Though born on Hatteras Island, I did not grow up here. My summer memories of Kinnakeet are built on a foundation of steamy hot roads and ravenous mosquitoes. After  I was 12 or so, I’d stay with my grandfather for several weeks each summer. My grandmother had passed away, so it was just he and I in the house. I always woke up early and went downstairs to watch Sesame Street for a while. I wasn’t a fan, it’s just that the PBS was the only channel that came in fairly clearly. Then I’d make a breakfast of dry toast with a slice of American cheese, put on a bathing suit, grab a towel and a little money, meet a friend and walk to the beach. That’s where the hot roads came in. It was a point of honor that one was always barefoot, so the cooler white lines of the road were well trod in those days. Of course, once on the beach, we had to make a mad dash to the water as the sand was blistering hot.

Oh, but the sea was before us as we ran. And it glistened with a million diamonds born of the summer sun. Our feet fairly gave off steam as they hit the cool water, and the shore beneath us was as a cobblestone road made of mole crabs. Millions of mole crabs beneath our feet squirmed their way into the soppy wet sand. I’ve never been a good swimmer, but had no fear of going out and playing in the waves. My favorite thing to do was dive into the approaching wave and surface just beyond its crashing noise.

If we got hungry we’d stop at Charles’ store for a Coke and some nabs. Then it was back to Granddad’s for a cool bath. I loved going upstairs to my room after taking a bath, and lying on the bed to read. The room I always stayed in had two double beds, a dresser and a nightstand.  It had windows on three sides of the room, so it was filled always with salty breezes. I could glimpse a piece of the sound from one of the windows and had a great view of the village from them all.

One thing we grandkids loved to do at our grandparents’ homes was what the adults called “ramshackin”. I know now that word was a slang form of ransack, so you get the general idea. I found some small treasures when I ramshacked. One of my favorites was a book called Homer, the Tortoise by Margaret J. Baker. I still have it. It’s about a little girl who buys a tortoise who can talk and the adventures they have together.

However, most of my reading hours were spent on material much less literary. My cousins had stacks upon stacks of comic books and I devoured them when I visited.   Superman, Batman and Robin, Archie and Veronica, Baby Huey, – I loved them all.

Vacation Bible School was always a part of my summer visits and the crafts were always our favorite. When I was in the pre-teen class, a teacher once asked us, “What would you do if the Lord came back today?” A smart-aleck Kinnakeeter answered, “I’d head up the Nah-ther’d!” (The higher ground of the Northend Road, or “up the Nah-ther’d” was where people ran in the 1944 Hurricane when a tidal wave was seen heading toward the village.)

I can even remember the old Post Office that was located in the village. It was tiny and always a hub of activity. Everyone walked to get their mail and visited with each other as they met there.

The stores of my childhood in Avon were Erk’s, Pritchard’s and Charles’. When I stayed at my Granddad Alvin’s house, I’d walk to Pritchard’s and get a honey bun to take back to the front porch for breakfast. Pritchard kept giant jars of cookies and pickles you could buy. My mother warned me not to buy either because the store owner would fish the cookies or pickles out with his bare hand and give them to us. A definite no-no to a mom’s way of thinking. But I bought them anyway. His store carried everything from sweet potatoes and collard greens to a ridiculous looking rack of sunglasses. He also kept candy bars in the freezer – need I say more?

Erk’s was the store I walked to when I stayed at my Granddad Ignatious’s house, although the two stores were just a half a block from each other. Erk was a big teddy bear of a man, whose growl scared no one, especially the little boys who sometimes tormented him. He kept an electric cooler of Coca-Cola’s and Pepsi’s, the kind in thick glass bottles. The little bottles of ice cold Coke were delicious, especially with a pack of Nabs.

All the stores kept tabs for customers’ purchases. I can remember my grandmother sending me to Pritchard’s with her little notebook to buy some things. Pritchard would record her purchase in the notebook (and I guess in his ledger) and she would pay the bill once a month.

Grandmom Leona made cakes with eight thin layers, each layer baked in a cast iron skillet. The frosting was chocolate that tasted like fudge. She made bread pudding and rice pudding. My Grandmom Edna seemed to always have a household full of people because she had six children and they were coming and going with their children. We ate a lot of stewed crabs with piebread (a type of dumpling) there, in big noisy groups with lots of grandkids around. We sat at the kids’ table in a room off the kitchen and tried to outdo each other with the size of sweet lumps of crabmeat we could pull from the shell.  As we ate the delicious stew, we’d be covered up to the elbows in gravy.

I could go on and on as memories come back to me – throwing rocks at writing spider’s webs, collecting pop bottles for pocket change, seeing bats fly through the night sky,  experiments with jellyfish, church homecomings with crowds of people and tables laden with food, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends.

Kinnakeet – my own special treasure, and I hope yours, too.