THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407010235
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NAGS HEAD LENGTH: Long : 159 lines
STUFFED IN A GLASS jar atop an eye-level shelf, a petrified shark fetus sits in sapphire formaldehyde. A paper price tag stuck on the cork reads: ``$11.99.'' Rows of the translucent creatures are for sale.
Another store offers shell sculptures: conch-shaped dinosaurs, turquoise-painted scallop cats, scotch-bonnet frogs with googly eyes. Many carry plastic flags saying, ``Cape Hatteras'' or ``Kitty Hawk.'' Most are made in the Philippines.
Then there's the ``pure possum.'' Encased in a 3 oz. pop-top tin, listing for $1.99, it was ``flattened by a Yankee tourist driving a white Buick on Highway 158, just outside of Kitty Hawk, NC. GUARANTEED SUN CURED FOR ONE DAY.'' The stuff sells by the case at a beach-road souvenir stand.
Tourists keep coming back for Outer Banks kitsch.
``People buy things on vacation that they'd never look at back home,'' says April Williamson, assistant manager of Skipper's Beach Varieties in Kill Devil Hills. ``They buy gifts for their in-laws who couldn't come on the trip. Or they bring back a bit of the beach to put on their coffee tables.
``We just try to pick things that will catch someone's eye.''
From Corolla through Ocracoke, tourism is the biggest business on North Carolina's barrier islands. Visitors spend $500 million each year on hotels, meals and retail purchases. Souvenirs account for a large portion of that revenue pie.
It wasn't always that way. Until the mid-1970s, only a couple dozen Outer Banks stores existed. Most sold groceries or fishing tackle. A few carried postcards and surf boards.
Today, more than 100 ``gift shops'' line the beach road and U.S. Route 158 bypass. Others hide in hotels and restaurants. Gasoline stations have souvenir sections.
And national discount department store chains carry blow-up rafts, ``Kitty Hawk'' Frisbees, even plastic ``Nags'' (- broken down brown horses with brass bells dangling from their scrawny necks).
``Now that Kmart and Wal-Mart are here, we're being hurt in our beach wares business,'' says Williamson, whose father opened Skipper's in 1975. ``We're stocking more souvenir-type things than rafts and towels. The larger chains just don't have that same edge on the souvenir market.''
While cliche as well as distinct trinkets continue to pack people's suitcases and station wagons, smaller pieces of vacation land always will outsell expensive items.
Tourists take them home by the droves. Retailers stock them by the gross. Magnets are our No. 1 seller,'' says Johnny Woolard, whose Kill Devil Hills Trading Post originally opened as a meat market in 1928. ``We find when people get ready to go home, they want to take something back to their friends. If not magnets, it seems they like things in the $5 to $8 range best.
``But it's got to have that town name or Outer Banks written on it.''
Other souvenir shop owners agreed. Along a 120-mile stretch of the beach, the same trinket sports as many as nine separate labels. A single supplier makes them all at one spot. Each store sells three or four different town names. Customers really seem to care whether their sand-sculpted mermaid's towel says Corolla, Duck, Southern Shores, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Nags Head, Hatteras Island or Ocracoke. Some even search for the less plentiful Frisco and Buxton labels.
``We like T-shirts where the Kitty Hawk part is very big and noticeable,'' says Adam Hollowell, 14, whose family visits the beach from Baltimore each summer.
``One year we got paddle balls that said it, too,'' his 10-year-old brother Josh said. ``And a hat that said, `Outer Banks, North Carolina.' ''
Sometimes the items get muddled up in tropical icons.
Flamingos have never tip-toed across the Albemarle Sound - but their fluorescent pink flocks adorn cases of ``Nags Head'' thimbles. Lobsters don't loll around Oregon Inlet. But their pincers are on plastic harmonicas and sets of drink stirrers.
Then again, Jesus wasn't silver-coated. His feet didn't rest on silk flowers springing from glossy sea shells. And the cross certainly didn't light up when it was plugged into the wall.
People purchase the ``Authentic Outer Banks gift'' and night light anyway: half price for $7.49.
