Carefully stepping on to the long-abandoned porch, I can hear Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s blues song, “That’s All Right Mama” playing on the Philco. Taking a seat on an old kitchen chair, I roll up my sleeves and run a handkerchief across my face as proprietor Gideon Sawyer pumps petroleum at 21 cents a gallon into a 1943 Oldsmobile. Looking out on the dust blowing across County Road 168, I think to myself, “It’ll be good to get home by nightfall.”
Currituck County, NC is situated on the northeastern tip of North Carolina. Although well-traveled by people making their way to the Outer Banks, there are still remarkable vestiges that have somehow survived. For strangers to Currituck County, a slight southern breeze offers up memories of a time that has been gone for decades.
Leave a note.