Radio Island, NC

In March 1986, I was still working at Burton's. After work one night, two friends-Larry and AJ- and I decided to take some beer down to the beach and drink til morning, watch the sun come up, and chill out for the rest of the day. It was just the kind of thing we used to do. We chose to go to Radio Island, near Morehead City and Beaufort. It was pretty deserted most of the time, with one long road down the center of it. At the end of the island was a loading dock which was used by the Marines when they were shipping out by sea.

Now you see...we thought for sure that my 1982 Honda Civic with front wheel drive could handle driving on the beach. Nope. We got stuck. The car ended up parallel to the water with the tide starting to come in. AJ got in the driver's seat, Larry and I tried to push or rock or something. The car shot, in reverse, and ended up nose down in the water.  We ran in the water to keep it from sinking completely. The engine was running, lights were flickering....salt water getting sucked up into the engine, into every nook and cranny. And then, the car died.

Larry took off for the main road to flag down somebody for help. (This was before cell phones.) AJ tried to console me about the loss of the car. I was dumb founded. I had, of course, just finished paying it off the month before. AJ started a fire to warm us up, maybe dry us out too. I took off my sneakers and set them by the fire. They caught on fire when I wasn't looking. I decided I needed a cigarette and waded out to the car to see if they survived. As I looked in the car, The water was only as high as the steering wheel. Floating in the back seat area was a flounder. Chances are that was the only flounder in history run over by a car. And the cigarettes survived because they were on the dashboard. 

Larry returned with help. He had flagged down a tow truck on his way to work. After the driver quit laughing at us, he started to tow the car out of the water. As he tried to pull away, his truck got stuck in the sand. (karma?) He managed to get both vehicles to the road and let us drive back to the garage with him. We called for a ride and waited at next door at Denny's. We really looked pathetic, especially me with no shoes at seven in the morning.

In my pocket, my rock and my shell.