Reunion and Spinning Things....

My brother, Russ and his new bride, Carla and their son Matias made a visit to the OBX--the outer banks for those of you who don't live 'round these parts--last week. On their way back up to Virginia on Sunday, we planned to meet for lunch at Parker's BBQ in Wilson. We tried this hook-up the weekend before, but his GPS (cough-operator error!) screwed up somehow. But yesterday it happened. Looking around the table, it was quite a sight. Mom, her three grown kids, my brothers' looong-time girlfriend, my other brothers' wife and child....it was pretty darn cool. Carla is gorgeous and sooooo kind. Matias, my nephew, is a doll with the biggest brown eyes I've ever seen. And he knows how to give 'high-fives' which makes him uber-cool in my book.


After lunch, my other brother suggested we drive about 10 miles down this country road to Lucama, NC and see some whirligigs that had been written about in the N&O that day. I got the full story as we drove past miles of tobacco fields and peanut farms and acres of gorgeous green as far as the eye can see. Then....there they are. On the left hand side of a crossroads are these huge steel whirligigs. MANY of them. Vollis Simpson is the artist, using old signs and pieces of junk and discarded metal to build these monstrous contraptions that spin in all directions in the wind. They are mesmerizing. If it weren't for the gnats eating me alive, I would have stood out there longer just staring at them spinning round and round. Mr. Simpson is getting on in years--I think he's 91--and soon, the Town of Wilson will come and take his whirligigs off his property and place them in a specially built park for all to enjoy. Good for them! They are a treasure and a nod to our heritage and I am thrilled that they will be preserved.