THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995 TAG: 9511300188
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Ronald L. Speer
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
The trouble with living on the Outer Banks year-round is that there is too much to do in the off-season.
That's right, too much.
I'm not kidding, my friends. It seems to me that there's never enough time to take a deep breath in the late fall and winter and early spring.
I always get a kick out of it when outsiders ask how we can manage to get through the winter without going stir crazy when the tourists pull out and scores of Outer Banks businesses close.
They see the shuttered windows and the open roads and the signs saying ``See You Next Year'' and think that the Outer Banks has become a ghost town.
And they look at you with their pitying, myopic eyes and make what they think are sympathetic comments, the kind of things they might tell a leper to make him feel better.
``I feel so sorry for you,'' otherwise-rational friends will say when they discover we spend the entire year on the Outer Banks.
``What in the world do you do all winter?'' they ask. ``Don't you get cabin fever? Aren't you bored to death?''
There's also always a sophisticated somebody - who has seen ``Oklahoma!'' twice and once was given tickets to the opera - with a patronizing attitude who wonders how we can go without steady doses of ``CULTURE.''
``You probably never get to hear Beethoven's Ninth down here away from everything,'' they lament. ``I don't see how you can stand it.''
The most cutting comment of all: ``Good thing you've got cable. With nothing else to do, you probably watch more TV than Larry Bonko.''
They make the off-season sound like winter in Siberia with Dr. Zhivago plodding endlessly over the snow-covered wastelands.
Not so, my friends. Not so.
Most of the locals on the Outer Banks have a calendar covered with things to do, places to go, people to see.
Particularly for the next month.
This weekend was a good example. For the cultural folk among us, ``My Fair Lady'' was playing at Edenton, and the third annual ICARUS International Art Exhibit opened for a monthlong run at the Seaside Art Gallery and the Ghost Fleet Gallery in Nags Head.
The Christmas tree was lighted and the annual Christmas parade was held in Manteo.
For those who wanted to gussy up a bit, the place to be was at the 7th annual Festival of Trees, the fund-raising auction sponsored by the Outer Banks Hotline.
The striped bass and the trout were schooling up and down the beaches like they haven't for years.
And as we head into the holiday season the pace picks up. Coming attractions include all kinds of outdoorsy things at Jockey's Ridge and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and the North Carolina Aquarium. There's The Dutton Family providing country and Christmas music courtesy of the Outer Banks Forum which earlier brought us the Virginia Beach Symphony, and a reading of children's books at the Manteo Booksellers by author Suzanne Tate and artist James Melvin.
And down the road is the annual Outer Banks Senior Chorus Christmas Concert, the Dare Singers concert at St. Andrew's-by-the-Sea, the annual First Flight Anniversary and ball, the yearly meeting of the Man Will Never Fly Society that Dr. Ed North of Duck created, and a multitude of fun things.
Golfers and sailors and civic club members have several dates penciled in for frolic. For many of us, it's hard to find an open date for office parties or neighborhood get-togethers.
It has reached the point that I never go home and ask the missus if anything's on for the evening.
``Black tie or casual?'' is what I usually say.
I can't wait for summer when the tourists come and life slows down. by CNB