Saturday, January 14, 2006

A Saturday in the Off-Season

One of the best things about being self-employed on Ocracoke is flexibility, especially in the off-season. Although I am just as likely to work on weekends as any other day (in fact, I've been in my office this morning organizing files and getting things ready for filing taxes) I can also take time off any other time . And I seldom work all day without breaks. My son-in-law, Fiddler Dave, is coming by in a few minutes so we can take an afternoon walk on the beach (it's sunny but quite windy today).

I'll mess around in my office again some this afternoon. But I've been invited to a friend's house at 5:30 for a blue moon martini (whatever that is), and then later to my rental house to watch a DVD. No, I am not renting the house this week, and I am not hosting the get-together; but friends are using my house because it has a DVD player.

We are very flexible about property here on the island also. Like Dagwood and Herb we loan & borrow tools and automobiles and clam rakes all the time. Some years ago I came home in the late afternoon to discover a neighbor lying on my bed reading a magazine. "Oh, hi K____," I said. "What's up?"

"I'm just relaxing here for a few minutes, waiting for D_____," she said. "He's using your bathtub."

If I'm lucky a neighbor will even leave soup or ham or pie on my dining room table while I'm out.

Well, I've got to go. David is here waiting for me.

Our current monthly Ocracoke Newsletter is the story of Ocracoke's Street Names, Part II, published December 19, 2005. You can read it here: http://www.villagecraftsmen.com/news121805.htm.

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