Happier Than This Day and Time: An Oral History of the Outer Banks of North Carolina - Paperback

"A major contribution to the preservation of the lore and heritage of the Outer Banks." -- David Stick

"The voices ring with authenticity." -- Paul Clancy, Norfolk Virginian-Pilot

How much would you give to talk quietly for just one hour with your great-grandmother? Most likely, almost anything. But Time rushes by like a hurricane-driven tide, cutting us off from those who went before. It bears away the old voices and the old ways. Bears away what we loved, and what we realize, too late, we still desperately need.

This book's a bridge to that past. In a series of interviews conducted in the late 1970's and early 1980's, eight elderly people recount their lives on a string of isolated islands off the North Carolina coast...The Outer Banks. These survivors tell of childhood, courting, marriage, and children; of hurricanes, depressions, wars, and death; faith, doubt, love, and fear. They watched the Wright brothers fly; saw U-boats torpedo ships offshore; dealt with blindness and heartbreak and shipwreck. Now, near the ends of their voyages, they linger for a little while to tell us of The Way Things Were. And they'll tell us more -- if we'll listen. With a little urging, they'll share their thoughts on the ultimate questions; good and evil, youth and age, triumph and suffering. From the first word, they cast a spell.