THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 15, 1995 TAG: 9510150163
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: PAUL SOUTH
DATELINE: ASKINS CREEK LENGTH: Medium: 67 lines
I am not a morning person.
I've never understood those people who bounce out of bed before dawn, walk three miles, come home, read the paper, do the crossword puzzle, eat breakfast and overhaul the transmission, all before 7 a.m.
How could that beat a few extra minutes of quiet reflection with the pillow and the Posturepedic? Before 7 a.m., I'm doing well to stagger to the refrigerator, pull out a caffeine-laden soda, and then watch an hour of ESPN.
I used to hate mornings.
Not anymore.
It all started last Tuesday. John Dominick, the owner of Outer Banks Fly Angler in Nags Head, was kind enough to let me tag along to watch him guide two anglers through the joys of fly fishing.
We left his shop at 5:30 a.m., heading for Hatteras.
For some reason that morning, I got out of bed without even the slightest threat to the snooze button. I showered and shaved, and dressed for the outdoors, including a red ``Bubba Gump Shrimp Company'' baseball cap. I looked like something out of the redneck edition of the L.L. Bean catalog.
I had a Coke and watched about five minutes of a replay of the Florida State-Miami game. Florida State was winning, again.
Then it started to hit me. As I crossed Sir Walter Raleigh Street in downtown Manteo, all I noticed was the quiet. No cars. No sirens. No people.
Just me. And the quiet.
I got into the car, and made the short drive over the Washington Baum Bridge to John's shop. He had been up for hours. The fly rods were in his truck. He was ready.
There's a funny thing about heading south on N.C. 12. Once you enter the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, it seems that the truckload of rocks that life sometimes puts on your back tends to crumble. Crossing the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge over Oregon Inlet, the weight all but disappears.
We headed on down to Avon, near the Little Kinnakeet Lifesaving Station, to the gentle rippling waters of Askins Creek. I watched John Dominick and his students of the day working their graphite tackle like divining rods, trying to raise a flood of fish.
The ebony velvet of the night sky was clocking out. Baby blue and traces of pink were ready for the day shift. Through a cloud bank, a slice of sunshine peeked through. Four shafts of light tumbled to Earth.
My three angling companions had disappeared, wading around the point after speckled trout.
And in the quiet, I started to think.
On the high side of 30, you ponder what's been and what's to come. You begin to think about the things that matter - the love of family and friends, the respect of your colleagues, and even of those folks who don't always like what you do but respect you nonetheless. And you think about faith. You even think about little things, like collard greens, and football, and an old country song you haven't heard in years.
That kind of consideration doesn't happen when telephones are ringing and deadlines are crunching. Only when it's quiet. Only in the morning.
When I was a boy, my grandfather would roust me out of bed for fishing trips. I'd cling with all my might to the blankets.
``You're gonna sleep your life away, son,'' he'd say. And I'd grudgingly roll from the warmth of the covers to face the cold, cold world.
But thanks to a trip to Askins Creek, I won't snooze away the mornings anymore.
I've seen the light. by CNB