab, who figures we came to see him swim.
Monday morning at 6, two of us, plus the Lab, found steady winds belting the shore, driving a spitting rain in our faces - ``remnants of Jerry,'' one of three brothers said.
Jerry, a low-pressure storm down south, moving counterclockwise, mingled with a clockwise high-pressure to the north, turning winds out of the east to the Outer Banks.
Whatever the weather, the beach offers a rousing backdrop. We debate over which is preferable, seashore or mountains. Wherever I am sways my judgment; but there is more melancholy in the mountains, faster changing hues on the face of the reflective sea.
Mountains huddle; oceans open. But nothing's more beguiling than a mountain creek brawling through rocks into sudden pools of silence. I'd hate to choose.
Monday's dawn, long stretching combers, winking, blinking, shed light as they broke in white cascades along the slate-black sea.
So fast were the marching lines in white shakos that the vast trough into which they broke along the shore was in constant white froth, fading to veined marble, then refilling with tumultuous surf.
Far down the beach, lines at either end blended into one continuous sliding hill of snow-white surf.
Gulls rode the wind without a wing-beat, staying their course with just a light feathering at the tips while scanning the sands for food.
Above the dove-gray horizon crouched a huge, lowering mass. Rising winds stirred it into swift motion over us, as if a cloud in an oil painting had begun to move along the broad canvas.
Winds held into Tuesday. Midmorning, the sun stabbed the gray pallor. A single orange shaft spotlit the sea. The sun enlarged its domain until light fell from a bright blue vault overhead and stroked the waters with a shining silver band, a promised land. Still, invading waves met the dunes base.
People came to sun. The Lab raced to drop a ball before each woman - mindful of his missing mistress who used to coo and croon over him with lavish praise as she did every being. Her daughter-in-law, leaving the beach, murmured it would never be the same.
That stormy morning her son remembered how his mother rejoiced in any day, a tiny sprite moving ahead of everyone, meeting any challenge whether from weather or humanity, marching indomitable, forever. by CNB