In another shop, two small plastic surfers carry bright boards in front of a candy-striped lighthouse model. When you shake their glass-globed world, synthetic snow swirls all around. A golden sun is painted just above the ``Cape Hatteras'' logo.
The Trading Post sells sand. ``Own your own Nags Head, N.C. beach-front property,'' offers the tiny sign affixed to the glass box. Thumbnail-sized shells are included for $2.49.
At Wink's on the beach road, bug-bitten patrons buy inch-long ``Official Outer Banks Mosquito Traps'' for $1.49. ``Trap your own mosquito and make a fur coat!'' the colorful package suggests. Cashier Margaret Thompson says they're the store's best selling souvenir.
But why would people buy such useless stuff?
``They all say, `Isn't this the cutest thing you every saw? We gotta take it back to Uncle Herb,'' Thompson explains. ``The mosquito traps the Wanchese stores sell are bigger, you know. Their bugs are bigger. They bite worse out there.
``They use them for gag gifts, stocking stuffers, and birthday presents,'' Thompson says more seriously. ``They're all just ways to remember the beach.''
Of all the toys and trinkets, merchants say hermit crabs, fireworks and anything with lighthouses on them sell the best. Woolard says it doesn't even have to be an Outer Banks lighthouse. He sells replicas of all the Atlantic Seaboard beacons - from Maine to Florida.
``Sometimes, it's crazy the things that sell,'' says Woolard. ``Necklaces with eyes in them. Porpoises that squeak or wind up to swim. One year after another, it's all about the same stuff.''
Like many barrier island merchants, Woolard migrates south each winter searching for souvenirs. The first weekend after Thanksgiving, he and thousands of other surfside gift shop owners go to Myrtle Beach. There, they spend four or five days getting stocked for summer.
``Usually, there are 800 to 1,000 booths there,'' Woolard says of the annual trade show. ``We do 65 to 75 percent of our buying there. You see the same things from Cape May through Key West. They just put local labels on them.''
Some souvenirs attempt to be educational - or thought provoking. A ``Genuine Prehistoric Shark Tooth'' encased in a clear, corked bottle offers buyers a chance to ``Own a Piece of the Past. These are fossilized shark teeth. Paleontologists tell us they could be millions of years old,'' says the cardboard placard on the $1.99 display. ``How did the prehistoric shark tooth get in the bottle?''
Other memorabilia are just what they profess to be: pieces of the beach, packaged for back home.
``Souvenirs should say what a place is for you,'' says Bridget Shuping, 10, whose family was vacationing from Chesapeake last week. ``I'm bringing back this shell dinosaur for my brother. That way, I'll think of walking on the beach looking for shells while he can just like the dinosaur.''
Sometimes, however, souvenirs that look enticing on oceanfront store shelves may seem silly on city streets.
``Lots of times, after the beach, I get something home and the first day it's so exciting,'' 8-year-old Andrew Hollowell of Baltimore said. ``Then, the next day, it's sort of `What do you do with that thing?' You just put it in the garage or in the garbage.''
Andrew's sister Casey, 11, had a solution. She's been to the beach a few more times than her younger sibling. She's been souvenir shopping for almost a decade.
``You can also sell Outer Banks stuff to your little brother,'' Casey Hollowell suggests, smiling sweetly. ``Andrew takes almost anything beachy I don't want. He'll buy anything.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by Lawrence Jackson
This crucifixion scene done in seashells is one of the less popular
souvenirs with customers at the wings store in Kitty Hawk.
``Sun Dried North Carolina Possum,'' right, encased in a 3-ounce,
pop-top tin,
lists for $1.99. The label says it was:
flattened by a Yankee tourist driving a white Buick on Highway
158, just outside of Kitty Hawk, N.C. GUARANTEED SUN CURED FOR ONE
DAY.''
The stuff sells by the case at a beach-road souvenir stand.
Jennifer Albright, 11, front and Bridget Shuping, 10, both of
Chesapeake, check out the variety of mementos at Skipper's Grocery
and Beach Variety Store in Kill Devil Hills.
by CNB